Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/45

Rh either of the royal prerogative, or of the rights of the clergy, but the law was permitted to go peaceably through its ten months operation. The great tobacco planters had not forgotten the fruits of this act, when, in the year 1758, upon a surmise that another short crop was likely to occur, the provisions of the act of 1755 were re-enacted, and the new law, like the former, contained no suspending clause. The crop, as had been anticipated, did fall short, and the price of tobacco rose immediately from sixteen and eight pence to fifty shillings per hundred. The clergy now took the alarm, and the act was assailed by an indignant, sarcastic, and vigorous pamphlet, entitled "The Two-Penny Act," from the pen of the Rev. John Camm, the rector of York-Hampton parish, and the Episcopalian commissary for the colony. He was answered by two pamphlets, written, the one by col. Richard Bland, and the other by col. Landon Carter, in both which the commissary was very roughly handled. He replied, in a still severer pamphlet, under the ludicrous title of " The Colonels Dismounted." The colonels rejoined; and this war of pamphlets, in which, with some sound argument, there was a great deal of what Dryden has called " the horse play of raillery," was kept up, until the whole colony, which had at first looked on for amusement, kindled seriously in the contest from motives of interest. Such was the excitement produced by the discussion, and at length so strong the current against the clergy, that the printers found it expedient to shut their presses against them in this colony, and Mr. Camm