Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/46

22 had at last to resort to Maryland for publication. These pamphlets are still extant; and it seems impossible to deny, at this day, that the clergy had much the best of the argument. The king in his council, took up the subject, denounced the act of 1758 as an usurpation, and declared it utterly null and void. Thus supported, the clergy resolved to bring the question to a judicial test; and suits were accordingly brought by them, in the various county courts of the colony, to recover their stipends in the specific tobacco. They selected the county of Hanover as the place of the first experiment; and this was made in a suit instituted by the Rev. James Maury, against the collector of that county and his sureties. The record of this suit is now before me. The declaration is founded on the act of 1748 which gives the tobacco; the defendants pleaded specially the act of 1758, which authorizes the commutation into money, at sixteen and eight pence: to this plea the plaintiff demurred; assigning for causes of demurrer, first, that the act of 1758, not having received the royal assent, had not the force of a law; and, secondly, that the king, in council, had declared that act null and void. The case stood for argument on the demurrer to the November term, 1763, and was argued by Mr. Lyons for the plaintiff, and Mr. John Lewis for the defendants; when the court, very much to the credit of their candour and firmness, breasted the popular current by sustaining the demurrer. Thus far the clergy sailed before the wind, and concluded, with good reason, that