Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/676

 662 HENRY 24, after only six weeks' study, he presented himself before the judges, who granted him a license with hesitation, and only after a promise to study further before commencing practice. It is said that at this time he was unable to draw a declaration, or perform the simplest duties of his profession. He could obtain no practice, and the distress of his family was ex- treme. He was living with his father-in-law, who then kept the tavern at Hanover Court House, and Henry assisted him in the business, filling the place of Mr. Shelton in the tavern when he was compelled to be absent. Other- wise he was as idle as ever. But events were rapidly hastening toward the commencement of the great political struggle in which he was to bear so glorious a part. His first appearance in public, as in every great movement of his career, was on the side of popular rights. At the age of 27 he was retained, for want of a better advocate, in what seemed a desperate struggle the celebrated " parsons' cause," the history of which was briefly as follows. In 1755, a year of great drought, and serious pub- lic embarrassment from the expenses of the French war, the house of burgesses had enacted that all debts due in tobacco, then a species of. currency, should be paid either in kind or in money, at the rate of 16s. 8d. for the 100 Ibs. of tobacco, or 2d. per pound. The law was universal in its application, and was to remain in force for ten months. Its effect was to reduce all fees and salaries to. a moderate amount in money, and it bore especially upon the clergy of the established church. They were entitled by law to 16,000 Ibs. of tobacco per annum each, and the act deprived them of about 66 per cent, of their due. There was much dis- satisfaction, but no resistance. When, how- ever, in 1758, a similar law was passed, an acri- monious controversy arose between the plant- ers and the clergy. The latter appealed finally to the king in council, and the act was declared void. Suits were immediately instituted by the clergy in the different counties to recover the amount of loss which they had suffered by the " twopenny act." The county of Hanover was selected as the theatre of the struggle, the decision in one case being regarded as a fair test of the question. The court, on demurrer, decided in favor of the plaintiff, the Rev. John Maury ; and the case now stood upon a com- mon writ of inquiry of damages. The contest was considered at an end, and Patrick Henry seems to have been employed by the defendants merely as a matter of form. They had calcu- lated without the popular feeling against the clergy, who were hated by a great part of the people. A large crowd assembled to witness the trial of the question of damages. On the bench sat more than twenty of the clergy, among them many of the most learned men in the colony. Their case was lucidly and calmly stated by Peter Lyons, a distinguished coun- sellor of the time ; and Patrick Henry rose to reply. The array before him was terrifying to a youthful and inexperienced man, and the presence of his father in the chair of the presi- ding magistrate did not lessen the embarrass- ment of his position. His exordium was awk- ward and confused. He visibly faltered. The crowd, whose sympathies were all on the side which he represented, hung their heads and gave up the contest. The clergy smiled and exchanged glances of triumph. The father of the speaker almost sank back in his seat. But a change suddenly took place in the demeanor of every one. All eyes were drawn to the youthful orator. His confusion had passed away; his form rose erect; and the "myste- rious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance " which his contemporaries spoke of passed over him. Those who heard the un- known young man in this his first speech said that he " made their blood run cold and their hair to rise on end." Under his terrible invec- tive the clergy disappeared hastily from the bench ; and the jury, after retiring for an in- stant, brought in a verdict of one penny dam- ages. A motion was made by Mr. Lyons for a new trial, but it was overruled ; and Patrick Henry, thenceforth the "man of the people," was caught up by the crowd, drawn out of the court house, and borne on the shoulders of the multitude. Thus, at a single step, Henry rose to the first rank among the Virginia orators of the time. His success in the parsons' cause brought him profit as well as fame. lie no longer suffered from want of business, and seems to have addressed himself to the prose- cution of his profession with industry and en- ergy. The law was not, however, destined to monopolize his genius. He entered the house of burgesses in the spring of 1765, at the mo- ment when England consummated her long series of oppressions upon the American colo- nies by the passage of the stamp act. The bill received the royal sanction in March of that year, and in May it came up for discussion be- fore the burgesses. The character of that body was anomalous its action difficult to predict. It had opposed consistently and with stubborn- ness all encroachments of the home govern- ment from the earliest times ; it had repeatedly denied the right of the English parliament to lay imposts upon the American colonies, and had systematically contended that taxation and representation were inseparable. But peculiar elements and considerations entered into the struggle about to take place. An open rupture with England was extremely repugnant to the dominant party in the house. The great ma- jority of the burgesses were opulent planters of the tide-water region, attached to the mother country by a thousand ties. They regarded Magna Charta, the established church, arid the common law as a part of their inheritance; and a dissolution of the ties which bound them to Great Britain seemed a relinquishment of the part which they had in these great institutions. Thus socially and politically the ruling classes in Virginia were opposed to extreme measures,