expressed in Mr. Henry's resolutions;
but no man beside himself dared to utter it. All wished for independence;
and all hitherto trembled at the thought of asserting it. Randolph,
Bland, Pendleton and Wythe, with "all the old members whose influence in
the House had, till then, been unbroken," opposed the resolutions, and
had not Henry's unrivalled eloquence supported them, they would have been
strangled in their birth. "The last and strongest resolution was carried
by a single vote;" and Peyton Randolph said, immediately after, "I would
have given 500 guineas for a single vote!" From this we may easily imagine
how spirited was the opposition, and how energetic the eloquence exerted
against Henry. It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he
was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he exclaimed
in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, "Caesar had his
Brutus--Charles the First his Cromwell--and George the Third--('Treason,'
cried the Speaker--'treason, treason,' echoed from every part of the
House--it was one of those trying moments which is decisive of
character--Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier
attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire,
he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) _may profit by
their example. If this be treason, make the most of it_."[2]

[2] Wirts' "Life of Patrick Henry," pages 64, 65.

On the following day, when Henry was absent, the more timid asserted
themselves and the most important of the resolutions was reconsidered and
expunged.

A congress held at New York declared against, the Stamp Act, and sent a
protest to Parliament. Americans would not buy or use the stamps, and
those who undertook agencies for their sale were treated as public
enemies. Boxes of stamped paper were burned on arrival in port; the
newspapers ignored the act, and legal documents were, by general consent,
treated as valid without the stamp. In the following year Parliament,
after a prolonged debate, in which William Pitt earnestly supported the
American cause, repealed the act. The news of the repeal was received
with great rejoicing in America, and the colonists hoped that there would
be no more attempts to invade their rights as English subjects.

* * *

King George III., however, was bent upon reducing the colonists to abject
submission to his will, and the fact that Wil