ere, expressed or implied;
nor any occasion for 500 guineas passing from one hand to another to
prove that the province of Virginia was still the ancient and loyal Old
Dominion.

But Fate, or Providence, or whatever it is that presides at the
destinies of nations, has a way of setting aside with ironical smile the
most deliberate actions of men. And so, on this occasion, it turned out
that the hard-won victory of Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, and
Wythe was of no avail. William Gordon tells us, without mentioning the
source of his information, that "a manuscript of the unrevised resolves
soon reached Philadelphia, having been sent off immediately upon their
passing, that the earliest information of what had been done might
be obtained by the Sons of Liberty." From Philadelphia a copy was
forwarded, on June 17, to New York, in which loyal city the resolutions
were thought "so treasonable that their possessors declined printing
them"; but an Irish gentleman from Connecticut, who was then in town,
inquired after them and was with great precaution permitted to take a
copy, which he straightway carried to New England. All this may be true
or not; but certain it is that six resolutions purporting to come from
Virginia were printed in the Newport "Mercury" on June 24, 1765, and
afterwards, on July 1, in many Boston papers.

The document thus printed did not indeed include the famous fifth
resolution upon which the debate in the House of Burgesses was "most
bloody" and which had been there adopted by a single vote and afterwards
erased from the record; but it included two others much stronger than
that eminently treasonable one:

"Resolved, That his Majesty's Liege people, the inhabitants of this
colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law or ordinance
whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them,
other than the laws and ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.
Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or
maintain that any person or persons, other than the General Assembly
of this colony, have any right or power to impose any taxation on the
people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his Majesty's colony."

These resolutions, which Governor Fauquier had not seen, and which were
perhaps never debated in the House of Burgesses, were now circulated far
and wide as part of the mature decision of the Virginia Assembly. On the
14th of September, Messrs. Randolph, Wythe,