and Nicholas were appointed
a committee to apprise the Assembly's agent "of a spurious copy of the
resolves of the last Assembly..." being dispersed and printed in the News
Papers and to send him a true copy of the votes on that occasion." In
those days of slow and difficult communication, the truth, three months
late, could not easily overtake the falsehood or ever effectively
replace it. In later years, when it was thought an honor to have begun
the Revolution, many men denied the decisive effect of the Virginia
Resolutions in convincing the colonists that the Stamp Act might be
successfully resisted. But contemporaries were agreed in according them
that glory or that infamy. "Two or three months ago," said Governor
Bernard, "I thought that this people would submit to the Stamp Act."
Murmurs were indeed continually heard, but they seemed to be such
as would die away. The publishing the Virginia Resolutions proved an
alarm-bell to the disaffected. "We read the resolutions," said Jonathan
Sewell, "with wonder. They savored of independence; they flattered the
human passions; the reasoning was specious; we wished it conclusive.
The transition to believing it so was easy, and we, almost all America,
followed their example in resolving that the Parliament had no such
right." And the good patriot John Adams, who afterwards attributed the
honor to James Otis, said in 1776 that the "author of the first Virginia
Resolutions against the Stamp Act... will have the glory with posterity
of beginning... this great Revolution. *

* Upon the death of George II, 1760, the collectors of the
customs at Boston applied for new writs of assistance. The
grant was opposed by the merchants, and the question was
argued before the Superior Court. It was on this occasion
that James Otis made a speech in favor of the rights of the
colonists as men and Englishmen. All that is known of it is
contained in some rough notes taken at the time by John
Adams ("Works of John Adams," ii., 125). An elaboration of
these notes was printed in the "Massachusetts Spy," April
29, 1778, and with corrections by Adams fifty years after
the event in William Tudor's "Life of James Otis," chs. 5-7.
This is the speech to which Adams, at a later date,
attributed the beginning of the Revolution.

James Otis in 1765 declared the Virginia Resolutions to be treasonable.
It was precisely their treasonable fla