Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/177

1755-69] Clerical and other disputes. 145 The same temper had been aroused in Virginia. There the dues of the clergy, like all other contracts, were calculated and paid in tobacco. The clergyman received a fixed quantity, and thus the amount of his stipend fell or rose as tobacco was cheap or dear. But in 1755 the Assembly passed an Act, under which, when the crop was scanty and tobacco therefore dear, the payment might be made in money. In other words, the clergy were to lose by a plentiful crop, but not to gain by a short one. Patriotic writers have frankly admitted the injustice of this Act, which was vetoed by the King, acting fully within his constituted rights. The tithe-payers however disregarded the veto and proceeded as if the Act were in force. The clergy thereupon took legal proceed- ings. The counsel for the tithe-payers was Patrick Henry, a young lawyer of great readiness and courage, a master of invective and sarcasm, and destined to play a leading part in the coming struggle. He hardly attempted to argue the case on legal grounds. He confined himself to denouncing the moral validity of the royal veto and exciting odium against the clergy. The jury found for the tithe-payers; and the incident left behind it a vague sense of resentment against the rule of the mother-country, none the less bitter because many of those who felt it most were in their hearts conscious of having acted unjustly. A third incident, one in which the colonists were on surer ground, and one even more distinctly premonitory of the coming struggle, namely, the opposition in Massachusetts to Writs of Assistance, will be fully discussed below. In North Carolina also a spirit of resistance to authority was awakened. There had been, it is alleged, much official corruption ; and the secretary of the colony, Fanning, had exacted illegal fees. In 1769 things came to a head, and a mob of nearly five thousand men, desig- nating themselves " regulators,"" was brought together near Raleigh. No disturbance immediately followed. Certain individuals however refused to pay the dues claimed by Fanning. Thereupon the sheriff distrained. A mob then assembled, beat the sheriff's officers, and destroyed Fanning^ house. The legislature thereupon passed a stringent Act against armed assemblies. The Governor, Tryon, raised a force and attacked the rioters. Between twenty and thirty were killed, and some two hundred taken prisoners. A severe blow was inflicted on the prosperity of the colony, as many settlers departed ; and the whole affair left behind it a sense of disaffection. The question has often been discussed how far there was from the outset anything like a fixed and definite purpose of separation. On the one hand there were those, not only in America and in England, but also in France, who foretold that, when the colonists were no longer kept in check by the French in Canada, they would become independent of the mother-country. On the other hand Franklin, when in 1766 he C. M. H. VII. CH. V. 10