liberties, and who will vindicate them, if ever they should be violated. But the subject is too delicate—I will say no more."
Barré's eloquence had its effect, but it was only momentary; the bill passed by a vote of two hundred and forty-five to forty-nine: there was no division, or the slightest opposition in the Lords; and, on the 22d of March, the royal assent was given, and the Stamp Act became a law.[1] Barré's words had been heard in the gallery by an American, who wrote them out, sent them across the Atlantic, and by midsummer, they were as familiar as household words to the Americans, and the name of Sons of Liberty cheered and strengthened the hearts of thousands to dare and do in behalf of their rights. Franklin, on the very night of the passage of the bill, wrote to his friend, Charles Thomson, afterwards secretary of Congress: "the sun of liberty is set; the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy." "Be assured," was Mr. Thomson's response soon after: "we shall light torches of a very different sort,"—a significant allusion to what would inevitably follow any attempt to carry out so unjust and impolitic a scheme, as that of the English ministry.
In the Annual Mutiny Act, there was a clause inserted, which was to carry out another part of the ministerial plans, by authorizing as many troops to be sent to America as the ministers might see fit. For these troops, by a special enactment, as Mr. Hildreth notes, known as the "Quartering Act," the colonies in which these troops might be stationed, were required to find quarters, firewood, bedding, drink, soap, and candles.
The Virginia Assembly was in session, in May, when the news arrived of the passage of these acts. The feelings of the people had been gradually becoming more and more excited; the minister's plan of employing only Americans to act as executors of the Stamp tax, gave no satisfaction or promise of its being quietly yielded to; and although the aristocracy might hesitate in a case like this, where so many interests seemed to be at stake, the mass of the people found their fit champion in Patrick Henry. He had already distinguished himself in Virginia, in 1763, where, contrary to the law, and notwithstanding the most clear legal rights of the plaintiffs, (the colonial clergy), he had succeeded, by the mere force of his eloquence, in carrying the jury, and the whole court, in favor of his clients, the defendants.[2] Chosen a member of the Assembly, Henry now, when others hesitated, stepped forth, and proposed these stirring Resolutions:
Resolved, That the first adventurers, settlers of this his Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia, brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this his Majesty's said colony, all the privileges, fran-
