It's all about the name of the bill
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On 28 May 1757 the House of Burgesses passed a bill entitled:
“An Act for the better Defence of the Colony in this Time of Danger, and for other Purposes therein mentioned”
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This needed to go to the Council for agreement.
On 31 May 1757 the Council was divided and so it did not pass there.
The House of Burgesses is miffed at this.
So miffed they deign not to change the content of the bill but merely its name.
On 2 June 1757, the Burgesses called the same bill:
“For granting an Aid to his Majesty, for the better Protection of this Colony . . .”
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The Council then concurred the next day.
Same bill, different name.
Sound familiar?
Sound modern?
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Richard Bland, a leader in that House of Burgesses and a big supporter of Colonel George Washington writes of his frustration with Council on this bill:
We have had a dispute with the Council, who flung out our first Bill of Supply, by an equal Division of 5 on each Side; upon the Question being put for a third reading.
This strange Conduct, under our present situation gave our House great Resentment;
they Voted a Severe Resolve against the Council and immediately ordered the Same Bill, under a different Title, to be brought in, which was passed in two days, and sent—
again to the Council, who gave thier Concurrence to it upon more mature Consideration
so that you are to have this year 1272 Men including non Commission Officers
to compose your Regiment.
and I do not at all doubt but that you will do every thing in your Power, for the advantage of your Country, that can be done by so small a Force; & I most heartily wish you success in all your undertakings
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Source on that letter Bland writes to GW 7 June 1757:
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Sources:
This is a footnote to a letter Lt Gov Dinwiddie writes to Colonel GW 1 June 1757:
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The House of Burgesses passed a bill entitled: “An Act for the better Defence of the Colony in this Time of Danger, and for other Purposes therein mentioned” on 28 May 1757 and ordered it sent to the council for concurrence (JHB, 1752–1755, 1756–1758, 479). After the third reading of the bill on 31 May, “the Council were equally divided, and the Bill fell of Course” (Leg. Journals, Council of Virginia, 3:1172).
The House promptly denounced the council’s rejection of its bill, declaring that their action “may prove fatal to the British Colonies in general, and to this Colony in particular, by depriving it of its necessary Defence, in this Time of open War, against the Invasion of the French.” On the next day, 2 June 1757, the burgesses reintroduced the bill under the new title: “For granting an Aid to his Majesty, for the better Protection of this Colony . . .” (JHB, 1752–1755, 1756–1758, 482). The retitled bill went to the council on 3 June and the council gave it final approval on the same day. See 7 Hening 69–87 for the text of the act. See Richard Bland to GW, 7 June 1757, for Bland’s description of the passage of the bill.
The actual passed law itself:
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28 May 1757 bill:
“An Act for the better Defence of the Colony in this Time of Danger, and for other Purposes therein mentioned”
That was the 3rd session of the House of Burgesses.
GW lost the election in 10 Dec 1755 to get into that House.
3 June 1757 same bill with different name:
“For granting an Aid to his Majesty, for the better Protection of this Colony, and for other Purposes therein mentioned”
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Richard Bland (1710–1776) was a leader of the House of Burgesses, in which he served from 1742 until it last met in 1776. Called by Thomas Jefferson “the most learned and logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs” in the years before the Revolution, Bland seems to have been a consistent and effective supporter of GW throughout GW’s career as colonel of the Virginia Regiment (Jefferson to William Wirt, 5 Aug. 1815, in Ford, Writings of Jefferson description begins Paul Leicester Ford, ed. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. 10 vols. New York and London, 1892–99.description ends, 9:472–76).
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Richard Bland bio
More on the late Richard Bland (1710–1776)
from the point of view of Thomas Jefferson writing to William Wirt 5 August 1815:
Your characters are inimitably & justly drawn. I am not certain if more might not be said of Colo Richard Bland. he was the most learned & logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs, profound in Constitutional lore, a most ungraceful speaker (as were Peyton Randolph & Robinson in a remarkable degree) he wrote the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Gr. Britain, which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject; but it was a singular one. he would set out on sound principles, pursue them logically till he found them leading to the precipice which we had to leap, start back alarmed, then resume his ground, go over it in another direction, be led again by the correctness of his reasoning6 to the same place, and again tack about, and try other processes to reconcile right and wrong, but finally left his reader & himself bewildered between the steady index of the compass in their hand, and the phantasm to which it seemed to point. still there was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer’s letters, which were really but an ignis fatuus, misleading us from true principles.
Source
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About this House of Burgesses term of 3 years holding sessions four times:
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New elected Assembly:
George Washington lost his first election December 10, 1755 to represent Frederick County VA. George William Fairfax and Hugh West listed as representing Frederick Co VA.
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1st Session
Journal, 1756, March Session, page 335, March 25, 1756 to May 5, 1756
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2nd Session
Journal, 1756, September Session, page 401, to September 20, 1756 to September 28, 1756
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3rd Session
Journal, 1757, April Session, page 413, April 17, 1757 to June 8, 1757
28 May 1757 bill in that 3rd session:
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4th Session
Journal, 1758, page 495, March 30, 1758 to April 12, 1758
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Compiled by Jim Moyer 6/6/2021, update 6/11/2021
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Oh by the way, did you notice the name of the guy Thomas Jefferson wrote to?
Thomas Jefferson was writing about Richard Bland, but Thomas Jefferson was writing to William Wirt.
We have William Wirt's skull.
William Wirt’s Skull
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Compiled by Jim Moyer 2/19/2017, 3/23/2019, updated 2/21/2020
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Date: Oct. 19, 2005 Slug: st-skull2 assignment # 173658 Location: Congressional Cemetery Photographer: Gerald Martineau Summary: inspection of family grave to determine skull affiliation caption: Smithsonian Dr. Douglas Owsley holds the mystery skull that was housed in a tin box and previously in the posession of DC council member Jim Graham. StaffPhoto imported to Merlin on Wed Oct 19 17:52:07 2005
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This skull is quite a find while searching for something else.
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The search?
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The search was for tracing Colonel George Washington’s southern journey in September 1756.
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Tracing his steps from Winchester to Augusta County Courthouse to Fort Harrison to all the way to the North Carolina border, where he visited Fort Mayo in old Halifax County which later birthed Patrick and Henry Counties, named after Patrick Henry, and so this led where?
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This led to Patrick Henry’s speech.
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And that’s where William Wirt’s skull appears.
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Patrick Henry?
William Wirt?
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In that skull, William Wirt’s skull, stolen in the 1970s and later recovered, was the idea that Patrick Henry said, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death.”
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Date: Oct. 19, 2005 Slug: st-skull2 assignment # 173658 Location: Congressional Cemetery Photographer: Gerald Martineau Summary: inspection of family grave to determine skull affiliation caption: Smithsonian Dr. Douglas Owsley holds the mystery skull that was housed in a tin box and previously in the posession of DC council member Jim Graham. StaffPhoto imported to Merlin on Wed Oct 19 17:52:07 2005
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According to JAR, the respected Journal of the American Revolution, there is no evidence Patrick Henry said that.
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And maybe that idea came from Addison’s Cato, a favorite play in the British Empire and of our Founders, often quoted by George Washington.
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In Addison’s Cato, A Tragedy, see Act II, Scene 4:
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“It is not now time
to talk of aught
But chains or conquest,
liberty or death.”
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Jon Kukla in his Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty alleges “Henry plunged an ivory letter opener towards his chest in imitation of the Roman patriot Cato the Younger. “
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DEBUNKING?
That “Liberty or Death” was in the language of all the elites and masses who saw the play, Cato A Tragedy, certainly means that saying it or writing it was only a matter of time.
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The play was so ingrained into everybody at the time. Most of our founders memorized the great lines. See how many references there are to this play. Proof of that is to be found here.
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William Wirt’s Intent
William Wirt’s intent was to write a biography of Patrick Henry, but no one ever jotted down all his speeches. So after much frustration in trying to find a record — any record of Patrick Henry’s speeches, he wrote some of Patrick Henry’s speeches like he was quoting him.
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“In 1816 the editors of Port Folio magazine asked Wirt to publish a sample of his forthcoming book, and the author selected the alleged text of the speech Patrick Henry delivered in Richmond’s Henrico Church on March 23, 1775, more than four decades earlier.” See JAR article.
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JAR contends Wirt wrote
Give Me Libery or Give Me Death:
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About Addison’s Cato
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William Wirt BIO
Wirt was huge in his time, big as any Founding Father.
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Wirt’s 2 Direct Sources:
Judge St. George Tucker, and Edmund Randolph were two sources William Wirt used for part of reconstructing Patrick Henry’s speeches.
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Wirt wrote back, thanking Tucker for his contribution: “I have taken almost entirely Mr. Henry’s speech in the Convention of ’75 from you, as well as your description of its effect on you verbatim.” [ix] Wirt did adopt one other phrase, “peace when there was no peace,” from an article that Edmund Randolph, a firsthand witness, published in 1815 in the Richmond Enquirer. [x] That was all. More than one thousand of the 1,217 words in the speech we think of as Henry’s—including the stirring last paragraph—were conjured by William Wirt.
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Source:
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Judge St George Tucker’s one son, Henry St George Tucker created and ran Virginia’s largest private law school in 1824 on 37 South Cameron Street in Winchester.
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Source Page 22 to 23, By David M Corbin for the Winchester Frederick Co Historical Society Volume VI, 1991-1992
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Sources:
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The JAR story:
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Story on the stolen skull
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Joseph Addison’s CATO quotes
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
may owe its heritage to a scene in Act II, in which Cato declares, “It is not now a time to talk of aught / But chains or conquest, liberty or death.”[5] Similarly, Nathan Hale’s ubiquitous quote during his execution, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” may have bene inspired by Act IV, when Cato glorifies his son’s death, “-How beautiful is death when earned by virtue? / Who would not be that youth? What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!”[6] In truth, Henry often spoke extemporaneously from notes and no complete text of the speech has survived. Instead, it was re-constructed decades later by a Henry biographer, who Ray Raphael concludes likely wrote the speech.[7] Similarly, few were present at Hale’s execution and his quote comes through the memoir of a classmate, who claimed to be repeating the story told him by John Montressor, the British chief engineer stationed nearby.[8] In either case, a certain class of Americans were already familiar with the ideas and sentiments attributed to Henry (liberty or death) and Hale (martyrdom for cause and country), thanks in no small part, to the play.
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From the JAR article: In 1816 the editors of Port Folio magazine asked Wirt to publish a sample of his forthcoming book, and the author selected the alleged text of the speech Patrick Henry delivered in Richmond’s Henrico Church on March 23, 1775, more than four decades earlier. The final work, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, came out the following year. An instant bestseller, it was reprinted twenty-five times in the next half-century.[v]
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How accurate is Wirt’s rendition of Henry’s most famous speech?
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