Richard Bland and the Pistole Controversy
Every nation has some top notch talent. They're not known widely in posterity. Richard Bland is one of those footnotes. He was big in his own time. He was in the House of Burgesses for 16 years before George Washington got elected. Bland is in his 16th year in the House of Burgesses, when we are reminded April 9, 1759 by the upper house, the Executive Council of an old problem about buying land rights.. We also run into an April 1759 law encouraging Virginians to settle as far as the Mississippi. Settling that land meant paying a fee. And in looking at that old controversy, we learn of this unsung hero: Richard Bland. He served in the House of Burgesses 1742 to 1776 and then joined the cause against England.
Could this despised fee be the beginning of No Taxation without Representation?
Richard Bland first emerged as a defender of Virginia’s rights during the pistole fee controversy.
The Pistole Controversy:
The Lt Governor Dinwiddie wanted to charge the fee of one pistole for each patent for land.
Timing is Everything:
On top of that, Lt Gov Dinwiddie imposed that pistole fee without House of Burgesses approval. He did it on lhe last day of the session, warning no one. He did it on the day after the House rewarded him 500 lbs out of their good feelings for him. Now they feel hoodwinked.
Bland's Response:
Bland and others thought the Legislature had to be involved in authorizing that. No taxation without representation, right?
And would that fee not hurt the poor trying to develop land out west? Would that fee only serve the rich? And in so doing hurt westward development and the economy?
This pistole controversy was of rich vs poor. How can the lower classes hope to get a start out in the wilderness with such a fee?
This controversy was of republican principles vs royal prerogative. Where is the boundary of a legislature's authority?
Dinwiddie's Response:
But that's not the only to way to look at it.
The Problem is a Loophole:
Lt Gov Dinwiddie knew there was a loophole. He knew of it for years. He was Surveyor General for North and Central America. He found out about that loophole back then.
Here's how it worked.
First, a fee would be paid for a survey.
Then completed, a patent would be issued by the Governor. No fee for that patent.
But once that patent was issued, rent by the government could be collected.
The loophole?
Just don't get a patent.
That way you won't have to pay rent to the government.
And you could claim that just by having a survey you have some rights to that land.
Solution?
That act of collecting a fee would solidify the idea that just a survey alone was not enough to confer ownership. You needed that patent.
You needed to get that patent. And now you have to pay a fee for that.
And after that patent, you will pay rent to the King's Majesty.
Dinwiddie concluded that by " the taking of the fee for himself but also the prevention of fraudulent delay in application for patents by those enjoying the use of land under mere surveyors ' warrants but paying no quit - rents since the lands had not yet actually been patented . . . would result in the great augmentation of the revenue going to the king . "
Dinwiddie also said "It has been too long a Practice here [in Virginia], to have Orders for Land … return their Surveys, Works, and Improvements to the Sec’ry’s Office, by wh’ch they pretend to a legal right, and enjoy the Land for Years before they take out a Patent for them, by wh’ch the Crown has been greatly defrauded.
That's it.
That's our lead story.
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Compiled and authored by Jim Moyer researched in 2015, updated 4/8/2023, 4/9/2023, 4/15/2023, 4/16/2023, 4/20/2023
Table of Contents:
Richard Bland's Response?
Richard Bland bio
Bland's Against the Pistole Fee
Currency Equivalents
Developing towards the Mississippi
Dinwiddie
Here's the Argument back and forth in detail:
THE FIRST “NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION” CRISIS
1759 revisits the old Pistole Controversy
Source is the
9 April 1759 Executive Council
Source:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004161017&view=1up&seq=152 The Governor communicated a Letter from Mr. Pownall 50 dated Whitehall Jany . 5th signifying he was directed by the Lords Com missioners for Trade and Plantations to send him inclosed Copies of their Lordships Letters of the 3d of July 1754 , and the 18th of April 1755 , to Mr. Dinwiddie late Lieut Governor of Virginia , containing their Lordships Directions and Instructions with Respect to the Fee to be taken upon passing Patents for Lands in this Colony .
Which Letters being read, it was the Advice of the Council, and accordingly order'd, that it be notified in the Virginia Gazette what Patents are subject to the Fee of a Pistole ;
and that if Patents lying in the Secretary's Office, for which such Fee is due, are not sued out within six Months from this Time , the said Lands shall be liable to be caveated ;
and that hereafter , no Certificates for Lands will be received into the Secretary's Office without such Fee , where the same is due .
Footnotes
50. The Minutes for this date identify Pownall as " Mr. John Pownall . ” The Council advised “ that the said Letters be entered in the Council Register . ” Of the lands which the Journal describes as “ liable to be caveated , " the Minutes say " the same will be forfeited , and esteemd King's Lands . "
Source:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004161017&view=1up&seq=152
Who won in the end? Caveated Property.
This is an old version of a modern problem: UNCLAIMED PROPERTY.
Many would have land surveyed and thought that survey was enough to maintain their rights on the land.
But the law said you had to get a patent.
And you had to pay a pistole for that patent.
Or else you didn't solidify your rights to that land.
But a lot of people who got the survey didn't want to pay a pistole for a patent.
#159 (p.141)
Executive Council
June 14, 1759
Samuel Goode
having enter'd a Caveat against Charles Spradling for Four Hundred Acres formerly in Amelia , now Prince Edward it being the Piece of Land that the said Spradling recover'd from Daniel Farley , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Joseph Walton
having enter'd a Caveat against Joseph Williams and the Heirs and Executors of Thomas Williamson deceased for Six Thousand Acres in Lunenburg , on the middle , or Robinson Fork of Meherrin ; upon hearing Council on both sides , it is order'd that the said Caveat be dismist .
Joseph Williams
Executor of Thomas Williamson deceased , hav ing enter'd a Caveat against George Walton for any Land on the Robinson Fork of Meherrin in Lunenburg , upon hearing Council on both sides it is order'd that the Plaintif as Executor have a Patent for the Land claimed by the Defendant , on the said Fork .
John Night
having enter'd a Caveat against William Pennington for Three Hundred and Fifty Acres in Brunswick , lying near
Meherin on the South Side , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having been summoned and not appearing , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
William Daniel
having enter'd a Caveat against William Dabbs , for Four Hundred Acres , on the Head of Tarwallet on each side of Buckingham Road in Cumberland , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Gideon Moss
having enter'd a Caveat against John Moss for Five Hundred Acres in Goochland , upon Little Byrd Creek , one of the Branches of James River , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having been summoned and not appearing , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Gideon Moss
having enter'd a Caveat against Gideon Massey for Four Hundred Acres in Goochland upon the Branch of the Little Byrd aforesaid , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having been summoned and not appearing , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Zachariah Baker
having enter'd a Caveat against William Cor nish for Two Hundred Acres more or less in Lunenburg , joining Butcher's Creek , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
William Hawkins
having enter'd a Caveat against John Bannister for One Thousand Acres on Bannister River in the County of Halifax , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the said Caveat be dismist and that the said Hawkins pay all the Costs thereof .
Josiah Leak
having enter'd a Caveat against William Leak , for One Hundred and Seventy two Acres , lying in Albemarle on Rock Island Creek , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Albridgton Jones
having enter'd a Caveat against Jesse Johnson , for Eighty Acres in Southampton , on the North Side of Nottoway River , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having been sum moned and not appearing , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Hampton Wade
having enter'd a Caveat against Edward Slaughter , for Two Thousand Three Hundred and Seventy Five Acres in Lunenburg , on the Branches of Meherin River , for Rea sons appearing to the Board , it is Order'd That the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Samuel Smith
and Henry Trippe having enter'd a Caveat against Lawrence Dawley and Sarah Cumming for a Tract of Four Hundred and Forty Eight Acres in Princess Anne , for reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the plaintifs have a Patent for the said Land .
John Leak
having enter'd a Caveat against James Stuart for two Tracts of Land , about Four Hundred Acres each on Elk Horn Creek in Halifax , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the said Caveat be dismist , and that the Plaintif pay all the Costs thereon .
Paul Carrington
having enter'd a Caveat against Josias Randle , for Three Hundred and Seventy Four Acres in Lunenburg , on the upper Side , and joining little Roanoke , between Read's and Col lins's Lines , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
John Philips
having enter'd a Caveat against George Cavernesse , Son and Heir of George Cavernesse deceased , for Fifty Four Acres in Lunenburg formerly Brunswick on Staunton River , for Reasons appearing to the Board , it is Order'd That the Surveyor make a new Survey of the said Land , and that the Plaintif have a Patent for the same .
Richard Bandy
having enter'd a Caveat against John Hughes , Heir at Law of Ashford Hughes deceased , for Forty Eight Acres in Cumberland , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having
144 Executive Journals , Council of Colonial Virginia
been summon’d and not appearing , it is order'd that the Plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Joseph Larke
having enter'd a Caveat against James Westbrook for Four Hundred Acres in Southampton , on the South Side of the Three Creeks , the Plaintif appearing , and the Defendant having been summoned and not appearing , it is order'd that the plaintif have a Patent for the said Land .
Virginia Encylopedia article
Richard Bland's Response?
He helped draft the burgesses’ resolutions of November 1753 charging that Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie‘s imposition without legislative approval of a fee of one pistole for signing and affixing the colonial seal to land patents was “of dangerous Consequence to the Liberties of his Majesty’s faithful Subjects, and to the Constitution of this Government.”
In response to Dinwiddie’s assertion that he had a right to impose the fee as a part of the royal prerogative, Bland likened the controversy to the struggles of Parliament with Charles I in the 1630s and asserted that just as levying a tax in England was illegal without parliamentary action, so too no fee could legally be imposed in Virginia without approval by the people’s representatives in the General Assembly.
He almost went so far as to maintain that even the royal prerogative could not operate contrary to the laws and legal customs of the colony.
Bland spelled out his reasoning in a short essay entitled “A Modest and True State of the Case,” now better known as A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, the title under which it was first published in 1891.
December 4, 1753
The House of Burgesses passes a set of resolutions, drafted in part by Richard Bland, declaring that the pistole fee is unconstitutional and that an appeal for its discontinuation should be made to the Crown.
Source:
Sources:
Richard Bland bio
Against the Pistole Fee
Currency Equivalents
Developing towards the Mississippi
Robert Dinwiddie
.
House of Burgesses Journal editor's preface:
Here's the Argument back and forth in detail:
1000 patents waiting for approval
Richard Bland found out about this fee:
According to a statement made in a letter
written by Richard Bland ,
then a member of the House of Burgesses ,
to a correspondent in England ,
when Dinwiddie came to Virginia
there were in the secretary's office
nearly a thousand patents
made out ready to be passed under the seal ,
and more than that number
of surveyors' certificates for land
in connection with which
all the preliminary steps had been taken
and for which , therefore ,
patents ought to have been issued long before.
Making a little Income
Governor Dinwiddie , seeing in this situation the chance to reap a rich harvest
in a manner not in contravention of his instructions or opposed to the law, and in a manner to which he mistakenly thought that the people would not very seriously object , announced that a fee of a pistole must be paid before he would attach his signature to the patent so that it might pass under the seal .
Timing is Everything
The order raised a storm ;
and the feeling against the governor was very much
inflamed by the fact that the order was not given until the close of the first session of the Assembly, after the passage of the resolution,
“ That the sum of five hundred pounds be given to the Honourable Robert Dinwiddie , Esq .; and that he be desired to accept the same as a grateful acknowledgement for his regard to the interest and welfare of this Colony . ”
As long as the General Assembly was sitting , applicants had been told that no patents would be signed till the close of the session ; and then they were met for the first time with the order . The members of the House of Burgesses felt
that they had been hoodwinked by the professions of the governor in reference to the king's repeal of the laws into voting a large sum as a present to a man whoſe main interest in the Colony arose from his desire for personal gain . Bitterness against the man was added to opposition to the measure .
And then the petitioners complaints:
The matter came regularly before the House on petition from freeholders of various counties complaining of the imposition .
One of the petitions came from inhabitants of Dinwiddie County, a county which had been formed by the General Assembly at its first session and named in honor of the governor.
Theſe petitions , ſuch was the intereſt felt in their ſubject matter , were not referred to the committee of propoſitions and grievances , but at once to a committee of the whole houſe . 18 In due courſe and through the proper channel
Authority for this Pistole Fee?
the governor was aſked by the Houſe whether the demand for the fee was made by his order , and if ſo what was his authority for giving the order.19
The substance of the governor's reply
was that he had given the order in accordance with the authority granted him in his instructions from the home government and with the advice of the Council.20
The reply also intimated that the matter
was not one with which the Houſe of Burgesses could constitutionally deal .
But the House should decide this
In a second address the House maintained
that it was the undoubted right of the House
to inquire into the grievances of the people ; that the rights of the ſubjects of the king in Virginia were ſo ſecured that they could not be deprived of the leaſt part of their property but by their own conſent ; and that the demand of a piſtole as a fee , not being in accord with any eſtabliſhed law , was a grievance highly to be complained of 11
It's The King's Land
The governor responded
» that “ the establishment of the fee complained of relates solely to the disposal of the king's land, and which , it is conceived , may be deemed a matter of favour from the crown , and not a matter relative to the adminiſtration of government
House of Burgesses Reply
” On receipt of this second reply ,
Better Nobody pay that fee
the House passed a resolution ,
“That whoever shall hereafter pay a pistole as a fee to the governor for the use of the seal to patents for lands shall be deemed a betrayer of the rights and privileges of the people . "
Hiring a lawyer
The determination was reached by the House to appeal to the crown ,
and to send as special agent to prosecute the appeal the attorney general of Virginia , Mr Peyton Randolph, who was to be paid £ . 2,500 for his services and who was empowered to select a permanent agent for the Colony at a salary of £ . 200 per annum .
Two addresses
Two addreses to the king were drawn up
( the first of which, as a matter of form, was sent to the Council for its concurrence , which , of course , was not given )
and a set of reasons in support of the independent address .
The two addresses
and the reasons for making them were not spread upon the Journal, for no doubt they, especially the set of “ reasons, " contained, in addition to figures as to patents and prophecies as to the effect of the fee , reflections upon the motives of the governor, which , though the House felt justified in making them, it did not wish the governor to see , and this he would have done had they been put in the Journal, it being one of the duties of the governor to transmit to England a copy of the Journal of the House of Burgesses at the close of each session .
Then , too , coming in this way first to the notice of the authorities at home , the reflections might be considered as disrespectful to his majeſty's representative in Virginia and so in a sense to his majesty himself . They would thus be prejudicial to the cause . However this may be not only were the papers not transcribed into the Journal but great care was taken to prevent the governor's seeing copies of them. He did, however, get a copy of the reasons from a "private friend, ” as he expressed it , on the 8th of February — the paper was adopted by the House on the 18th of December — and he immediately wrote Mr James Abercromby , who at that time was his agent in England and who later became the agent of the Virginia Council also , saying , “ Their reasons are actually inconsistent with truth . It surprised me that a legislative body could have the assurance to let them go under their
18 See p . 129 .19 See p . 136 .30 See p . 141 .31 See p . 14323 See p . 154 .23 See p . 155 .34 See p . 168 .
End of page
#24 (p.xviii) ( xviii ) 1 name . ” : s The House also drew up an address to the king ſetting forth why it had appointed the king's attorney general to " solicit the affairs ” of the Colony in Great Britain , and praying that his majesty would be graciouſly pleased to continue him in his office . The next day after this reſolution was passed , the Houſe was prorogued .
DINWIDDIE'S SIDE
In this dispute Dinwiddie was technically in the right .
Such lands of Virginia as had not been taken up were in theory the property of the king , subject only to regulations made by the king himself or his agents, and beyond the control of Virginia's legislative assembly .
The fee was ill advised but not illegal .
The whole situation is well enough described ( from Dinwiddie's standpoint )
in a letter written by Dinwiddie to James Abercromby , April 26 , 1754. He says :
“ If I had known that this affair would have created so much uneassiness to me and trouble to my friends at home , I would not have taken that fee ; but when it was established by the Council here , and approved by the Lords for Trade , I could not in honor to the Board submit to the unjust clamors of our House of Burgesses , who , by the opinion of Sir Dudley Rider , had no cognizance of it . "
It is probable that the Board of Trade allowed the fee owing to Dinwiddie's repreſentations that his plan
(which contemplated not only the taking of the fee for himself but also the prevention of fraudulent delay in application for patents by those enjoying the use of land under mere surveyors ' warrants but paying no quit - rents ſince the lands had not yet actually been patented )
would result in the great augmentation of the revenue going to the king .
House of Burgesses POV
On the other hand , it is hard to ſee how the House of Burgesses , the guardians of the interests of the people , could have failed to complain of the fee, though not of the other features of the regulations .
The imposition was beyond doubt unusual and burdensome .
Their arguments may not have fitted conditions as they were , for the king owned the land ; but they fitted conditions as they ought to have been.
The arguments looked to the future . In other words , this contest was merely an incident in the long conflict between prerogative and popular control which ended in the victory of the latter in the stormy days of the Revolutionary War .
The King decides
But even as it was , Dinwiddie's victory was by no means a sweeping one when the case was finally disposed of by the king in council .
It was decided that Dinwiddie was right in principle,
but the Board of Trade was ordered to issue regulations for his future conduct in regard to the whole matter ; and this body ordered
that no fee be taken for a patent issued for less than 100 acres,
or from families imported,
or on lands to the west of the mountains,
or on land the preliminary steps for getting patents to which had been taken before the 22d of April , 1752 ( when his firts order in reference to the fee was announced at the ſecretary's office ) ,
that a patent should not be given for a larger body of land than 1,000 acres,
and that the attorney general should be reinstated in office .
Source:
.House of Burgesses Journal editor's preface:
.
.
THE FIRST “NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION” CRISIS
by Bob Ruppert
March 2, 2016
Source of article below
“No taxation without representation” was not a notion born in the American colonies in 1765 with the passage of the Stamp Act, or with James Otis’s 1764 pamphlet The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, or in his 1761 courtroom oration against Writs of Assistance. It was born with the “Pistole” fee in Virginia in 1753.
To better understand the notion, it is necessary to understand the affair that brought it on. Virginia was a royal colony, and all land issued by the royal governor was done so in the name of the Crown. The method of distribution was known as the Treasury Right System.
The securing or purchasing of land in the colony of Virginia was a three-step process:
Step 1: Upon petition, the secretary of the colony’s land office issued a Right that authorized the county surveyor to conduct a survey of the specific acreage in question. A fee, paid by the purchaser, was required for the warrant.
Step 2: When completed, the survey was returned to the secretary. If everything was in order, a patent, conferring legal title, was signed and embossed with a seal by the governor and a copy was entered into a patent book. There was no fee required for the patent.
But once there was this patent, rent could be charged.
Step 3: Each year an annual payment called quitrent or Right-money was required by the Government; every fifty acres required a payment of five shillings. To maintain ownership, the building of a house and keeping a stock (seating) or the cultivating of an acre of land (planting) within three years was required. 1
Early in his administration Gov. Robert Dinwiddie complained,
It has been too long a Practice here [in Virginia], to have Orders for Land … return their Surveys, Works, and Improvements to the Sec’ry’s Office, by wh’ch they pretend to a legal right, and enjoy the Land for Years before they take out a Patent for them, by wh’ch the Crown has been greatly defrauded. 2
Dinwiddie was aware of this practice because prior to his appointment as lieutenant governor, he served as surveyor general for North and Central America.
On April 17, 1752, he obtained the unanimous consent of the Virginia Council, the upper house of the Virginia legislature that was appointed by the crown and answered to the governor, to levy a fee of one pistole (a Spanish gold coin equivalent to sixteen shillings and eight pence) for the signing and sealing of Patents.3
On October 6, Dinwiddie wanted to remove any doubt about the legality of the fee, so he submitted the matter to the Board of Trade and Plantation in England for its opinion.4
On January 17, 1753, the Board gave its approval. Little did the colonists know, but he had petitioned the Board of Trade for permission to levy the fee in August 1751 when he was informed of his appointment, but set sail for North America before the Board could act upon the petition.5
For the next ten months, the governor took no further steps because the House of Burgesses, the lower house of the Virginia legislature that was elected by and answered to the colonists, would not convene until November. 6
On November 22, the colonists of Henrico, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Albemarle, Amelia, and Dinwiddie counties complained to the House of Burgesses, “of an Unusual Demand that is made in the Secretary’s Office, as a Fee to his Honour, for signing said Patents, and the Use of the Seal.” 7
Most of these colonists were farmers, but some were land speculators. Rev. William Stith, the President of the College of William and Mary, rallied opposition with the slogan “Liberty, Property and no Pistole.” 8
He declared, “This Attempt to lay Taxes upon the People WITHOUT Law was certainly AGAINST Law, and an evident Invasion of Property.” 9
The House of Burgesses appointed three men, Carter Burwell, Charles Carter and Richard Bland, to draft a memorial to the governor asking by whose authority he demanded the Pistole fee.
He informed the House that he had the unanimous support of the Council, the approval of the Board of Trade and by the powers he had received from the home officials before he left England.
On November 28, Dinwiddie announced that a fee of one Pistole would be charged for the signing and sealing of any patent. 10
Now a patent had to be taken out by a colonist immediately after the survey was recorded. It would no longer be allowed to hold land under warrants of survey only. As for the colonists in the west that had paid the survey fee but never filed for a patent so that they would not be listed on the rent rolls and required to pay the yearly quitrent, Dinwiddie required the payment of quitrents in arrears before they paid their Pistole fee. At the same time, he issued orders that patents could not be obtained by those colonists who had filed surveys before April 17, 1752, in other words, those who were in arrears, until he heard back from the Privy Council.
The Burgesses believed it was an arbitrary exaction by executive fiat. On December 4, they passed resolutions:
Resolved,
That the said Demand is illegal and arbitrary, contrary to the Charters of this Colony, to his Majesty’s, and his Royal Predecessors Instructions to the several Governors, and the Express Order of his Majesty King William of Glorious Memory, in his Privy-Council, and manifestly tends to subverting the Laws and Constitution of this Government … Resolved,
That whoever shall pay a Pistole, as a fee to the Governor, for the Use of the Seal to Patents for Lands, shall be deemed a Betrayer of the Rights and Privileges of the People. 11
They also appointed
Attorney General Peyton Randolph as a special agent tasked with delivering a memorial, also written by Burwell, Carter, and Bland, to King George III and obtaining, if possible, a redress of their grievances.
When Dinwiddie learned that Randolph was offered the special agent position, he urged him not accept it, claiming it was in conflict with his position as an officer of the Crown. When Randolph disregarded his request, Dinwiddie declared the office of Attorney General vacant and then appointed George Wythe the new Attorney General. 12
Richard Bland wrote A Modest and True State of the Case following the passage of the resolutions. He denounced the fee, calling Dinwiddie’s proposal, “subversive of the Rights and Liberties of my Country.” He also stated that while other governors collected such fees with the approval of their legislatures, Virginia “cannot be deprived of the least part of their property without [the] consent” of their representatives.
"The Rights of the Subjects are so secured by Law that they cannot be deprived of the least part of their property without their own consent. Upon this Principle of Law, the Liberty and Property of every Person who has the felicity to live under a British Government is founded. The Question then ought not to be about the smallness of the demand but the Lawfulness of it.
For if it is against Law, the same Power which imposes one Pistole may impose an Hundred, and this not in one instance only but in every case in which this Leviathan of Power shall think fit to exercise its authority …"
"This tax is indefensible … If their Governors demand a Fee for every Public instrument they sign and they have no Law for such demand, they certainly do wrong, they demand that which the Law does not give them & therefore are guilty of taking from the subjects without legal authority … King James the first in the year 1609 by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of England granted all the Lands in Virginia to the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers, and gave them Power to make, ordain and establish all manner of Laws, Orders, Directions, Instructions, Forms and Ceremonies of Government and Majestracy fit and necessary for and concerning the Government of the said Colony and Plantation, and from Time to Time to distribute, convey, assign and set over such particular portions of Lands … upon his Majesty’s subjects as by the said Company should be nominated, appointed and allowed. " 13
Bland argued that if the Burgesses did not fight this violation of the English constitution, then “like a small spark if not extinguished in the beginning will soon gain ground and at last blaze out into an Irresistible flame.”
Dinwiddie wrote to the Governor of South Carolina,
“W’t Influence You have over Y’r Assembly I know not, but I frankly tell You I have none over this here.” 14
In England, the Privy Council did not meet to hear arguments until June 18, 1754.
This gave both sides ample time to prepare their arguments.
House of Burgesses:
Peyton Randolph with the assistance of Robert Henley and Alexander Forrester, presented the colony’s position;
The Governor and King
James Abercromby, former colonial agent for South Carolina, with the assistance of William Murray and Alexander Hume Campbell, presented the governor’s position.
House of Burgesses:
Henley and Forrester argued the following points:
When Virginia’s Royal charter was granted, King James I gave the colony the power “to make and establish all manner of laws;”
In 1689, Lord Howard of Effingham was denied the authority to levy “a signing and sealing” fee by the Privy Council;
Governor Dinwiddie was granted authority “to settle fees,” not regulate them;
The fee was a tax and an internal tax at that;
The action deprived the colonists of their property without their consent.15
The Governor and King
Murray and Campbell argued the following points:
The King owned the land and could grant it on whatever terms he pleased;
The King delegated his authority to his Royal agent, the Governor;
A “signing and sealing” fee was charged in every other Royal colony;
The Royal agent, unlike Lord Effingham, had secured the approval of the Council as instructed by the crown and Board of Trade before announcing the fee;
The fee would provide an accurate rent roll and a means whereby land speculators could no longer defraud the King of his quitrents. 16
Even though some members of the Council considered the fee to be a tax, as Bland and the Burgesses did, on June 24, the Council rejected the petition. While it did order Dinwiddie to levy a fee only on patents of 100 acres or more,17
it denied him the right to collect quitrents in arrears for lands west of the Allegheny Mountains.
… the let’r from thence. [England] gives the People here all they desir’d, y’t is those y’t have occupied the Land for two years with’t Quit rents or any order for Pay’g the arrears, are now to have the Patents with’t and Charge w’tever, by w’ch the Crown will greatly suffer; however, I shall obey the order. [He was] much surpriz’d at the B’d of Trade’s Taciturnity, and not acting with more Spirit.18
In the end, both sides won and both sides lost.
Dinwiddie firmly believed that he was acting within the limits of his authority and that the colonists were encroaching on the prerogative of the King, while the Burgesses firmly believed that a fee or tax could not be imposed on Virginians without first having their voice heard on the matter.
The Pistole fee and the disruption if caused in the governance of Virginia was a direct precursor ten years later to “No Taxation without Representation” associated with the Stamp Act. FOOTNOTES
1 Richard Slatten, “Interpreting Headrights in Colonial Virginia Patents: Uses and Abuses,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 75 (September 1987), 169–179.
2 “Governor Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, Oct. 25, 1754,” in Robert A Brock, ed., The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie (Richmond: Wm. Ellis Jones, 1883), 1:363.
3 Henry R. McIlwaine and Wilmer L. Hall, eds., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (Richmond, 1925-1945), 5:385.
4 “Governor Dinwiddie to the Board of Trade, October 6, 1752,” Colonial Office Papers, Class 5/1327 (London: Public Records Office), 497-98.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., “The Board of Trade to Dinwiddie, January 17, 1753,” 5-7.
7 John Pendleton Kennedy and Henry R. McIlwaine, eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1752-1758 (Richmond: Colonial Press, E. Waddey Company, 1909), 129.
8 Jack P. Greene, ed., “The Case of the Pistole Fee: The Report of a Hearing on the Pistole fee Dispute before the Privy Council, June 18, 1754,” in Virginia Magazine History and Biography, 66 (1958), 400-01.
10 “Governor Dinwiddie to the House of Burgesses, November 28, 1752,” in Robert A Brock, ed., The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie (Richmond: William Ellis Jones, 1883), 1:45.
11 Kennedy and McIlwaine, eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 154-55.
12 Ibid., 168-69.
13 Paul Leicester Ford, ed., A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, claimed by the Governor of Virginia (Brooklyn, NY: Historical Printing Club, 1891), 31-43.
14 “Governor Dinwiddie to Governor Glen, April 15, 1754,” in Brock, ed., The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, 1:128.
15 Kennedy and McIlwaine, eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 141, 143-44.
16 “William Murray, Lord Mansfield, Attorney General for the Governor, 18 June 1754,” George Chalmers Papers in the Manuscript Division (New York: New York Public Library, 1782); The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct., 1958), 406-08.
17 “The Board of Trade to Governor Dinwiddie, July 3, 1754,” Colonial Office Papers, Class 5/1367 (London: Public Records Office), 94-100.
18 “Governor Dinwiddie to James Abercromby, July 23, 1754,” in Brock, ed., The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, 2:115.
Tags from the story
James Otis, No taxation without representation, Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia
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3 Comments
Jett Conner March 3, 2016 at 10:03 amYears ago I had an undergraduate student look into the origins of the “taxation without representation” phrase in a class on American political thought. She of course landed on Otis, “The Rights of the British Colonies.” Then later, in McCulloch’s biography of Adams, I noticed he implied that the phrase might have originated with Adams’ “Braintree Instructions” (1765), “We have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of the [English] constitution that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which he has not given his own consent,” and that the phrase “had been used in Ireland for more than a generation.” Your well-researched article on the Pistole fee adds a new element to the origin of the phrase, one I knew nothing about. And though I’ve never found anyone who originally stated the phrase “no taxation without representation” exactly, it seems we Americans have long employed “sound bites” to explain those complicated arguments about taxation without representation. REPLY
Don N. Hagist March 3, 2016 at 10:11 amSee our article about the origin of the phrase “no taxation without representation” here: http://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/no-taxation-without-representation-part-1/ REPLY
Jett Conner March 3, 2016 at 10:33 amThanks for the link, Don. That also led me to Bell’s Part 2 article, which seems to nail the origin of the phrase “no taxation without representation,” to a London magazine title in 1768. JAR can get to the nitty-gritty of details sometimes like no other source! REPLY
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