Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (67 page)

LOANED
HIS
TO
W
ILLIAM
P
RESTON
IBID.

URGING
HIM
TO
READ
“
THE
ENCLOSED
”
IbID.

TOO
STARKLY
FOR
SO
ME
AT
THAT
HOUR
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 90. See also Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
159. One man was apparently unimpressed: Patrick Henry. “Whether Mr. Henry disapproved the ground taken, or was too lazy to read it (for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew), I never learned; but he communicated it to nobody,” wrote Jefferson. (Jefferson,
Writings,
9.) In the way of politics, the
Summary View
's most immediate practical use for Virginia lay in the fact that it was not adopted; it instead served as a warning. “It will evince to the world the moderation of our late convention, who have only touched with tenderness many of the claims insisted on in this pamphlet, though every heart acknowledged their justice,” read the editors' preface of Jefferson's pamphlet. Translation: Take care, Your Majesty, for things could be worse. (
PTJ,
I, 672.)

Still, in private, Jefferson was furious that his draft had had so little impact at Williamsburg. Using the language of the General Confession of Sin in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, he said: “We have done those things which we ought not to have done. And we have not done those things which we ought to have done.” Writing on a copy of the final “Instructions” as passed, Jefferson was merciless, listing four technical “defects” on the import/export question. More broadly, he was unhappy with the failure of rhetoric and what was to his mind a fatal political flaw. “The American grievances are not defined,” he wrote. Without them, he believed, such a document lost potency. Looking ahead to the Continental Congress about to assemble in Philadelphia, he wrote: “We are to conform to such resolutions only of the Congress as our deputies assent to: which totally destroys that union of conduct in the several colonies which was the very purpose of calling a Congress.” (Ibid., 143.)

ADDED
TO
A
BILL
OF
ATTAIN
DER
IN
L
ONDON
Jefferson,
Writings,
10. See also
JHT,
I, 189–90.

“
D
E
ATH
IS
THE
WORST
”
Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book,
87. See also Garrett Ward Sheldon,
The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson
(Baltimore, Md., 1993), 19–21.

“
A
VERY
HANDSOME
PUBLIC
PAPER
”
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 188.

SEVEN
·
THERE IS NO PEACE

“
B
LOWS
MUST
DECIDE
”
John Ferling,
Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence
(New York, 2009), 28.

THE
PEACH
TREES
W
ERE
BLOSSOMING
GB,
66. Jefferson noted the blossoms on March 10, 1775. (IBID.)

PRE
PARING
TO
LEAVE
FOR
R
ICHMOND
MB,
I, 392.

S
T
. J
OHN
'
S
JHT,
I, 194. See also Mayer,
Son of Thunder,
241. The church, Henry Mayer wrote, was “a spare wooden building with a peaked roof and squat belfry.” (IBID.)

A
HILLTOP
WOODEN
A
N
GLICAN
CHURCH
Virginia Writers' Project,
Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion
(Richmond, Va., 1992), Virginia State Library and Archives. See also Lewis W. Burton,
Annals of Henrico Parish
(Richmond, Va., 1904), 18–19.

T
HE
LARGEST
STRUCTURE
IN
R
ICHMOND
Robert Douthat Meade,
Patrick Henry: Practical Revolutionary
(Philadelphia, 1969), 17–18.

SAT
B
EHIND
THE
COMMUNION
RAIL
Burton,
Annals of Henrico PariSH,
22.

THE
TOUGH
-
MI
NDED
, S
COTTISH
-
BORN
Benjamin Quarles, “Lord Dunmore as Liberator,”
William and Mary Quarterly,
3d ser., 15, no. 4 (October 1958): 494–507.

HAD
FORBIDDEN
V
IRGINI
ANS
John E. Selby,
The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783
(Williamsburg, Va., 1988), 1–2.

N
EITHER
SIDE
SHOWED
JHT,
I, 194. Militia were also forming across ViRGINiA.

WARM
ENOUGH
FOR
THE
WINDOWS
Meade,
Patrick HenRY,
23.

CALLED
ON
V
IRGINIA
Mayer,
Son of Thunder,
243–47.

S
TANDING
IN
PEW
47
Burton,
Annals of Henrico Parish,
23–24.

THE
EASTERN
AISLE
Ibid. Henry “stood, according to tradition, near the present corner of the east transept and the nave, or more exactly, as it is commonly stated, in pew 47, in the east aisle of the nave, the third one from the transept aisle. He … faced the eastern wall of the transept, where were then two windows.” (IBID.)

“G
ENTLEM
EN
MAY
CRY
”
Mayer,
Son of Thunder,
245.

“H
IS
EL
OQUENCE
WAS
PECULIAR
”
The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster,
XVII, ed. Fletcher Webster (Boston, 1903), 367.

A
COMMITTEE
THAT
INCLUDED
J
EFFERSON
JHT,
I, 195.

T
HE
COMMITTEE
RESOLV
ED
PTJ,
I, 161. In Richmond, Jefferson also wrote a resolution authorizing the creation of a committee to investigate Lord Dunmore's March 21 proclamation on lands, writing George Wythe, who was in Williamsburg, for counsel. (Ibid., 115–16, 162–63.)

POSSIBLE
FISSUR
ES
Ibid., 159.

DRINKING
AT
M
RS
. Y
O
UNGHUSBAND
'
S
MB,
I, 392.

DININ
G
AT
G
UNN
'
S
IBID.

BUYING
B
OOK
MUSLIN
IBID.

ELECTED
AS
A
DEPUTY
Ibid. He was to serve if, as expected, Peyton Randolph had to be in Richmond for the revision of the Virginia constitUTiON.

T
HE
FIR
ST
C
ONGRESS
HAD
BEEN
CALLED
“America During the Age of Revolution, 1764–1775,” Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/continental/timeline1e.html (accessed 2012). See also Jack N. Rakove,
The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress
(New York, 1979).

B
RITISH
TR
OOPS
TOOK
CONTROL
OF
POWDER
MAGAZINES
Middlekauff,
Glorious Cause,
270. “During the autumn and winter [Gage] had received a series of surprises which persuaded him that only force could bring the Americans to heel,” Middlekauff wrote. (IBID.)

“F
ORCE
,”
THE
GOVERNMENT
ADVIS
ED
G
AGE
Ibid., 272.

LEAVE
V
IRGINI
A
IN
“
EVIDENT
DANGER
”
PTJ,
I, 160.

AT
L
EXINGTON
AND
C
ON
CORD
Middlekauff,
Glorious Cause,
273–81. See also George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin,
Rebels and Redcoats
(New York, 1957), 17–40.

A
SHIFTING
SIXTEEN
-
MILE
FRONT
Middlekauff,
Glorious Cause
, 279.

273 B
RITISH
AND
95 A
MERIC
AN
CASUALTIES
IbID.

T
HE
E
XACT
SEQUENCE
OF
THE
BATTLE
IS
UNCLEAR
Ibid., 276.

ANY
“
LAST
HOPES
OF
REC
ONCILIATION
”
Ibid., 281. See also
PTJ,
I, 165.

“A
FREN
ZY
OF
REVENGE
”
Ibid., 279.

“T
HE
F
LAME
OF
CIVIL
WAR
”
Scheer and Rankin,
Rebels and RedcoaTS,
45.

CONTENDING
WITH
SLA
VE
VIOLENCE
McDonnell,
Politics of War,
47–53. See also Quarles, “Lord Dunmore as LibeRATOR.”

SUPPL
IES
OF
GUNPOWDER
McDonnell,
Politics of War,
49–50.

WHITES
WERE
“
ALARMED
”
Ibid., 47.

I
N
N
ORTHUMBERLA
ND
C
OUNTY
Ibid., 49.

A
S
T
HURSDAY
, A
PRIL
20, 1775
Ibid., 52–54.

ROYAL
MARINES
REMOVED
FIFTEEN
HAL
F
BARRELS
IBID.

A
FURIOUS
CROWD
OF
COLONISTS
Ibid. Peyton Randolph and others won some time before violence could break out by convincing the Virginians to allow a delegation to confront Dunmore for an explanation. (IbID.)

A
T
THE
P
ALACE
, D
UNMORE
ANNOU
NCED
IBiD.

“
ONE
OF
THE
HI
GHEST
INSULTS
”
IBID.

“
UNDE
R
THE
MUSKETS
”
IbID.

T
WO
D
AYS
LATER
D
UNMORE
ARR
ESTED
IBID.

ANNOUNCED
THA
T
“
BY
THE
LIVING
G
OD
”
Ibid., 55. Dunmore also said he would rally “a majority of white people and all the slaves on the side of the government.” (IBID.)

SWIFT
AND
PREDICTABLE
Ibid., 56. According to McDonnell, Dunmore, with some evident satisfaction, said: “My declaration that I would arm and set free such slaves as should assist me if I was attacked has stirred up fears in them which cannot easily subside.” (IBID.)

“H
ELL
ITSELF
”
Quarles, “Lord Dunmore as Liberator,” 495. Of Dunmore, George Washington wrote to Richard Henry Lee: “If that man is not crushed before spring, he will become the most formidable enemy America has; his strength will increase as a snow ball by rolling: and faster, if some expedient cannot be hit upon, to convince the slaves and servants of the impotency of his designs.” (Ibid.)