RICHARD HENRY LEE. entered into the surveys and land speculations of the Ohio Company, and prophesied that the country would be independent of Great Britain, with its seat of government on the Potomac ! 1 The mother of Richard Henry was a daughter of Colonel Ludwell, whose family was also honorably distinguished in the king's councils. RICHARD HENRY LEE, one of that band of high-minded gentlemen in Virginia, whose intelligence and spirit gave the strength of manhood to the infancy of the Revolution, belonged to a family which had early been transplanted and struck root in the Old Dominion. Indeed, it was to one of his ancestors that the colony was indebted for this proud designation. Richard Henry Lee was born the His great-grandfather, Richard, brought twentieth day of January, 1732, at an abundant fund of loyalty with him Stratford, Westmoreland County, Vir in the reign of Charles I. In connec-ginia. It was the custom, indeed the tion with Sir William Berkeley, he necessity, of the wealthy gentlemen of gave Cromwell some trouble, after the the Colony, in those days, to educate 'king's death, in his claim upon the their children at home. The young colony, and, when Cromwell died, they Lee had this advantage, and the adanticipated the parent country in ditional benefit of passing a portion of bringing Virginia to its allegiance to his boyhood and youth at a school the Merry Monarch. Charles, in in Yorkshire, England. It is to be memory of the service, quartered the presumed the institutions of learning arms of Virginia with those of his great kingdoms at home, with the motto: En, dat Virginia quintam. Lo! Vir ginia yields a fifth-to England, France, Scotland, and Ireland. This is said to be the origin of the term Old Dominion. The family retained its influence. A son of this loyal Richard Lee was a blishments-the venerable privilege of member of the King's Council. His juvenile pugilism. To stand on equal son, Thomas, the father of Richard Henry, was also a councillor. He had an eye to the growth of the region, sketch. in that county had not then attained the character satirized by the pen of Dickens in the ministrations of his inimitable Squeers. Lee, at any rate, prepared himself, before leaving home, for one barbarous usage which still holds its own in these English esta Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee, by his grandson, Richard H. Lee, our main authority in this terms with his British cousins in the history of England, the course of her fighting-ground on his arrival, the youth engaged daily, before his departure, in a pommelling contest with a stout negro boy, whom he set up for the conflict. It is hardly worth going the length of his biographer in the comment: "Thus Providence had given him, in boyhood, an instinctive apprehension of the conflict with that nation, in which he, in manhood, bore so prominent a part; and a spirit of resistance, which he afterwards exhibited so successfully for his native country, and so honorably to himself." Lee brought home with him from the Academy at Wakefield, at the age of nineteen, a good knowledge of Latin and Greek. It was seed sown in a generous soil. His father died two years before his return, but his taste and influence lived in the excellent library which he left behind him. In the company of these books, his son now passed the early formative years on the entrance of manhood, drinking deeply the principles of Greek and Roman freedom, and nourishing independence in the writings of Locke and other inspirers of English liberty. Study of the poets gave beauty and fertility to his thoughts, and elegance to his style. There was time then, in the remoteness of America, and the separation of the refined from the incessant overpowering bustle of our modern life, for the pursuits of literature to engage the mind and form the taste. Lee was not bred to the bar, but he instructed himself in the knowledge of a lawyer. He knew the constitutional legislation, and the rights of his Colony. His habits of study were methodical and exact. He qualified himself for public business. The noble spirits of that day seem. to have been on the lookout for an opportunity for manly action. When Braddock arrived for his disastrous campaign, Lee, chosen captain, reported himself with his men at the place of his landing; but the general despised volunteers, sent Lee home, and went on to perish in his folly. His own neighbors had a better understanding of Lee, and at the early age of twentyfive made him a justice for the county. His next step was to the House of Bur gesses, to which he was elected from Westmoreland, in 1761. Henceforth he is before the public, in the councils of his State and the nation, the eloquent champion and defender of civil liberty. His first speech in the House of Burgesses was on a motion to check the African slave trade, by the imposition of a heavy duty on the traffic. It is marked by its policy and sentiments of humanity, and bears evidence in its style of the studied effort of a young speaker, as yet distrustful of his oratory. His first decided success sprang from a feeling of resentment. Indigna tion, says Juvenal, makes verses; in this case it gave birth to an orator. Lee's elder brother, Thomas, represented the liberal party of the House, and was charged with the introduction of a resolution which he prefaced with a powerful speech. He had neglected, however, according to rule, to commit his resolution to writing. The aristo cratic Speaker of the House, taking lector. He speedily, however, threw advantage of this omission, and know- off any doubts on the subject, and ing the timidity of Lee in efforts of this before the application could reach Eng kind, confronted him so roughly with a land, was in open rebellion in the legis demand for the resolution, that in his lature against the measure. He preconfusion he lost all the advantage he pared an Address to the King, and had gained. At this moment, his Memorial to the Lords. When the brother, Richard Henry, rose, armed Stamp Act was passed, he took an with a written motion, and retrieved active part in an association for the by a vigorous speech the position which suppression of any attempt to introhad been so unhandsomely endangered. duce its use into the colony. The artiRichard Henry became a leader in the cles drawn up by his pen have a strong House, but his brother never spoke infusion of the spirit of Judge Lynch, again. Hence, we are told, "it was in such significant passages as the fol remarked, that the incident which had lowing: "And every abandoned wretch, destroyed one orator had raised up who shall be so lost to virtue and pubanother." lic good, as wickedly to contribute to introduce the said act into this colony, by using stamp paper, or by any other means, will, with the utmost expedi tion, be convinced, that immediate danger and disgrace shall attend his prosti tute purpose. This paper is dated February, 1766. A few days later the obnoxious act was repealed. The initial movements of parliamentary aggression which led to the Revolution now came on apace. Lee took the alarm from the beginning. In 1764, when Grenville was moulding the House of Commons to the passage of the Stamp Act of the following year, Lee wrote to a friend in England, asserting the dependence of taxation upon Lee understood the advantages of representation and consent, coupling combination. He was one of the first with his expostulations the augury: in the country to propose by his resolu"But after all, my dear friend, the ways tion in the Virginia House of Burgesses of Heaven are inscrutable; and fre- of 1773, a standing committee of corquently the most unlooked-for events respondence and inquiry, to ascertain have arisen from seemingly the most the views of England, and keep up a inadequate causes. Possibly this step defensive communication with the sisof the mother country, though intended ter colonies. Lee stood by the side of to oppress and keep us low, in order to Henry on this committee. Few men secure our dependence, may be subver- were better advised than himself of the sive of this end." Still, in the unde- progress of English politics by the corcided state of public opinion in America respondence which he enjoyed with on the question at this time, Lee, though his younger brother, the distinguished thus prophetic of consequences, took Arthur Lee, then stationed in London, the matter so lightly as to sanction an a shrewd watchman of men and things application for the office of stamp col-connected with America. |