80

ORIGIN OF COMMITTEES ON CORRESPONDENCE. [CHAP. III.

latures of the different Colonies; but later developments seem to render it certain that the Massachusetts Assembly appointed a committee for the same object, in 1770. This last body, however, does not appear to have acted-no record of any proceedings by it, we believe, is preserved—and, indeed, Bradford, the historian of Massachusetts, expressly declares, "it does not appear that this committee wrote to the other Colonies, as a former letter to them from Massachusetts had been so severely censured in England." The fact that it took so long a time to prove the existence of such a committee in Massachusetts, and that it was discredited by Jefferson, Wirt, and so many other either actors or investigators in Revolutionary history, shows at least that its appointment was not contemporaneously made known in the other Colonies. Nor is it claimed that the Massachusetts resolution requested the other Colonies to appoint similar committees though it authorized correspondence with those "they had or might appoint." The distinction may look like a narrow one, but, on consideration, it will be found important. It appears, therefore, that Virginia acted spontaneously in this matter that she went farthest-that she first actually organized and put into practical execution a measure which soon led to the call of a federative Congress. The Massachusetts Committee halted on the threshold by reason of English censures; on the other hand, Jefferson always declared that he and his co-actors saw that "the first measure of their committee "would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every Colony" and they consequently were appointed with that for their primary object. Under all these circumstances, every one will decide for himself where the honor of the measure should principally rest.

But, in truth, there is little need for attempting to settle the question nicely. These, as well as some other of the Colonies, have no occasion to be tenacious about an occasional stray leaf of the broad harvests of their Revolutionary laurels. We will not aver that all the Colonies acted exactly alike in the opening of that struggle. But it is safe to say, that the Whigs in all of them felt substantially alike-and that the overt acts of resistance were generally first made, when the practical encroachment

History of Massachusetts from 1764 to 1775, pp. 237, 276.

'Memoir, et al.

CHAP. III.] OUR GLORY AND SHAME CONTINENTAL.

81

was first attempted, and there was any actual capacity for resistance. It was for this reason, that the curtain of civil war first rose in Massachusetts, and next in Virginia. They were first attacked, as the oldest and strongest of the American brotherhood—and in the expectation, doubtless, that their over throw or submission would be decisive of the result. And like brave older brothers, they advanced in front of the younger to the stern conflict. We confess we sicken at arguments and arrays of facts to show where the credit of originating the idea of resisting English oppression belongs! It originated in every manly Whig's bosom (as resistance to oppression has originated in every manly bosom from the foundation of the world)-it making not a particle of difference of what precise colony, or spot of earth in the thirteen Colonies, he chanced to be an inhabitant. When the time came and the cry of war was sounded, the true-hearted went forth from the ocean border to the Alleghanies amidst the green hills and valleys of New Englandon the "bloody and debatable ground of the Mohawk❞—from the shores of the Delaware and Chesapeake-from the princely seats on the James-from the Cape Fear and the Santee-from the sands of Georgia! And we sicken no less to hear opprobrium thrown on this Colony or that, because in that strife some of its people sided with the mother country, and thus weakened its means of resistance. If the "Tories" (loyalists) committed any crime in this (a question we may by and by ask) was. it the crime of the Whigs? Nay, did not the latter require the more courage to take side against enemies without and enemies within? And is it not the silliest kind of child's play to personify a Colony or a subsequent State—that is, a certain number of square miles of insensate earth-and talk about its being disgraced, or its subsequent inhabitants being disgraced-by its having produced men who thought differently from the majority of their countrymen on a momentous occasion. If this sort of clan pride and clan prejudice must ever prevail, let it, at least, spare the heroic age of the Revolution-let its foolish vaunts and more foolish recriminations postdate the glory and the shame which were, as our forefathers called their congresses and their armies, purely "continental."

We have indulged in this strain of remark to intimate, in advance, that these pages will deal with men and their actions,

VOL. I.-6

82

CARR AND JEFFERSON.

[CHAP. III. caring as little whether they were born or nurtured in this Colony or that, or on this continent or that, as whether they powdered their hair alike, or wore shoe buckles of a pattern!

Dabney Carr, the gifted young delegate, who made his first appearance in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in moving the resolutions for a Committee of Correspondence, was a lawyer, representing the county of Louisa. It appears from the repeated testimony of Mr. Jefferson, and from the investigations of Mr. Wirt into other sources of information, that he was an extraordinary young man. Mr. Jefferson thus described him :'

"I well remember the pleasure expressed in the countenance and conversation of the members generally, on this début of Mr. Carr, and the hopes they conceived as well from the talents as the patriotism it manifested.

His character

was of a high order. A spotless integrity, sound judgment, handsome imagination, enriched by education and reading, quick and clear in his conceptions, of correct and ready elocution, impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought was right; but when no moral principle stood in the way, never had man more of the milk of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry of conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth of their affection, were proofs of his worth, and of their estimate of it."

Mr. Wirt says:

"This gentleman, by profession a lawyer, had recently commenced his practice at the same bars with Patrick Henry; and although he had not yet reached the meridian of life, he was considered by far the most formidable rival in forensic eloquence that Mr. Henry had ever yet encountered. He had the advantage of a person at once dignified and engaging, and the manner and action of an accomplished gentleman. His education was a finished one; his mind trained to correct thinking; his conceptions quick, clear, and strong; he reasoned with great cogency, and had an imagination which enlightened beautifully, without interrupting or diverting the course of his argument. His voice was finely toned; his feelings acute; his style free, and rich, and various; his devotion to the cause of liberty verging on enthusiasm; and his spirit firm and undaunted, beyond the possibility of being shaken.""

A school-boy intimacy between Carr and Jefferson had ripened into that firm friendship which is founded on kindred feelings, tastes, principles and pursuits. They were inseparable companions; read, studied, took their exercise, practised their music, and formed their plans together. They daily repaired to an oak near the summit of Monticello (under the

1 Letter to Dabney Carr, the younger, Jan. 19, 1816. • Wirt's Henry, p. 106.

CHAP. III.]

CARR'S MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

83

branches of which they both now slumber), where they had constructed themselves a rustic seat, and here, in the deep woods, far away from the sight and hearing of man, they together pored over Bracton, Coke and Matthew Bacon; read their miscellaneous reading; discussed the present, and painted the glowing visions of the future.

On the 20th of July, 1765, Carr married Martha, the fourth sister of Mr. Jefferson. She was a gifted woman, and every way worthy of her husband; and their married life was one of peculiar felicity. Mr. Jefferson had written Page, in 1770, (February 21) as follows; and the reader will understand that "Currus "" was the Latin nickname he was in the habit of applying to Carr:

"I too am cœlo tactus, Currus bene se habet. He speaks, thinks, and dreams of nothing but his young son. This friend of ours, Page, in a very small house, with a table, half a dozen chairs, and one or two servants, is the happiest man in the universe. Every incident in life he so takes as to render it a source of pleasure. With as much benevolence as the heart of man will hold, but with an utter neglect of the costly apparatus of life, he exhibits to the world a new phenomenon in philosophy-the Samian sage in the tub of the cynic."

On the 16th of May, 1773, just thirty-five days after his first and last speech in the House of Burgesses, Dabney Carr died at Charlottesville, of bilious fever, in the thirtieth year of his age. The course of the disease was violent and brief, insomuch that he could not be moved home, nor could Mr. Jefferson, who was absent (at Williamsburg, we think), be summoned to return before his death and burial. He was buried at Shadwell, but Mr. Jefferson caused his body to be disinterred, and removed to a grave beneath their favorite oak on Monticello, where it had been agreed between them that the survivor should bury the first which died. The walls of the family cemetery now surround the spot, and the bones of the two friends lie not two yards asunder.

Carr's sudden death fell with stunning force on his wife. She was ill, from recent confinement, when her husband set out on his last journey, and her mind was perhaps therefore filled with the most gloomy presentiments concerning him. After her last farewell, she again raised herself on her sick couch, to catch a parting glance of him as he rode past her window; but she saw merely his moving hat. This object took strong hold of an

84

CARR'S WIFE AND CHILDREN.

[CHAP. III.

imagination rendered morbid by disease, and soon to be fearfully excited by an almost despairing grief. For weeks and months, whether in the blaze of noon-day or in the darkness of night, the moving, phantomy hat was ever passing before her eye. For a period, reason tottered on its throne. Carr left three sons-Peter, Samuel, and Dabney; and three daughters— Jane, Lucy, and Mary. Mr. Jefferson took his widowed sister, and her entire family, into his house. He brought up and educated the children as his own. Warmly they repaid his kindness and attachment, and there was not one of them that would not have laid down his or her life for their generous uncle.

Peter, to whom some of the finest letters in Mr. Jefferson's correspondence are addressed-gifted, accomplished, noble in bearing, like his father-died in his early prime. Colonel Samuel was a respectable planter, and once held a seat in the State Senate. Dabney-so well known, through the recently published correspondence of his intimate friend, Wirt (in Kennedy's life of the latter, published in 1850)-rose to be one of the Chancellors of Virginia, and he subsequently occupied a seat on the bench of the Court of Appeals. He died in 1837, in the language of Mr. Wirt's biographer, "leaving behind him the fame of an upright and learned judge and a truly good man." Jane married the only son of Colonel Wilson Miles Cary, of Carisbrook, Fluvanna county-a gentleman of large property, and of great social importance before the Revolution. Lucy married Terrell, and removed to Kentucky, where she and her husband died, leaving one son, Dabney, to whom, in his grand-uncle's, Mr. Jefferson's, correspondence, is addressed a letter recommending a course of law studies.' Mary died unmarried.

News of the Boston Port-bill reached the Virginia Assembly during its spring session, in 1774. What took place thereupon, we will leave Mr. Jefferson to describe in his Memoir:

"The lead in the House, on these subjects, being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, three or four other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper

1 Dated February 26th, 1821.