Revolution

by Edward Cline

  Repeal was celebrated in all the colonies with balls, fireworks, and parades. Countless toasts were made to George the Third and his family, to Parliament, to Rockingham and his ministers, to all the friends of the colonies in London who had a hand in repeal. Few men paid attention to the accompanying Declaratory Act. Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick observed this neglect, and knew that Sir Dogmael Jones was right to say in the Commons, that only “a few of them, and fewer of us, will see in such a sibling act the foundation of a more ruinous and angry contention than they believe the Crown is capable of handling, except in the manner of Turks.”

  On May 10th, John Robinson, Speaker of the House of Burgesses and Treasurer, died. His death was, of course, reported by both Gazettes. The late Treasurer’s books were finally examined, and it was discovered that he had loaned many prominent planters the notes he was required by law to have destroyed years before, leaving his own and the colony’s accounts in debt for over £100,000. Fauquier, whose friend he was, could no longer postpone the separation of the Speaker and Treasurer’s offices.

  On May 16th, Fauquier prorogued the General Assembly to July.

  That summer, Robinson’s father-in-law, Colonel John Chiswell, whom Hugh had dueled on horseback in Caxton, got into a drunken argument with a Scottish merchant, Robert Routledge, in a tavern near the Cumberland County courthouse, and ran him through with a sword, killing him. He was arrested for murder by the sheriff and was to be imprisoned in Williamsburg to await trial in the General Court. Three judges of that court — who were also members of the Governor’s Council — intervened and arranged for Chiswell’s bail. This extralegal action was also reported in both Gazettes, revealing to Virginians the scope of the Old Guard’s influence throughout the colony. In his Williamsburg home, Chiswell, not long afterward, put a pistol to his head and committed suicide.

  Shortly after the Sparrowhawk left Caxton in early May for West Point to unload and load cargo, the Busy arrived. Its new captain, George Requardt, inquired at Richard Ivy’s tobacco inspection office after the residence of Hugh Kenrick, and was given directions. Requardt hired a mount at the Gramatan Inn and rode to Meum Hall. After he had introduced himself to Hugh, he conveyed his family’s regards, and handed him a parcel of mail. Hugh invited him to stay at Meum Hall for the duration of his business in Caxton, and introduced him to Reverdy. Requardt accepted the invitation, and asked his host to send one of his servants for his baggage.

  One of the letters was from Hugh’s father. It was short, and dwelt on two pieces of news: repeal of the Stamp Act, and the murder of Dogmael Jones.

  “Oh!” cried Hugh, and the pain of his exclamation was so loud that Reverdy rushed into his study, alarmed and frightened, for she had never before heard him in such agony. “Hugh! What is it? Some terrible news of your family?”

  Hugh stood over his desk, resting on his arms, his head bowed. “My darling, they have killed him! They have murdered Mr. Jones!” He looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. “You were right. There were recriminations. The bastards!”

  Some days later, Hugh sat on the veranda of his porch, sketching, first in pencil, then in crayon, a portrait of Dogmael Jones, member for Swansditch, sergeant-at-law at the King’s Bench, as he remembered him. When he was satisfied with the likeness, he said quietly, “Fiat lux, my friend.” He had the cooper frame the portrait, and placed it on the wall at the end of his collective sketches of the Society of the Pippin.

  On June 6th, Parliament passed a new revenue act that was more pernicious than was the Stamp Act. No one, not Hugh Kenrick, not Jack Frake, nor even the House of Burgesses and Lieutenant-Governor Fauquier, would learn of it until the end of July. In that month, William Pitt was elevated to the peerage as the Earl of Chatham. He left the Commons, where he wielded the most influence, for Lords, where he wielded none. In August he acceded to the request of the king and formed a ministry to replace Lord Rockingham’s. Pitt’s ministry, which lasted a year and a half, was more a mongrel government than was Rockingham’s, composed as it was of antagonistic parties and personalities. And it was a greater disaster, for Pitt was absent for most of its duration. His ministry was thus steered, not by him, but by those who wished to put teeth in the Declaratory Act in all colonial matters whatsoever.

  It was the beginning of the end.