Free Lion of Liberty by Harlow Giles Unger

opposition to royal rule in the colonies—provoked by Patrick Henry and joined by others chafing under the London government’s arbitrary regulations and restrictions.
    In mid-May, about a month after the actual vote in Parliament, news of America’s success arrived in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other ports. Across the colonies, Americans set aside a day they named “Repeal Day,” to celebrate their triumph over the government of the world’s most powerful nation. Merchants broke open barrels of rum, wine, beer, and other beverages for employees, clients, and passersby to toast his Majesty’s health, believing false rumors that the young King George III himself had intervened on behalf of the Americans. In Virginia, jubilant city fathers
illuminated Norfolk and Williamsburg and sponsored balls that lasted until dawn. The royal governor would not recall the House of Burgesses until November 1766, but when it reconvened it voted to erect a statue of King George III and an obelisk in recognition of Henry and other patriots who had fought for repeal. (Neither was ever built.) Even Londoners rejoiced over repeal of the Stamp Act. The city illuminated its streets, and its merchants—ecstatic over prospects of renewed trade with America—rolled out kegs of wine to serve to dancing celebrants in the lanes outside their doors.
    As Americans and Englishmen feted the prospects of economic recovery, bitterness gripped the hearts of the humiliated parliamentary tyrants who had provoked the crisis. Refusing to accept defeat or seek reconciliation, they lit the fuse for the next colonial explosion by quietly passing a Declaratory Act on the very day they repealed the Stamp Act. The act asserted that “the Parliament of Great Britain had, hath and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain in all cases whatever.” 3
    When the House of Burgesses reconvened at the end of 1766, Patrick Henry and his young rebels held a clear majority of votes. Speaker Robinson had died and many of his closest allies had either followed him to the grave or retired in disgust at Henry and other blasphemers intent on undermining the standards of British decency and respect expected from loyal subjects of the crown.
    With their Stamp Act victory, Henry and the Sons of Liberty in other colonies stowed their torches and banners, took the helms of their little ships of state and set sail over the uncertain seas to utopia. When Henry reentered the House of Burgesses, he walked with authority. Elected a vestryman in his home county, he was a leader of the established church as well as political leader of the western part of the largest American colony. Indeed, his own family—his half-brother, John Syme Jr., his friend and future brother-in-law, Samuel Meredith, and relatives from five western counties—made up a powerful backcountry voting bloc that Henry used effectively to influence House of Burgesses legislation. Like other burgesses,
Henry took the traditional oath of office at the beginning of each new session and swore allegiance to King George III, but he followed his oath with proposals for social, economic, and political reforms to dilute royal powers. He also called for separation of church and state, an end to slave importation, expansion of Virginia’s domestic manufacturing to ease dependence on British imports, and new rules to prevent political corruption. Named to several key committees, he proposed—and the burgesses approved—prohibiting the Speaker of the House from serving simultaneously as colonial treasurer—as Speaker Robinson had done. “Away with the schemes of paper money and loan offices, calculated to feed extravagance and revive expiring luxury,” Henry barked at the House.
    Although Henry sought to ban