George Mason: Reluctant Statesman

4. Crisis at Williamsburg

C H A P T E R F O U R Crisis at Williamsburg As he rode south, Mason reflected on his two sorrowful years as a widower, and on the ominous prospect facing the Colony. The same month Ann died, March, 1773, the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg set up a "Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry " to keep in close touch with events in Virginia's sister colonies. A course of unified action thereby took form; and well it did, for when irate Bostonians drowned 342 chests of taxable tea in their harbor Lord North swiftly retaliated. Continued repression from London increased, inevitably, the temper of resistance in the colonies. In the spring of 1774 the First Continental Congress voted drastic economic sanctions against Great Britain. But before they were to take effect, a year later, conflict removed the necessity for them. In March of 1775, Patrick Henry, in a Richmond speech that made "liberty or death" the most renowned alternative of the 44 C R I S I S AT W I L L I A M S B U R G 45 Revolution, asked "that this colony be immediately put into a posture of defence." A month later, Governor Dunmore removed the gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg. In a hastily issued broadside the Virginia Gazette summed up the critical state of relations with England: "It is now full time for us all to be on our guard, and to prepare ourselves against every contingency. The sword isnow drawn, and God knows when it will be sheathed." There was little debating of that point. Dunmore had fled, and Virginia was without a government when Mason arrived in Richmond in July. In the heat of a Tidewater summer there was little to choose between Richmond and Williamsburg. Yet while Dunmore kept alive the possibility that he might return at the head of an invasion force and seize Williamsburg, it seemed prudent to the Virginians to meet inland. Each day's session reminded Mason by contrast of the pleasant life at Gunston Hall. As often as he could he wrote to his childless neighbor, Martin Cockburn, who was keeping an affectionate eye on the Mason children. "This is hard duty," he told Cockburn. The committee charged with the complex task of raising and paying for an army met after breakfast each morning and worked until the regular session of the Convention began. After adjournment at five o'clock Mason barely had time for dinner "and a little refreshment" before the group resumed its labors by candlelight. It was the kind of tedious committee work he had hoped to avoid. His stature as a delegate precluded that. Sick or healthy, Mason was needed for his ability. During lulls in a session he could go out to the local apothecaries to replenish his supply of ginseng and calomel. But seldom was he inclined to complicate his duties by more travel than that. "Though I was exceedingly indisposed for several days," he wrote to Cockburn, "kind and hospitable treatment from a neighboring country gentleman has recovered me." 46 GEORGE MASON: RELUCTANT STATESMAN When a vacancy in the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress had to be filled, his colleagues insisted that he accept the appointment. Embarrassed by the likely chance of being ordered to Philadelphia, Mason rose "to make a public excuse, R: give my reasons for refusal; in doing which I felt myself more distress 'd than ever I was in my life, especially when I saw tears run down the President's cheeks." The misty eyes of Peyton Randolph left Mason touched but unyielding. He escaped a trip beyond the Potomac, but the effect of his refusal moved him to accept a seat on the powerful, busy Committee of Safety that served in lieu of an established government . Still mildly protesting the assignment. Mason privately regarded it as "even more inconvenient and disagreeable to me than going to the Congress." When later he tried to resign the appointment, the delegates "answered by an universal no." Fortunately the pace of Convention business quickened during the next few days, and the prospect of concluding it promised a measure of relief. Before the final session Mason was sought out by a group of British-born merchants who were suspected of being Tories. Sympathetically, he drafted a general test oath for the frightened tradesmen which they readily signed. With that act he...