When Charles Townshend laid before the British parliament the odious and more extensive plan of taxing the American colonies, which was seized upon as a _philosopher’s stone_ by Mr. Grenville, Mr. Lee was among the first to sound the alarm to his countrymen. Within one month after the passage of the preliminary act in parliament followed by a revolting catalogue of unconstitutional and oppressive laws, Mr. Lee furnished a list of arguments against it to his London friends, that were sufficient to convince every man of the injustice and ruinous policy of the measure proposed, who was not blind to the dictates of reason and madly bent on enslaving his fellow men. When Patrick Henry proposed his resolutions in 1765, against the stamp act, which brought out the full force of his gigantic mind for the first time, Mr. Lee gave them the powerful aid of his eloquent and unanswerable logic.[C] Associations began now to be organized to resist the oppressions of the crown of which he was a prominent and efficient member. The collector of stamps was compelled to relinquish his office and deliver up his commission and the odious paper, and the people were advised not to use it on any occasion. [C] See them at large in the life of Henry. The _pen_ of Mr. Lee was also ably used and produced many keen, withering, logical, patriotic and sarcastic essays, that contributed largely in producing a proper tone of enthusiastic patriotism in the public mind. He also corresponded with the patriots of New York and New England, and was the first one according to the testimony of Colonel Gadsden, of South Carolina, and the public documents of that eventful era, who proposed the independence of the colonies, which tends to strengthen the allusion to his ancestors, who had for a century before predicted this event. The idea had probably been handed down from sire to son. In a letter from Richard Henry Lee to Mr. Dickinson, dated July 25th, 1768, connected with the statement of Colonel Gadsden, he proposes upon all seasonable occasions to impress upon the minds of the people the necessity of a struggle with Great Britain “_for the ultimate establishment of independence_,” and “that a private correspondence should be conducted by the lovers of liberty in every province.” His early proposition in Congress to sever the maternal ties, was considered by most of the friends of liberty premature and rash; but he had long nursed this favourite project in his own bosom and was anxious to transplant its vigorous scions to the congenial hearts of his fellow patriots.