Produced by Mark C. Orton, Patrick Hopkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note 1. This text has a Rule 6 copyright clearance. Research has indicated the copyright on this book was not renewed. 2. The position of some illustrations has been changed to facilitate reading flow. 3. Footnotes are located at the end of each chapter. 4. In general, geographical references, spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization have been retained as in the original publication. 5. Minor typographical errors--usually periods, commas and hyphens--have been corrected without note. 6. Significant typographical errors have been corrected. A full list of these corrections is available in the Transcriber's Corrections section at the end of the book. * * * * * GIVE ME LIBERTY MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY _held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge_ VOLUME 46 [Illustration: Thomas Jefferson. Portrait by Thomas Sully in the Hall of the American Philosophical Society.] GIVE ME LIBERTY _The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia_ THOMAS J. WERTENBAKER _Edwards Professor Emeritus of American History Princeton University_ THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY INDEPENDENCE SQUARE PHILADELPHIA 1958 COPYRIGHT 1958 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY _Library of Congress Catalog_ _Card Number: 58-9093_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY J. H. FURST COMPANY, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND _Preface_ None of the American colonies "will ever submit to the loss of those valuable rights and privileges which are essential to the happiness of every free state," George Washington wrote in October, 1774. Perhaps the British officer to whom he made this statement was startled to have him speak of the colonies as free. Yet at the time the American people were the freest in the world, freer even than the people of England. It was to defend this freedom, not to gain new rights, that the colonists rebelled against Great Britain. For decades they had been governing themselves, so when the British Ministry tried to govern them from London, they would not submit. To understand what was in the minds and hearts of George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and the other patriots, it is necessary to know how the colonies became self-governing. One must follow the political battles and hard-earned victories of their fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers in the colonial Assemblies.