In 1748 by an act of Assembly the salary of the clergy had been fixed at 16,000 pounds of tobacco. This law had received the King's assent, and according to the "ancient constitution," could not be repealed without his approval. Yet, seven years later, when there had been a severe drought, the Assembly passed an act permitting payment of all obligations in money at the rate of two pence a pound. The law was to continue in force for ten months only, and there was no clause suspending its operation until the King had given his assent. The clergy were bitter. They thought it hard that when the price of tobacco was low they were forced to accept it, but when it was high they were to be paid in money at one third the market price of tobacco. In a petition to the House of Burgesses they pointed out that their average income was so inadequate that they found it difficult to support their families. It was this which explained why so few graduates of Oxford and Cambridge entered the ministry in Virginia, and why so few in the colony thought it worth while to study divinity.[6] A delegation of four ministers called on Governor Dinwiddie to urge him to veto the bill. But Dinwiddie, who was begging for funds and troops, had no stomach for a conflict with the Assembly over this affair. "What can I do?" he told them. "If I refuse to approve the act, I shall have the people on my back." So he signed the bill. Unwilling to let the matter rest here, ten of the ministers, among them the Reverend Patrick Henry, uncle of the statesman, appealed to the Bishop of London. The unjust Two-penny Act would lower them in the eyes of the people, it would discourage them in the discharge of their duty. And, to clinch their argument, they pointed out that their cause was also the cause of the King. "Our salaries have had the royal assent and cannot be taken from us or diminished in any respect by any law made here without trampling upon the royal prerogative."[7] Three years later, when again there was a "prodigious dimunition" in the tobacco crop, the Assembly acted to give relief to debtors and taxpayers by again making obligations payable in money at tuppence a pound. This time the clergy made no appeal to the Burgesses, but Commissary Dawson, John Camm, and Thomas Robinson went to the Palace to urge Fauquier to veto the bill. Note that it has no suspending clause, they said. Note that it alters a bill to which the King gave his assent. If you let it pass, will you not be ignoring your instructions?[8]