As they penned this protest the thoughts of Wythe and the others must have reverted to the part played by the control of taxation in winning self-government for the colony. They spoke of their rights as ancient, yet they must have known that the Virginia of their day was far freer than it had been under the Stuarts. And there could be no doubt as to how this great change had come about. They and their fathers and their great-grandfathers had used the control of the purse to whittle the royal prerogative until little was left. For Parliament to strike this weapon from their hands would be to nullify the gains of many decades and leave them defenseless. When the bill to tax the Americans came before the Commons, on February 7, 1765, a lengthy debate followed. It was on this occasion that Colonel Isaac Barre retorted to Charles Townshend's assertion that the Americans had been "planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence." "Your oppressions planted them in America," he shouted. "They grew up by your neglect of them.... They protected by your arms! They have taken up arms in your defence."[39] But when the Virginia memorial was presented it was rejected by an overwhelming majority.[40] The bill passed the Commons by 205 votes to 49, and the House of Lords without a division. The measure required the colonists to use stamps, purchased from the British Government through royal agents, on newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, advertisements, and various kinds of legal documents. It was with heavy hearts that the Assembly met in May, 1765. Edmund Pendleton, when news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached him, had exclaimed, "Poor America!" As he, George Wythe, Richard Bland, Robert Carter Nicholas, Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph, and other leading statesmen took their seats, they had no thought of resistance. They proceeded with routine business--the authorizing of a ferry over the Potomac, giving rewards for killing wolves, opening a road through the Swift Run Gap, preventing escapes from debtors' prisons, etc. Probably none of the aristocrats from the tidewater paid any attention to young Patrick Henry when he joined the House late in the session. When most of the bills had passed the third reading many of the members left, and mounting their horses rode out of town, leaving only thirty-nine to wind up business. This was Henry's opportunity. Opening an old law book he wrote down seven resolutions. Then, rising, he introduced them in the House. In substance the first four declared that Virginians from the first settlement had possessed all the privileges of the people of Great Britain, that these privileges had been confirmed to them by two royal charters, that the taxation of the people by themselves was the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and that the people of the colony had never forfeited the right to be governed by their own Assembly in the articles of taxation and internal policy.