When this case was first brought to the court for consideration, the individual citizens of the colony tried to obtain the services of a lawyer who would fight against the parsons. Since such a lawyer would be fighting not only against the parsons but against the King himself, some of the lawyers, when asked to act as attorney against the parsons, refused the offer. Patrick Henry, who was only twenty-seven at the time and practically an unknown individual as far as law was concerned, accepted the offer. The self-educated Hanover County resident surprised the people in the court when he began to speak, at first hesitatingly and then most confidently. He first criticized the parsons for trying to take advantage of the scarcity of the tobacco which caused its extraordinarily high price. He then dared to speak against the British Parliament and the King for usurping the power of "disallowing" a law passed by the Virginia legislature. The following quotation illustrates the strong language which he used to express his attitudes in these matters: "The king, by ... disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the Father of his people degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all the rights to his subjects' obedience." Thus, he questioned the right of the King to veto a colonial law. He followed these words with comments concerning the rights and privileges of the colonists and the unjust taxing of the colonists for goods brought to the Virginia Colony from England. The jury handed down the verdict that the parsons were entitled to their back pay but awarded damages of one penny to each parson. As a direct result of this case, Patrick Henry became famous and he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses shortly afterward. He had dramatically, though unexpectedly, expressed the attitude of most of the colonists toward Parliamentary and royal control of their colony.