broken bulk. Similar proceedings were adopted at New York, and with the like result. At Charleston, after much opposition, the tea was allowed to be unloaded, but without entry at the custom-house, and deposited in damp cellars, where it was finally rendered worthless by the effect of the humidity to which it was exposed.

At Boston, events of a yet graver character grew out of the resistance to the new ministerial device. Every effort to prevail on the consignees of the East India Company to decline their agency had failed. The Governor and the officers of the customs, anxious to recommend themselves to the ministry by their zeal, interposed every obstacle to the voluntary return of the tea ships. The spirit of popular indignation, chafed by official opposition, had recourse to more summary methods of redress; and a number of persons, in the disguise of Indians, entered on board the East India ships, and emptied the tea chests into the ocean.

This memorable occurrence took place on the 16th of December, 1773, and was undoubtedly, in the immediate sequence of events which it produced, the proximate cause of the American Revolution. It kindled at once an unmeasured and intemperate resentment in the government of the mother country that hurried it headlong into violent and arbitrary measures, which, in their turn, aroused and united all America in determined resistance to these accumulated acts

PERSECUTION OF BAPTISTS IN VIRGINIA. 41

of tyranny and oppression. The bill for closing the port of Boston; fundamental alterations in the colonial government of Massachusetts in violation of her charter; a virtual indemnity granted to any crimes which might be committed in that province under color of official authority; and new orders for quartering troops on America, were the acts of ministerial vengeance which followed in quick succession upon the events in Boston.

But, in the midst of these great questions, was another of not less interest to the rights and destinies of man, which affected the mind of Mr. Madison the more painfully, perhaps, because it came home to his native land. It was the vital question of religious freedom. The original colonial polity of Virginia had been founded in that mistaken connection of Church and State, which was then the universal practice of all nations and of all religious parties. Even the Puritans of New England, who came to America to escape religious persecution in the mother country, were no sooner established in their new abode than they fell into the same abuse, and set the example of fierce intolerance against all other sects than their own.

The colonists of Virginia left their native land in cordial amity with the civil and religious government of their fathers. They were content to bring with them the single guarantee of the "liberties, franchises, and immunities" of free born

Englishmen; and in the institutions of every kind established by them in the new world, they sought to conform, as near as might be, to the model furnished by the father-land. The government of the colony was, indeed, expressly instructed to administer its various functions " as near to the common laws of England and the equity thereof as may be," and, in religion, to provide that "the service of God and the Christian faith be preached, planted, and used according to the doctrine and rites of the Church of England."1

The Church of England, though necessarily modified in its transplantation, thus became the established Church of Virginia; and from time to time, laws of more or less stringency were passed to enforce conformity to it. At the period to which Mr. Madison's correspondence now brings us, the Baptist dissenters fell particularly under the persecution of the dominant authority; and in the county of his own residence, (Orange,) as well as two of the adjacent counties, (Spotsylvania and Culpeper,) several of their ministers had been confined in jail for the alleged offence of disturbing the public peace by their preaching and mode of worship.2

These brief historical reminiscences seemed an indispensable preface to the following extracts of a letter addressed by Mr. Madison to his

1 See Charter and Instructions in Hen. Stat. vol. 1. pp. 57-76.

2 See Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 15, 381, 382, 415, 416, 427, 428.

CHAMPION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

43

young Pennsylvanian friend on the 24th of January, 1774, and which, we doubt not, will interest the reader as well by the fervid love of liberty with which they glow, as by the justness and depth of the reflections they contain.

"I congratulate you on your heroic proceedings in Philadelphia with regard to the Tea. I wish Boston may conduct matters with as much discretion, as they seem to do with boldness. They appear to have great trials and difficulties by the reason of the obduracy and ministerialism of their governor. However, political contests are necessary sometimes, as well as military, to afford exercise and practice, and to instruct in the art of defending liberty and property.

"I verily believe the frequent assaults that have been made on America, (Boston especially,) will in the end prove of real advantage. If the Church of England had been the established and general religion in all the Northern colonies, as it has been among us here, and uninterrupted harmony had prevailed throughout the continent, it is clear to me that slavery and subjection might and would have been gradually insinuated among us. Union of religious sentiment begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.

"But away with politics! Let me address you as a student and philosopher, and not as a

patriot now. I am pleased that you are going to converse with the Edwards and Henrys and Charles' who have swayed the British sceptre, though I believe you will find some of them dirty and unprofitable companions, unless you will glean instruction from their follies, and fall more in love with liberty by beholding such detestable pictures of tyranny and cruelty.

"I want again to breathe your free air. I expect it will mend my constitution and confirm my principles. I have, indeed, as good an atmosphere at home as the climate will allow, but have nothing to brag of as to the state and liberty of my country. Poverty and luxury prevail among all sorts; pride, ignorance, and knavery among the priesthood; and, vice and wickedness among the laity. This is bad enough; but it is not the worst I have to tell you. That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some; and, to their eternal infamy, the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such purposes. There are, at this time, in the adjacent country, not less than five or six well-meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which, in the main, are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear, talk, or think of anything relative to this matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed so long about it to little purpose that I am without common patience. So I must beg you to pity me, and pray for liberty of conscience to all."