 If you are fortunate enough to have at least one good old friend, you are fortunate indeed. And if you have ever been able to bear witness to such a boon companion winning honor and glory in a moment that not only benefits your friend and others in the act, but that also sets your friend upon a path toward even greater glory in accordance with the merit you have always known to possess, well, you have experienced a very special kind of happiness and pride. I had one of those blessed experiences on March 12th of 1773. My boyhood friend, Dabney Carr, stood in the Virginia House of Burgesses and proposed resolutions that would enable the weaving of a tapestry of continental revolution. By proposing the establishment of a Standing Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry, Mr. Carr, who had been like a brother to me since our earliest days together at the School of Reverend James Moray in Albemarle County, was laying a plan for a network of communication that would coordinate thought and action among the British colonies spanning the eastern seaboard of North America. He was but 29 years of age at the time and this bright moment of his promised an even more luminescent future if my pride seems to you enthusiastic. It is at least partially because Dabney Carr wasn't merely like a brother to me. He was my brother-in-law. Nearly eight years prior, Mr. Carr had married my younger sister, Martha Jefferson. Mrs. Martha Jefferson Carr and the mother of six children by the spring of 1773. Mr. and Mrs. Carr's marriage had spanned an era of growing fervor beginning on July 20th, 1765, just after Patrick Henry's famous speech and resolves that previous march regarding the infamous Stamp Act. Mr. Carr was elected to the House of Burgesses for the first time in 1771 and then again in 72. That was the year of the events that inspired Mr. Carr's proposal of the resolutions. On June 9th of that year, the British customs schooner HMS Gaspe ran aground near Warwick, Rhode Island. Other than being embarrassing and uncomfortable for the captain and crew of the Gaspe, that event alone would not have brought about into colonial correspondence. The matter was complicated, however, by the fact that the HMS Gaspe had run aground while in pursuit of the colonial packet ship Hanna. That was certainly enough to annoy the colonists enough to do what, advisedly or otherwise, they proceeded to do. Rhode Island Patriots Abraham Whipple and John Brown led a band of their compatriots and Sons of Liberty inventing their irritation by attacking, boarding, and burning the ship. If not ground, then at least to the water, which, as it turned out, was quite enough. Then it was the British Admiralty's turn to be annoyed. A Royal Commission of Inquiry investigated whether or not they had legal grounds to carry off any of the assailants to England for a trial. This not having been the first time that fiery tempers of the colonists had resulted in actual fires destroying British naval vessels, Parliament had passed a law that April to address the issue. It was entitled An Act for the Better Securing and Preserving His Majesty's Dark Yards, Magazines, Ships, Ammunition and Stores. The act read, in part, as follows. May it please your most excellent Majesty that it may be enacted, that if any person or person shall willfully and maliciously set on fire or burn or otherwise destroy, any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, that then that person or person's guilty of any such offence, being thereof convicted in due form of law, shall be adjudged guilty of felony and shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy. And any person who shall commit any of the offences before mentioned in any place out of this realm may be indicted and tried for the same either in any shire or county within this realm, in like manner and form as if such offence had been committed within the said shire or county, as His Majesty, His heirs and successors may deem most expedient for bringing such offender to justice in a law's usage or custom notwithstanding. The worst part of that act was not the death penalty. That, while not exactly what the Communists would consider a welcome ingredient, was not unusual. No, the worst part was the threat of shipping colonists away from their communities and across an ocean to be tried in England. As proud British subjects, we valued our right to a trial by jury of our peers as paramount. And when we said jury of our peers, we did most emphatically not mean peers in the House of Lords. That was literally, as well as figuratively, taken things too far. The death penalty didn't help either. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, but the Dockyards, etc. Protection Act of 1772 later earned a role in two grievances in the Declaration of Independence. To wit. For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences. And for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury. The issue with depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury referred more to when Parliament had enlarged the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Courts in response to the protests against the Stamp Act in 1765. Juries are conspicuously lacking in Admiralty Courts. The 1772 Act also harnessed the tool of Admiralty Courts. So it did its part in helping with my writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Regarding the transporting of us beyond seas to be tried, it must be admitted that no colonists were actually transported anywhere by the Admiralty in response to the attack on the burning of the gas pay. For reasons that may or may not be obvious, the Royal Commission of Inquiry was unable to find any Rhode Islanders willing to give any information about who may or may not have participated in the allegedly violent assault upon and the unfortunate conflagration of the alleged schooner in question. It was more than enough, however, that the threat existed and that the attempt was made. It pushed the people of Boston to form their own somewhat more locally directed committee of correspondence in November of 1772. That step contributed to the decision of my brethren in Virginia to expand the idea to unite as many of the North American colonies as possible in the kind of organized communication and formal inquiry that could lead to unified and informed action. Committees of correspondence were not a novel idea in 1772 and 73, of course. Virginia and other colonies had utilized them before, but they were generally for communicating with the Crown, not with other colonies. They were not, in and of themselves, particularly exciting things. Prior to that fateful incident in the spring of 1772, nothing particularly exciting had occurred for a considerable time and our countrymen seemed to have fallen into a state of insensibility to our situation. This was in spite of the fact that the duty on T was not yet repealed and the Declaratory Act of a right in the British Parliament to bind us by their laws in all cases whatsoever and without the ability to vote for members of Parliament still suspended over us. That court of inquiry held in Rhode Island with the power to send the persons to England to be tried for offences committed here was considered at our session of the spring of 1773 as demanding attention, not just up in Boston but in Virginia. Not thinking our old and leading members up to the point of forwardness and zeal which the times required, Mr. Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Mr. Dabnick Carr and myself agreed to meet on the evening of March 11th in a private room of the Rallet Tavern in Williamsburg to consult on the state of things. There may have been a member or two more whom I do not recollect. We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all and to produce an unity of action. And for this purpose that a committee of correspondence in each colony would be the best instrument of intercommunication and that their first measure would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony at some central place who should be charged with the direction of the measures which should be taken by all. We therefore drew up the resolutions. The consulting members proposed to me to move them but I urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, my friend and brother-in-law. He was then a new member to whom I wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the house his great worth and talents. It was so agreed, he moved them, then they were agreed to and a committee of correspondence was appointed of whom Peyton Randolph, the speaker, was chairman. The governor, then Lord Dunmore, dissolved us as usual. But the committee met the next day, prepared a circular letter to the speakers of the other colonies enclosed to each a copy of the resolutions and left it in charge with their chairman to forward by express. The following is the text of the resolutions. Virginia resolutions establishing a committee of correspondence, March 12th, 1773. Whereas the minds of his majesty's faithful subjects in this colony have been much disturbed by various rumors and reports of proceedings tending to deprive them of their ancient legal and constitutional rights. And whereas the affairs of this colony are frequently connected with those of Great Britain as well as of the neighbouring colonies which renders a communication of sentiments necessary in order therefore to remove the uneasiness and to quiet the minds of the people as well as for the other good purposes above mentioned be it resolved that a standing committee of correspondence and inquiry be appointed to consist of eleven persons to wit the Honourable Peyton Randolph Esquire, Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Diggs, Dabney Carr, Archibald Carey and Thomas Jefferson Esquires. Any six of whom to be a committee whose business it shall be to obtain the most early and authentic intelligence of all such acts and resolutions of the British Parliament of proceedings of administration as may relate to or affect the British colonies in America and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister colonies respecting these important considerations and the result of such their proceedings from time to time to lay before this House. Resolved that it be an instruction to the said committee that they do without delay inform themselves particularly of the principles and authority on which was constituted a court of inquiry said to have been lately held in Rhode Island with powers to transmit persons accused of offences committed in America to places beyond the seas to be tried. The said resolutions being severally read a second time were upon the question severally put there upon, agreed to by the House, Neminé contradiccente resolved that the speaker of this House do transmit to the speakers of the different assemblies of the British colonies on the continent copies of the said resolutions and desire that they will lay them before their respective assemblies and request them to appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies to communicate from time to time with the said committee. Virginia's proposal of a committee of correspondence in 1773 was not original but the question of who commenced the revolution is as difficult as that of the first inventors of a thousand things. For example, who first discovered the principle of gravity? Not Newton, for Galileo who died the year that Newton was born had measured its force in the descent of gravity bodies. Who invented the Lavois-Zerian chemistry? The English say Dr. Black by the preparatory discovery of latent heat. Who invented the steamboat? Was it Zerber, Worcester, Newcomen, Savaree, Pepin, Fitch, Fulton? The fact is that one new idea leads to another that to a third and so on through a course of time until someone with whom no one of these ideas was original combines all together and produces what is justly called a new invention. I suppose it would be as difficult to trace our revolution to its first embryo and the truth I suppose is that the opposition in every coin began whenever the encroachment was presented to it. This question of priority is as the inquiry would be who first among the 300 Spartans offered his name to Leonidas? I am absolutely certain of at least one thing however. My heart bursts with pride and joy on reflecting upon seeing my ancient friend offer his own name as it were to Leonidas. When we were lads we used to make our way to the top of a little mountain on my father's property just westward across the Rivanna River from Shadwell at my father's home and where I was born to take in the views around us and to dream of doing things as great as the heroes in the ancient Greek history and poems and legends we revered. We even made a promise to one another regarding the top of that mountain that whichever one of us would pass first from this world would depart in the surety that his surviving friend would make certain that he would be buried upon that mountain. I later built my home there and named it for that little mountain in Italian, Monticello. Alas, my dear friend Dabney was not to rise to the heights of glory that seemed to be his destiny on that day in 1773. He died of a fever two months later on May 16th of 1773 just three weeks after the birth of his and Mrs. Carr's sixth child and third son named Dabney for his father. I fulfilled my promise and had my childhood friend buried atop the little mountain in a spot that would become our family graveyard. I tell you this not to sadden you, though my grief at the time was real, but rather to share with you a name of one whom I believe merits your remembrance. My friend played his part well in a great cause. He was one of many, a few of whom I have named herein and there were many others whose names have not been recorded and Mr. Dabney Carr acted with courage to help with perhaps a step forward here or a little push there to move us by increments toward our shared goal. I am grateful to have been there to witness my friend's moment of glory and to be able to be here now to share his name with you. Mr. Carr serves posterity as a reminder that Americans were angry not at the existence of such laws as those being enforced by the customs schooner Gaspay nor by the enforcement of those laws. Rather, we were angered by the fact that we had no say in the making of those laws. If the Sons of Liberty had been legally allowed to vote for members of parliament who would contribute to those laws and had either neglected to vote or had simply seen the person for whom they had voted defeated in an election, the situation would have been very different. The attack on the Gaspay would have been unjustified. By 1773, the Patriot cause wished to win the enjoyment of our natural right to participate in a government based on majority rule. We were fighting for our right to vote and then to respect the same right possessed by others enough to accept the results, win or lose. No government by the people can exist for long without that balance. Perhaps the name of Dabney Carr might inspire you to act with courage and persistence when a moment of defending not only your rights but also the equal rights of others presents itself and not to put it off until another day when you think the time will be more convenient or the times in general to be more conducive. It is part of Dabney Carr's legacy, I think, to stand as a reminder that time is more precious than you can imagine.