Background
Fee Establishment and Controversy
In April 1752 Dinwiddie obtained approval from the governor's Council for establishing the pistole fee, so he expected little opposition. In October, to ensure the fee's legality, he wrote the Board of Trade for its consent, which it gave in February 1753. But that spring, as news of the proposal spread, Virginians began to question whether the fee was really within the law. In Dinwiddie's own thinking, the fee was simply an administrative charge for handling the distribution of lands that the king owned anyway; as the king's servant the governor had the right to decide the amount of the charges. And according to royal policy, a colonial governor was allowed to determine officers' fees with the consent of his council. But this rule had never been strictly enforced, and in Virginia, fees were usually established by the colonial legislature, so many Virginians viewed the pistole fee as illegal. In addition, opponents of the fee argued that it actually constituted a tax and, as such, should have been approved by the appropriate colonial legislature. For a governor to initiate such a charge was to abridge the established rights of colonial assemblies to initiate or defeat proposed taxes.
Resistance to the fee intensified throughout the summer and fall of 1753. Hundreds of land patents were awaiting seal in the governor's office, and Dinwiddie's demand that lands be patented directly after survey meant that powerful land speculators, who often held lands on warrant of survey without officially patenting them, would owe years of quitrents. William Stith, president of the College of William and Mary and chaplain of the House of Burgesses, introduced a toast, "Liberty & Property and no Pistole," which became wildly popular throughout the colony. Burgess Richard Bland published a pamphlet, A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, Claimed by the Governor of Virginia (1753), in which he railed against the fee, calling Dinwiddie's proposal "subversive of the Rights and Liberties of my Country." Bland noted that while governors of other colonies might collect such fees with the approval of their legislatures, Virginians "cannot be deprived of the least part of their property without [the] consent" of the people's representatives. In a letter to the bishop of London, Stith argued, "Our Laws have clearly settled the Methods of taking up new Lands, & prescribed the several Fees to the several Officers; wch certainly implies an Exemption from all other Fees, except those specified by Law; & the Governor might by the same Reason have demanded 10, 20, or 100 Pistoles as one."
The Privy Council
When the Privy Council finally met on June 18, 1754, to consider the rival petitions from Virginia, they recommended tentatively in favor of the governor and the fee, but hedged their approval with a number of restraints: Fees were disallowed on patents initiated before April 22, 1752, when Dinwiddie had first proposed his own fee. Dinwiddie was not to charge a fee on patents for one hundred acres or less, on patents submitted by families "imported" from outside the colony, or on patents for lands west of the Alleghany Mountains. Finally, patents were limited to a thousand acres. The Privy Council sent these restraints to Dinwiddie on July 3, 1754, adding a request that he reinstate as attorney general Peyton Randolph, who Dinwiddie had dismissed when Randolph became agent for the burgesses.
Aftermath
To some, the Privy Council's orders represented "the perfect political compromise," but to others, they were an irritant. The Council had clearly intended to appease the burgesses, but their response to the petition confirmed the right of the governor to establish fees without consulting the colonial legislature and ignored the constitutional aspect of the House's petition. As for Dinwiddie, his attempt to establish the fee without consulting the House interrupted more than twenty years of cooperation between the Virginia legislature and its royal government. And, perhaps more destructively, the pistole fee dispute raised questions in the minds of Virginians about British authority and their rights as Americans—questions that would profoundly focus American thinking in the run-up to the American Revolution (1775–1783).
Time Line
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1689 - The Privy Council, responding to a complaint from the House of Burgesses, discontinues a fee, established by Governor Francis Howard, for sealing land patents. The fee is discontinued on the grounds that it had not been established with consent of the governor's Council as required by the Crown.
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August 1751 - Newly appointed Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie seeks the Board of Trade's permission to take a fee for sealing land patents. The Board does not act on his application before he leaves England.
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April 1752 - Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie secures the consent of the governor's Council to charge a fee of one pistole (about 18 shillings) for sealing land patents.
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October 6, 1752 - Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie writes the Board of Trade seeking its approval a second time for the pistole fee.
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1753 - Burgess Richard Bland publishes a pamphlet, A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, Claimed by the Governor of Virginia, in which he rails against the fee on land patents, calling Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's proposal "subversive of the Rights and Liberties of my Country."
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April 21, 1753 - William Stith, president of the College of William and Mary and leader of the opposition to the pistole fee, writes to the bishop of London that Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's demand "gave a very general Disgust & Alarms to the whole Country."
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November 1753 - Six Virginia counties—Henrico, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Albemarle, Amelia, and Dinwiddie—petition the House of Burgesses against the pistole fee.
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December 4, 1753 - The House of Burgesses passes a set of resolutions, drafted in part by Richard Bland, declaring that the pistole fee is unconstitutional and that an appeal for its discontinuation should be made to the Crown.
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December 6, 1753 - The governor's Council attempts to reconcile the dispute between Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the House of Burgesses by introducing a bill to establish a fee for sealing land patents. The House of Burgesses rejects the bill.
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December 15, 1753 - The governor's Council draws up an address to the Crown supporting Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's attempt to establish a pistole fee. The House of Burgesses appoints Peyton Randolph, attorney general of Virginia, to present its address against the fee in England.
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February 18, 1754 - Peyton Randolph brings the House of Burgesses' complaints against Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's pistole fee in front of the Privy Council. The official hearing is set for June 18, 1754; until then, Randolph and James Abercromby, an agent for the governor, lobby on behalf of their clients.
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June 18, 1754 - The official Privy Council hearing for the pistole fee commences.
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June 24, 1754 - The Privy Council hands down its decision in the case against the pistole fee. The Council approves Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's conduct and upholds his right to collect the fee, with some restrictions, and does not address the larger question of whether colonial legislatures have the right to defeat local taxes proposed by the British.
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October 1754 - The Privy Council's order to uphold the pistole fee with certain concessions is received in Virginia. Both Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the House of Burgesses accept the compromise.
References
Further Reading
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Olson, A. G. The Pistole Fee Dispute. (2012, September 17). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Pistole_Fee_Dispute_The.
- MLA Citation:
Olson, Alison G. "The Pistole Fee Dispute." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 17 Sep. 2012. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: June 10, 2011 | Last modified: September 17, 2012
Contributed by Alison G. Olson, professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland.