active on the side of government and order. Secondly, should he feel an inclination to go into the office proposed, we are confident— very confident-he has too high a sense of honor to do so with sentiments hostile to either of the points in view. This we should rely on, upon general grounds; but under your letter a different conduct is, we conceive from our knowledge of Mr. Henry, impossible. Thirdly, we are fully persuaded that a more deadly blow could not be given to the faction in Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere, than that gentleman's acceptance of the office in question, convinced as we are of the sentiments he must carry with him. So much have the opposers of government held him up as their oracle, even since he has ceased to respond to them, that any event demonstrating his active support to government could not but give the party a severe shock."

A very good reason for disobeying instructions, and making the first demonstration on so important a personage. Mr. Henry did not accept the appointment, but the impression intended to be made was nearly as complete as the parties intended.

"It gives us pleasure to find," says Mr. Carrington, “that although Mr. Henry is rather to be understood as probably not an approver of the treaty, his conduct and sentiments generally, both as to the government and yourself, are such as we calculated on, and that he received your letter with impresssions which assure us of his discountenancing calumny and disorder of every description."

These great movements somehow got wind, and came to the ears of the leader of the faction they were designed to crush. In a letter addressed to Monroe, dated July 10th, 1796, Jefferson says: "Most assiduous court is paid to Patrick Henry. He has been offered every thing, which they knew he would not accept. Some impression is thought to be made: but we do not believe it is radical. If they thought they could count upon him, they would run him for their Vice-President, their first object being to produce a schism in this State." A move was now made to prevent the old man from going over altogether. In November following, the democratic legislature of Virginia elected him, for the third time, governor of the State. In his letter declining an acceptance of the office, he merely expresses his acknowledgments and gratitude for the signal honor conferred on him, excuses himself on the ground that he could not persuade himself that his abilities were

commensurate to the duties of the office, but let fall no expression that could indicate his present political inclinations.

Early in January, 1799, soon after the passage of the resolutions declaring the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional, and before he had received the letter from Washington urging him to become a candidate for the Virginia legislature, Patrick Henry, in writing to a friend, thus expresses himself: "There is much cause for lamentation over the present state of things in Virginia. It is possible that most of the individuals who compose the contending factions are sincere, and act from honest motives. But it is more than probable that certain leaders meditate a change in government. To effect this, I see no way so practicable as dissolving the confederacy; and I am free to own that, in my judgment, most of the measures lately pursued by the opposition party directly and certainly lead to that end. If this is not the system of the party, they have none, and act extempore."

In February following, the President nominated Mr. Henry as one of the Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic. Perhaps the very day he appeared before the people at Charlotte Court, he held the commission in his pocket. In his letter declining the appointment, he says: "That nothing short of absolute necessity could induce me to withhold my little aid from an administration whose abilities, patriotism, and virtue, deserve the gratitude and reverence of all their fellow-citizens."

In March, eighty-nine, Decius said, I want to crush that antifederal champion-the cunning and deceitful Cromwell, who, under the guise of amendment, seeks to destroy the Constitution, break up the confederacy, and reign the tyrant of popularity over his own devoted Virginia. In ninety-nine, we find this anti-federal champion veered round to the support of doctrines he once condemned, and given in his allegiance to an administration, which a majority of his countrymen had declared, and all those who had followed him as their oracle declared, was rapidly hastening the Government into consolidation and monarchy.

Let no man boast of his consistency. Such is the subtlety of human motives, that, like a deep, unseen under-current, they unconsciously glide us into a position to-day different from that we occupied yesterday, while we perceive it not, and stoutly deny it.

Patrick Henry for years was sorely afflicted with the belief that the greatest and best of mankind considered him a factious and seditious character: to disabuse the mind of Washington, whose good opinion all men desired-to justify the flattering attentions of those distinguished men who had assiduously cultivated his society and correspondence, and showered bright honors on his head, he unconsciously receded from his old opinions, and embraced doctrines which he had, with the clearness and power of a Hebrew prophet, portrayed and made bare in all their naked deformity.

CHAPTER XXI.

MARCH COURT-THE RISING AND THE SETTING SUN.

It was soon noised abroad that Patrick Henry was to address the people at March Court. Great was the political excitement-still greater the anxiety to hear the first orator of the age for the last time. They came from far and near, with eager hope depicted on every countenance. It was a treat that many had not enjoyed for years. Much the largest portion of those who flocked together that day, had only heard from the glowing lips of their fathers the wonderful powers of the man they were about to see and hear for the first time. The college in Prince Edward was emptied not only of its students, but of its professors. Dr. Moses Hogue, John H. Rice, Drury Lacy, eloquent men and learned divines, came up to enjoy the expected feast. The young man who was to answer Mr. Henry, if indeed the multitude suspected that any one would dare venture on a reply, was unknown to fame. A tall, slender, effeminate looking youth was he; light hair, combed back into a well-adjusted cue-pale countenance, a beardless chin, bright quick hazel eye, blue frock, buff small clothes, and fair-top boots. He was doubtless known to many on the court green as the little Jack Randolph they had frequently seen dashing by on wild horses, riding a la mode Anglais, from Roanoke to Bizarre, and back from Bizarre to Roanoke. A few knew him more intimately, but none had ever heard him speak in

public, or even suspected that he could make a speech. "My first attempt at public speaking," says he, in a letter to Mrs. Bryan, his niece, "was in opposition to Patrick Henry at Charlotte March Court, 1799; for neither of us was present at the election in April, as Mr. Wirt avers of Mr. Henry." The very thought of his attempting to answer Mr. Henry, seemed to strike the grave and reflecting men of the place as preposterous. "Mr. Taylor," said Col. Reid, the clerk of the county, to Mr. Creed Taylor, a friend and neighbor of Randolph, and a good lawyer, " Mr. Taylor, don't you or Peter Johnson mean to appear for that young man to-day?" "Never mind," replied Taylor," he can take care of himself." His friends knew his powers, his fluency in conversation, his ready wit, his polished satire, his extraordinary knowledge of men and affairs; but still he was about to enter on an untried field, and all those brilliant faculties might fail him, as they had so often failed men of genius before. They might well have felt some anxiety on his first appearance upon the hustings in presence of a popular assembly, and in reply to a man of Mr. Henry's reputation. But it seems they had no fear for the result he can take care of himself. The reader can well imagine the remarks that might have been made by the crowd as he passed carelessly among them, shaking hands with this one and that one of his acquaintance. "And is that the man who is a candidate for Congress?" "Is he going to speak against Old Pat?" "Why, he is nothing but a boy-he's got no beard!" "He looks wormy!" "Old Pat will eat him up bodily!" There, also, was Powhatan Bolling, the other candidate for Congress, dressed in his scarlet coat-tall, proud in his bearing, and a fair representative of the old aristocracy fast melting away under the subdivisions of the law that had abolished the system of primogeniture.

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Creed Taylor and others undertook to banter him about his scarlet coat. Very well, gentlemen," replied he coolly, bristling up with a quick temper, "if my coat does not suit you, I can meet you in any other color that may suit your fancy." Seeing the gentleman not in a bantering mood, he was soon left to his own reflections. But the candidates for Congress were overlooked and forgotten by the crowd in their eagerness to behold and admire the great orator, whose fame had filled their imagination for so many years. "As soon as he appeared on the ground," says Wirt," he was sur

rounded by the admiring and adoring crowd, and whithersoever he moved, the concourse followed him. A preacher of the Baptist church, whose piety was wounded by this homage paid to a mortal, asked the people aloud, why they thus followed Mr. Henry about? "Mr. Henry," said he, "is not a god!" "No," said Mr. Henry, deeply affected by the scene and the remark, "no, indeed, my friend; I am but a poor worm of the dust-as fleeting and unsubstantial as the shadow of the cloud that flies over your fields, and is remembered no more." The tone with which this was uttered, and the look which accompanied it, affected every heart, and silenced every voice.

Presently James Adams rose upon a platform that had been erected by the side of the tavern porch where Mr. Henry was seated, and proclaimed-"O yes! O yes! Colonel Henry will address the people from this stand, for the last time and at the risk of his life!" The grand-jury were in session at the moment, they burst through the doors, some leaped the windows, and came running up with the crowd, that they might not lose a word that fell from the old man's lips.

While Adams was lifting him on the stand, "Why Jimmy," says he," you have made a better speech for me than I can make for myself." 66 "Speak out, father," said Jimmy, "and let us hear how it is." Old and feeble, more with disease than age, Mr. Henry rose and addressed the people to the following effect:-(Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, page 393.) He told them that the late proceedings of the Virginia Assembly had filled him with apprehensions and alarm; that they had planted thorns upon his pillow; that they had drawn him from that happy retirement which it had pleased a bountiful Providence to bestow, and in which he had hoped to pass, in quiet, the remainder of his days; that the State had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the Constitution; and in daring to pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate mind; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the General Government, must beget their enforcement by military power; that this would probably produce civil war; civil war, foreign alliances; and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called in. He conjured the people to pause and consider