ing it. He repeated the remark that the galleries might hear him, and after that, he said, he did not expect to have his statue erected in America; in all which Grenville fully joined him. This temper soon took the form of acts, and turned the late joy of America into mourning. The quartering of large bodies of troops in the chief towns, and requiring large sums of the colonies for their support, filled the people with indignation. The object The object was perfectly understood, it was to check the spirit of the people and reassert the right to tax the colonies. These troops made war against liberty poles, and stopped respectable people in the streets of Boston and New York by rude questionings, and committed them to the garrison for refusal to answer, on the ground that these cities were garrisoned towns. The legislature begged to be excused from raising this provision to support British troops, and for this offence the legislative power of New York was abolished by an act of parliament until they should make the provision. They did submit and voted the supply required. The British troops had been provided for out of the public moneys by the governor and his council in Massachusetts, and when the legislature met they remonstrated upon the unconstitutionality of the act, with great firmness and dignity. These military preparations were but the forerunners of other acts of British taxation, and soon certain duties were imposed on glass, white and red lead, painters' colors, tea and paper imported into the colonies. This act was to take effect the 20th of November, 1767, and to ensure its enforcement another act authorized the king to appoint a board of trade to reside in the colonies to execute their duties under the law. They were authorized to search and seize at their discretion, with authority to call in the aid of the establishments, military and naval, within the colonies, and were exempted from prosecution in the king's courts for anything they might do under their commission. To these and other acts the colonies answered by petitions, memorials, remonstrances, and addresses, to the friends of liberty in the mother country, blending them with the strongest sentiments of loyalty and the expression of hope that these acts would be reconsidered and repealed. The people of Massachu

setts entered into a league not to import from Great Britain, or use any articles taxed, except such as were of absolute necessity. The legislature issued a letter inviting a concurrence of all the colonies to procure a constitutional repeal of these acts and remove the grievances from which all were then suffering. Dissolutions of colonial legislatures followed to swell the measure of their wrongs. The people suffered from this privation of the necessaries of life, but they kept their fortitude like martyrs. All were animated by feelings of patriotism and self-denial, and this spirit prevailed and carried us through the Revolution in triumph. In a short time we ceased to speak of Britain as our kind and indulgent mother," and progressively we called her our "unnatural parent," "proud and unrelenting tyrant, etc." The contest culminated in the assembling of the thirteen colonies at Philadelphia, the 4th of September, 1774, to take united measures to redress these grievances. Here came together the foremost men of the time to mingle their counsels in the first Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The assembling of this congress was practically a dismemberment of the British empire. At least its mutual and decided action soon gave us independence.

แ

Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund Pendleton were the Virginia delegates to the first congress; and men of like standing represented the other colonies in that great assemblage. John Jay, William Livingston, John Dickinson, the author of the Farmers' Letters, the Rutledges, and John and Samuel Adams enlightened its councils. Here these great Americans first met, though their names were familiar. Mr. Henry was first to open the solemn sitting, and it has been said that this added to his extended fame. No reports ever got abroad of the speeches that were made in these revolutionary congresses, as they sat with closed doors, in secret conclave, and with an injunction of secrecy. Suffice it to say, that Chase, after hearing Henry and Lee, said to a colleague, "We may as well go home for we cannot be needed with such men." We know that these were pro

VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIII.

10

tracted sessions, and all the questions were fully considered and debated in the committees and on the floor, and Henry spoke freely and wrote the address to the King, which was recommitted and afterward revised by John Dickinson to make it more acceptable to those who did not hold so advanced a position as Henry in reference to the rights of the colonies. We gather from the diary of John Adams that Henry held the most advanced position in that congress. Adams says that Henry thought that the Rutledges, Jay, and Galloway would ruin the cause, and regretted that he was not able to say what he thought of their course. This diary is very imperfect, and it is evident that the author dotted down only such things as he cared to remember, and hence it cannot be regarded as reliable evidence of all that was said in the congress. However, John Adams placed Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry among the three great orators of the first congress. Henry was made chairman of the important committee on the king's address, and spoke and acted a leading part in that body of distinguished men. The Adams diary shows that he regarded the government as dissolved. He alleged that we are in a state of nature, and he said, "I go upon the supposition that government is at an end, and that we are thrown into one mass.' Jay said, "I cannot think that the old government is at an end. The measure of arbitrary power is not full; it must run over before we undertake to form a new constitution." He also appeared as a member of the second congress. The writings of Adams, made at the time, show that he and Henry were cordial and advanced patriots. Before they left this Before they left this congress Adams read Henry that letter of Hawley's in which he said we must fight, to which Henry exclaimed with emphasis, " By God I am of that man's mind." Adams said he regarded this as a solemn asseveration on the part of Henry of fidelity to country; and this verifies also the speech of Henry made in the house of burgesses 20th of March, 1775, in favor of arming the militia, in which he said "I repeat it, we must fight." He, at this time, brought forward the proposition to put Virginia into a state of defence, and that a committee be appointed to procure arms and discipline such a body of men as may be sufficient for that

purpose. He declared that a well regulated militia, composed of the yeomen of the land, is the natural strength and security of a free government, and that such a body would render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us any standing army of mercenary soldiers. This measure produced alarm and deep solicitude, and Bland, Harrison, and Pendleton, who were lately in congress, and Nicholas, sternly opposed the resolution to arm. This preceded the engagements at Lexington and Concord by a month, and it was quite natural that it should be stubbornly resisted; yet the measure was carried to adoption through the great power of Henry. Indeed, the only fragment of his revolutionary eloquence that has floated down to us has been recovered by Wirt from the traditional speech he then made, and which he ended with, "Give me liberty or give me death.”

We have sought information from the best sources of Virginia as to the history of Mr. Henry, and Mr. Hugh Blair Grigsby has written us to this effect:

“Of the origin of this speech I know nothing; but as I am familiar with the facts and the men of that time, and of a somewhat later day, I will give you my impressions. Henry did speak on the occasion. He did make a speech which carried his plan in opposition to the scheme of Col. Nicholas, who was not only one of the first men of the colony, but was upheld by the ablest men in the house, most triumphantly through ; and he did use the words "Give me liberty or give me death." But there was no such thing as the publication of a speech at that day, nor even a newspaper in Richmond at the time; nor did Henry ever write out a speech in his life; and the speech of Henry appeared, so far as my researches go, for the first time in the life of Henry, by Wirt. I believe its origin to be this: Judge St. George Tucker, of Williamsburg, who took an active part in the revolution, was intimate with the members who heard Henry's speech. The Judge was an elegant scholar, and a lover of eloquence, as well as an ardent patriot, and had doubtless heard from various persons an outline of the real speech, and some of its most striking passages. I also believe that Mr. Wirt had heard very faithful accounts of the speech and many of its points and expressions, and it is from the joint recollections of these two gentlemen that the present meagre draft of the true speech was made. That the real speech was an extraordinary effort may be inferred, not only from the statements of those who heard it, but from the vote of the house which rejected the admirable

scheme of Col. Nicholas, and adopted the temporary plan of Henry. The speech, as we now have it may be said, in the phrase of Dr. Johnson, to be rather an 'adumbration' of the speech, and a very faint and shadowy one it is, rather than the true speech itself. There is no doubt that its outline is just, and that some of the expressions and phrases of the true speech are retained, more especially its famous concluding words."

It has been said by some writers that Henry finally opposed the Declaration of Independence. This has been based on a letter written by Gen. Charles Lee to Mr. Henry, in which he alludes to a conversation with Mr. Henry, of a prior date. Upon a careful study of this matter it is found that there is nothing contained in the letter to sustain the conclusion. Mr. Henry thought it of the greatest importance that we should sound the French court in particular before England had done so, and for this purpose he would delay the declaration; yet being assured that these steps had been taken, he not only voted but spoke with all his usual earnestness in the house of burgesses to instruct the Virginia delegates to move the declaration of independence in the congress of 1776 without further delay. Henry's letter to John Adams, dated May 20, 1776, says: "Before this reaches you the resolution for finally separating from Britain will be handed to congress by Col. Nelson. I put up with it in the present form for the sake of unanimity. 'Tis not quite so pointed as I could wish. Excuse me for telling you what I think of immense importance; 'tis to anticipate the enemy at the French court. Excuse me again, the confederacy-that must precede an open declaration of independence and foreign alliances." Mr Adams, in his reply, says: "I esteem it an honor and a happiness that my opinion so often coincides with yours. It has ever appeared to me that the natural course and order of things was this: for every colony to institute a government, for all the colonies to cooperate and define the limits of the continental constitution, then to declare the colonies a sovereign state or member of confederated sovereign states, and last of all to form treaties with foreign powers." On the 20th of April, 1776, Richard Henry Lee wrote Mr. Henry a letter, now possessed by the