The period of the American Revolution was rich in eminent men; but in the controversy which preceded the war no one was more conspicuous or had a greater influence in forming and directing public sentiment than Patrick Henry, the statesman and matchless orator of Virginia. A full and impartial history of this unique person-beloved and praised without stint by the men of his time, and since his death strangely maligned by a rival statesman of Virginia has been needed; and it is a pleasure to recognize in the work before us the fact that the task has been faithfully executed by his grandson, William Wirt Henry, who has also printed such portions of the correspondence and speeches of his ancestor as could be collected. The work embraces a connected historical narrative of events, and also a profound study of all the questions in controversy

*PATRICK HENRY: Life, Correspondence, and Speeches. By William Wirt Henry. In three volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

with the mother country which led up to independence; and hence it will have a place in every collection of the best books on American history.

The popular estimate of Patrick Henry has been taken from his Life by William Wirt, where he appears as a picturesque and inexplicable being a magnetic and inspired backwoodsman, who, without education and early training, was endowed with an unsurpassed gift of eloquence which he used with magic effect in the most critical period of our national history. Mr. Wirt, attracted by the popular accounts of Mr. Henry's oratory, began in 1805 to collect materials for writing his biography. He had never seen Mr. Henry, who died in 1799; and for the facts and incidents of Mr. Henry's life he relied upon the contributions of many Virginia statesmen who had been his contemporaries. These were in the highest degree eulogistic of Mr. Henry's character, abilities, and patriotism. The exceptions to this strain of eulogy were the frequent comments of Thomas Jefferson and a few persons who were especially influenced by him. There was much bitterness of party spirit in Virginia during the later years of Mr. Henry's life. Until the first administration of Washington, Jefferson and Henry were both republicans and worked in the same party traces. Henry opposed the adoption of the Federal Constitution in the Virginia Convention of 1788, with all his energy; and Jefferson would have done the same if he had not fortunately been absent in France at the time. When he returned, in November, 1789, he and Henry parted company in politics. Henry set his face against all factious opposition to putting the new constitution into operation. He had, he said, opposed its adoption in the convention, with all his powers. The question had been fully discussed and settled, and he should now give it fair play, and support it. Mr. Jefferson, on the other hand, threw every obstacle in its way, and set about creating a party which he could control. Mr. Henry did not follow him, and the breach between them widened. One of the last acts of Mr. Henry's life was to denounce, with all his matchless eloquence, Jefferson's "Virginia Resolutions of 1798," asserting the right of nullification. The

The influence of Jefferson, which can be traced through the whole of Mr. Wirt's narrative, gives it a strange inconsistency. In his youth the age not given Wirt describes "his person as coarse, his manners awkward, his dress slovenly, his conversation very plain, his aversion to study invincible, and his faculties almost benumbed by indolence. No persuasion could bring him either to read or work. He ran wild in the forest, and divided his life between the dissipation and uproar of the chase and the languor of reaction.' information was furnished by Mr. Jefferson. When Henry was about nineteen years of age as Mr. Wirt's narrative continues

This

“He had not changed his character by changing his pursuits. His early habits still continued to haunt him. He resumed his violin, his flute, and his books [!]. His reading began to assume a more serious character. He studied geography, in which he became an expert. He read the charters and history of the colony. He became fond of historical works, particularly those of Greece and Rome, and soon made himself a perfect master of their contents. Livy was his favorite, and having procured a translation, he became so enamored of the work that he read it through, once at least, every year during the early part of his life. The grandeur of the Roman character filled him with surprise and admiration."

Mr. Jefferson evidently did not furnish Mr. Wirt with this description, which is highly creditable to a boy of nineteen in the backwoods of Virginia-a boy, too, whose "faculties were almost benumbed by indolence, and no persuasion could bring him either to read or work." Daniel Webster visited Mr. Jefferson at Monticello in December, 1824, and the latter gave him an account of Patrick Henry. "Henry," he said, "was originally a barkeeper. His pronunciation was vulgar and vicious. He was a man of very little knowledge of any sort. He read nothing, and had no books. He could not write. His biographer [Wirt] says he read Plutarch [Livy?] every year. I doubt if he ever read a volume of it in his life." Jefferson advised Wirt, without success, to omit the Livy story. Mr. Henry met John Adams at the meeting of the Continental Congress, and told him (October 11, 1774) that at fifteen he read Virgil and Livy in the original Latin.

Patrick Henry was born May 29, 1736. His father, John Henry, was a man of classical education, the presiding magistrate of the county of Hanover, and a colonel of militia.

He defended the doctrine of eternal punishment, by a critical examination of the Greek text of the New Testament; and a clergyman said of him that he was more familiar with his Horace than with his Bible. Patrick went to a common English school till he was ten years old, when his father became his tutor, and he acquired a knowledge of Latin, mathematics, ancient and modern history, and something of Greek. He had also a careful religious training from his pious parents. This religious influence accompanied him through life, and led him to abstain from profanity and all youthful

excesses.

When he was about twelve years of age, the noted pulpit orator, Rev. Samuel Davies, later president of Princeton College, preached in Hanover County, and inspired in the boy a taste for oratory. Mr. Henry through life spoke of Dr. Davies as the greatest orator he ever heard. Few boys of the age of fifteen have better opportunities for an education than he had, or, so far as appears, made a better use of them. His father then placed him with a country merchant, that he might be trained in mercantile life, and after a year's experience set him and his brother up in business for themselves. At the age of eighteen he married, and the business enterprise turned out disastrously. He then tried farming; and that was equally unsuccessful. He was then twenty-four years old, and resolved to take up the profession of law. He borrowed a “Coke upon Littleton" and a "Digest of the Virginia Acts," which he read for six weeks, and then went to Williamsburg to be examined for admission to the bar. The board of examiners gave him a license with some reluctance, and evidently on other evidence of his ability than that of his knowledge of the law. He began practice in the autumn of 1760. His fee books, which were kept in a neat handwriting and in a methodical manner, have been preserved, and Mr. William Wirt Henry gives a facsimile page of them. During the first year of practice he entered the names of sixty clients, and charged 175 fees. In the first three years he charged fees in 1,185 suits, besides fees for advice and for preparing papers out of court. The fees were moderate, the cases being the ordinary business of the county courts. Mr. Jefferson, in writing to Mr. Wirt, admits that Mr. Henry's early practice at the bar was successful; but he accounts for it on the ground that it was "chiefly a criminal business. From these poor devils it was always understood that he squeezed exhorbitant fees of £50, £100, and

66

£200. From this source he made his great profits. His other business, exclusive of the criminal, would never, I am sure, pay the expenses of his attendance." This quotation occurs in a letter which Mr. Wirt did not use, and intended to suppress; but it was printed in Dawson's "Historical Magazine for August, 1867, page 90, with much other slander of a similar character. In the facsimile page printed there is no fee so high as twenty shillings. His powers over a jury," continues Mr. Jefferson in this letter, "were so irresistible that he received great fees for his services, and had the reputation of being insatiable in money. He purchased from Mr. Lomax the valuable estate on Smith's river, on long credit, and finally paid for it in depreciated paper not worth oak leaves." Mr. Wirt Henry shows that the last statement was false. The fee books also show that Patrick Henry's legal practice was far greater, from the first, than Mr. Jefferson's, as claimed by Mr. Randall, his biographer.

Early in the fourth year of Mr. Henry's practice (November, 1763), he was employed as counsel in the celebrated "Parsons' cause, in the trial of which his great power as an advocate was first brought to public notice. The Church of England was the established religion of Virginia, and its ecclesiastical system was more exacting and tyrannical than that of New England. The annual pay of the clergy was fixed by the statute of 1696 at 16,000 pounds of tobacco, to be levied by the several vestries on the parishes. On account of drouth and short crops, the price of tobacco increased, and in 1758 the House of Burgesses passed an act making it lawful for debtors to pay tobacco dues and taxes in money at the rate of two pence per pound. The clergy generally objected to the act, and petitioned the Bishop of London to use his influence with the King to annul it. The price of tobacco still further increased, as well as the discontent of the clergy; but the Assembly adhered to its statute, and a bitter controversy ensued, which resulted in several clergymen bringing actions in the courts against parish collectors. One was brought by Rev. Mr. Maury, in the county court of Hanover, over which Patrick Henry's father presided. The defendant pleaded the act of the Assembly, and the plaintiff demurred on the ground that the act had not been ratified by the King. The demurrer was sustained, and nothing was left to be done in the case except to ascertain the damages. The trial came

on with Patrick Henry as counsel for the defendant, his father on the bench, and his uncle, the Rev. Patrick Henry, an interested auditor. The only evidence introduced related to fixing the market price of tobacco, which was shown to be six pence per pound. The plaintiff's counsel stated to the jury that the decision of the court had narrowed the question down to the difference between two pence and six pence per pound on 16,000 pounds of tobacco. He deplored the existing popular feeling against the clergy, whom he eulogized for their charity and benevolence. Mr. Henry rose to reply with apparent embarrassment, and made a feeble exordium. The clergy exchanged sly looks with each other, and the people hung their heads. A change in his demeanor soon occurred, which his biographer thus describes:

"His attitude beame erect, his face lighted up, and his eyes flashed fire. His gestures became graceful and impressive, his voice and emphasis peculiarly charming. His appeals to the passions were overpowering. In the language of those who heard him, he made their blood run cold and their hair to stand on end.' In a word, to the astonishment of all, he suddenly burst upon them as an orator of the highest order."

His line of argument was wholly outside of the path marked out for him by the opposing counsel. He had not a word to say about tobacco or its value. He discussed the fundabacco or its value. mental principles of society and government. The latter was a conditional compact, with mutual and dependent covenants-the King stipulating protection on the one hand, and the people obedience and support on the other. A violation of those covenants by either party discharges the other from obligation. The necessities and distress of the people caused the enactment of the law of 1758, and it could not be annulled consistently with the compact between King and people. By such action the King, from being the father of his people, would degenerate into a tyrant, and forfeit all right to the obedience of his subjects. At this point the opposing counsel cried out, "The gentleman has spoken treason!" and the clergy repeated the word, "Treason! Treason!" Here was the keynote of the American Revolution, and nearly two years before the enactment of the Stamp Act. Henry then gave his attention to the clergy, and said:

"We have heard a good deal about the benevolence and holy zeal of our reverend clergy; but how is this manifested? Do they show their zeal in the cause of religion and humanity by practicing the mild and benevolent precepts of the gospel of Jesus? Do they

sical allusions which abound in this and his other impromptu orations, if he read no books and owned no books. "He never," wrote Mr. Jefferson, in conversation or debate, mentioned a hero, a worthy, or a fact in Greek or Roman history, but so vaguely and loosely as to leave room to back out. That he read Livy once a year is a known impossibility. He may have read it once, but certainly not twice." Such an instance of persistent, mean, and cowardly persecution as that with which Thomas Jefferson maligned the reputation of Patrick Henry after his death has no parallel in the annals of politics or literature. The grandson, however, in the life of his ancestor, makes very little comment on the fact, and from motives which will be readily understood. The parties were and are all Virginians, and they are loyal to the reputation of their state.

The opening signal of the Revolution was Mr. Henry's Virginia Resolutions. "The first act of any of the colonies against the authority of an act of Parliament," said Governor Hutchinson, "was in Virginia. Those resolves were expressed in such terms that many people, upon the first surprise, pronounced them treasonable"; and he states that James Otis publicly expressed this opinion on King street in Boston. Governor Bernard wrote: " The pub lishing of the Virginia resolutions proved an alarm-bell to the disaffected." Governor Gage wrote from New York: "The Virginia resolves gave the signal for a general outcry over the continent." Mr. Jefferson said: "Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the ball of the Revolution. Edmund Randolph said: "Mr. Henry plucked the veil from the shrine of parliamentary omnipotence." Edmund Burke, in his speech on American Taxation, said: “The Virginia Resolutions were the cause of the insurrections in Massachusetts and the other colonies." John Adams wrote thus to Mr. Henry, June 3, 1776, concerning his part in framing the constitution of Virginia: "I know of no one so competent to the task as the author of the first Virginia Resolutions against the Stamp Act, who will have the glory with posterity of beginning and concluding this great Revolution."

It is to be regretted that no full report of any speech of Mr. Henry is extant. Probably no one was ever delivered from manuscript,

and the reporter was not abroad in those days. The single speech by which his manner is best known was made up by Mr. Wirt, chiefly from the recollections of Judges John Tyler

and St. George Tucker. It was delivered in the Virginia Assembly, March 23, 1775, on the question of arming the Colony. It begins, "It is natural for man to indulge in illusions of hope "- every man and boy in the land knows it by heart and has declaimed it. It will be seen that it antedated by nearly a month the battle of Lexington; and yet, with the ken of a prophet, Henry said, "The next gale which sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. How these words, passing from one to another, must have stirred the colonies! "We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left us!" When this speech was first printed, in 1817, persons were living who heard it delivered, and they testified to the accuracy of the report.

George Mason, whose Life and Writings have recently appeared, knew Patrick Henry well, socially and in public life, and wrote of him thus, in 1774:

66

He was by far the most powerful speaker I ever heard. Every word he says not only engages but commands the attention; and your passions are no longer your own when he addresses them. But his eloquence is the smallest part of his merit. He is, in my opinion, the first man upon this continent, as well in abilities as in public virtues; and had he lived in Rome about the time of the first Punic war, Mr. Henry's talents must have put him at the head of that glorious commonwealth."

The

Virginia made Mr. Henry its first governor, and reëlected him to five subsequent terms. The sixth he declined after he had been elected. His official correspondence during these years is printed in the volumes before us, and it refutes the slander of Mr. Jefferson, that he could not write, was no man of business, and had no accuracy of idea in his head. speeches printed are the shorthand reports of June, 1788, convened to consider the ratificahis remarks in the Virginia convention of tion of the Federal Constitution. They are abstract, not verbatim, reports, and were not the substance of his remarks, but the precise revised by their author. They probably give words and the charm of his style are wanting.

No praise of Mr. William Wirt Henry's scholarly and impartial study of the subject, and of his simple and graceful style of writing the narrative, can be deemed extravagant. It is an easy and delightful work to read, and the author has placed the student of American history under lasting obligations to him.

W. F. POOLE.