Part 3 (1/2)

”on the courtyard such a concourse as would have appalled any other man in his situation They were not people of the county merely ere there, but visitors from all the counties to a considerable distance around The decision upon the de the people, and equal exultation on the part of the clergy, who attended the court in a large body, either to look down opposition, or to enjoy the final triuht contest, which they now considered as perfectly secure Soon after the opening of the court the cause was called The array before Mr Henry's eyes was now ymen, the most learned men in the colony The courthouse was croith an overwhel , who, not finding roo to listen without in the deepest attention But there was so than all this; for in the chair of the presiding istrate sat no other person than his own father Mr Lyons opened the cause very briefly And now cath No one had ever heard him speak,[53] and curiosity was on tiptoe

He rose very aardly, and falteredtheir heads at so unproe sly looks with each other; and his father is described as having als were of short duration, and soon gave place to others of a very different character For noere those wonderful faculties which he possessed, for the first time developed; and noas first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in hilow from its own action, all the exuviae of the clown seerees, becaenius awakened all his features His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited There was a lightning in his eyes which seeraceful, bold, and co; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his eic, of which any one who ever heard hiive any adequate description They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart, in a e cannot tell Add to all these, his wonder-working fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its ies: for he painted to the heart with a force that ale of those who heard him on this occasion, 'he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end'

”It will not be difficult for any one who ever heard this most extraordinary man, to believe the whole account of this transaction which is given by his surviving hearers; and from their account, the court house of Hanover County must have exhibited, on this occasion, a scene as picturesque as has been ever witnessed in real life They say that the people, whose countenance had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up; then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses; then, attracted by soesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the char expression of his countenance, they could look away no ht be seen in every part of the house, on every bench, in every , stooping forward from their stands, in death-like silence; their features fixed in a and riveted upon the speaker, as if to catch the least strain of soy was soon turned into alarm; their triumph into confusion and despair; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhel invective, they fled from the house in precipitation and terror As for the father, such was his surprise, such his a where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstasy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them

”The jury seeht not only of the Act of 1748, but that of 1758 also; for, thoughtless even of the adht of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar, when they returned with a verdict of one penny daes A motion was made for a new trial; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled thethe motion were followed by redoubled acclamations, from within and without the house The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their chaue, no sooner saw the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar; and in spite of his own exertions, and the continued cry of order from the sheriffs and the court, they bore hi him on their shoulders, carried hi triumph”[54]

At the time when Wirt wrote this rhapsody, he was unable, as he tells us, to procure froule topic alluded to by him in the course of his speech,--they who heard the speech saying ”that when it was over, they felt as if they had just awaked from some ecstatic dream, of which they were unable to recall or connect the particulars”[55]

There was present in that asse orator without falling into an ecstatic dreah it all that he was able, a few days afterward, while the whole occasion was fresh in his memory, to place upon record a clear and connected version of the wonder-working speech This version is to be found in a letter written by the plaintiff on the 12th of Deceht only within recent years

After giving, for the benefit of the learned counsel by whoeneral court, a lucid and rather critical account of the whole proceeding, Maury adds:--

”One occurrence h not essential to the cause, I can't helpMr Henry, mentioned above (who had been called in by the defendants, as we suspected, to do what I soo told you of), after Mr Lyons had opened the cause, rose and harangued the jury for near an hour This harangue turned upon points as much out of his own depth, and that of the jury, as they were foreign from the purpose,--which it would be impertinent to mention here

However, after he had discussed those points, he labored to prove 'that the Act of 1758 had every characteristic of a good law; that it was a law of general utility, and could not, consistently hat he called the original co and peoplebe annulled' Hence he inferred, 'that a king, by disallowing acts of this salutary nature, froenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects'

obedience' He further urged 'that the only use of an established church and clergy in society, is to enforce obedience to civil sanctions, and the observance of those which are called duties of iy ceases to answer these ends, the community have no further need of their ministry, and y of Virginia, in this particular instance of their refusing to acquiesce in the law in question, had been so far fro, that they had reat ends of their institution; that, therefore, instead of useful ht to be considered as enemies of the community; and that, in the case now before them, Mr Maury, instead of countenance, and protection, and danal severity' And then he perorates to the following purpose, 'that excepting they (the jury) were disposed to rivet the chains of bondage on their own necks, he hoped they would not let slip the opportunity which now offered, of ht, hereafter, be a warning to himself and his brethren, not to have the temerity, for the future, to dispute the validity of such laws, authenticated by the only authority which, in his conception, could give force to laws for the governal representative of a council, and of a kind and benevolent and patriot governor' You'll observe I do not pretend to remember his words, but take this to have been the sum and substance of this part of his labored oration When he came to that part of it where he undertook to assert 'that a king, by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, froenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects'

obedience,' the more sober part of the audience were struck with horror Mr Lyons called out aloud, and with an honest warentleman had spoken treason,' and expressed his astonishment, 'that their worshi+ps could hear it without emotion, or any st soentlemen in the crowd behind me, was a confused murmur of 'treason, treason!' Yet Mr Henry went on in the same treasonable and licentious strain, without interruption fro the least exterior notice of their disapprobation One of the jury, too, was so highly pleased with these doctrines, that, as I was afterwards told, he every now and then gave the traitorous declaimer a nod of approbation After the court was adjourned, he apologized to ing in the cause, and in saying what he had, was to render himself popular You see, then, it is so clear a point in this person's opinion that the ready road to popularity here is to trahts of the church, and the prerogatives of the crown”[56]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 12

[34] Perry, _Hist Coll_ 316, 317

[35] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vi 88, 89

[36] _Ibid_ vi 568, 569

[37] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 508, 509

[38] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vii 240, 241

[39] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 467, 468

[40] As was alleged in Richard Bland's _Letter to the Clergy_, 17

[41] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 467

[42] _Ibid_ i 466