Part 20 (1/2)

Then, by all accounts, itnessed a display of the locorave and potent senators, such as this world has not often exhibited Of this tragically coatesmention For Monday, June 4, its chief entry is as follows: ”There being reason to apprehend an immediate incursion of the enemy's cavalry to this place, which renders it indispensable that the General assereater security; resolved, that this House be adjourned until Thursday next, then to usta,”--a town thirty-nine miles farther west, beyond a chain of mountains, and only to be reached by theh difficult passes in the Blue Ridge The next entry in the journal is dated at Staunton, on the 7th of June, and, very properly, is merely a prosaic and business-like record of the reasse to the adjourns that happened in that interval of panic and of scraht, popular tradition has not been equally forbearing; and while the anecdotes upon that subject, which have descended to our tieration and of ht framework of truth, and do really portray for us the actual beliefs ofa nu some of the less celebrated traits of those men For example, it is related that on the sudden adjournment of the House, caused by this dusty and breathless apparition of the speedful Jouette, and his laconic intih somewhat accusto, but went at once,--taking first to their horses, and then to the woods; and that, breaking up into sitives, they thus h the passes of theto the much-desired seclusion of Staunton One of these parties consisted of Benjamin Harrison, Colonel William Christian, John Tyler, and Patrick Henry

Late in the day, tired and hungry, they stopped their horses at the door of a se of the hills, and asked for food An old woman, who came to the door, and as alone in the house, demanded of them who they were, and where they were from Patrick Henry, who acted as spokesislature, and have just been compelled to leave Charlottesville on account of the approach of the enereat wrath; ”here have ht for ye, and you running aith all yourhere” ”But,” rejoined Mr Henry, in an expostulating tone, ”ere obliged to fly It would not do for the legislature to be broken up by the enemy Here is Mr Speaker Harrison; you don't think he would have fled had it not been necessary?” ”I always thought a great deal of Mr

Harrison till now,” answered the old woman; ”but he'd no business to run from the enemy,” and she was about to shut the door in their faces ”Wait a ed Mr Henry; ”you would hardly believe that Mr Tyler or Colonel Christian would take to flight if there were not good cause for so doing?” ”No, indeed, that I wouldn't,” she replied ”But,” exclaimed he, ”Mr Tyler and Colonel Christian are here” ”They here? Well, I never would have thought it;”

and she stood for a moentlemen, and I didn't suppose they would ever run away fro to eat in ” In this desperate situation Mr

Tyler then stepped forward and said, ”What would you say, ood woman, if I were to tell you that Patrick Henry fled with the rest of us?” ”Patrick Henry! I should tell you there wasn't a word of truth in it,” she answered angrily; ”Patrick Henry would never do such a cowardly thing” ”But this is Patrick Henry,” said Mr Tyler, pointing to him The old woman was amazed; but after some reflection, and with a convulsive twitch or two at her apron string, she said, ”Well, then, if that's Patrick Henry, it ht Come in, and ye shall have the best I have in the house”[325]

The pitiless tongue of tradition does not stop here, but proceeds to narrate other alleged experiences of this our noble, though somewhat disconcerted, Patrick Arrived at last in Staunton, and walking through its reassuring streets, he is said to have met one Colonel William Lewis, to whom the face of the orator was then unknown; and to have told to this stranger the story of the flight of the legislature from Albemarle ”If Patrick Henry had been in Albeoons never would have passed over the Rivanna River”[326]

The tongue of tradition, at last grown quite reckless, perhaps, of its own credit, still further relates that even at Staunton these illustrious fugitives did not feel entirely sure that they were beyond the reach of Tarleton's hts after their arrival there, as the story runs, upon so fro on their clothes, fled out of the town, and took refuge at the plantation of one Colonel George Moffett, near which, they had been told, was a cave in which they ht the h not knowing the nainian hospitality: but the next , at breakfast, she islature who certainly would not have run from the enemy ”Who is he?” was then asked Her reply was, ”Patrick Henry” At that entleman of the party, himself possessed of but one boot, was observed to blush considerably Furtherislators departed in search of the cave; shortly after which a negro fro in his hand a solitary boot, and inquiring earnestly for Patrick Henry In that way, as the modern reporter of this very debatable tradition unkindly adds, the ad Mrs Moffett ascertained who it was that the boot fitted; and he further suggests that, whatever Mrs Moffett's emotions were at that time, those of Patrick must have been, ”Giveby these whi on the 7th of June entered upon its work at Staunton, steadily continued it there until the 23d of the ain in the following October Governor Jefferson, whose second year of office had expired two days before the flight of hiislature from Charlottesville, did not accompany that body to Staunton, but pursued his oay to Poplar Forest and to Bedford, where, ”re the remainder of its session On the 12th of June, Thomas Nelson was elected as his successor in office[329]

It was during this period of confusion and terror that, as Jefferson alleges, the legislature once more had before it the project of a dictator, in the criminal sense of that word; and, upon Jefferson's private authority, both Wirt and Girardin long afterward naate honor[330] We need not here repeat as said, in our narrative of the closing weeks of 1776, concerning this terrible posthumous imputation upon the public and private character of Patrick Henry Nearly everything which then appeared to the discredit of this charge in connection with the earlier date, is equally applicable to it in connection with the later date also Moreover, as regards this later date, there has recently been discovered a piece of contemporaneous testimony which shows that, whatever inia in 1781, it was a great military chieftain anted for the position; and, apparently, that Patrick Henry was not then even mentioned in the affair On the 9th of June, 1781, Captain H Young, though not a ates, writes froo, Mr Nicholas gave notice that he should this day ton and General Greene are talked of I dare say your knowledge of these worthy gentlemen will be sufficient to convince you that neither of theht to, accept of such an appointates; but they are zealous, I think, in the cause of virtue”[331] Furthermore, the journal of that House contains no record of any suchbeen made; and it is probable that it never was islature in any such form as to call for its notice

Finally, with respect to both the dates mentioned by Jefferson for the appearance of the scheme, Edmund Randolph has left explicit testimony to the effect that such a scheme never had any substantial existence at all: ”Mr Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, speaks with great bitterness against those members of the assembly in the years 1776 and 1781, who espoused the erection of a dictator Co from such authority, the invective infects the character of the legislature, notwithstanding he has restricted the charge to less than a ed the spotlessness of most of them The subject was never before theence, and even then not in a forainst this unfettered monster, which deserved all the impassioned reprobation of Mr Jefferson, their tones, it may be affirmed, would have been loud and treislature did not reach an organization until the 19th of Noveht days after the organization of the House, Patrick Henry took his seat;[333] and after a service of less than four weeks, he obtained leave of absence for the re 1782 his attendance upon the House seeanization of the House, on the 12th of May, 1783, he was in his place again, and during that session, as well as the autumnal one, his attendance was close and laborious At both sessions of the House in 1784 he was present and in full force; but in the very midst of these eovernor, on the 17th of November,--shortly after which, he withdrew to his country-seat in order to remove his family thence to the capital

In the course of all these labors in the legislature, and amid a multitude of topics merely local and temporary, Patrick Henry had occasion to deal publicly, and under the peculiar responsibilities of leadershi+p, with nearly all the most important and difficult questions that ca the later years of the war and the earlier years of the peace The journal of the House for that period oh it does occasionally enable us to ascertain on which side of certain questions Patrick Henry stood, it leaves us in total ignorance of his reasons for any position which he chose to take In trying, therefore, to esti with these questions, we lack a part of the evidence which is essential to any just conclusion; and we are left peculiarly at thecensures which have been occasionally applied to his political conduct during that period[335]

On the assurance of peace, in the spring of 1783, perhaps the earliest and the knottiest proble to that vast body of Americans who then bore the contuainst all loss and ignominy, had steadily re in their rejection of the constitutional heresy of As--the defeated party in a long and most rancorous civil war--be treated by the party which was at last victorious? Many of them were already in exile: should they be kept there? Many were still in this country: should they be banished fro against the Tories was, at that time, so universal and so fierce that no statesman could then lift up his voice in their favor without dashi+ng hiriest currents of popular opinion and passion, and risking the loss of the public favor toward himself Nevertheless, precisely this is what Patrick Henry had the courage to do While the war lasted, no ainst the Tories reat purpose secured, noperhaps Alexander Ha that all animosities of the war should be laid aside, and that a policy ofthese baffled opponents of American independence

It was in this spirit that, as soon as possible after the cessation of hostilities, he introduced a bill for the repeal of an act ”to prohibit intercourse with, and the ade well understood to refer to the Tories

This measure, we are told, not only excited surprise, but ”was, at first, received with a repugnance apparently insuperable” Even his intimate friend John Tyler, the speaker of the House, hotly resisted it in the cou to Patrick Henry, asked ”how he, above all otherinto his family an enemy from whose insults and injuries he had suffered so severely?”

In reply to this appeal, Patrick Henry declared that the question before the; that it was a national question; and that in discussing it they should be willing to sacrifice all personal resents He then proceeded to unfold the proposition that Areat nation--except people

”Your great want, sir, is the want of men; and these you must have, and will have speedily, if you are wise Do you ask how you are to get them? Open your doors, sir, and they will co; that population is ground, too, by the oppressions of the govern on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your coasts with a wishful and longing eye But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Britain, and particularly to the return of the British refugees Sir, I feel no objection to the return of those deluded people They have, to be sure, mistaken their own interests most wofully, and most wofully have they suffered the punishment due to their offences But the relations which we bear to the hath acknowledged our independence The quarrel is over Peace hath returned, and found us a free people Let us have the nanimity, sir, to lay aside our antipathies and prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light Those are an enterprising,off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us with necessaries during the infant state of our manufactures Even if they be ini and principle, I can see no objection, in a political view, in e And, as I have no prejudices to preventthis use of them, so, sir, I have no fear of any mischief that they can do us Afraid of the to one of his loftiest attitudes, and assun contempt], shall ho have laid the proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps?”[337]

In the same spirit he dealt with the restraints on British co the war,--a question similar to the one just mentioned, at least in this particular, that it was enveloped in the angry prejudices born of the conflict just ended The journal for the 13th of May, 1783, has this entry: ”Mr Henry presented, according to order, a bill 'to repeal the several Acts of asseoods found on land;' and the same was received and read the first ti this measure, he seems to have lifted the discussion clear above all petty considerations to the plane of high and peronists in that debate, to have uments that were ”beyond all expression eloquent and subli the embarrassments and distresses of the situation and their causes, he took the ground that perfect freedoor of coor of citizenshi+p ”Why should we fetter commerce? If a man is in chains, he droops and bows to the earth, for his spirits are broken; but let his, and he will stand erect Fetter not coe the whole creation, and return on the wings of the four winds of heaven, to bless the land with plenty”[338]

Besides these and other problen relations of the country, there remained, of course, at the end of the war, several vast dorapple with,--one of these being the relations of the white race to their perpetual neighbors, the Indians In the autumn session of 1784, in a series of efforts said to have been marked by ”irresistible earnestness and eloquence,” he secured the favorable attention of the House to this ancient proble and statesht, had been commonly treated by the superior race in a spirit not onlynearly two centuries of hter At last the time had come for the superior race to put an end to this traditional disaster and disgrace Instead of ta with the difficulty by re at the root of it, naence in sympathy and in interest between the two races There was but one way in which to do this: it was for the white race to treat the Indians, consistently, as hus, and as fast as possible to identify their interests with our own along the entire range of personal concerns,--in property, government, society, and, especially, in doe, by a systee betweenthat such ties, once fore of radually lead to the transformation of the Indians into a civilized and Christian people His bill for this purpose, elaborately drawn up, was carried through its second reading and ”engrossed for its final passage,” when, by his sudden reovernor's chair, thecha, it fell a sacrifice to the Caucasian rage and scorn of thethis period of service in the legislature Patrick Henry ainst public opinion, and jeoparded his popularity, on two or three other subjects For exarily opposed to the old connection between church and state that they occasionally saw danger even in projects which in no way involved such a connection

This was the case with Patrick Henry's necessary and most innocent measure ”for the incorporation of all societies of the Christian religion which may apply for the say of the Episcopal Church; and, finally, hisall citizens of the State to contribute to the expense of supporting so to their own preference

Whether, in these several , at least, is obvious: no politician who could thus beard in his very den the lion of public opinion can be accurately described as a deifts of speech by which, in the House of Delegates, he thus repeatedly swept all opposition out of his way, and made people think as he wished them to do, often in the very teeth of their own i instance was mentioned,the war Virginia had paid her soldiers in certificates for the amounts due them, to be redeemed in cash at some future time

In many cases, the poverty of the soldiers had induced the sums in readya traffic out of the public distress For the purpose of checking this cruel and harht forward a suitable bill, which, as he told the story, Patrick Henry supported with an eloquence so irresistible that it was carried through the House without an opposing vote; while a notorious speculator in these very certificates, having listened froallery to Patrick Henry's speech, at its conclusion so far forgot his own interest in the question as to exclai his appearance and his manner of speech in those days, a bit of testimony comes down to us from Spencer Roane, who, as he tells us, first ”met with Patrick Henry in the assembly of 1783” He adds:--

”I also then ed with Lee one or two sessions, and was perfectly acquainted with hientleates, and were al ed to vote with P H

against hiainst Madison in '84,but with several iainst hiees,--he was for pereneral assess the Episcopal Church

I voted with hiht, a more practical statesman than Madison (time has made Madison more practical), and a less selfish one than Lee As an orator, Mr Henry demolished Madison with as much ease as Samson did the cords that bound hireater coentleood; and he had lost the use of one of his hands; but his e was always chaste, and, although so; yet he did not ravish your senses, nor carry away your judgment by storm Henry was almost always victorious He was as much superior to Lee in temper as in eloquence

Mr Henry was inferior to Lee in the gracefulness of his action, and perhaps also in the chasteness of his language; yet his language was seldo He had a fine blue eye; and an earnest manner whichwas unequal, and always rose with the subject and the exigency In this respect, he entirely differed from Mr