STEADY WORK
From the close of Patrick Henry's first term in the Virginia House of
Burgesses, in the spring of 1765, to the opening of his first term in
the Continental Congress, in the fall of 1774, there stretches a
period of about nine years, which, for the purposes of our present
study, may be rapidly glanced at and passed by.
In general, it may be described as a period during which he had
settled down to steady work, both as a lawyer and as a politician. The
first five years of his professional life had witnessed his advance,
as we have seen, by strides which only genius can make, from great
obscurity to great distinction; his advance from a condition of
universal failure to one of success so universal that his career may
be said to have become within that brief period solidly established.
At the bar, upon the hustings, in the legislature, as a master of
policies, as a leader of men, he had already proved himself to be, of
his kind, without a peer in all the colony of Virginia,--a colony
which was then the prolific mother of great men. With him, therefore,
the period of training and of tentative struggle had passed: the
period now entered upon was one of recognized mastership and of
assured performance, along lines certified by victories that came
gayly, and apparently at his slightest call.
We note, at the beginning of this period, an event indicating
substantial prosperity in his life: he acquires the visible dignity of
a country-seat. Down to the end of 1763, and probably even to the
summer of 1765, he had continued to live in the neighborhood of
Hanover Court House. After coming back from his first term of service
in the House of Burgesses, where he had sat as member for the county
of Louisa, he removed his residence into that county, and established
himself there upon an estate called Roundabout, purchased by him of
his father. In 1768 he returned to Hanover, and in 1771 he bought a
place in that county called Scotch Town, which continued to be his
seat until shortly after the Declaration of Independence, when, having
become governor of the new State of Virginia, he took up his residence
at Williamsburg, in the palace long occupied by the official
representatives of royalty.
For the practice of his profession, the earlier portion of this period
was perhaps not altogether unfavorable. The political questions then
in debate were, indeed, exciting, but they had not quite reached the
ultimate issue, and did not yet demand from him the complete surrender
of his life. Those years seem to have been marked by great
professional activity on his part, and by considerable growth in his
reputation, even for the higher and more difficult work of the law. Of
course, as the vast controversy between the colonists and Great
Britain grew in violence, all controversies between one colonist and
another began to seem petty, and to be postponed; even the courts
ceased to meet with much regularity, and finally ceased to meet at
all; while Patrick Henry himself, forsaking his private concerns,
became entirely absorbed in the concerns of the public.
The fluctuations in his engagements as a lawyer, during all these
years, may be traced with some certainty by the entries in his
fee-books. For the year 1765, he charges fees in 547 cases; for 1766,
in 114 cases; for 1767, in 554 cases; for 1768, in 354 cases. With the
next year there begins a great falling off in the number of his cases;
and the decline continues till 1774, when, in the convulsions of the
time, his practice stops altogether. Thus, for 1769, there are
registered 132 cases; for 1770, 94 cases; for 1771, 102 cases; for
1772, 43 cases; for 1773, 7 cases; and for 1774, none.[90]
The character of the professional work done by him during this period
deserves a moment's consideration. Prior to 1769, he had limited
himself to practice in the courts of the several counties. In that
year he began to practice in the general court,--the highest court in
the colony,--where of course were tried the most important and
difficult causes, and where thenceforward he had constantly to
encounter the most learned and acute lawyers at the bar, including
such men as Pendleton, Wythe, Blair, Mercer, John Randolph, Thompson
Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert C. Nicholas.[91]
There could never have been any doubt of his supreme competency to
deal with such criminal causes as he had to manage in that court or in
any other; and with respect to the conduct of other than criminal
causes, all purely contemporaneous evidence, now to be had, implies
that he had not ventured to present himself before the higher
tribunals of the land until he had qualified himself to bear his part
there with success and honor. Thus, the instance may be mentioned of
his appearing in the Court of Admiralty, "in behalf of a Spanish
captain, whose vessel and cargo had been libeled. A gentleman who was
present, and who was very well qualified to judge, was heard to
declare, after the trial was over, that he never heard a more eloquent
or argumentative speech in his life; that Mr. Henry was on that
occasion greatly superior to Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Mason, or any other
counsel who spoke to the subject; and that he was astonished how Mr.
Henry could have acquired such a knowledge of the maritime law, to
which it was believed he had never before turned his attention."[92]
Moreover, in 1771, just two years from the time when Patrick Henry
began practice in the General Court, Robert C. Nicholas, then a
veteran member of the profession, "who had enjoyed the first practice
at the bar," had occasion to retire, and began looking about among the
younger men for some competent lawyer to whom he might safely intrust
the unfinished business of his clients. He first offered his practice
to Thomas Jefferson, who, however, was compelled to decline it.
Afterward, he offered it to Patrick Henry, who accepted it; and
accordingly, by public advertisement, Nicholas informed his clients
that he had committed to Patrick Henry the further protection of their
interests,[93]--a perfectly conclusive proof, it should seem, of the
real respect in which Patrick Henry's qualifications as a lawyer were
then held, not only by the public but by the profession. Certainly
such evidence as this can hardly be set aside by the supposed
recollections of one old gentleman, of broken memory and unbroken
resentment, who long afterward tried to convince Wirt that, even at
the period now in question, Patrick Henry was "wofully deficient as a
lawyer," was unable to contend with his associates "on a mere question
of law," and was "so little acquainted with the fundamental principles
of his profession ... as not to be able to see the remote bearings of
the reported cases."[94] The expressions here quoted are, apparently,
Wirt's own paraphrase of the statements which were made to him by
Jefferson, and which, in many of their details, can now be proved, on
documentary evidence, to be the work of a hand that had forgot, not
indeed its cunning, but at any rate its accuracy.
As to the political history of Patrick Henry during this period, it
may be easily described. The doctrine on which he had planted himself
by his resolutions in 1765, namely, that the parliamentary taxation of
unrepresented colonies is unconstitutional, became the avowed doctrine
of Virginia, and of all her sister colonies; and nearly all the men
who, in the House of Burgesses, had, for reasons of propriety, or of
expediency, or of personal feeling, opposed the passage of his
resolutions, soon took pains to make it known to their constituents
that their opposition had not been to the principle which those
resolutions expressed. Thenceforward, among the leaders in Virginian
politics, there was no real disagreement on the fundamental question;
only such disagreement touching methods as must always occur between
spirits who are cautious and spirits who are bold. Chief among the
former were Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Peyton Randolph, and Nicholas. In
the van of the latter always stood Patrick Henry, and with him
Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, the Pages, and George Mason. But between
the two groups, after all, was surprising harmony, which is thus
explained by one who in all that business had a great part and who
never was a laggard:--
"Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among
our constituents, although we often wished to have gone
faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent
colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part,
differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait
somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself
have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which
breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold
with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in
undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than,
perhaps, existed in any other part of the union."[95]
All deprecated a quarrel with Great Britain; all deprecated as a
boundless calamity the possible issue of independence; all desired to
remain in loyal, free, and honorable connection with the British
empire; and against the impending danger of an assault upon the
freedom, and consequently the honor, of this connection, all stood on
guard.
One result, however, of this practical unanimity among the leaders in
Virginia was the absence, during all this period, of those impassioned
and dramatic conflicts in debate, which would have called forth
historic exhibitions of Patrick Henry's eloquence and of his gifts for
conduct and command. He had a leading part in all the counsels of the
time; he was sent to every session of the House of Burgesses; he was
at the front in all local committees and conventions; he was made a
member of the first Committee of Correspondence; and all these
incidents in this portion of his life culminated in his mission as one
of the deputies from Virginia to the first Continental Congress.
Without here going into the familiar story of the occasion and
purposes of the Congress of 1774, we may briefly indicate Patrick
Henry's relation to the events in Virginia which immediately preceded
his appointment to that renowned assemblage. On the 24th of May, 1774,
the House of Burgesses, having received the alarming news of the
passage of the Boston Port Bill, designated the day on which that bill
was to take effect--the first day of June--"as a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition
for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our
civil rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and one
mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to
American rights; and that the minds of his majesty and his parliament
may be inspired from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice, to
remove from the loyal people of America all cause of danger, from a
continued pursuit of measures pregnant with their ruin."[96] Two days
afterward, the governor, Lord Dunmore, having summoned the House to
the council chamber, made to them this little speech:--
"Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, I have
in my hand a paper published by order of your House,
conceived in such terms as reflect highly upon his majesty
and the Parliament of Great Britain, which makes it
necessary for me to dissolve you, and you are dissolved
accordingly."[97]
At ten o'clock on the following day, May 27, the members of the late
House met by agreement at the Raleigh Tavern, and there promptly
passed a nobly-worded resolution, deploring the policy pursued by
Parliament and suggesting the establishment of an annual congress of
all the colonies, "to deliberate on those general measures which the
united interests of America may from time to time require."[98]
During the anxious days and nights immediately preceding the
dissolution of the House, its prominent members held many private
conferences with respect to the course to be pursued by Virginia. In
all these conferences, as we are told, "Patrick Henry was the
leader;"[99] and a very able man, George Mason, who was just then a
visitor at Williamsburg, and was admitted to the consultations of the
chiefs, wrote at the time concerning him: "He is by far the most
powerful speaker I ever heard.... 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 public virtues."[100]
In response to a recommendation made by leading members of the recent
House of Burgesses, a convention of delegates from the several
counties of Virginia assembled at Williamsburg, on August 1, 1774, to
deal with the needs of the hour, and especially to appoint deputies to
the proposed congress at Philadelphia. The spirit in which this
convention transacted its business is sufficiently shown in the
opening paragraphs of the letter of instructions which it gave to the
deputies whom it sent to the congress:--
"The unhappy disputes between Great Britain and her American
colonies, which began about the third year of the reign of
his present majesty, and since, continually increasing, have
proceeded to lengths so dangerous and alarming as to excite
just apprehensions in the minds of his majesty's faithful
subjects of this colony that they are in danger of being
deprived of their natural, ancient, constitutional, and
chartered rights, have compelled them to take the same into
their most serious consideration; and being deprived of
their usual and accustomed mode of making known their
grievances, have appointed us their representatives, to
consider what is proper to be done in this dangerous crisis
of American affairs.
"It being our opinion that the united wisdom of North
America should be collected in a general congress of all the
colonies, we have appointed the honorable Peyton Randolph,
Esquire, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick
Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund
Pendleton, Esquires, deputies to represent this colony in
the said congress, to be held at Philadelphia on the first
Monday in September next. And that they may be the better
informed of our sentiments touching the conduct we wish them
to observe on this important occasion, we desire that they
will express, in the first place, our faith and true
allegiance to his majesty King George the Third, our lawful
and rightful sovereign; and that we are determined, with our
lives and fortunes, to support him in the legal exercise of
all his just rights and prerogatives; and however
misrepresented, we sincerely approve of a constitutional
connection with Great Britain, and wish most ardently a
return of that intercourse of affection and commercial
connection that formerly united both countries; which can
only be effected by a removal of those causes of discontent
which have of late unhappily divided us.... The power
assumed by the British Parliament to bind America by their
statutes, in all cases whatsoever, is unconstitutional, and
the source of these unhappy differences."[101]
The convention at Williamsburg, of which, of course, Patrick Henry was
a member, seems to have adjourned on Saturday, the 6th of August.
Between that date and the time for his departure to attend the
congress at Philadelphia, we may imagine him as busily engaged in
arranging his affairs for a long absence from home, and even then as
not getting ready to begin the long journey until many of his
associates had nearly reached the end of it.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] MS.
[91] Wirt, 70, 71.
[92] Wirt, 71, 72.
[93] Randall, _Life of Jefferson_, i. 49; Wirt, 77.
[94] Wirt, 71.
[95] Jefferson's _Works_, vi. 368.
[96] 4 _Am. Arch._ i. 350.
[97] Campbell, _Hist. Va._ 573.
[98] 4 _Am. Arch._ i. 350, 351. The narrative of these events as given
by Wirt and by Campbell has several errors. They seem to have been
misled by Jefferson, who, in his account of the business (_Works_, i.
122, 123), is, if possible, rather more inaccurate than usual.
[99] Campbell, _Hist. Va._ 573.
[100] Mason to Martin Cockburn, _Va. Hist. Reg._ iii. 27-29.
[101] The full text of this letter of instructions is given in 4 _Am.
Arch._ i. 689, 690. With this should be compared note C. in
Jefferson's _Works_, i. 122-142.