ment of peace, Hook, under the advice of Mr. Cowan, a gentleman of some distinction in the law, thought proper to bring an action of trespass against Mr. Venable, in the district court of New London. Mr. Henry appeared for the defendant, and is said to have disported himself in this cause to the infinite enjoyment of his hearers, the unfortunate Hook always excepted. After Mr. Henry became animated in the cause, says a correspondent, (Judge Stuart,) he appeared to have complete control over the passions of his audience: at one time he excited their indignation against Hook: vengeance was visible in every countenance: again when he chose to relax and ridicule him, the whole audience was in a roar of laughter.

He painted the distress of the American army, exposed almost naked to the rigour of a winter's sky, and marking the frozen ground over which they marched, with the blood of their unshod feet-" where was the man," he said, "who had an American heart in his bosom, who would not have thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to have received with open arms, the meanest soldier in that little band of famished patriots? Where is the man?-There he stands-but whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge."

He then carried the jury, by the powers of his imagination, to the plains around York, the surrender of which had followed shortly after the act complained of: he depicted the surrender in the most glowing and noble colours of his eloquencethe audience saw before their eyes the humiliation and dejection of the British, as they marched out of their trenchesthey saw the triumph which lighted up every patriot face, and heard the shouts of victory, and the cry of Washington and liberty as it rung and echoed through the American rank, and was reverberated from the hills and shores of the neighbouring river-"but hark! what notes of discord are these which disturb the general joy, and silence the acclamations of victorythey are the notes of John Hook, hoarsely brawling through the American camp, beef! beef! beef!"

The whole audience were convulsed: a particular incident will give a better idea of the effect, than any general description. The clerk of the court, unable to command himself, and unwilling to commit any breach of decorum in his place, rushed out of the courthouse, and threw himself on the grass, in the most violent paroxysm of laughter, where he was rolling, when Hook, with very different feelings, came out for relief into the yard also. Jemmy Steptoe," said he to the clerk, "what the devil ails ye, mon?" Mr. Steptoe was only able to say, that he could not help it. "Never mind ye," said Hook,

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"wait till Billy Cowan gets up he'll show him the la'." Mr. Cowan, however, was so completely overwhelmned by the torrent which bore upon his client, that when he rose to reply to Mr. Henry, he was scarcely able to make an intelligible or audible remark.

The cause was decided almost by acclamation.. The jury retired for form sake, and instantly returned with a verdict for the defendant. Nor did the effect of Mr. Henry's speech stop here. The people were so highly excited by the tory audacity of such a suit, that Hook began to hear around him a cry more terrible than that of beef; it was the cry of tar and feathers: from the application of which it is said, that nothing saved him but a precipitate flight and the speed of his horse.

I have not attempted, in the course of these sketches, to follow Mr. Henry through his professional career. I have no materials to justify such an attempt. It has been, indeed, stated to me in general, that he appeared in such and such a case, and that he shone with great lustre; but neither his speeches in those cases, nor any point of his argument, nor even any brilliant passage has been communicated, so that the sketch that could be given of them must be either confined to a meager catalogue of the causes, or the canvass must be filled up by my own fancy, which would at once be an act of injustice to Mr. Henry, and a departure from that historical veracity, which it has been my anxious study in every instance to ob

serve.

I have been told, for example, that in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-four, Mr. Henry appeared at the bar of the general court, in defence of a married man by the name of Henry Bullard, indicted for the murder of a beautiful girl, who lived in his house, to whom he had unfortunately become attached, and whom in a moment of frantic despair, he sacrificed to his hopeless passion. The defence is said to have been placed on the ground of insanity; and it is easy to conceive, in general the figure which Mr. Henry must have made in such a course. Those pathetic powers of eloquence, in which he was so pre-eminently great, had ample scope for their exercise in this case; and we can credit, without difficulty, the assertion, that he deluged the house with tears, and effected the acquittal of his client. But this is all that we know of the case.

*If this is the case of Henry Bullard, who was indicted at the April term of seventeen hundred and seventy-four, for the murder of Mary Pinner, this honour claimed by my correspondent for Mr. Henry, is not due; for the records of the general court show, that the indictment, although originally drawn for the charge of murder, was reduced to manslaughter by the grand jury; of which offence the prisoner was convicted. There is, probably, some mistake in the name.

So also I learn that, on the same occasion after the war, he appeared at the bar of the house of delegates, in support of a petition of the officers of the Virginia line, who sought to be placed on the footing of those who had been taken on continental establishment: and that, after having depicted their services and their sufferings in colours which filled every heart with sympathy and gratitude, he dropped on his knees at the bar of the house, and presented such an appeal as might almost have softened rocks, and bent the knotted oak. Yet no vestige of this splendid speech remains; nor have I been able, after the most diligent inquiries, to ascertain the year in which it occurred; similar petitions having been presented for several successive sessions.

It was in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four, that he bade a final adieu to his profession, and retired to the bosom of his own family. He retired, loaded with honours, public and professional: and carried with him the admiration, the gratitude, the confidence, and the love of his country. No man had ever passed through so long a life of public service, with a reputation more perfectly unspotted.

Nor had Mr. Henry, on any occasion, sought security from censure, by that kind of prudent silence and temporizing neutrality, which politicians so frequently observe. On the contrary, his course had been uniformly active, bold, intrepid, and independent. On every great subject of public interest, the part which he had taken was open, decided, manly; his country saw his motives, heard his reasons, approved his conduct, rested upon his virtue and his vigour; and contemplated with amazement, the evolution and unremitted display of his transcendent talents.

For more than thirty years he had now stood before that country-open to the scrutiny and the censure of the invidiousyet he retired, not only without spot or blemish, but with all his laurels blooming full and fresh upon him-followed by the blessings of his almost adoring countrymen, and cheered by that most exquisite of all earthly possessions-the consciousness of having, in deed and in truth, played well his part. He had now, too, become disembarrassed of debt; his fortune was affluent; and he enjoyed in his retirement, that ease and dignity, which no man ever more richly deserved.

CHAPTER X.

Mr. Henry's Retirement-State of Politics-Letter to his Daughter-He is again elected Governor-Declines the Office-His Position in regard to the two great Political Parties-Presents himself as a Candidate for the House of Delegates-Speech before opening the Polls-Eminent Men arrayed against Him-His Death.

WHATEVER difference of opinion may exist as to other parts of his character, in this the concurrence is universal: that there never was a man better constituted than Mr. Henry to enjoy and adorn the retirement on which he had now entered. Nothing can be more amiable, notning more interesting and attaching, than those pictures which have been furnished from every quarter, without one dissentient stroke of the pencil, of this great and virtuous man in the bosom of private life.

Mr. Jefferson says, that "he was the best-humoured companion in the world.” His disposition was indeed all sweetness-his affections were warm, kind, and social-his patience invincible-his temper ever unclouded, cheerful, and serenehis manners plain, open, familiar, and simple-his conversation easy, ingenuous, and unaffected, full of entertainment, full of instruction, and irradiated with all those light and softer graces which his genius threw without effort, over the most common subjects. It is said that there stood in the court, before his door, a large walnut-tree, under whose shade it was his delight to pass his summer evenings, surrounded by his affectionate and happy family, and by a circle of neighbours who loved him almost to idolatry. Here he would disport himself with all the careless gayety of infancy.

Here, too, he would sometimes warm the bosoms of the old, and strike fire from the eyes of his younger hearers, by recounting the tales of other times; by sketching with the boldness of a master's hand, those great historic incidents in which he had borne a part; and by drawing to the life, and placing before his audience, in colours as fresh and strong as those of nature, the many illustrious men in every quarter of the continent, with whom he had acted a part on the public stage. Here, too, he would occasionally discourse with all the wisdom and all the eloquence of a Grecian sage, of the various duties and offices of life; and pour forth those lessons of practical utility, with which long experience and observation had stored his mind.

Many were the visiters from a distance, old and young, who came on a kind of pious pilgrimage, to the retreat of the veteran patriot, and found him thus delightfully and usefully employed-the old to gaze upon him with long-remembered affec

tion, and ancient gratitude-the young, the ardent, and the emulous, to behold and admire, with swimming eyes, the champion of other days, and to look with a sigh of generous regret, upon that height of glory which they could never hope to reach. Blessed be the shade of that venerable tree-ever hallowed the spot which his genius has consecrated!

Mr. Henry received these visits with all his characteristic plainness and modesty; and never failed to reward the fatigue of the journey by the warmest welcome, and by the unceremonious and fascinating familiarity, with which he would at once enter into conversation with his new guests, and cause them to forget that they were strangers, or abroad. Nor must the reader suppose that in these conversations he assumed any airs of superiority; much less that his conversation was, as in some of our conspicuous men, a continued, imperious, and didactic lecture. On the contrary, he carried into private life, all those principles of equality which had governed him in public.

That ascendancy, indeed, which proceeded from the superior energy of his mind, and the weight of his character, would manifest itself unavoidably, in the deference of his companions; but there was nothing in his manner which would have ever reminded them of it. On the contrary, it seemed to be his study to cause them to forget it, and to decoy them into a free and equal interchange of thought. If he took the lead in conversation, it was not because he sought it; but because it was forced upon him by that silent delight with which he perceived that his company preferred to listen to him.

But it was in the bosom of his own family, where the eye of every visiter and even every neighbour was shut out—where neither the love of fame, nor the fear of censure, could be suspected of throwing a false light upon his character-it was in that very scene, in which it has been said that "no man is a hero," that Mr. Henry's heroism shone with the most engaging beauty. It was to his wife, to his children, to his servants, that his true character was best known: to this grateful, devoted, happy circle, were best known the patient and tender forbearance, the kind indulgence, the forgiving mildness, and sweetness of his spirit, those pure and warm affections, which were always looking out for the means of improving their felicity, and that watchful prudence and circumspection, which guarded them from harm.

What can be more amiable than the playful tenderness with which he joined in the sports of his little children, and the boundless indulgence with which he received and returned their caresses? "His visiters," says one of my correspondents, "have not unfrequently caught him lying on the floor, with a