"The original constitution of the American colonies, possessing their assemblies with the sole right of directing their internal polity, it is absolutely destructive of the end of their institution, that their legislatures should be suspended, or prevented, by hasty dissolutions, from exercising their legislative powers.

"Wanting the protection of Britain, we have long acquiesced in their acts of navigation, restrictive of our commerce, which we consider as an ample recompense for such protection; but as those acts derive their efficacy from that foundation alone, we have reason to expect they will be restrained, so as to produce the reasonable purposes of Britain, and not be injurious

to us.

"To obtain redress of these grievances, without which the people of America can neither be safe, free, nor happy, they are willing to undergo the great inconvenience that will be derived to them, from stopping all imports whatsoever from Great Britain, after the first day of November next, and also to cease exporting any commodity whatsoever to the same place, after the tenth day of August, seventeen hundred and seventy-five. "The earnest desire we have to make as quick and full payment as possible of our debts to Great Britain, and to avoid the heavy injury that would arise to this country from an earlier adoption of the non-exportation plan, after the people have already applied so much of their labour to the perfecting of the present crop, by which means they have been prevented from pursuing other methods of clothing and supporting their families, have rendered it necessary to restrain you in this article of non-exportation; but it is our desire that you cordially cooperate with our sister-colonies in general congress, in such other just and proper methods as they, or the majority shall deem necessary for the accomplishment of these valuable

ends.

"The proclamation issued by General Gage, in the govern ment of the province of the Massachusetts bay, declaring it treason for the inhabitants of that province to assemble themselves to consider of their grievances, and form associations for their common conduct on the occasion, and requiring the civil magistrates and officers to apprehend all such persons to be tried for their supposed offences, is the most alarming process that ever appeared in a British government; the said General Gage has thereby assumed and taken upon himself powers denied by the constitution to our legal sovereign; he not hav ing condescended to disclose by what authority he exercises such extensive and unheard-of powers, we are at a loss to de termine whether he intends to justify himself as the represent.

ative of the king, or as the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in America.

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'If he considers himself as acting in the character of his majesty's representative, we would remind him that the statute 25th, Edward III., has expressed and defined all treasonable offences, and the legislature of Great Britain hath declared that no offence shall be construed to be treason, but such as is pointed out by that statute; and that this was done to take out of the hands of tyrannical kings, and of weak and wicked ministers, that deadly weapon which constructive treason hath furnished them with, and which had drawn the blood of the best and honestest men in the kingdom; and that the king of Great Britain hath no right by his proclamation to subject his people to imprisonment, pains, and penalties.

"That if the said General Gage conceives he is empowered to act in this manner, as the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in America, this odious and illegal proclamation must be considered as a plain and full declaration that this despotic viceroy will be bound by no law, nor regard the constitutional rights of his majesty's subjects, whenever they interfere with the plan he has formed for oppressing the good people of Massachusetts bay; and, therefore, that the executing, or attempting to execute, such proclamation, will justify resistance and reprisal."

On the fourth of September, seventeen hundred and seventy. four, that venerable body, the old continental congress of the United States, (toward whom every American heart will bow with pious homage, while the name of liberty shall be dear in our land,) met for the first time at Carpenter's Hall, in the city of Philadelphia. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was chosen president, and the house was organized for business with all the solemnities of a regular legislature.*

The most eminent men of the various colonies were now, for the first time, brought together. They were known to each other by fame; but they were personally strangers. The

* Sallust, in his second oration to C. Cesar, De Republica Ordinanda, gives a short and animated picture of their Roman ancestors which, with the change of a single word, (libertate for imperio,) describes so happily our old continental congress, that I am sure I shall gratify the classic reader by its insertion.

"Itaque, majores nostri, cum bellis asperimis premerentur, equis, viris, pecunia amissa, nunquam defessi sunt armati de libertate contendere. Non inopia ærarii, non vis hostium, non adversa res, ingentem eorum animum subegit: quem, quæ virtute ceperant, simul cum anima retinerent. Atque ea, magis fortibus consiliis, quain bonis præliis, patrata sunt. Quippe apud illos, una respublica erat; ei consulebant; factio, contra hostes parabatur; corpus atque ingenium, patriæ, non suæ, quisque potentiæ exercitabat."

meeting was awfully solemn. The object which had called them together was of incalculable magnitude. The liberties of no less than three millions of people, with that of all their posterity, were staked on the wisdom and energy of their councils. No wonder, then, at the long and deep silence which is said to have followed upon their organization; at the anxiety with which the members looked around upon each other; and the reluctance which every individual felt to open a business so fearfully momentous.

In the midst of this deep and deathlike silence, and just when it was beginning to become painfully embarrassing, Mr. Henry arose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the subject. After faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, in which he merely echoed back the consciousness of every other heart, in deploring his inability to do justice to the occasion, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Rising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with all the majesty and expectation of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man.

Even those who had heard him in all his glory, in the house of burgesses of Virginia, were astonished at the manner in which his talents seemed to swell and expand themselves, to fill the vaster theatre in which he was now placed. There was

no rant-no rhapsody-no labour of the understanding-no straining of the voice-no confusion of the utterance. His countenance was erect-his eye, steady-his action, noblehis enunciation, clear and firm-his mind poised on its centrehis views of his subject comprehensive and great-and his imagination coruscating with a magnificence and a variety, which struck even that assembly with amazement and awe. He sat down amid murmurs of astonishment and applause; and as he had been before proclaimed the greatest orator of Virginia, he was now, on every hand, admitted to be the first orator of America.

He was followed by Mr. Richard Henry Lee, who charmed the house with a different kind of eloquence-chaste-classical-beautiful-his polished periods rolling along without ef fort, filling the ear with the most bewitching harmony, and delighting the mind with the most exquisite imagery. The cultivated graces of Mr. Lee's rhetoric received and at the same time reflected beauty, by their contrast with the wild and grand effusions of Mr. Henry. Just as those noble monuments of art which lie scattered through the celebrated landscape of Naples, at once adorn, and are in their turn adorned by the surrounding majesty of Nature. 1

Two models of eloquence, each so perfect in its kind, and so finely contrasted, could not but fill the house with the highest admiration; and as Mr. Henry had before been pronounced the Demosthenes, it was conceded on every hand, that Mr. Lee was the Cicero, of America.

CHAPTER IV,

Proceedings of the Congress-Mr. Henry's early Opinion of WashingtonMeeting of Delegates in Richmond-Mr. Henry's Resolutions for arming the Militia-Speech on that Occasion-Resolutions Adopted.

IT is due, however, to historic truth to record, that the su, perior powers of these great men were manifested only in debate. On the floor of the house, and during the first days of the session, while general grievances were the topic, they took the undisputed lead in the assembly, and were confessedly, primi inter pares. But when called down from the heights of declamation, to that severer test of intellectual excellence, the details of business, they found themselves in a body of coolheaded, reflecting, and most able men, by whom they were, in their turn, completely thrown into the shade.

A petition to the king, an address to the people of Great Britain, and a memorial to the people of British America, were agreed to be drawn. Mr. Lee, Mr. Henry, and others, were appointed for the first; Mr. Lee, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Jay, for the two last. The splendour of their debut occasioned Mr. Henry to be designated by his committee, to draw the petition to the king, with which they were charged; and Mr. Lee was charged with the address to the people of England.

The last was first reported. On reading it, great disappointment was expressed in every countenance, and a dead silence ensued for some minutes. At length, it was laid on the table, for perusal and consideration, till the next day: when first one member and then another arose, and paying some faint compliment to the composition, observed that there were still certain considerations not expressed, which should properly find a place in it. The address was, therefore, committed for amendment; and one prepared by Mr. Jay, and offered by Governor Livingston, was reported and adopted, with scarcely an alteration,

These facts are stated by a gentleman to whom they were communicated by Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Harrison, of the Vir

ginia delegation, (except that Mr. Harrison erroneously ascribed the draught to Governor Livingston,) and to whom they were afterward confirmed by Governor Livingston himself. Mr. Henry's draught of a petition to the king was equally unsuccessful, and was recommitted for amendment. Mr. John Dickinson (the author of the Farmer's Letters) was added to the committee, and a new draught, prepared by him, was adopted.*

This is one of the incidents in the life of Mr. Henry to which an allusion was made in a former page, when it was observed, that notwithstanding the wonderful gifts which he had derived from nature, he lived himself to deplore his early neglect of literature. But for this neglect, that imperishable trophy won by the pen of Mr. John Dickinson would have been his; and the fame of his genius, instead of resting on tradition, or the short-lived report of his present biographer, would have flourished on the immortal page of the American history.

It is a trite remark, that the talents for speaking and for writing eminently are very rarely found united in the same ind vidual; and the rarity of the occurrence has led to an opinion, that those talents depend on constitutions of mind so widely different, as to render their union almost wholly unattainable. This was not the opinion, however, it is believed, at Athens and at Rome: it cannot, I apprehend, be the opinion either in the united kingdom of Great Britain.

There have been, indeed, in these countries distinguished orators, who have not left behind them any proofs of their eminence in composition; but neither have they left behind them any proofs of their failure in this respect; so that the conclusion of their incompetency is rather assumed than established. On the other hand, there have been in all those countries, too many illustrious examples of the union of those talents, to justify the belief of their incongruity by any general law of nature. That there have been many eminent writers who, from physical defects, could never have become orators, is very certain : but is the converse of the proposition equally true? Was there ever an eminent orator who night not, by proper discipline,

* The late Governor Tyler, a warm friend of Mr. Henry, used to relate an anecdote in strict accordance with this statement: it was, that after these two gentlemen had made their first speeches, Mr. Chase, a delegate from Maryland, walked across the house to the seat of his colleague, and said to him, in an under voice: "We might as well go home; we are not able to legislate with these men." But that after the house came to descend to details, the same Mr. Chase was heard to remark: "Well, after all, I find these are but menand in mere matters of business, but very common men.'