Patrick Henry Part 17

This is the way in which he stood the test:--

PATRICK HENRY TO GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

WILLIAMSBURG, 20 February, 1778.

DEAR SIR,--You will, no doubt, be surprised at seeing the enclosed letter, in which the encomiums bestowed on me are as undeserved, as the censures aimed at you are unjust. I am sorry there should be one man who counts himself my friend, who is not yours.

Perhaps I give you needless trouble in handing you this paper. The writer of it may be too insignificant to deserve any notice. If I knew this to be the case, I should not have intruded on your time, which is so precious. But there may possibly be some scheme or party forming to your prejudice.

The enclosed leads to such a suspicion. Believe, me, Sir, I have too high a sense of the obligations America has to you, to abet or countenance so unworthy a proceeding. The most exalted merit has ever been found to attract envy. But I please myself with the hope that the same fort.i.tude and greatness of mind, which have hitherto braved all the difficulties and dangers inseparable from your station, will rise superior to every attempt of the envious partisan. I really cannot tell who is the writer of this letter, which not a little perplexes me. The handwriting is altogether strange to me.

To give you the trouble of this gives me pain. It would suit my inclination better to give you some a.s.sistance in the great business of the war. But I will not conceal anything from you, by which you may be affected; for I really think your personal welfare and the happiness of America are intimately connected. I beg you will be a.s.sured of that high regard and esteem with which I ever am, dear sir, your affectionate friend and very humble servant.

Fifteen days pa.s.sed after the dispatch of that letter, when, having as yet no answer, but with a heart still full of anxiety respecting this mysterious and ill-boding cabal against his old friend, Governor Henry wrote again:--

PATRICK HENRY TO GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

WILLIAMSBURG, 5 March, 1778.

DEAR SIR,--By an express, which Colonel Finnie sent to camp, I enclosed to you an anonymous letter which I hope got safe to hand. I am anxious to hear something that will serve to explain the strange affair, which I am now informed is taken up respecting you. Mr. Custis has just paid us a visit, and by him I learn sundry particulars concerning General Mifflin, that much surprised me. It is very hard to trace the schemes and windings of the enemies to America. I really thought that man its friend; however, I am too far from him to judge of his present temper.

While you face the armed enemies of our liberty in the field, and by the favor of G.o.d have been kept unhurt, I trust your country will never harbor in her bosom the miscreant, who would ruin her best supporter. I wish not to flatter; but when arts, unworthy honest men, are used to defame and traduce you, I think it not amiss, but a duty, to a.s.sure you of that estimation in which the public hold you.

Not that I think any testimony I can bear is necessary for your support, or private satisfaction; for a bare recollection of what is past must give you sufficient pleasure in every circ.u.mstance of life. But I cannot help a.s.suring you, on this occasion, of the high sense of grat.i.tude which all ranks of men in this our native country bear to you. It will give me sincere pleasure to manifest my regards, and render my best services to you or yours. I do not like to make a parade of these things, and I know you are not fond of it; however, I hope the occasion will plead my excuse. Wis.h.i.+ng you all possible felicity, I am, my dear Sir, your ever affectionate friend and very humble servant.

Before Was.h.i.+ngton received this second letter, he had already begun to write the following reply to the first:--

GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON TO PATRICK HENRY.

VALLEY FORGE, 27 March, 1778.

DEAR SIR,--About eight days ago I was honored with your favor of the 20th ultimo. Your friends.h.i.+p, sir, in transmitting to me the anonymous letter you had received, lays me under the most grateful obligations, and if my acknowledgments can be due for anything more, it is for the polite and delicate terms in which you have been pleased to communicate the matter.

I have ever been happy in supposing that I had a place in your esteem, and the proof you have afforded on this occasion makes me peculiarly so. The favorable light in which you hold me is truly flattering; but I should feel much regret, if I thought the happiness of America so intimately connected with my personal welfare, as you so obligingly seem to consider it. All I can say is, that she has ever had, and I trust she ever will have, my honest exertions to promote her interest. I cannot hope that my services have been the best; but my heart tells me they have been the best that I could render.

That I may have erred in using the means in my power for accomplis.h.i.+ng the objects of the arduous, exalted station with which I am honored, I cannot doubt; nor do I wish my conduct to be exempted from reprehension farther than it may deserve. Error is the portion of humanity, and to censure it, whether committed by this or that public character, is the prerogative of freemen. However, being intimately acquainted with the man I conceive to be the author of the letter transmitted, and having always received from him the strongest professions of attachment and regard, I am constrained to consider him as not possessing, at least, a great degree of candor and sincerity, though his views in addressing you should have been the result of conviction, and founded in motives of public good. This is not the only secret, insidious attempt that has been made to wound my reputation. There have been others equally base, cruel, and ungenerous, because conducted with as little frankness, and proceeding from views, perhaps, as personally interested. I am, dear sir, with great esteem and regard, your much obliged friend, etc.

The writing of the foregoing letter was not finished, when Governor Henry's second letter reached him; and this additional proof of friends.h.i.+p so touched the heart of Was.h.i.+ngton that, on the next day, he wrote again, this time with far less self-restraint than before:--

GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON TO PATRICK HENRY

CAMP, 28 March, 1778.

DEAR SIR,--Just as I was about to close my letter of yesterday, your favor of the 5th instant came to hand. I can only thank you again, in the language of the most undissembled grat.i.tude, for your friends.h.i.+p; and a.s.sure you, that the indulgent disposition, which Virginia in particular, and the States in general, entertain towards me, gives me the most sensible pleasure. The approbation of my country is what I wish; and as far as my abilities and opportunities will permit, I hope I shall endeavor to deserve it. It is the highest reward to a feeling mind; and happy are they, who so conduct themselves as to merit it.

The anonymous letter with which you were pleased to favor me, was written by Dr. Rush, so far as I can judge from a similitude of hands. This man has been elaborate and studied in his professions of regard for me; and long since the letter to you. My caution to avoid anything which could injure the service, prevented me from communicating, but to a very few of my friends, the intrigues of a faction which I know was formed against me, since it might serve to publish our internal dissensions; but their own restless zeal to advance their views has too clearly betrayed them, and made concealment on my part fruitless. I cannot precisely mark the extent of their views, but it appeared, in general, that General Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation and influence. This I am authorized to say, from undeniable facts in my own possession, from publications, the evident scope of which could not be mistaken, and from private detractions industriously circulated. General Mifflin, it is commonly supposed, bore the second part in the cabal; and General Conway, I know, was a very active and malignant partisan; but I have good reason to believe that their machinations have recoiled most sensibly upon themselves.

With sentiments of great esteem and regard, I am, dear sir, your affectionate humble servant.[285]

This incident in the lives of Was.h.i.+ngton and Patrick Henry is to be noted by us, not only for its own exquisite delicacy and n.o.bility, but likewise as the culminating fact in the growth of a very deep and true friends.h.i.+p between the two men,--a friends.h.i.+p which seems to have begun many years before, probably in the House of Burgesses, and which lasted with increasing strength and tenderness, and with but a single episode of estrangement, during the rest of their lives. Moreover, he who tries to interpret the later career of Patrick Henry, especially after the establishment of the government under the Const.i.tution, and who leaves out of the account Henry's profound friends.h.i.+p for Was.h.i.+ngton, and the basis of moral and intellectual congeniality on which that friends.h.i.+p rested, will lose an important clew to the perfect naturalness and consistency of Henry's political course during his last years. A fierce partisan outcry was then raised against him in Virginia, and he was bitterly denounced as a political apostate, simply because, in the parting of the ways of Was.h.i.+ngton and of Jefferson, Patrick Henry no longer walked with Jefferson. In truth, Patrick Henry was never Was.h.i.+ngton's follower nor Jefferson's: he was no man's follower. From the beginning, he had always done for himself his own thinking, whether right or wrong. At the same time, a careful student of the three men may see that, in his thinking, Patrick Henry had a closer and a truer moral kins.h.i.+p with Was.h.i.+ngton than with Jefferson. At present, however, we pause before the touching incident that has just been narrated in the relations between Was.h.i.+ngton and Henry, in order to mark its bearing on their subsequent intercourse.

Was.h.i.+ngton, in whose nature confidence was a plant of slow growth, and who was quick neither to love nor to cease from loving, never forgot that proof of his friend's friends.h.i.+p. Thenceforward, until that one year in which they both died, the letters which pa.s.sed between them, while never effusive, were evidently the letters of two strong men who loved and trusted each other without reserve.

Not long before the close of the governor's second term in office, he had occasion to write to Richard Henry Lee two letters, which are of considerable interest, not only as indicating the cordial intimacy between these two great rivals in oratory, but also for the light they throw both on the under-currents of bitterness then ruffling the politics of Virginia, and on Patrick Henry's att.i.tude towards the one great question at that time uppermost in the politics of the nation.

During the previous autumn, it seems, also, Lee had fallen into great disfavor in Virginia, from which he had so far emerged by the 23d of January, 1778, as to be then reelected to Congress, to fill out an unexpired term.[286] Shortly afterward, however, harsh speech against him was to be heard in Virginia once more, of which his friend, the governor, thus informed him, in a letter dated April 4, 1778:--

"You are again traduced by a certain set who have drawn in others, who say that you are engaged in a scheme to discard General Was.h.i.+ngton. I know you too well to suppose that you would engage in anything not evidently calculated to serve the cause of whiggism.... But it is your fate to suffer the constant attacks of disguised Tories who take this measure to lessen you. Farewell, my dear friend. In praying for your welfare, I pray for that of my country, to which your life and service are of the last moment."[287]

Furthermore, on the 30th of May, the General a.s.sembly made choice of their delegates in Congress for the following year. Lee was again elected, but by so small a vote that his name stood next to the lowest on the list.[288] Concerning this stinging slight, he appears to have spoken in his next letters to the governor; for, on the 18th of June, the latter addressed to him, from Williamsburg, this reply:--

MY DEAR SIR,--Both your last letters came to hand to-day. I felt for you, on seeing the order in which the balloting placed the delegates in Congress. It is an effect of that rancorous malice that has so long followed you, through that arduous path of duty which you have invariably travelled, since America resolved to resist her oppressors.

Is it any pleasure to you to remark, that at the same era in which these men figure against you, public spirit seems to have taken its flight from Virginia? It is too much the case; for the quota of our troops is not half made up, and no chance seems to remain for completing it. The a.s.sembly voted three hundred and fifty horse, and two thousand men, to be forthwith raised, and to join the grand army. Great bounties are offered; but, I fear, the only effect will be to expose our state to contempt,--for I believe no soldiers will enlist, especially in the infantry.

Can you credit it?--no effort was made for supporting or restoring public credit. I pressed it warmly on some, but in vain. This is the reason we get no soldiers.

We shall issue fifty or sixty thousand dollars in cash to equip the cavalry, and their time is to expire at Christmas.

I believe they will not be in the field before that time.

Let not Congress rely on Virginia for soldiers. I tell you my opinion: they will not be got here, until a different spirit prevails.

In the next paragraph of his letter, the governor pa.s.ses from these local matters to what was then the one commanding topic in national affairs. Lord North's peace commissioners had already arrived, and were seeking to win back the Americans into free colonial relations with the mother country, and away from their new-formed friends.h.i.+p with perfidious France. With what energy Patrick Henry was prepared to reject all these British blandishments, may be read in the pa.s.sionate sentences which conclude his letter:--

I look at the past condition of America, as at a dreadful precipice, from which we have escaped by means of the generous French, to whom I will be ever-lastingly bound by the most heartfelt grat.i.tude. But I must mistake matters, if some of those men who traduce you, do not prefer the offers of Britain. You will have a different game to play now with the commissioners. How comes Governor Johnstone there? I do not see how it comports with his past life.

Surely Congress will never recede from our French friends.

Salvation to America depends upon our holding fast our attachment to them. I shall date our ruin from the moment that it is exchanged for anything Great Britain can say, or do. She can never be cordial with us. Baffled, defeated, disgraced by her colonies, she will ever meditate revenge.

We can find no safety but in her ruin, or, at least, in her extreme humiliation; which has not happened, and cannot happen, until she is deluged with blood, or thoroughly purged by a revolution, which shall wipe from existence the present king with his connections, and the present system with those who aid and abet it.

For G.o.d's sake, my dear sir, quit not the councils of your country, until you see us forever disjoined from Great Britain. The old leaven still works. The fleshpots of Egypt are still savory to degenerate palates. Again we are undone, if the French alliance is not religiously observed. Excuse my freedom. I know your love to our country,--and this is my motive. May Heaven give you health and prosperity.

I am yours affectionately, PATRICK HENRY.[289]

Before coming to the end of our story of Governor Henry's second term, it should be mentioned that twice during this period did the General a.s.sembly confide to him those extraordinary powers which by many were spoken of as dictatorial; first, on the 22d of January, 1778,[290] and again, on the 28th of May, of the same year.[291]

Finally, so safe had been this great trust in his hands, and so efficiently had he borne himself, in all the labors and responsibilities of his high office, that, on the 29th of May, the House of Delegates, by resolution, unanimously elected him as governor for a third term,--an act in which, on the same day, the Senate voted its concurrence. On the 30th of May, Thomas Jefferson, from the committee appointed to notify the governor of his reelection, reported to the House the following answer:--

GENTLEMEN,--The General a.s.sembly, in again electing me governor of this commonwealth, have done me very signal honor. I trust that their confidence, thus continued in me, will not be misplaced. I beg you will be pleased, gentlemen, to present me to the General a.s.sembly in terms of grateful acknowledgment for this fresh instance of their favor towards me; and to a.s.sure them, that my best endeavors shall be used to promote the public good, in that station to which they have once more been pleased to call me.[292]

FOOTNOTES:

[284] Of the official letters of Governor Henry, doubtless many have perished; a few have been printed in Sparks, Force, Wirt, and elsewhere; a considerable number, also, are preserved in ma.n.u.script in the archives of the Department of State at Was.h.i.+ngton. Copies of the latter are before me as I write. As justifying the statement made in the text, I would refer to his letters of August 30, 1777; of October 29, 1777; of October 30, 1777; of December 6, 1777; of December 9, 1777; of January 20, 1778; of January 28, 1778; and of June 18, 1778.

[285] _Writings of Was.h.i.+ngton_, v. 495-497; 512-515.

[286] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 131.

[287] Given in Grigsby, _Va. Conv. of_ 1776, 142 note.

[288] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 27, 33.

[289] Lee, _Life of Richard Henry Lee_, i. 195 196.