HENRY, PATRICK, an American orator and statesman, was born in Hanover county, Virginia colony, May 29th, 1736. His father was a planter in easy circumstances, though burdened with a large family; and Patrick when a boy learned in his father'a house a little Latin and less Greek, both of which he speedily forgot, but acquired instead considerable skill in hunting, fishing, and shooting, in which the greater part of his time was spent. At sixteen his father set him up in a small store, in which he was as unsuccessful as in his classical studies. At eighteen he married, and took a small farm ; but most of his time was employed in loitering about in the bar of his father-in-law's tavern at Hanover, serving the customers, or amusing them with bia pleasantries. The farm failing, he again opened a store, but this after a short trial resulted in bankruptcy. His misfortunes however, according to his biographer. " were not to be traced either in his countenance or his conduct." He had, under them all, found ample solace in his long solitary hunting and fishing excursions, music and dancing, of which he was passionately fond, and the Hanover tavern bee. Now however he determined to take a new course, and "with a buoyant mind resolved on becoming a lawyer." Doubtless had it been necessary in Virginia, as at Lincoln's Inn or the Temple, to have eaten through certain terms in order to be called to the bar, the young Henry would have been found equal to the occasion ; as it was, he took a shorter course. Ha gave " six weeks of close application" to legal studies, presented himself at the examination (probably not a very severe one), passed, and received the usual license to act as a barrister. Little alteration was however seemingly made in Henry's habits. He still resided, if he did not still acrve, at the tavern; shot and fished as usual ; mixed familiarly with all classes at the tavern-bar ; dressed as coarsely, and moved as awkwardly, as the rudest of the country people ; and was in fact only known as a jovial young lawyer without briefs, and with only a little pettifogging village business. But the three years thus spent were not wholly spent in idleness. He had been an observant witness of the progress of he read men if he did not read books ; and was prepared to make up by shrewdness and tact for his deficiencies in legal lore. The time had arrived which was to show of what stuff he was made. What was known as the "great parsons' cause," and which proved to be an important step in the pro gress towards American independence, had arrived at its determination. Tobacco bad for some time been the legal currency in Virginia, and the incomes of the established clergy of the colony were, by acts of the colonial legislature (1696 and 174S), which had received the royal assent, fixed at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco each ; but after some failures of
the crop the legislature passed an act (1758), commuting the payment to one of twopence for each pound of tobacco. This was the market price when the previous act was passed, but the market-price was now three times that sum, and the clergy refused to concur. On the questiou being submitted to the English government, tho king in council refused his assent to the act. The matter was now brought, by the action of a clergyman named Maury against the collector and his sureties, before the law-courts of Virginia. The judges on the technical question decided in favour of the claims of the clergy, on the ground that the act of 1758 was not of force without the royal assent. It only remained therefore, as it would scam, as a matter of form, to impannel a jury to assess the damage,. The counsel for the defendants held that the case was in fact at an end, and on his clients insisting on going before the' jury, withdrew from the cause. Affairs stood thus when Patrick Henry was applied to and accepted the brief. On the day of trial, December 1st 1763, the court was crowded with the clergy and their friends, and their opponents the planters and the popular party. Henry's father was the presiding judge. The plaintiffs' counsel merely explained the state of the law, and eulogised the clergy : it was a plain case, and could not be made plainer. Patrick Henry rose to reply : it was his first speech. He commenced awkwardly, faltered in his exordium, and his friends were in despair ; but he eoon recovered himself, and soon every eye and ear was strained to catch each word and gesture of the orator. Spurning aside the technicalities of the case, be with fiery earnestness argued for the right of the colony to legislate for itself on matters of internal administration, denounced the clergy for their want of patriotism in appealing to the king, and after endeavouring to show that the act of 1758 was an act good in itself, and one required by the circumstances of the colony, he, gathering force as he went, declared that the "king who annuls or disallowa laws of so salutary a nature degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to obedience." Such language had never before been heard in a public court. Cries of "Treason I treason I" were uttered from the clergy, but were drowned in the popular acclamations. The case had commenced as one of pecuniary compensation: Henry con verted it into one involving the independence of the colonial legislature, and the extent to which obedience was due to the English crown by the American people. The auditors were aroused to perfect frenzy.