A verdict of a penny damages was at once returned, and the judges, carried away by the popular feeling—regardless of what was evidently the law of the case—refused unanimously a motion for a new trial.
This still further stimulated the popular joy, and Henry was borne about the streets in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd. The remem brance of that day long lived fresh in the memory of the Virginians.
Writing sixty years afterwards, Mr. Wirt said that the old people of that part of the country were accustomed to say, in their homely fashion, as the highest compliment they could pay to a speaker, " Ila'a almost equal to Patrick, when ha pled against the parsons." On the other hand, there was a talk of indicting the young lawyer for using seditious words, and lists of witnesses ware made out ; but matters were tending to another issue, and the report of Heury'a speech did no little to advance their progress.
Henry was at one step the foremost man at the local bar : he removed to Louisa, and having greatly distinguished himself by a speech he made as counsel before the House of Burgesses in defeuca of the right of suffrage, he was at the next vacancy (1765) elected as a representa tive in the Virginian legislature. It was a period of intense expectation.
News had sometime since reached America of the imposition of the obnoxious ' Stamp Act.' Tha day for its enforcement approached, and neither of the colonies had made a sign. In the legislature of Virginia all was hesitation and timidity. Henry, when but a few days a member, determined to bring matters to a crisis. He moved five resolutions, affirming in the strongest meaner the undoubted, unin terrupted, and inalienable right of the people of Virginia to be governed by their uwn laws, respecting internal polity and taxation, and declaring that any attempt to vest such power in any other person whatever, WAS an encroachment on American freedom. The debate was a stormy one, and the etorm rose to its height when Henry, after supporting his resolutions with a torrent of impassioned eloquence, exclaimed in a voice of thunder—"Ctesar had his Brutus,—Charles the First his Cromwell, — and George the Third —" " Treason !" shouted the Speaker, and "treason I treason 1" re-echoed from all parts of the house ; but Henry, fixing his eye on the Speaker, continued without faltering—" may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." The effect was electrical, and the resolutions were adopted, though one of them was afterwards rescinded. Thus, as Jefferson
afterwarda said, "Henry gave the earliest impulse to the ball of the revolution ;" and the ball thus set a rolling in Virginia was soon taken up by the other colonies. In all the subsequent proceedings Henry played an equally decided part. With Jefferson and Peyton Randolph he was one of the first to sign Washington's non-importation agree ment in 1769; but he was regarded as the leader in Virginia of tho Democratic party, of which Jefferson eventually became the head and representative, in opposition to the more conservative party, of which Washington was the head, and the great landholders formed the body.
As Henry was the first to sound the note of revolution, so he was the first to give tho signal of an appeal to arms. As early as March 23, 1775, he said in one of his fiery speeches in the convention of Virginia, "Sir, of peace there is no longer any hope. If we wish to be free, we must fight 1 An appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left to us which, though disavowed by the more cautious, found ready acceptance with the young and the ardent throughout the country.
When independence was declared, the state of Virginia elected Patrick Henry its first governor, and he was re-elected the three follow ing years, when he was succeeded by Jefferson. To the duties of his office he addressed himself with honesty and earnestness of purpose, but ha threw off none of his old homely and popular habits. Nor did hie views alter with the circumstances. As governor he was as ardent a democrat as he had been when a penniless adventurer. To the adoption of the federal constitution he offered the most determined opposition, viewing It as interfering too much with state freedom of action, of the right to which he held very strong opinions. But when the constitution was adopted, he is said to have given in a ready adhesion to it. In the federal government Henry held no office. Washington nominated him Secretary of State in 1795, but there was no great cordiality between them, and Henry declined the office, as he also did that of envoy to Paris, offered to him by President Adams in 1799. He died on the 6th of June 1799. To the last he retained his fondness for field-sports, and he does not seem to have ever con quered his aversion to study. His library is said by his biographer to have consisted at his death of merely a few odd volumes.
(Wirt, Life of Patrick Henry; Bancroft, History of America; Mahon, to.)