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"I would have given 500 guineas for a single vote!" The young man had thus achieved at the age of 29 the reputation of being the greatest orator and political thinker of a land filled with celebrated public speakers and statesmen. His voice had aroused the storm; his genius had comprehended the exigencies of the crisis, and set the ball in motion. He had suddenly become a "power in the state;" and the sceptre, departing from the hands of the wealthy planters, was wielded by the county court lawyer. The mouthpiece of resistance, the authoritative representative of the masses as distinguished from the aristocracy, and soon to be the advocate of revolution, Patrick Henry thenceforth occupied a post of strength from which his most powerful enemies were unable to drive him. From the pursuits of his profession, to which he returned, he was soon again recalled to the stage of public events. The stamp act had been repealed, but the policy of laying burdens upon the colonies had not been abandoned. In 1767 the act levying duties upon tea, glass, paper, and other articles, threw the country into renewed ferment. To curb the malcontents of the northern provinces, two British regiments and some vessels of war were sent to Boston. Events ripened slowly but surely. In the spring session of 1769 the leading advocates of resistance in the house of burgesses, of whom Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and the Lees were the most active and determined, offered a series of resolutions which caused the dissolution of the body by Lord Botetourt. Henry and his friends immediately assembled at the old Raleigh tavern in Williamsburg, and drew up articles of association against the use of British merchandise, which were generally signed by the burgesses. Here terminated for a time the struggle, and Henry returned to his profession, though he continued a member of the burgesses. In this year he was admitted to the bar of the general court, where his appear ance was respectable, but not distinguished. He was not a good "case lawyer," from defective study; but in jury trials, where his wonderful powers of oratory could be brought to bear upon the passions of men, he far exceeded all his contemporaries. The effect which he produced upon juries is said to have been almost indescribable. He exercised a species of magnetic fascination over them, which took their reason captive and decided the result without reference to the merits of the case. For 4 years Henry continued to occupy a seat in the house of burgesses, and to practise his profession. Then the struggle between Great Britain and the colonies commenced in earnest. It was plain that both sides were greatly embittered, and there is every reason to believe that Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and other advocates of uncompromising resistance, desired to take advantage of the public sentiment, and precipitate the rupture. Early in the session of 1773, Henry, Jefferson, the two Lees, and Dabney Carr met in the Ra

leigh tavern and originated that great machine, the "committee of correspondence, for the dissemination of intelligence between the colonies." The burgesses promptly acted upon the suggestion, and were as promptly dissolved by Lord Dunmore, who had succeeded Botetourt. They were, every one, reelected by the people, and resumed their seats in the spring of 1774. The committee of correspondence had been duly organized, and "the plan thus proposed," says Mr. Irving, "by their 'noble, patriotic sister colony of Virginia,' was promptly adopted by the people of Massachusetts, and soon met with general concurrence." Massachusetts had already made her courageous stand against parliament. The tea of the East India company had been thrown overboard in Boston harbor, and a collision between England and the colonies was now in the highest degree probable. The most determined patriots were therefore summoned to the public councils in Virginia. The Boston port bill, closing Boston harbor on June 1, speedily arrived. The leaders of the burgesses again met in secret consultation, and the result was a resolution that the 1st of June should be set apart as "a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer" throughout the province. The burgesses passed the resolution, and Dunmore duly dissolved them. They retired to the Raleigh tavern as before; but public feeling was too deeply aroused to content itself with protests or "articles of association." The day of petitions and memorials had passed away; the time for definite action had arrived. The meeting at the Raleigh in May, 1774, resulted in two resolves of the utmost importance. The first was that the different counties should be recommended to elect deputies to assemble at Williamsburg, Aug. 1, to consult for the good of the colony. The second was that the committee of correspondence should propose immediately to all the colonies a general congress, to meet annually, and deliberate upon the common welfare; "the first recommendation of a general congress," says Mr. Irving, "by any public assembly." The deputies accordingly assembled on Aug. 1, subscribed a new and more thorough non-importation agreement, and appointed delegates to a general congress, to meet at Philadelphia in September. Among these delegates was Patrick Henry, and his voice was the first to break the silence of the august assembly. His fame had preceded him. He was recognized and greeted as the great champion of constitutional liberty-the man who, more than any other, had aroused public sentiment in, and directed the councils of, the great province of Virginia. His extraordinary eloquence astonished all listeners. It was "Shakespeare and Garrick combined." When he took his seat, there was no longer a doubt in any mind that he was the greatest orator of America, and one of the greatest of any land or age. In the routine of actual business Henry was surpassed by many of his associates. Here, as throughout life, his constitutional indolence

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interposed. But it may justly be doubted whether, by confining the exercise of his genius to vital principles and great occasions, he did not achieve more splendid results for his country. A petition to the king, and an address and memorial to the inhabitants of Great Britain, were the chief results of the congress, which adjourned in October. Henry returned home with his brother delegates, and, when asked who was the greatest man in congress," replied that Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina was the greatest orator, but Col. George Washington the greatest man-an instance of his powers of penetrating into the depths of human character. With the spring of the next year, 1775, all things advanced rapidly toward the dividing line between peace and war. In March the second convention met at old St. John's church in Richmond, and here again Henry assumed a position very far in advance of his associates. He rose and moved that the militia should be organized, and the "colony be immediately put in a state of defence." The resolutions met with strong opposition, as had been the case with his stamp act resolutions 10 years before in the house of burgesses. The leading and greatest patriots warmly opposed them as precipitate and ill advised. Henry's speech in reply was one of extraordinary eloquence and power. With the vision of a prophet almost, he exclaimed: "There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The next breeze that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. . . . . I know not what course others may take; but as for me-give me liberty or give me death!" The resolutions were passed without a dissenting voice, and the convention rose. Ere long arrived the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord. The contest was not to be long delayed on the soil of Virginia. In compliance with general orders from England, Lord Dunmore on the night of April 20 removed clandestinely from the magazine in Williamsburg all the powder of the colony. The alarm spread rapidly throughout the province, and the people flew to arms. Seven hundred men assembled at Fredericsburg, but, receiving an assurance that the powder would be restored, were disbanded. Patrick Henry saw the favorable moment thus about to pass. He determined to act boldly. Summoning the militia of Hanover, he placed himself at their head, despatched a troop to arrest the king's receiver-general, and marched upon Williamsburg. Lord Dunmore's agent met him on the way, and paid £330 for the powder; and on his return home, Henry found himself and his friends denounced in a public proclamation as deluded" arousers of sedition. But the whole province, indeed all the land, was equally deluded. The defiance had been given by Henry; the authority of the king, in the person of his representative, menaced with an armed force. There was no

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choice thenceforth but between submission and open resistance. In June, Lord Dunmore fled with his family from Williamsburg on board the Fowey man-of-war, and in July a convention met at Richmond which organized a committee of safety, consisting of 11 gentlemen, endowed with almost dictatorial powers. Two regiments were directed to be immediately raised, and Patrick Henry was elected colonel of the first and commander of all forces to be enrolled; William Woodford, colonel of the second. Lord Dunmore at this time was ravaging the shores of the Chesapeake and threatening Norfolk, and the committee of safety were compelled to act promptly. They detached Col. Woodford at the head of the greater portion of the forces against the enemy, and the result was the battle of Great Bridge, in which the raw Virginia recruits drove back the best trained English grenadiers and gained a victory, sending Dunmore back to his ships. The action of the committee in passing over Henry was however violently inveighed against by his friends, and the venerable Edmund Pendleton, the president, was especially assailed. The censure seems to have been wholly unjust. The right of the committee to assign a separate command to Col. Woodford was formally stated in Henry's commission, and Woodford's military experience determined the action of the committee in selecting him for this critical undertaking. The ardent feelings of Henry and his disappointment doubtless betrayed him into resigning his commission, which he speedily did, though between Pendleton and himself there was never any quarrel. He was a delegate to the convention which met in May, 1776, and instructed the Virginia deputies to the general congress to propose to that body to "declare the united colonies free and independent states." In the same year he was elected the first republican governor of Virginia, by a majority of 15 over his competitor Thomas Nelson. From this time Henry's career was rather that of the statesman and minister of public affairs, than the ardent, imposing, almost dazzling orator of revolution. From the forum he passed to the closet, with equal advantage to his country. He filled the office of governor by successive reëlections until 1779, when he was no longer eligible. During this trying period he was eminently serviceable in sustaining public spirit and seconding the efforts of the great leaders of the revolution. He returned to the legislative body, where he served throughout the war, at the termination of which he was again elected governor, and served until the autumn of 1786, when he resigned. In 1788 he was a member of the convention to ratify the federal constitution, an instrument against whose adoption the aged statesman fought with all the strength and eloquence of his youth. Although this opposition afterward abated in a measure, he remained fearful to the end of his life that the final result would be the destruction of the rights of the sovereign states. In 1794 he re

tired from the bar, and removed to his estate of Red Hill in Charlotte. In 1795 Washington appointed him secretary of state, in place of Edmund Randolph, who had resigned; but Henry declined the appointment, as he did that of envoy to France afterward offered him by Mr. Adams, and that of governor offered him in 1796. In March, 1799, yielding to the request of Washington and other distinguished persons, and desirous of doing his part to avert what he feared would be the disastrous results of the "resolutions of '98 " just passed by the Virginia house, he ran for the state senate in his district John Randolph of Roanoke making his first public appearance on the same occasion, in support of the policy of the resolutions, but not as Henry's opponent. The great orator had only to indicate his wishes to fill any public position, and was easily elected. But he never took his seat. The speech at Charlotte Court House was his last, and it is said to have been worthy of his fame. As he descended from the rostrum, feeble but thrilling with the spirit of the encounter, a bystander said: "The sun has set in all his glory." He died within less than 3 months afterward.-Patrick Henry was undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary men of an extraordinary epoch. He appeared upon the theatre of events with the unfaltering and majestic port of the chosen agent of Providence, moulded and severely trained for his peculiar mission. The country was filled with men of great and conspicuous ability-with orators, statesmen, and political thinkers of the first order of excellence; but in this assemblage of imposing figures the untaught youth of the "Hanover slashes" towered head and shoulders above the tallest. In the house of burgesses he bore away the palm from Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and the most powerful men of the time. In the general congress, the men of Massachusetts and the North, as magnanimous as they were great in intellectual strength, acknowledged that Henry was the grandest orator whom they had ever heard. Of this conspicuous endowment there are a thousand proofs, countless anecdotes and traditions. The accounts seem so much hyperbole; but in this apparent extravagance all agree without exception; and it is established beyond a rational doubt, that Henry possessed a natural genius for moving men such as has rarely been bestowed upon humanity. It was long a popular.saying, to describe the desperate plight of a criminal, that "Patrick Henry couldn't save him;" and when the country folk desired to give a speaker their highest praise, they compared him to "Patrick Henry when he plead against the parsons." Jefferson said that he seemed to him to speak" as Homer wrote;" and one who heard him in a great debate, when he wore a diamond ring, exclaimed unconsciously: "That diamond is blazing!" Undoubtedly a large part of his wonderful success, against such fearful odds as he encountered in the commencement of his career, was due to his moral

courage. To that mysterious eloquence which swayed and took captive all minds, he united a nerve and resolution, which when thoroughly aroused were wholly indomitable. There was a hard stubborn fibre in his moral organization which resisted all attacks, and defied whatever attempted to move him. At such moments nothing could make him shrink. The cries of "Treason! treason!" when in 1765 he spoke for the first time in the house of burgesses, only made him more stubbornly bent on carrying his proposition, and provoked, instead of terror and submission, an open and haughty defiance. Whenever he was thus aroused from the depths of his nature, his immense passion, united to an intellectual strength as powerful, carried him onward over all opposition. He seemed to silence the strongestto annihilate his opponents as by a spell. In 1775 he again stood up alone, against the whole body of his associates. His policy was greeted with a storm of opposition-and unanimously adopted. Driven as it were, without the power of resistance, the convention decreed that the militia should be organized, the gauntlet thrown down. It is not singular that a will so ironlike, aided by an eloquence so extraordinary, should have overwhelmed all opposition, vigorous and weighty as that opposition was. As a mere logician, apart from the advocate, Henry was not of conspicuous talents; though it must be conceded that in politics he was an original thinker, almost a seer. He was not a great lawyer, and his name remains connected with no large measures of policy under the new order of things, like that of Jefferson. He lives and will always live as the mouthpiece of the revolution, the voice which uttered most boldly and clearly the eternal principles of human freedom. The child of nature, untaught in colleges, and moved as it were unconsciously by some mysterious inner impulse, his eloquence was right reason clothed in a natural and unforced passion which made every human bosom thrill, as at the touch of the master mind. He was a man of the revolution, the representative of a convulsed epoch and an indignant people; the words which he uttered were those which trembled upon the lips of millions. Viewed in this light alone-as the orator of revolution, the representative of the spirit of the age in which he lived-he occupies perhaps a loftier and more striking position than any other actor in the struggle for American liberty. In person this celebrated man was rather striking than prepossessing. Nearly 6 feet high, spare, rawboned, and slightly stooping in the shoulders, he gave no indication of the majesty and grace which characterized his appearance when his genius was aroused. His complexion was sallow; his countenance grave, thoughtful, stern in repose, and marked with the lines of deep and painful reflection. His brows were habitually contracted, and communicated to his features an air of forbidding sternness and severity. The mouth, with closely compressed lips,

and deep furrows at the corners, was set in an expression of unyielding resolution. When he spoke, however, a wonderful change passed over him. His person rose erect, his head, instead of stooping, was held proudly aloft, and the whole man seemed to undergo a transformation. The power which he possessed of expressing feeling by a simple movement of feature was extraordinary. The stern face would relax and grow soft, pensive, and gentle; or a withering rage would burn in the fiery eyes; or eyes, mouth, and voice would convey to the listener emotions of the tenderest pathos. In private life he was kindly, good-humored, and agreeable. He possessed a dry humor which was very attractive. He indulged in none of the vices of high living then prevalent; temperate, frugal, rarely drinking any thing but water, he presented a strong contrast to his contemporaries. His reading was not extensive, but serious and solid. Livy was his favorite historian; but his reading was chiefly confined to the Bible. He was a devout Christian, and when governor had printed and circulated at his own expense Soame Jenyn's "View of Christianity," and Butler's "Analogy." Sherlock's sermons he read every Sunday evening to his family, after which all joined in sacred music, while he accompanied them upon the violin. All the accounts of his personal bearing represent it as simple, plain, and cordial. There was an honest good feeling in his manner which induced the commonest persons to approach him with confidence. By this class he was almost idolized; and throughout his whole career he retained their unbounded admiration, attachment, and respect. Indeed, it is as the "tribune of the people" that Henry's name will descend to the remotest posterity. It was always as the representative of the masses that he presented himself. He never desired to be other than this. "Stick to the people, old fellow," said a rough neighbor; "if you take the back track, we are gone." He never took the back track. He was raised among the plain, brave, honest class whom he represented, and never wished to desert them. As in his fiery youth there was something chivalric and nobly honest, so in his old age there was a patriarchal simplicity and absence of every thing which detracted from the majestic proportions. Having performed the great mission for which Providence designed him, he disappeared at nearly the same moment with his friend George Washington, leaving his fame where it will be safe, with the people of America.-The life of Patrick Henry has been written by William Wirt (8vo., 1817), and by A. H. Everett, in Sparks's "American Biography."

HENRY, PHILIP, an English nonconformist divine, born in Whitehall, London, Aug. 24, 1631, died June 24, 1696. He was educated at Westminster school and at Christchurch, Oxford, was ordained to the ministry at Worthenbury, Flintshire, in 1657, was one of the 2,000 clergymen who left the church of England in

1662 in consequence of the act of uniformity, and lived in seclusion till in 1687 he was permitted again to preach by the declaration of King James in favor of liberty of conscience. From that time he held public religious services near his residence at Broad Oak, which were attended by throngs from distant places, and also preached frequently in various parts of the country. Many of his sermons and expositions have been published since his death. His biography, by his son Matthew Henry (London, 1698), has passed through many editions.MATTHEW, an English biblical commentator and nonconformist divine, son of the preceding, born at Broad Oak, Flintshire, Oct. 18, 1662, died in Nantwich, June 22, 1714. From childhood he was remarkable for the activity of his mind. He could read the Bible in his 3d year, and the Greek Testament in his 9th. In 1685 he entered Gray's Inn as a student of law, though without any view to pursuing the legal profession, his inclination being for the ministry. His first efforts at public preaching were received with the highest favor, and he was soon invited to Chester, where, being ordained in 1687, he drew around him a large congregation, to which he ministered for 25 years. During this period he more than once went through the entire Bible in a course of expository lectures, which he continued at Hackney, whither he removed in 1712. He thus gradually completed his celebrated "Exposition" of the Bible, a large portion of which was uttered in his public lectures, while many of the quaint and striking sayings and pithy remarks which give such a charm to its pages were the familiar extempore observations of his father at family worship, noted down by Matthew in his boyhood. The first collective edition was published in 1710 (5 vols. fol., London), and it has been many times reprinted. Mr. Henry's other works include "Life and Death of Rev. Philip Henry" (8vo., 1698); "Method of Prayer" (8vo., 1710); “Treatise on Baptism;""Communicant's Companion" (12mo., 1731). A collection of his miscellaneous works, in 1 vol. 8vo., appeared in London in 1830.

HENRY, ROBERT, LL.D., president of the college of South Carolina, born in Charleston, S. C., Dec. 6, 1792, died in Columbia, Feb. 6, 1856. He was educated in the vicinity of London and at the university of Edinburgh, where he was graduated in 1814. He chose the ministry as his profession, and after a short residence on the continent returned to Charleston, and became pastor there of the French Protestant church, preaching alternately in French and English. In 1818 he was elected professor of logic and moral philosophy in the South Carolina college; in 1824 the department of metaphysics was assigned him, to which that of belles-lettres was subsequently joined; in 1833 he became president pro tempore, and in 1842 was unanimously elected permanent president of the college. He resigned this office in 1845, and from that time held the professorship of the Greek language and literature. He was

one of the ablest contributors to the "Southern Review;" among his articles were reviews of Niebuhr's "Roman History," La Motte Fouqué, and Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister." He also published several sermons and eulogies.

his conclusions in 1800. In 1803 he published his experiments on the quantity of gases absorbed by water at different temperatures, and he established the law "that water takes up of gas condensed by one, two, or more additional atmospheres, a quantity which would be equal to twice, thrice, &c., the volume absorbed under the common pressure of the atmosphere." He is the author of a work entitled "Elements of Chemistry" (London, 1823), which has gone through 10 editions.

HENRY, ROBERT, a Scottish divine and historian, born in the parish of St. Ninian's, Stirlingshire, Feb. 18, 1718, died near Edinburgh, Nov. 24, 1790. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and was afterward master of the grammar school of Annan till in 1746 he was licensed as a preacher. He was pastor of HENRY THE NAVIGATOR, a Portuguese a Presbyterian congregation at Carlisle from prince, born in Oporto, March 13, 1394, died at 1748 to 1760, at Berwick-upon-Tweed from Sagres, Nov. 13, 1463. He was the 3d son of 1760 to 1763, and afterward in Edinburgh. King John I. of Portugal and Philippa, daughter His principal work is a "History of Great Brit- of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. While ain" (6 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1771- still a youth he displayed his courage in war '93), written on a new plan, in accordance with with the Moors of Barbary, and was knighted which each period occupied a volume, and each for his bravery in the expedition which achieved volume was divided into 7 chapters, which the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. On his return treated separately and successively the civil and from this expedition he fixed his residence at military transactions, the ecclesiastical affairs, Sagres in Algarve, near Cape St. Vincent, and the history of the constitution and laws, the occupied himself with sending out vessels to state of learning and literature, the state of cruise against the Moors and to harass the arts and manufactures, the history of com- coast of Africa, where he made himself three merce, and the history of manners and customs. campaigns. He was, however, impelled by It extended to the death of Henry VIII., and higher motives than those of the mere soldier. was continued to the accession of James I. by He was distinguished for learning, particularly J. P. Andrews (London, 1794). The earlier for mathematical and geographical knowledge. volumes of Dr. Henry's history were assailed He founded at Sagres an observatory and a with malignity pertinacity by Gilbert Stuart, school where young noblemen were instructed the terror of the Scottish literati of that time, in the sciences connected with navigation. He whom he seems to have indiscriminately de- delighted to converse with scholars, and espetested and despised. He projected in 1773 cially with those who had made voyages to rethe "Edinburgh Magazine and Review," which mote regions, and during his campaigns in Momade Dr. Henry a special object of satire. rocco spared no pains to acquire from the natives When this failed, he passed to London and con- all the knowledge they possessed of the interior ducted with ruthless skill and pertinacity a of Africa and of its southern coasts. The first conspiracy to stop the sale of Dr. Henry's work, use of the compass in European navigation, and to cover him with obloquy and ridicule, and, as in part the invention of the astrolabe, are ascribwas charged, to break his heart. "To-morrowed to him. His studies and inquiries led him to morning," he writes in a letter, "Henry sets off for London with immense hopes of selling his history..... I wish sincerely that I could enter Holborn the same hour with him. He should have a repeated fire to combat with. I entreat that you may be so kind as to let him feel some of your thunder. I shall never forget the favor. If Whitaker is in London, he could give a blow. Paterson will give him a knock. Strike by all means." From almost every quarter Dr. Henry encountered the ingenious opposition of his enemy, which was acutely directed against the real failings of his work, and was for a time successful in stopping its sale. An account of this persecution is given by Disraeli in his "Calamities of Authors."

HENRY, WILLIAM, an English chemist, born in Manchester, Dec. 12, 1775, died Sept. 2, 1836. He studied under Dr. Black of Edinburgh. Though he practised in Manchester as a physician, he gave his particular attention to chemistry, the results of his researches being published in the "Philosophical Transactions" of the royal society. He made many elaborate experiments with muriatic acid gas, and published

the conclusion that the coast of Africa did not end, as was then commonly supposed, at Cape Nam, or Non, but that great and valuable discoveries might be made by tracing its line to the southward into the unknown and dreaded torrid zone. The first expedition he sent for this purpose consisted of two vessels commanded by Joham Gonçalves Zarco and Tristram Vaz, who set out to pass Cape Nam, but were driven off the coast by storms, and accidentally discovered the little island of Porto Santo near Madeira. In the next year (1419) the same captains discovered and subsequently colonized Madeira. Prince Henry during the next 12 years sent vessel after vessel down the coast of Africa, some of which succeeded in passing Cape Nam and reaching Cape Bojador, 200 miles further to the south. But that cape, from the failure of repeated attempts to double it, was now popularly considered the limit of the habitable world, and there began to be much complaint in Portugal at the expense and hazard of these fruitless expeditions, which were looked upon in that day very much in the light in which expeditions to the arctic regions are regarded in

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