Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/173

 Dminiore and her family returned from the Fowey to the palace.*

On Thursday, the first of June, the general assembly, according to the proclamation of lord Dunmore, met at the capitol in the city of Williamsburg. He addressed them with great earnestness on the alarming state of the colony; and exhibited the conciliatoiy proposition of the British ministiy, as an advance on the part of the mother country, which it was the duty of the colonists to meet with gratitude and devotion. The council answered him in a manner perfectly satisfactory; but before he could receive the answer of the house of bur- gesses, an incident occurred, which drove his lordship precipitately from his palace, and terminated for ever all friendly relations between himself and the people of Virginia.

It seems, that during the late ferment produced by the

��* If an estimate may be formed from the newspapers of the day, into which the people seem to have poured their feehng^ without reserve, that lady was eminently a favourite in this colony. Her residence here had been short ; yet the exalted virtues which marked her character, and those domes- tic gi-aces and attractions, wdiich shone with the more lustre by contrast with his lordship, had already endeared her to the people ; and would have consecrated her person, and those of her children, amid the wildest tumult to which this colony could possibly be excited. The people had been ex- tremely wounded by her late departiu-e for the Fowey : they considered it as a measure of his lordship's, and as an unjust reflection both upon the judgment and generosity of the people of this country. They had told him intelligibly enough, that they had formed a much more correct estimate of her worth than he himself appeared to have done ; and that so far from her being insecure in the bosom of a people who thus admired, respected, and loved her, his lordship would have acted much more wisely to have kept her near his person, and covered himself under the sacred shield which sancti- fied her in the eyes of Virginians. In proportion to their regret and mortifi- cation at her departure, was the ardour of delight with which they hailed her return. A paragraph in Purdie's paper assured her, " that her amval at the palace was to the great joy of the citizens of WilUamsburg and of the people of the whole country, who had the most unfeigned regard and affection for her ladyship, and wished her long to live amongst them."

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