Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/18

x peatedly, with his able counsel, in reconciling apparent contradictions, and clearing away difficulties of fact.

Beside these statements, drawn from the memory of his correspondents, the writer was favoured by the late governor Page, with the reading of a pretty extended sketch which he had, himself, prepared of the life of Mr. Henry: and he has, furthermore, availed himself of the kind permission of Mr. Peyton Randolph, to examine an extremely valuable manuscript history of Virginia, written by his father, the late Mr. Edmund Randolph; which embraces the whole period of Mr. Henry’s public life.

In addition to these stores of information, the author has had the good fortune to procure complete files of the public newspapers, reaching from the year 1765 down to the close of the American revolution; by these, he has been enabled to correct, in some important instances, the memory of his correspondents, in relation not only to dates, but to facts themselves.

He has been fortunate too, in having procured several original letters which shed much light on important aud hitherto disputed facts, in the life of Mr. Henry.

The records of the general court, and the archives of the state having been convenient to the author, and always open to him, he has endeavoured assiduously