Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/200

 176 SKETCHES OP THE

besides that;» col. Henry has laid before the committee your letter to him^ and desired our opinion, whether he was to command you or not. We never determined this till Friday evening; a copy of the resolution I enclose you. If this will not be agreeable, and prevent future disputes, I hope some happy medium will be sug- gested to effect the purpose, and make you easy; for the colony cannot part with you, while troops are necessaiy to be continued.""

Mr. Hemy had too much sagacity not to perceive the light in which he was viewed by the committee of safety, and too much sensibihty not to be wounded by the discovery. His situation was indeed, at this time, most painfully embarrassing. The rank which he held was full of the promise of honour and distinction; he was the first officer of the Virginia forces; the cele- brity which he had already attained among his country- men, not only by his political resistance to the measures of the British parliament, but by the bold and daring military enterprise which he had headed the preceding year, in the affair of the gunpowder, led his coun- trymen to expect, that the appointment which he now held would not be a barren one, but that he would mark it with the characters of his extraordinary genius, and become as distinguished in the field, as he had been in the senate. He knew that these expectations ivere entertained, and had every disposition to realize them: but his wishes and his hopes were perpetually over-ruled by the committee of safety, who commanded over him, and who gratuitously distrusting his capacity for war, would give him no opportunity of making trial of it. Yet Mr. Henry untried, has been most unjustly slighted as a soldier, and spoken of as a mere military cipher ! If I have not been misinformed, some of those who

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