Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/225

 ajssured gentlemen, I shall feel the highest pleasure, in embracing every opportunity to contribute to your happiness and welfare; and I trust the day will come, when I shall make one of those that will hail you among the triumphant deliverers of America. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your most obedient and very humble servant,

" P. Henry, jun/^*

The first council appointed under the constitution were, John Page, Dudley Digges, John Tayloe, John Blair, Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley, Bartholomew Dandridge, Thomas Nelson, and Charles Carter of Shirley, esquires. Mr. Nelson (the same gentleman who had received so honourable a vote as governor) declined the acceptance of the office, on account of his age and infirmities; and his place was supplied by Mr. Benjamin Harrison of Brandon.

The governor's palace, together with the out-build- ings belonging to it in Williamsburg, having, by a previous resolution, been appropriated as a public hos- pital, was, by a resolution of the first of July, restored to its original destination; and the committee who had been appointed to notify the governor of his election, were now directed to inform him of the desire of the convention, that he would make the palace his place of residence. On the fifth of July, the sum of one thousand pounds was directed, by the house, to be laid

��* When it is said that Mr. Henry was not successful as a writer, the remark must be understood as applicable only to those extended compositions, in which it was necessary to digest and arrange a mass of arguments with skill and effect, and to give them beauty, as well as order. In his short effusions, when excited by strong feeUngs, he was sometimes very happy; of which the above answer is a very pleasing specimen.

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