Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/248

 224* SKETCHES OF THE

justice, to be dealt with according to law. Provided, that the person so slain, be in arms at the time, or endeavour- ing to escape being taken.'^

Philips was apprehended in the course of the autumn, and indicted by Mr. Edmund Randolph, attorney gene- ral, /w higluvay robhery, simply. On this charge he ivas tried at the October term of the general court, convicted and executed: so that the act of attainder was never brought to bear upon him at all. This is the whole case of Josiah Philips. The reader will judge whether Mr. Henry deserves censure for having communicated to the legislature the letter of colonel Wilson; or whether that body acted with too much severity towards a wretch, who had not only set the laws of his country at defiance, but was waging a cruel and dastardly war upon men without arms, upon women and children; and acting, not the part of a brave and open enemy, but that of an enemy of the human family.

Just at the close of Mr. Henry's administration, Virginia suffered an invasion of a few days under the British officers, Collin and Matthew. They seized Fort Nelson near Norfolk, destroyed the naval stores at Gosport, burnt Suffolk, and disappeared, before the militia could be rallied to chastise their insolence. This occurred in the month of May 1779; and the faciht} and impunity with which the enterprise was accom- plished, very probably suggested the more serious inva- sion of the state, which afterwards took place under the traitor Arnold.

It would seem, that a wish was entertained to re-elect Mr. Henry to the office of governor a fourth time, although the constitution declared him ineligible after

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