Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/255

 that the speaker might call a meeting, when and where he pleased, again broke up and dispersed.

It was at this period of almost hopeless darkness^ when the energies of the state seemed to have been pretty nearly parahzed, that the project of a dictator was again revived; and it is again highly probable, that Mr. Henry was the character who was in view for that office. Inquiries have been made of the surviving mem- bers of that assembly to ascertain whether the project could be traced to him, or whether he had any kind of participation in the proposal; but those inquiries have resulted in a conviction of his entire innocence. The project came from other quarters, and seems to have been the last refuge of that general despair, which, for a short time, pervaded the whole commonwealth.

But this period of deep darkness was the harbinger of breaking day. The morning dawned with the arrival of those aids from France, which Mr. Henry had so long ago predicted; and the sun of American independence arose, to set no more. He lived to witness the glorious issue of that revolution which his genius had set in motion ; and (to repeat his own prophetic language, before the commencement of the struggle) " to see America take her stand among the nations of the earth. '^ The contest closed with the capture of Cornwallis at Little York, on the 19th of October, 1781; and thus, the ball of the revolution rested in the same state in which it had receiv- ed the first impulse.

This enlightened and patriotic statesman, however, was not yet inclined to indulge himself in that repose to which he was so well entitled. The constitution of the state had as yet been tried only in war, when the sense of common danger, and their ardour in the common cause, might of themselves, have been sufficient to keep

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