Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/284

 260 SKETCHES OF THE

journal, being as follows: George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, James Madison^ George Mason, and George Wythe. *

The same cause, however, which had constrained Mr. Henry^s retirement from the executive chair of the state, disabled him now from obeying this honourable call of his country. On his resigning the government, he retired to Prince Edward coimty, and endeavoured to cast about for the means of extricating himself from his debts. At the age of fifty years, worn down by more than twenty years of arduous service in the cause of his countiy, eighteen of which had been occupied by the toils and tempests of the revolution, it was na- tural for him to wish for rest, and to seek some secure and placid port in which he might repose himself from the fatigues of the storm. This however was denied him ; and after having devoted the bloom of youth and the maturity of manhood to the good of his country, he had now in his old age to provide for his family.

" He had nevei\^ says a correspondent,^ " been in easy circumstances; and soon after his removal to Prince Edward county, conversing with his usual frank- ness with one of his neighbours, he expressed his anxiety under the debts which he was not able to pay: the reply was to this effect: ' Go back to the bar; your tongue will soon pay your debts. If you will promise to go, I will give you a retaining fee on the spot.^

'' This blunt advice, determined him to return to the practise of the law; which he did in the beginning of 1788; and during six years he attended regularly the district courts of Prince Edward and New London. ^^

Direful must have been the necessity which drove a

' Judge Winston.

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