Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/328

 301 SKETCHES OP THE

people'' — A young gentleman, on the federal side of the house, who had been a member of the late conven- tion, and had in that body, received, on one occasion, a slight touch of Mr. Henry's lash, resolved now, in an ill-fated moment, to make a set charge upon the vete- ran, and brave him to the combat. He possessed fancy, a graceful address, and an easy, sprightly elocution ; and had been sent by his father (an opulent man, and an officer of high rank and trust under the regal govern- ment) to finish his education in the colleges of England, and acquire the polish of the court of St. James; where he had passed the ivhole period of the Ameiican revolu- tion. Returning with advantages which were rare in this country; and with the confidence natural to his years; presuming a little too far upon those advantages, he seized upon the words, " bow to the majesty of the people,^' which Mr. Henry had used, and rung the changes upon them with considerable fehcity. He de- nied the solicitude of the people for the amendments, so strenuously urged on the other side; he insisted that the people thought their " great and unalienable rights'^ sufficiently secured by the constitution which they had adopted; that the preamble of the constitution itself, which was now to be considered as the language of the people, declared its objects to be among others, the security of those very rights; the people then, declare the constitution the guaranty of their rights, while the gen- tleman, in opposition to this public declaration of their sentiments, insists upon his amendments, as furnishing that guaranty; yet the gentleman tells us, that " he bows to the majesty of the people:'" these words he accom- panied with a most graceful bow. " The gentleman, he proceeded, " had set himself in opposition to the will of the people, throughout the whole course of this trans-

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