Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/413

 general. He was a prize worth contending for; and it is not wonderful therefore, that the rival parties ob- served, with the most jealous disti'ust, every advance which was made towards him by the other, and inter- preted such advances as so many stratagems to gain him over: nor is it wonderful, if during the fever of that hot and violent struggle, many things were sup- posed to be seen, which did not in fact exist; and that those which did exist, were sometimes seen under false shapes and colours. It was reported at that day, that, on Mr. Jefferson's resignation of the office of secretary of state, that office was offered to Mr. Henr^^, in the confidence, that while the offer would gratify him, he would nevertheless reject it: however this may be, it is certain that the embassy to Spain was offered to him, during the first administration; and that to France, dur- ing the second.* These offers were known at the time: and, when compared with his advanced age — the large family with which he was incumbered — his settled and well known purpose of retirement — and the consequent probability that these offers would not be accepted — and the sentiments which he afterwards expressed, in favour of some of the measures of administration, which were extremely obnoxious in Virginia — those offers were considered by the repubhcans, as so many sti'okes of pohtical flattery, addressed to the vanity of an old man, and which had been but too successful in having won him to the federal ranks. That he approved of the alien and sedition laws, as good measures, is undenia- ble: indeed, he w^as not a man who would deny any opinion that he held: and, however honest might have been his conviction, both of the constitutionality and


 * On the authority of judge Winston.

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