Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/443

 bold measure of arming the militia. This was not dic- tated by the people. The fact was, that at that day, the people placed themselves in the hands of their more enlightened friends; they never ventured to prescribe either the time, the manner, or the measm^e of resist- ance; and there can be no room for a candid doubt that, but for the bold spirit and overpowering eloquence of Patrick Henry, the people would have followed the pacific counsels of Mr. Randolph, Mr. Nicholas, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, and other men of acknowledged talents and virtue. It was Mr. Henry, Uierefore, who led both the people and their former leaders. The lat- ter, indeed^ came on so reluctantly at first, that they may be said to have been rather dragged along, than led; they did come however, and acquiring warmth by their motion, made ample amends thereafter, for their early hesitation.*

4. About the close of the war, again, when he pro- posed to permit the return of that obnoxious class of men, called British refugees and Scotch iories, did he follow the popular current.^ So far from it, that he stemmed the current, and turned back its course, by the pow er of his resistance.

degree, the well-earned reputation of those veteran statesmen. They had commenced the opposition to the stamp act, and the other obnoxious acts of the British parliament, before Mr. Henry made his appearance as a politi- cian; they had commenced too, on the same gTounds, and would, probably, at some later period, have been wrought up by their own principles and feelings, to a forcible resistanceto those measures. Rut the statements in the text are unquestionably correct: they did not approve of the immediate application of force; Mr. Henry's pohcy was condemned by them as rash and precipitate. The author is in possession of an orig-inal letter from one of these statesmen, in which Mr. Henry is expressly and directly accused of having- precipitated the revolution, against the judgment of the older and cooler patriots. Jleniy," and proved his policy to be the best.
 * The author has no intention, by these remarks, to impair in the smallest
 * ' Events, however," as we have seen, " favoured the bolder measures of Mv.

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