In a hesitating way, stammering in his utterances, he began reading his Resolutions. Then followed the opening sentences of the magnificent oration of this "Demosthenes of the woods," as Byron termed him.
No promise did they give of what was to follow. Very soon the transformation came. Jefferson saw him draw himself to his full height and sweep with a conqueror's gaze the entire audience before and about him.
No impediment now; no inarticulate utterances now. With a voice rich and full, and musical, he poured out his impassioned plea for the liberties of the people. Then soaring to one of his boldest flights, he cried out in electric tones:
"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third ——-." The Speaker sprang to his feet, crying, "Treason! treason!" The whole assembly was in an uproar, shouting with the Speaker, "Treason! treason!" Not only the royalists, but others who were thoroughly alarmed by the orator's audacious words, joined in the cry. But never for a moment did Henry flinch. Fixing his eye upon the Speaker, and throwing his arm forward from his dilating form, as though to hurl the words with the power of a thunderbolt, he added in a tone none but he himself could command, "May profit by their example." Then, with a defiant look around the room, he said, "If this be treason, make the most of it."
Fifty-nine years afterwards Jefferson continued to speak of that great occasion with unabated enthusiasm. He narrated anew the stirring scenes when the shouts of; "treason, treason," echoed through the Hall.
In his record of the debate which followed the speech of Henry he described it as "most bloody." The arguments against the resolutions, he said were swept away by the "torrents of sublime eloquence" from the lips of Patrick Henry. With breathless interest, Jefferson, standing in the doorway, watched the taking of the vote on the last resolution. It was upon this resolution that the battle had been waged the hottest. It was carried by a majority of a single vote. When the result was announced, Peyton Randolph, the King's Attorney General, brushed by Jefferson, in going out of the House, exclaiming bitterly with an oath as he went, "I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote."
The next day, in the absence of the mighty orator, the timid Assembly expunged the fifth resolution and modified the others. The Governor, however, dissolved the House for daring to pass at all the resolutions. But he could not dissolve the spirit of Henry nor the magical effect of the resolutions which had been offered. By his intrepid action Henry took the leadership of the Assembly out of the hands which hitherto had controlled it.
The resolutions as originally passed were sent to Philadelphia. There they were printed, and from that center of energetic action were widely circulated throughout the Colonies. The heart of Samuel Adams and the Boston patriots were filled with an unspeakable joy as they read them. The drooping spirits of the people were revived and the doom of the Stamp Act was sealed.