The descriptions which have come down to us of the life led by the old statesman in those last five years of retirement make a picture pleasant to look upon. The house at Red Hill, which then became his home, “is beautifully situated on an elevated ridge, the dividing line of Campbell and Charlotte, within a quarter of a mile of the junction of Falling River with the Staunton. From it the valley of the Staunton stretches southward about three miles, varying from a quarter to nearly a mile in width, and of an oval-like form. Through most fertile meadows waving in their golden luxuriance, slowly [Pg 384] winds the river, overhung by mossy foliage, while on all sides gently sloping hills, rich in verdure, enclose the whole, and impart to it an air of seclusion and repose. From the brow of the hill, west of the house, is a scene of an entirely different character: the Blue Ridge, with the lofty peaks of Otter, appears in the horizon at a distance of nearly sixty miles.” Under the trees which shaded his lawn, and “in full view of the beautiful valley beneath, the orator was accustomed, in pleasant weather, to sit mornings and evenings, with his chair leaning against one of their trunks, and a can of cool spring-water by his side, from which he took frequent draughts. Occasionally, he walked to and fro in the yard from one clump of trees to the other, buried in revery, at which times he was never interrupted.”[436] “His great delight,” says one of his sons-in-law, “was in conversation, in the society of his friends and family, and in the resources of his own mind.”[437] Thus beneath his own roof, or under the shadow of his own trees, he loved to sit, like a patriarch, with his family and his guests gathered affectionately around him, and there, free from ceremony as from care, to give himself up to the interchange of congenial thought whether grave or playful, and even to the sports of the children. “His visitors,” writes one of them, “have not unfrequently caught him lying on the floor, with a group of these little ones [Pg 385] climbing over him in every direction, or dancing around him with obstreperous mirth, to the tune of his violin, while the only contest seemed to be who should make the most noise.”[438]
The evidence of contemporaries respecting the sweetness of his spirit and his great lovableness in private life is most abundant. One who knew him well in his family, and who was also quite willing to be critical upon occasion, has said:—
“With respect to the domestic character of Mr. Henry, nothing could be more amiable. In every relation, as a husband, father, master, and neighbor, he was entirely exemplary. As to the disposition of Mr. Henry, it was the best imaginable. I am positive that I never saw him in a passion, nor apparently even out of temper. Circumstances which would have highly irritated other men had no such visible effect on him. He was always calm and collected; and the rude attacks of his adversaries in debate only whetted the poignancy of his satire.… Shortly after the Constitution was adopted, a series of the most abusive and scurrilous pieces came out against him, under the signature of Decius. They were supposed to be written by John Nicholas, … with the assistance of other more important men. They assailed Mr. Henry’s conduct in the Convention, and slandered his character by various stories hatched up against him. These pieces were extremely hateful to all Mr. Henry’s friends, and, indeed, to a great portion of the community. I was at his house in Prince Edward during the thickest of them.… He evinced no feeling on the occasion, and far less [Pg 386] condescended to parry the effects on the public mind. It was too puny a contest for him, and he reposed upon the consciousness of his own integrity.… With many sublime virtues, he had no vice that I knew or ever heard of, and scarcely a foible. I have thought, indeed, that he was too much attached to property,—a defect, however, which might be excused when we reflect on the largeness of a beloved family, and the straitened circumstances in which he had been confined during a great part of his life.”[439]
Concerning his personal habits, we have, through his grandson, Patrick Henry Fontaine, some testimony which has the merit of placing the great man somewhat more familiarly before us. “He was,” we are told, “very abstemious in his diet, and used no wine or alcoholic stimulants. Distressed and alarmed at the increase of drunkenness after the Revolutionary war, he did everything in his power to arrest the vice. He thought that the introduction of a harmless beverage, as a substitute for distilled spirits, would be beneficial. To effect this object, he ordered from his merchant in Scotland a consignment of barley, and a Scotch brewer and his wife to cultivate the grain, and make small beer. To render the beverage fashionable and popular, he always had it upon his table while he was governor during his last term of office; and he continued its use, but drank nothing stronger, while he lived.”[440]
Though he was always a most loyal Virginian,[Pg 387] he became, particularly in his later years, very unfriendly to that renowned and consolatory herb so long associated with the fame and fortune of his native State.
“In his old age, the condition of his nervous system made the scent of a tobacco-pipe very disagreeable to him. The old colored house-servants were compelled to hide their pipes, and rid themselves of the scent of tobacco, before they ventured to approach him.… They protested that they had not smoked, or seen a pipe; and he invariably proved the culprit guilty by following the scent, and leading them to the corn-cob pipes hid in some crack or cranny, which he made them take and throw instantly into the kitchen fire, without reforming their habits, or correcting the evil, which is likely to continue as long as tobacco will grow.”[441]
Concerning another of his personal habits, during the years thus passed in retirement at Red Hill, there is a charming description, also derived from the grandson to whom we are indebted for the facts just mentioned:—
“His residence overlooked a large field in the bottom of Staunton River, the most of which could be seen from his yard. He rose early; and in the mornings of the spring, summer, and fall, before sunrise, while the air was cool and calm, reflecting clearly and distinctly the sounds of the lowing herds and singing birds, he stood upon an eminence, and gave orders and directions to his servants at work a half mile distant from him. The strong, musical voices of the negroes responded to him.[Pg 388] During this elocutionary morning exercise, his enunciation was clear and distinct enough to be heard over an area which ten thousand people could not have filled; and the tones of his voice were as melodious as the notes of an Alpine horn.”[442]
Of course the house-servants and the field-servants just mentioned were slaves; and, from the beginning to the end of his life, Patrick Henry was a slaveholder. He bought slaves, he sold slaves, and, along with the other property—the lands, the houses, the cattle—bequeathed by him to his heirs, were numerous human beings of the African race. What, then, was the opinion respecting slavery held by this great champion of the rights of man? “Is it not amazing”—thus he wrote in 1773—“that, at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty, in such an age, we find men, professing a religion the most humane, mild, meek, gentle, and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty?… Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not, I cannot, justify it; however culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my ‘devoir’ to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and to lament my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will come when an opportunity will [Pg 389] be offered to abolish this lamentable evil: everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence of slavery. We owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants slavery.”[443] After the Revolution, and before the adoption of the Constitution, he earnestly advocated, in the Virginia House of Delegates, some method of emancipation; and even in the Convention of 1788, where he argued against the Constitution on the ground that it obviously conferred upon the general government, in an emergency, that power of emancipation which, in his opinion, should be retained by the States, he still avowed his hostility to slavery, and at the same time his inability to see any practicable means of ending it: “Slavery is detested: we feel its fatal effects,—we deplore it with all the pity of humanity.… As we ought with gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among the free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences?”[444]
During all the years of his retirement, his great fame drew to him many strangers, who came to pay their homage to him, to look upon his face, to [Pg 390] listen to his words. Such guests were always received by him with a cordiality that was unmistakable, and so modest and simple as to put them at once at their ease. Of course they desired most of all to hear him talk of his own past life, and of the great events in which he had borne so brilliant a part; but whenever he was persuaded to do so, it was always with the most quiet references to himself. “No man,” says one who knew him well, “ever vaunted less of his achievements than Mr. H. I hardly ever heard him speak of those great achievements which form the prominent part of his biography. As for boasting, he was entirely a stranger to it, unless it be that, in his latter days, he seemed proud of the goodness of his lands, and, I believe, wished to be thought wealthy. It is my opinion that he was better pleased to be flattered as to his wealth than as to his great talents. This I have accounted for by recollecting that he had long been under narrow and difficult circumstances as to property, from which he was at length happily relieved; whereas there never was a time when his talents had not always been conspicuous, though he always seemed unconscious of them.”[445]