I am, dear Sir, yours,
Patrick Henry.[466]

The appeal from Archibald Blair, which evoked this impressive letter, had suggested to the old statesman no effort which could not be made in his retirement. Before, however, he was to pass beyond the reach of all human appeals, two others were to be addressed to him, the one by John Adams, the other by Washington, both asking him to come forth into the world again; the former calling for his help in averting war with France, the latter for his help in averting the triumph of violent and dangerous counsels at home.

On the 25th of February, 1799, John Adams, shaking himself free of his partisan counsellors,—all [Pg 412] hot for war with France,—suddenly changed the course of history by sending to the Senate the names of these three citizens, Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray, “to be envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the French republic, with full powers to discuss and settle, by a treaty, all controversies between the United States and France.” In his letter of the 16th of April declining the appointment, Patrick Henry spoke of himself as having been “confined for several weeks by a severe indisposition,” and as being “still so sick as to be scarcely able to write this.” “My advanced age,” he added, “and increasing debility compel me to abandon every idea of serving my country, where the scene of operation is far distant, and her interests call for incessant and long continued exertion.… I cannot, however, forbear expressing, on this occasion, the high sense I entertain of the honor done me by the President and Senate in the appointment. And I beg you, sir, to present me to them in terms of the most dutiful regard, assuring them that this mark of their confidence in me, at a crisis so eventful, is an agreeable and flattering proof of their consideration towards me, and that nothing short of an absolute necessity could induce me to withhold my little aid from an administration whose ability, patriotism, and virtue deserve the gratitude and reverence of all their fellow citizens.”[467]

Such was John Adams’s appeal to Patrick [Pg 413] Henry and its result. The appeal to him from Washington—an appeal which he could not resist, and which induced him, even in his extreme feebleness of body, to make one last and noble exertion of his genius—happened in this wise. On the 15th of January, 1799, from Mount Vernon, Washington wrote to his friend a long letter, marked “confidential,” in which he stated with great frankness his own anxieties respecting the dangers then threatening the country:—

“It would be a waste of time to attempt to bring to the view of a person of your observation and discernment, the endeavors of a certain party among us to disquiet the public mind with unfounded alarms; to arraign every act of the administration; to set the people at variance with their government; and to embarrass all its measures. Equally useless would it be to predict what must be the inevitable consequences of such a policy, if it cannot be arrested.

“Unfortunately,—and extremely do I regret it,—the State of Virginia has taken the lead in this opposition.… It has been said that the great mass of the citizens of this State are well-affected, notwithstanding, to the general government and the Union; and I am willing to believe it, nay, do believe it. But how is this to be reconciled with their suffrages at the elections of representatives, … who are men opposed to the former, and by the tendency of their measures would destroy the latter?… One of the reasons assigned is, that the most respectable and best qualified characters among us will not come forward.… But, at such a crisis as this, when everything dear and valuable to us [Pg 414] is assailed; when this party hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead weight, opposing every measure that is calculated for defence and self-preservation, abetting the nefarious views of another nation upon our rights; … when measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued, which must eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coercion; I say, when these things have become so obvious, ought characters who are best able to rescue their country from the pending evil, to remain at home? Rather ought they not to come forward, and by their talents and influence stand in the breach which such conduct has made on the peace and happiness of this country, and oppose the widening of it?…

“I come, now, my good Sir, to the object of my letter, which is to express a hope and an earnest wish, that you will come forward at the ensuing elections (if not for Congress, which you may think would take you too long from home), as a candidate for representative in the General Assembly of this Commonwealth.

“There are, I have no doubt, very many sensible men who oppose themselves to the torrent that carries away others who had rather swim with, than stem it without an able pilot to conduct them; but these are neither old in legislation, nor well known in the community. Your weight of character and influence in the House of Representatives would be a bulwark against such dangerous sentiments as are delivered there at present. It would be a rallying point for the timid, and an attraction of the wavering. In a word, I conceive it to be of immense importance at this crisis, that you should be there; and I would fain hope that all minor considerations will be made to yield to the measure.”[468]

[Pg 415] There can be little doubt that it was this solemn invocation on the part of Washington which induced the old statesman, on whom Death had already begun to lay his icy hands, to come forth from the solitude in which he had been so long buried, and offer himself for the suffrages of his neighbors, as their representative in the next House of Delegates, there to give check, if possible, to the men who seemed to be hurrying Virginia upon violent courses, and the republic into civil war. Accordingly, before the day for the usual March[469] court in Charlotte, the word went out through all that country that old Patrick Henry, whose wondrous voice in public no man had heard for those many years, who had indeed been almost numbered among the dead ones of their heroic days foregone, was to appear before all the people once more, and speak to them as in the former time, and give to them his counsel amid those thickening dangers which alone could have drawn him forth from the very borders of the grave.

When the morning of that day came, from all the region thereabout the people began to stream toward the place where the orator was to speak. So widespread was the desire to hear him that even the college in the next county—the college of Hampden-Sidney—suspended its work for that day, and thus enabled all its members, the president himself, the professors, and the students, to hurry over to Charlotte court-house. One of those [Pg 416] students, John Miller, of South Carolina, according to an account said to have been given by him in conversation forty years afterward, having with his companions reached the town,—