[248] Works of John Adams, ix. 386-388.
[249] Kate Mason Rowland, Life of Mason, i. 228-241.
[250] Edmund Randolph, MS. Hist. Va. See, also, W. W. Henry, Life of P. Henry, i. 422-436.
[251] Edmund Randolph, MS. Hist. Va. See, also, W. W. Henry, Life of P. Henry, i. 422-436.
[252] 4 Am. Arch. vi. 1582.
[253] Am. Arch. vi. 1598-1601, note.
[254] 4 Am. Arch. vi. 1129, 1130.
CHAPTER XIII
FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
On Friday, the 5th of July, 1776, Patrick Henry took the oath of office,[255] and entered upon his duties as governor of the commonwealth of Virginia. The salary attached to the position was fixed at one thousand pounds sterling for the year; and the governor was invited to take up his residence in the palace at Williamsburg. No one had resided in the palace since Lord Dunmore had fled from it; and the people of Virginia could hardly fail to note the poetic retribution whereby the very man whom, fourteen months before, Lord Dunmore had contemptuously denounced as “a certain Patrick Henry of Hanover County,” should now become Lord Dunmore’s immediate successor in that mansion of state, and should be able, if he chose, to write proclamations against Lord Dunmore upon the same desk on which Lord Dunmore had so recently written the proclamation against himself.