I saw James Pemberton looking on sadly, and near him other Friends with sour aspects. Here and there militia uniforms were seen amid the dull grays, the smocks of farmers and mechanics, and the sober suits of tradesmen, all come to see.
“The Rev. Dr. Duche passed us,” says Jack, whom now I quote, “in a fine wig and black silk small-clothes. He was to make this day the famous prayer which so moved Mr. Adams.” And later, I may add, he went over to the other side. “Soon others came. Some we knew not, but the great Dr. Rush, pointed out such as were of his acquaintance.
“‘There.’ he said, ‘is Carter Braxton. He tells me he does not like the New England men—either their religion or their manners; and I like them both.’ The doctor was cynical, I thought, but very interesting. I set down but little of what he said or I saw; for most of it I forget.
“‘There Is the great Virginia orator, Mr. Patrick Henry,’ said the doctor. He was in simple dress, and looked up at us curiously as he went by with Pendleton and Mr. Carroll. ‘He has a great estate—Mr. Carroll,’ said the doctor. ‘I wonder he will risk it.’ He was dressed in brown silk breeches, with a yellow figured waistcoat, and, like many of them, wore his sword. Mr. Franklin was not yet come home, and some were late.
“Presently the doctor called, and a man in the military dress of the Virginia militia turned toward us. ‘Colonel Washington,’ said our doctor, ‘will permit me to present him to a lady, a great friend of liberty. Mistress Wynne, Colonel Washington.’
“‘I have already had the honour,’ he said, taking off his hat—a scrolled beaver.
“‘He is our best soldier, and we are fortunate that he is with us,’ said the doctor, as the colonel moved away.”
The doctor changed his mind later, and helped, I fear, to make the trouble which came near to costing Conway his life. I have always been a great admirer of fine men, and as the Virginia colonel moved like Saul above the crowd, an erect, well-proportioned figure, he looked taller than he really was, but, as my aunt had said, was not of the bigness of my father.
“He has a good nose,” said my Aunt Gainor, perhaps conscious of her own possessions in the way of a nasal organ, and liking to see it as notable in another; “but how sedate he is! I find Mr. Peyton Randolph more agreeable, and there is Mr. Robert Morris and John Dickinson.”
Then John Adams went by, deep in talk with Roger Sherman, whom I thought shabbily dressed; and behind them Robert Livingston, whom my aunt knew. Thus it was, as I am glad to remember, that I beheld these men who were to be the makers of an empire. Perhaps no wiser group of people ever met for a greater fate, and surely the hand of God was seen in the matter; for what other colony—Canada, for example,—had such men to show? There, meanwhile, was England, with its great nobles and free commons and a splendid story of hard-won freedom, driving madly on its way of folly and defeat.