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expected dissolution of the house, prevented him from offering certain resolutions which he had prepared for the following day. The tenor of the whole may be inferred from the two last, which are in these words, "Resolved, that the blocking up or attempting to block up, the harbour of Boston, until the people there shall submit to the payment of taxes imposed on them without the consent of their representatives, is a most violent and dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty of all British America.-Resolved, that be appointed deputies from this house such deputies from the other colonies as they shall appoint, there to consider and determine on ways the most effectual to stop the exports from North America, and for the adoption of such other methods, as will be most decisive, for securing the rights of America against the systematic plan formed for their destruction."

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Mr. Lee, having been prevented from offering these resolutions, proposed that the members of the house should assemble, and as representatives of the people, recommend the meeting of a general congress. They met, but the majority possessing less ardour, or as they thought, less rashness than Mr. Lee, pursued a more dilatory course. An address to the people was drawn up by Mr. Lee, and approved by the meeting, embracing the substance of the first of the above resolutions, but the second was softened into a recommendation to the committee of correspondence, to obtain the sentiments of the other colonies, on the

expediency of a meeting of deputies, "to deliberate on those general measures which the united interests of America may from time to time require." The meeting then adjourned till the first day of August.

An incursion of the Indians on the frontiers of Virginia, furnished a cause or afforded a pretext to the governor, for summoning a new house of burgesses. Policy might prostrate what power could not suppress, the voice of a people resolved on freedom. He therefore issued writs for a new house, returnable on the eleventh of August, thus offering to the representatives an opportunity of meeting in the usual manner, as a reward for ten days delay, and as a bribe to renounce the authority of the people. If such were his motive, bitter disappointment was the fruit of his crafty scheme; for he saw the most distinguished men in the colony meet, at the call of the people, on the first of August, 1774, to compose the first assembly of Virginia.

After having advocated in this assembly his favourite measure, with all the fervour of his nature and the power of his eloquence, Mr. Lee had the gratification to be deputed by it, with Washington and Henry, as delegates to a continental congress. This august body met at Philadelphia on the fifth of September, 1774. It is said that silence, awful and protracted, preceded "the breaking of the last seal" in this assembly, and that astonishment and applause filled the house when this was done by Patrick Henry. The thrill of exultation and glow of excitement

might have subsided into dejection or sunk into lassitude, had not Mr. Lee perceived, "the quiver on every lip, the gleam in every eye." With the quickness of intuition, he saw, that a small impulse could turn this mass of agitated feeling to evil or to good; he rose; the sweetness of his language and harmony of his voice soothed, but did not suppress the emotions of the meeting; while with the most persuasive eloquence he taught, that there was but one hope for his country, and that was in the vigour of her resistance.

In Wirt's life of Patrick Henry it is assumed, that Richard Henry Lee was unfitted for the details of business, and it seems to be inferred, that, when the topics of declamation were exhausted, he whose powers could only be applied to excite or assuage the passions of a multitude, must have lost much of the influence which he had at first acquired. His failure in composition is in the same place asserted; but this assertion would seem to be a corollary from a principle, which the author himself denies, that eloquence in speech and in writing are rarely united, or it may rest on the report of others, or be the fancy of his own powerful imagination, believed without thought, and rashly asserted as a fact.

The colouring of character in history ought not to be touched with partiality or disfigured by passion or resentment, but following the series of events in the short session of the first congress, to note those in which Mr. Lee took an active and important part,

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VOL. IX.-F

may be necessary to correct the inadvertency of the author of the life of Patrick Henry.

Mr. Lee was a member of the leading committees of this session; to prepare an address to the king of England, to the people of Britain, and to the colonies. The committee for the first were Messrs. Lee, Adams, Johnson, Rutledge and Henry, they reported a draught of a petition on the twenty-first of October, which was recommitted for the purpose of embodying proposed amendments, and Mr. Dickenson was added to the committee. The amended petition was brought in on the twenty-fourth, and finally adopted. Mr. Lee is supposed to have been the writer of the original, and it is thought improbable that Mr. Dickenson in the interval between the two reports of the committee, could have written and proposed to them a new address, especially considering his sense of propriety and the character and abilities of the gentlemen of that committee. Messrs. Lee, Livingston, and Jay, were the committee to prepare a memorial to the people of British America and an address to the people of Great Britain; in the committee it was agreed that Mr. Lee should prepare a draught of the former, the first in order and importance, and that Mr. Jay should sketch the other, which was accordingly done. On the twenty-first of October, the committee reported a draught of the memorial; it was debated by paragraphs, and with some amendments approved. It has always been believed, that the memorial was written by Mr. Lee,

nor have any reasons to doubt it come to our knowledge. Messrs. Cushing, Lee and Dickenson were appointed to prepare an address to the people of Quebec, and it has often been said and never contradicted, that this address was written by Mr. Dick

enson.

The committees to state the rights and grievances of the several colonies and to devise the most effectual means of carrying into effect the resolution of non-intercourse with Britain, were not less important than the foregoing committees, and of these Mr. Lee was also a member. He knew, that in the convulsion of states, courage and vigorous enterprize give safety; in such periods inactivity is certain destruction, while bold temerity is often crowned with success; he believed that to linger in doubt in such a state of affairs, might be ruin to their cause, and in this belief, he proposed the following resolutions.

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Resolved, that, as we find the reason, declared in the preamble to the act of parliament for raising a revenue in America, to be for supplying the civil government, the administration of justice, and for protecting, defending and securing the colonies, the Congress recommend it to those colonies, in which it is not already done, to provide constitutional, competent and honourable support for the purposes of government and administration of justice, and that as it is quite unreasonable, that the mother country should be at the expense of maintaining standing armies in North America for its defence, and that administration

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