ABLE MEN OF THE CONVENTION.

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mony of all, "bore the heat and burden of the day" in its exposition and defence, and carried it triumphantly through the convention, will, in the estimation of mankind, have achieved by far the most solid and lasting claim on the gratitude of his country. If they should have been one and the same person, the double glory is a rich and overflowing fund, which the rightful possessor may well afford to divide with able and meritorious co-laborers in the same

cause.

That there were many such in the convention, we need only to look over the list of members, and to recollect the length of time (from the 15th of May to the 29th of June) during which the subject of a plan of government was under consideration, either in committee or before the whole body, to be entirely satisfied. Such veteran statesmen as Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Robert Carter Nicholas, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Archibald Cary, not to mention others whose wisdom and capacity were acknowledged by being called to fill some of the most important offices under the new government, could not have been idle and unassisting spectators, when so great a work was in hand as laying the foundations of the first free and balanced republican government, without privilege or caste, which the world had yet seen. Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe also returned from their duties in Congress in time to

take part in the closing deliberations of the convention on the constitution.

In this review must be included likewise Meriwether Smith, to whom a vague tradition, as we have seen, has ascribed the first draught of the constitution. Though his name is little familiar to the present generation, he was undoubtedly a man of mark in his day, as is sufficiently attested by the circumstance of his being named second on the committee appointed to prepare the Declaration of Rights and a plan of government, as well as by the many public offices,— councillor of state, delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, the convention of Annapolis, and the ratifying convention of Virginia of 1788, and member of the legislature, which he afterwards filled.

Nor can we suppose, notwithstanding the modest self-disqualification of Mr. Madison, that, young and inexperienced" though he was, his well-trained mind, and those of his two youthful and rising colleagues, Edmund Randolph and Henry Tazewell, were not earnestly directed to this great work; while the reserved corps of grave, practical men, whose business was not so much to speak as to think and act, calmly watched and controlled every step of its progress. The character, thought, wisdom, and patriotism of an entire generation of superior men were thus stamped and moulded into the constitution of 1776; and it is the immortal praise of

PATRICK HENRY ELECTED GOVERNOR.

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George Mason to have been the acknowledged leader of such an assembly, and the accredited exponent and champion of its principles.

Immediately after the adoption of the constitution, and on the same day, the convention proceeded to the election of the governor and council, upon whom the executive administration of the new government was to devolve. Mr. Henry was chosen governor; and from his letter of acceptance we are authorized to conclude that the constitution just adopted fulfilled entirely his conception of that "most esteemed republican plan," which, in his letter to Mr. Adams, he said he had so much at heart. To the convention, he says: "I shall enter upon the duties of my office, whenever you, gentlemen, shall be pleased to direct, relying upon the known wisdom and virtue of your honorable House to supply my defects, and to give permanency and success to that system of government which you have formed, and which is so wisely calculated to secure equal liberty and to advance human happiness." After making further provisions for military defence, and providing for the election of the senatorial branch of the new legislature, the convention, on the 5th day of July, adjourned to meet in Williamsburg on the first Monday in October following, then to serve as a House of Delegates, in virtue of the annual election of April last, and, with the Senate, form the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

CHAPTER VI.

Military Reverses of the Second Campaign of the Revolutionary War First Session of the new Republican Legislature of Vir

ginia Measures for extending the Benefits of Religious Freedom

Chosen by the

Abolition of Entails - Provision for the General Revision of the Laws First Acquaintance of Jefferson and Madison - Energetic Resolutions of the Virginia Legislature for the Conduct of the War - The Tide of Disaster turned by the Daring and Heroism of Washington at Trenton and Princeton - Election of a new Legislature in Virginia - Mr. Madison loses his Election by his Respect for the Purity of the Elective Franchise General Assembly to be a Member of the Council of State - Correspondence between him and the Rev. Samuel Stanhope SmithRelations with Governor Henry-Important Agency of the Governor and Council in expediting the Levies of Troops for the General Defence Liberal Spirit manifested by Virginia for the Assistance of her sister States-Expedition and brilliant Success of George Rogers Clarke under the Auspices of Virginia - British Ministry induced by the Capture of Burgoyne's Army to seek Reconciliation with the American States - Proceedings of the Royal Commissioners in America - Evacuation of Philadelphia, and Battle of Monmouth - Treaty Efforts to detach America from it

of Alliance with France Operations against the South

ern States - Reduction of Georgia — Invasion of Virginia — Mr. Jefferson Successor to Governor Henry - Virginia ratifies Treaty of Alliance with France by her own independent Act - Negotiations with Spain-Demands made by that Power as Conditions of

MILITARY REVERSES.

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her Coöperation in the War-Resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia with Regard to the Navigation of the Mississippi-Her Remonstrance to Congress on the Subject of the Western Territory - Mr. Madison chosen one of her Delegates in the Congress of the Confederation.

On the 7th day of October, 1776, commenced in Williamsburg, under the auspices of the new constitution, the first session of the independent Legislative Assembly of Virginia. A remarkable and providential series of military successes had attended the first year of the contest with the armed tyranny of the mother country. The able generalship of Washington had forced the British army to abandon its stronghold at Boston; an imposing expedition against Charleston, the principal seaport of the South, under the command of Sir Henry Clinton, had been signally repulsed; in North Carolina and Virginia, discomfiture had everywhere attended the arms of the enemy; and from the latter State, the infamous and revengeful Dunmore, with his piratical bands, had been at last driven out with total and pitiable overthrow. But the tide of fortune now began to ebb; and the disastrous battle of Long Island, and the expulsion of the American army from the city of New York by the overwhelming superiority of the enemy's forces concentred there, commenced that mournful succession of reverses which tried, to the uttermost, the great soul of the commander-in-chief, and called for