The next and last letter we have, (though others doubtless were written, and may perhaps still be in existence,) in the interesting correspondence we have been following, is of the 20th of January, 1775. In the six months' interval, which had elapsed since the date of the previous letter, events of the deepest moment had passed. A feeling of profound indignation had been aroused among the people by the news of the Boston Port Bill and the dissolution of the Assembly; and meetings were held in a large majority of the counties of Virginia, denouncing those proceedings in the stern, unmitigated language of freemen, and calling for efficient measures of retaliation and self-protection.

The Convention of Virginia met in Williamsburg on the 1st of August, 1774, and entered into a solemn association and agreement by which they pledged themselves "under the sacred ties of honor and love of country," and recommended the same engagement to be entered into by their constituents, not to import any goods, wares, and merchandise from Great Britain after the 1st of November next; to cease from exporting thither all American productions after the 10th day of August, 1775, if the grievances of the Colonies should not, by that day, be fully redressed; to have no dealings with any merchant who should not subscribe to their association, and to consider all such persons as enemies of the country.

MEETING OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 61

On the 5th of September the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. They adopted a solemn Declaration of American rights, concluding with an explicit demand of the repeal of all the acts of Parliament, (which were enumerated at length,) that had been passed in violation of those rights; entered, "for themselves and their constituents," into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement, upon the model of that of Virginia; and finally put forth those masterly State Papers which have been immortalized by the eloquent applause of Chatham and by their own transcendent merits.1

While the Continental Congress was yet in session, Virginia met her savage foes in the memorable and decisive battle of Point Pleasant, and closed one war, just in time to prepare for another and graver.

1 It was on the occasion of making his motion, (20th of January 1775,) for the withdrawal of the troops from Boston, that Lord Chatham spoke thus of the proceedings of the Congress of 1774: "When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow that, in all my reading and observation, and history has been my favorite study,-I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master States of the

world,-that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be futile, must be vain."

See another version of the same noble panegyric, which, with precisely the same sentiments, varies somewhat in language, in Belsham's History of Great Britain, vol. VI. p. 99.

It was under these circumstances that Mr. Madison wrote to his friend Bradford on the 20th of January, 1775

"We are very busy at present, in raising men and procuring the necessaries for defending ourselves and our friends in case of a sudden invasion. The extensiveness of the demands of the Congress, and the pride of the British nation, together with the wickedness of the present ministry, seem in'the judgment of our politicians to require a preparation for extreme events. There will by the Spring, I expect, be some thousands of well-trained, high-spirited men ready to meet danger, whenever it appears, who are influenced by no mercenary principles, but bearing their. expenses, and having the prospect of no recompense but the honor and safety of their country.

“I suppose the inhabitants of your province

are more reserved in their behaviour, if not more easy in their apprehensions, from the prevalence of Quaker principles and politics. The Quakers are the only people with us, who refuse to accede to the continental association. I cannot forbear suspecting them to be under the control and direction of the leaders of the party in your quarter; for I take those of them that we have to be too honest and simple to have any sinister or secret views, and I do not observe anything in the association inconsistent with their religious principles. When I say they refuse to accede to the association, my

CORRECTION OF AN HISTORICAL ERROR. 63

meaning is, that they refuse to sign it, that being the method used among us to distinguish friends from foes, and to oblige the common people to a more strict observance of it. I have never heard whether the like method has been adopted in the other governments.

"I have not seen the following in print, and it seems so just a specimen of Indian eloquence and mistaken valor that I think you will be pleased with it. You must make allowance for the unskilfulness of the interpreter." [He then gives the "Speech of Logan, a Shawanese chief, to Lord Dunmore," in the same words (with a few very slight variations) in which it afterwards appeared in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.]1

The foregoing letter of Mr. Madison leads to the correction of a prevalent historical error with regard to the time when military preparations were begun in Virginia for the vindication by force, if it should prove necessary, of the rights asserted by the Colonies. The hitherto accredited account is, that the resolutions for arming and embodying a portion of the militia, moved by Mr. Henry in the convention which assembled in Richmond, on the 20th of March, 1775, and adopted by that body, sounded the first note of preparation for an impending con

per of New York of the 16th of February, 1775, as "an extract of a letter from Virginia." See American Archives, 4th series, vol. I.

1 The last paragraph of this letter of Mr. Madison was published without his name, a few weeks after its date, together with the speech of Logan, in a newspa- p. 1020.

flict of arms; and that, down to that time, the older and more cautious leaders had been supinely relying, and were even then disposed to rely, upon the vain and delusive remedies of "petition, commercial non-intercourse, and passive fortitude." Such is the view presented by an eloquent biographer of Mr. Henry,' who, with a commendable bias in favor of the patriotism, spirit, and sagacity of his illustrious subject, has not been sufficiently on his guard against the tendency of that bias to depreciate, in comparison, both the general spirit of the times, and the merits of other illustrious actors in the same eventful scenes. But the truth of history, however it may slumber for a season in unknown or forgotten documents, awakes at last, and deals impartial justice to all.

The letter of Mr. Madison proves, that, two months at least in advance of Mr. Henry's proposition, there was a general concurrence of public men in the necessity of "preparation for extreme events," and that a military organization was already in progress in Virginia, which, by the Spring, would offer to the country "some thousands of well-trained, high-spirited men, ready to meet danger, whenever it appears."

In a most valuable and authentic repository of original documents, we find a letter from a gentleman in Maryland to his correspondent in Glasgow, dated as early as the 1st of November,

1 See Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, pp. 114–124.