appointed a captain of foot in one of the first Minute Regiments raised here, but was soon obliged to quit the service by a violent rheumatic disorder, which has followed him ever since, and I believe will force him to try the climate of France or Italy. My other sons have not yet finished their education; as soon as they do, if the war continues, they seem strongly inclined to take an active part. "In the summer of '75 I was, much against my inclination dragged out of my retirement by the people of my county, and sent a delegate to the General Convention at Richmond, where I was appointed a member of the first Committee of Safety, and have since at different times been chosen a member of the Privy Council and of the American Congress, but have constantly declined acting in any other public character than that of an independent representative of the people in the House of Delegates, where I still remain from a consciousness of being able to do my country more service there than in any other department; and have ever since devoted most of my time to public business to the no small neglect and injury of my private fortune; but if I can only live to see the American Union firmly fixed and free government well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty, I shall die satisfied, and say with the Psalmist, 'Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' "To show you that I have not been an idle spectator of this great contest, and to amuse you with the sentiments of an old friend upon an important subject, I inclose you a copy of the first draught of the Declaration of Rights just as it was drawn by me and presented to the Virginia Convention, where it received few alterations, some of them, I think, not for the better. This was the first thing of the kind upon the continent, and has been closely imitated by all the other States. There is a remarkable sameness in all the forms of government throughout the American Union, except in the States of South Carolina and Pennsylvania; the first having three branches of legislature, and the last only All the other States have two. This difference has given general disgust, and it is probable an alteration will soon take place to assimilate these to the constitutions of the other States. We have laid our new government upon a broad foundation, and one. THE REVOLUTION in retroSPECT. 299 have endeavored to provide the most effectual securities for the essential rights of human nature, both in civil and religious liberty. The people become every day more and more attached to it, and I trust that neither the power of Great Britain, nor the power of Hell will be able to prevail against it. There was never an idler or a falser notion than that which the British ministry have imposed upon the nation, that this great Revolution has been the work of a faction, of a junto of ambitious men, against the sense of the people of America. On the contrary, nothing has been done without the approbation of the people, who have indeed outrun their leaders, so that no capital measure hath been adopted until they called loudly for it. To any one who knows mankind there needs no greater proof than the cordial manner in which they have co-operated, and the patience and perseverance with which they have struggled under their sufferings, which have been greater than you at a distance can conceive, or I describe. "Equally false is the assertion that independence was originally designed here. Things have gone such lengths that it is a matter of moonshine to us whether independence was at first intended or not, and therefore we may now be believed. The truth is, we have been forced into it as the only means of selfpreservation, to guard our country and posterity from the greatest of all evils, such another infernal government (if it deserves the name of government) as the Provinces groaned under in the latter ages of the Roman Commonwealth. To talk of replacing us in the situation of 1763, as we first asked, is to the last degree absurd and impossible. They obstinately refused it while it was in their power, and now that it is out of their power they offer it. Can they raise our cities out of their ashes? Can they replace in ease and affluence the thousands of families whom they have ruined? Can they restore the husband to the widow, the child to the parent, or the father to the orphan? In a word, can they reanimate the dead? Our country has been made a scene of desolation and blood. Enormities and cruelties have been committed here which not only disgrace the British name, but dishonor the human-kind. We can never again trust a people who have thus served us; human nature revolts at the idea. The die is cast, the rubicon is passed, and a reconciliation with Great Britain upon the terms of returning to her government is impos Over | sible. No man was more warmly attached to the Hanover family and the Whig interest of England than I was; and few men had stronger prejudices in favor of that form of government under which I was born and bred, or a greater aversion to changing it. It was ever my opinion, that no good man would wish to try so dangerous an experiment upon any speculative notions whatsoever, without an absolute necessity. The ancient poets, in their elegant manner of expression, have made a kind of being of necessity, and tell us that the gods themselves are obliged to yield to her. "When I was first a member of the Convention I exerted myself to prevent a confiscation of the King's Quit Rents, and although I was for putting the country immediately into a state of defence, and preparing for the worst, yet as long as we had any well-founded hopes of reconciliation, I opposed to the utmost of my power all violent measures, and such as might shut the door to it. But when reconciliation became a lost hope, when unconditional submission or effectual resistance were the only alternatives left us, when the last dutiful and humble petition from Congress received no other answer than declaring us rebels and out of the King's protection, I from that moment looked forward to a revolution and independence as the only means of salvation; and will risk the last penny of my fortune, and the last drop of my blood, upon the issue. For to imagine that we could resist the efforts of Great Britain still professing ourselves her subjects, or support a defensive war against a powerful nation, without the reins of government in the hands of America (whatever our pretended friends in Great Britain may say of it), is too childish and futile an idea to enter into the head of any man of sense. I am not singular in my opinions: these are the sentiments of more than nine tenths of the best men in America. "God has been pleased to bless our endeavors in a just cause with remarkable success. To us upon the spot who have seen step by step the progress of this great contest, who know the defenceless state of America in the beginning, and the numberless difficulties we have had to struggle with, taking a retrospective view of what is passed, we seem to have been treading upon enchanted ground. The case is now altered, American prospects PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION. 301 brighten and appearances are strongly in our favor. The British ministry must and will acknowledge us independent States, but (judging the future by the past) if they act consistently, they will delay this until mutual injuries and resentments are further aggravated, until our growing prejudices against Great Britain are more firmly rooted, and until we become better reconciled to foreign manufactures and foreign manners. It will not require many years to accomplish this, and then the wisdom of British councils will seize the auspicious moment to recognize the independence of America. "The present plan of the British ministry seems to be to corrupt and bribe the Congress; but in this, as they have in everything else, they will be disappointed; not that I imagine that there are no rotten members in so numerous a body of men. Among the twelve apostles there was a Judas-but they are too much in the power of the Assemblies of their respective States, and so thoroughly amenable to the people, that no man among them, who values his own life, dares to tamper; and upon this rock the safety of America is founded. "I have thus given you a long and faithful, and I fear you will think a tedious account of the political state of affairs here; my opportunities of knowing them are equal to most men's, and the natural anxiety you must have to be well informed of the situation of your native country, at so important a crisis, will apologize for the trouble. "We have had 200,000 acres of land laid off, marked and bounded in one survey for the Ohio [Company]."1 An incomplete copy of this letter is preserved in the Mason family, and among the Lee Papers, Harvard University, is a copy with several paragraphs in addition, though the conclusion and signature are wanting. The letter was first published in Niles' "Principles and Acts of the Revolution," from the Mason draft. CHAPTER IX. VIRGINIA AND THE LAND COMPANIES. 1778-1779. Through this letter to Colonel Mercer, of 1778, we look in upon the family circle at "Gunston Hall," and see the grave statesman surrounded by his sons and daughters, some of them now grown to manhood and womanhood, and the eldest daughter, who so resembled her mother in character, presiding over her widowed father's house. The first marriage in the family had just taken place. The second daughter, Sarah, then about twenty, married Daniel McCarty, Jr., the son of Col. Daniel McCarty, of "Mount Airy," in Fairfax County. The young couple settled at "Cedar Grove," in the same neighborhood. Of this sister, her brother, John Mason, used to say in after years, that he never remembered to have heard her speak a cross word. A lovely portrait of her is preserved by her descendants, taken in her widowhood, when about forty, with the delicate features and auburn hair inherited from her mother, framed in a close-fitting widow's cap. It will be seen from Colonel Mason's account of his political career, that he had been elected more than once to the Council, but had refused this place, as well as a seat in the Continental Congress, desiring only to be "an independent representative of the people in the House of Delegates." The Virginia planter, obliged to send abroad for many of the household stuffs required in his family, and now cut off from Great Britain, and, by the progress of the war, finding it difficult to communicate with France, was in some per |