CHAP. XV. SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY. 791 They are sent ministry have sary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win us back to our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of armies and navies? No, sir; she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. over to bind and rivet upon us the chains which the British been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying argument for the last ten years; have we anything new to offer? Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? We have petitioned; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we wish to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir; we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us. "They tell us, sir, that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an enemy. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any power which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a great God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. And, again, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable! and let it come! I repeat it, sir; let it come! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace, peace; but there is no peace! The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me," he cried, with both arms extended aloft, his brow knit, every feature marked with the resolute purpose of his soul, and with his voice swelled to its loudest note, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" Henry's resolution was adopted by an almost unanimous vote, and himself, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others were appointed a committee to execute their designs. In a few days they submitted a plan for the defence of the colony, which was accepted, when the convention reappointed the delegates to the first Congress to seats in the second, to convene in May, adding Thomas Jefferson "in case of the non-attendance of Peyton Randolph." Henry's prophecy was speedily fulfilled. Almost "the next gale" that swept from the North brought to their "ears the clash of resounding arms" at Lexington and Concord. These bold proceedings caused the name of Henry to be presented to the British government in a bill of attainder, with those of Randolph, Jefferson, the two Adams's, and Hancock. They excited the official wrath of Governor Dunmore, who stormed in proclamations; and to frighten the Virginians, he caused a rumor to be circulated that he intended to excite an insurrection of the slaves. He extinguished the last spark of respect for himself, when, late in April, he caused marines to come secretly at night from a vessel-of-war in the York River, and carry to her the powder in the magazine at Williamsburg. The movement was discovered. At dawn, the Minute-men assembled, and were, with difficulty, restrained from seizing the governor. The people also assembled, and sent a respectful remonstrance to Dunmore, complaining of the act as specially wrong at that time, when a servile insurrection was apprehended. He replied evasively. The people demanded the immediate return of the powder. Patrick Henry was at his house in Hanover, when he heard of the act. He assembled a corps of volunteers and marched toward the capital, when the frightened governor sent a deputation with the receiver-general to meet him. Sixteen miles from Williamsburg, they had a conference with the patriot. The matter was CHAP. XV. ABDICATION OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT. 793 compromised by the payment by the receiver-general of the full value of the powder. Henry sent the money to the public treasury, and returned home. In the midst of this excitement, the governor called the House of Burgesses together, to consider a conciliatory proposition from Lord North. They rejected it; and the governor now fulminated proclamations against Henry and the committees of Vigilance which were formed in every county in Virginia. He declared that if one of his officers should be molested, he would raise the royal standard, proclaim freedom to the slaves, and arm them against their masters. He surrounded his house-his "palace" as he called it—with cannon, and secretly placed powder under the floor of the magazine, with the evident intention of blowing it up, should occasion seem to call for the deed. The discovery of this "gunpowder plot" greatly excited the people. Then came a rumor, on the 7th of June (1775), that armed marines were on their way from the York River to assist Dunmore to enforce the laws. The people flew to arms. The governor, alarmed for his personal safety, withdrew, with his family, that night to Yorktown, and the next morning took refuge on board the British man-of-war Fowey. He was the first royal governor who abdicated government at the beginning of the Revolution. From the Fowey, Dunmore sent messages, addresses, and letters to the Burgesses in session at Williamsburg, and received communications from them in return. When all necessary bills had been passed, the House invited Dunmore to his capital, to sign them, promising him a safeguard. He declined, and demanded that they should present the papers at his present residence, the ship-of-war. They did not go; but delegating their powers to a permanent committee, they adjourned. So ended royal rule in Virginia. Other royal governors were also compelled to abdicate; and before the close of the summer of 1775, British dominion in the English-American provinces had ceased forever, and the people were preparing for war. News of the events of the 19th of April reached the city of New York on Sunday, the 23d. Regarding patriotism as a holy thing, the Sons of Liberty there did not refrain from doing its work on the Sabbath. They immediately proceeded to lay an embargo on vessels bound to Boston with supplies for the British troops there. In defiance of the king's collector at that port, they landed the cargo of a vessel which he had refused to admit, demanded and received the keys of the Custom-house, dismissed those employed in it, and closed it. This was done by Sears and Lamb, the chief leaders of the Sons of Liberty: and they boldly avowed this overt act of treason in letters to their political friends in other cities. It was soon imi tated elsewhere. As the horrid story of Lexington and Concord spread over the provinces southward, royal authority rapidly disappeared. Provincial Congresses were organized in all the colonies where they did not already exist, and so the political union of the provinces was perfected. Provision was everywhere made for war; and in May, a convention of the representatives of the towns in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, met at Charlotte, and by their proceedings, virtually declared the inhabitants of that county independent of the British crown. Taking into consideration the fact that the crown had proclaimed the people of the colonies to be rebels, the Convention declared that all government in their county had ceased, and proceeded by a series of resolutions, passed on the 31st of May, to organize independent local government for themselves. This famous "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence" has been the subject of much discussion, disputations, and acute historical inquiry. In the meantime an army of patriots were gathering around Boston with a determination to confine the British troops to the peninsula, or drive them to their ships and out to sea. On the morning of the day after the massacre at Lexington and Concord, and the fight on the retreat, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety sent a circular to all the towns of the province, CHAP. XV. GATHERING OF PATRIOTS AT CAMBRIDGE. 795 saying: "We conjure you, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred; we beg and entreat you, as you will answer it to your country, to your consciences, and, above all, to God himself, that you will hasten and arrange, by all possible means, the enlistment of men to form the army; and send them forward to headquarters at Cambridge with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demands.” The call was answered by many of the people before it reached their ears. It arose spontaneously out of the depths of their own patriotic hearts. Men started from the desk, the workshop, and the field the moment when the dreadful tale was told. Many of them did not stay to change their clothing; they carried neither money nor food, intent only upon having their firelocks in order, their powder-horns well supplied, and their bulletpouches well filled. The women on their way opened wide their doors and hearts for the refreshment and encouragement of the patriotic volunteers; and very soon all New England was represented at Cambridge. Veterans of wars with the Indians and the French appeared as leaders; and before the close of April a fluctuating army of several thousand men were forming camps and piling fortifications around Boston, from Roxbury to the Mystic River, along a line of about twenty miles. So early as the afternoon of the 20th, General Artemas Ward, the senior military officer appointed by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, was on the ground, and assumed the chief command. That Congress, like the Committee of Safety, worked day and night in patriotic duty. They appointed military officers; organized a bureau of supplies, and issued bills of credit for the payment of the troops to the amount of three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, for the |