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Silence Dogood, the Busy-Body, and Early Writings by  Benjamin Franklin

by Richard B. Morris

The portrait of Patrick Henry that has come down to us through the years has been drawn largely from his brilliant oratory. However, the fact that many know Henry's words better than the man who said them is at once a tribute and a tragedy, for Henry's contributions to the cause of liberty went far beyond the bounds of his oratorical genius.

Early Life

In 1731, a young surveyor named John Henry was employed by Col. John Syme in Hanover County, Virginia.  Col. Syme died later that same year and John Henry would stay on at the Studley Plantation, helping the young widow. In 1733, John Henry would marry the widow Sarah Winston Syme.  The couple would eventually have nine children, two boys and seven girls, the second of which was named Patrick, who was born on May 29, 1736.

Patrick had an early love for the leisure life and spent disproportionate amounts of time in the field, hunting, fishing and exploring.  He was most neglectful of his education, a trait which he would later regret.

Undoubtedly, young Patrick learned much of his later infamous oratory skills from the Reverend Samuel Davies.  Sarah Henry became a devout follower of Davies and would take her daughters with her to the services and had their older brother Patrick drive the carriage. On the way home, she would have Patrick repeat aloud the substance of the sermon.  Davies spoke with uncommon artistry and Patrick would listen, intently transfixed.  In later years, Patrick would claim Davies as the greatest speaker he had ever heard and that Davies had the “most profound influence upon him.”

To say Henry was a self-taught attorney is somewhat of an understatement.  Tradition holds that he set off for his bar examination having read only Coke upon Littleton and a digest of the laws of Virginia.  He is supposed to have accomplished this study is six weeks, although some say his studies took closer to six months.  Either way, there can be no question that Henry had only haphazard and skimpy preparation when he took advantage of a break in the stormy spring weather to ride to Williamsburg about the first of April, 1760. In Williamsburg lived four men with the authority to issue a license to practice law.  George Wythe, who would later tutor Thomas Jefferson, John and Peyton Randolph, and Robert Carter Nicholas.

Nothing is known of the examination except for its outcome.  Further, there is no recorded record of the meeting between Henry and Peyton Randolph and Robert Carter Nicholas, but both men, along with Wythe, signed the license.  Wythe brought forth a parchment on which he wrote down the formal phrases of the license, which declared that he had found Patrick Henry “duly qualified” to practice law in the county courts of the colony of Virginia.

Henry then set off to the spacious estate of John Randolph on the south edge of town to continue his examination.  Randolph was put off by Henry’s rustic appearance, and made repeated attempts to shake the applicant, but at last gave up and congratulated the young Henry.

The next week, Henry rode the thirty miles west of Hanover to Goochland Court House, where on April 15, 1760, he was sworn in as a legal attorney in the colony of Virginia, County of Goochland.  Later in the court session, Henry filed his first case, a petition on behalf of William Harding, who was trying to recover a small sum of money owed him by a man named Webber.  The court received the petition favorably and ordered Webber’s goods and chattels attached for the requisite amount.  Henry charged the prescribed fifteen schilling fee and went home. Over the next few months, Henry presented his license at the Hanover and other nearby county courts.

Henry gained a reputation quickly for his oratory abilities. Peter Lyons, the King’s Attorney for Hanover, said that he could prepare his legal papers while sitting in the courtroom no matter what else was going on, “except when Patrick Henry rose to speak.”  Even on “so trifling a subject as a summons and petition for twenty schillings,” Lyons said, he “could not write another word” until Henry had finished his presentation.  Lyons would soon feel the full brunt of the developing power of the young lawyer in a case that would transform the obscure Henry into a political celebrity.

The Parson’s Cause

The Parson’s Cause placed Patrick Henry squarely in opposition to his father and his uncle.  The problem began following a poor harvest in 1758.  In September of that year, the Assembly had passed legislation allowing the payment of debt either by cash or by tobacco notes.  Placing the price of tobacco at two pence, this became known as the “Two-penny Act”.

The Anglican Church was vehemently opposed to the Two-Penny Act in that, the salaries of Anglican Clergy had been set since 1696 at sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco annually.  The Two-Penny Act stood to cost the clergy members greatly.  A British Privy Council would eventually repeal the Two-Penny Act.

Several clergymen filed lawsuits, one of which was the Reverend James Maury of Louisa County.  In 1762, he filed suit against the county tax collector, Thomas Johnson, to recuperate his lost 1759 wages.  Maury managed to have the venue moved to Hanover County, where he felt he stood a better chance of winning due to the influence over the presiding judge, Colonel John Henry, by his brother, Reverend Patrick Henry (Patrick Henry’s uncle).  Maury won his legal case, and the court directed that a jury be called to settle the amount of damages.  Having essentially lost the case, Johnson’s attorney, John Lewis, withdrew, and turned the matter over to his young friend, Patrick Henry, Jr.  In the face of his father’s ruling, the young lawyers’ only task could be to attempt to minimize the damages.

On December 1, 1763, the trial began and proceeded rather quickly.  Lyons called two witnesses, leading tobacco dealers in Hanover, who testified that in May and June of 1759, tobacco had generally sold for fifty shillings per hundredweight.  That was all the jury needed to hear and Lyons rested his case.  In response, Henry produced a receipt into evidence signed by Maury indicating that he had received from Thomas Johnson £144, the value of tobacco due him by the Two-Penny Act.

Lyons argued the defendant had no cause to reopen the question of the law, for the court had already ruled the act invalid.  He further argued the jury was sworn to try a single point – the amount due to Maury.  Henry rose and began to display to the jury, what would be a glimpse of the profound oratory ability of the young Virginian.

William Wirt describes what followed; He rose to reply to Mr. Lyons with apparent embarrassment and some awkwardness, and began a faltering exordium.  The people hung their heads at the unpromising commencement, and the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other, while his father sank back in his chair in evident confusion. All this was of short duration however.  As he proceeded and warmed up with his subject, a wondrous change came over him.  His attitude became erect and lofty, his face lighted up with genius, and his eyes seemed to flash fire; his gesture became graceful and impressive, his voice and his emphasis peculiarly charming.  His appeals to the passions were overpowering.  In the language of those who heard him, ‘he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end.’  In a word, to the astonishment of all, he suddenly burst upon them as an orator of the highest order.  The surprise of the people was only equaled by their delight, and so overcome was his father that tears flowed profusely down his cheeks.

Citing a basic constitutional principle of English law, that only a representative assembly has the power to levy taxes on the people it represents, Henry claimed that the king had no right or authority to annul the law in question.  Lyons interrupted with cries of “Treason!” The court overruled and Henry continued.  I refer again to the account as by William Wirt; We have heard a great deal about the benevolence and holy zeal of our reverend clergy, but how is this manifested?  Do they manifest their zeal in this cause of religion and humanity by practicing the mild and benevolent precepts of the Gospel of Jesus? Do they feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Oh, no, gentlemen!  Instead of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, these rapacious harpies would, were their powers equal to their will, snatch from the hearth of their honest parishioner his last hoecake, from the widow and her orphan children their last milch cow!  The last bed, nay, the last blanket from the lying-in woman!

Henry then concluded by reminding the jury that even though they must find for the plaintiff, “they need not give him more than a farthing.” Consequently, when the jury returned, they awarded Reverend Maury, the sum of one penny.  It may also be said that on that day in the Hanover County Court House, the Virginia Revolution began.  Patrick Henry had given dissent of English rule, its starting point.

House of Burgesses

Patrick Henry first entered into the Virginia House of Burgesses in the middle of May, 1765, less than two weeks before his twenty-ninth birthday.  Henry made a quick name for himself as a Virginia lawyer.  His entry into the House of Burgesses would be no less spectacular. While his colleges owned an average of 1,800 acres and 40 slaves, Henry owned only 600 acres of poor land and held no slaves.  Upon admission, Henry was added to the committee of courts and justice. Though each member of the House had an equal voice, it was well known that a small aristocratic group held all the power. On just his third day in the House, Henry loudly opposed a proposal for a public loan office.  The loan office was clearly planned for the aristocrats to “bail out” their wealthy planter constituents.  Everyone would be taxed to finance the scheme, but only the most aristocratic gentlemen would reap the advantage of the new mortgages.

Henry stunned the House with a condemnation of favoritism and an attack upon the idea that the day of reckoning should be postponed.  The fierce energy of Henry’s attack electrified his audience, including the young law student Thomas Jefferson, listening in the doorway.  Jefferson never forgot the fiery oration he heard that day, especially the ardent exclamation that disdainfully punctured the idea: “What Sir, is it proposed to reclaim the Spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance by filling his pockets with money?”  Right before their eyes, the newcomer spoke his feelings with an almost reckless candor.  All the western county burgesses joined Henry in opposing the bill.

At the time of Henry’s entering the House of Burgesses, the top issue of the day was the opposition to the Stamp Act.  Indeed, it was this very issue which propelled Henry to seek his place in the Virginia House.  Several petitions had been circulated around the House of Burgesses for over a year now, but on May 29, the date of his twenty-ninth birthday, and only his ninth day as a member of the House, Patrick Henry planned to celebrate his birthday with a speech.  He had scribbled out his own Resolves to the Stamp Act.  Henry’s resolves were similar to earlier presentations, only much more forceful with their wording.

As Henry spoke, tempers began to flare.  The hierarchy was particularly incensed by the fifth resolution which denied the Parliament ever had the right to tax the Colonies.

Henry proclaimed, “Tarquin and Ceasar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third-“

At that point, Speaker John Robinson interrupted with the cry of “Treason! Treason!”

By now, such an accusation did little to distract on orator of such lofty ability as Patrick Henry.  He looked at the Speaker as he quickly improvised an appropriate ending to his threat, “-may profit by their example!” Then he added, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”

Upon Henry’s death, a sealed envelop was found among his belongings which contained the original hand written draft of his Virginia Resolves.  On the back of the paper, Henry wrote further comments which, as William Wirt aptly declared in his book on Henry, “I will not withhold from the reader a note of this transaction from the pen of Mr. Henry himself.  It is a curiosity and highly worthy of preservation.”

“The within resolutions passes the House of Burgesses in May, 1765.  They formed the first opposition to the stamp act and the scheme of taxing America by the British parliament.  All the colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent.  I had been for the first time elected a burgess, a few days before, was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the house, and the members that composed it.  Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book wrote the within.  Upon offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me, by the party for submission.  After a long and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only.  The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed.  The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies.  This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and brought on independence to ours.  Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us.  If they are wise, they will be great and happy.  If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable.  Righteousness alone can exalt a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this: and in thy sphere, practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others, - P. Henry.”

A Call to Arms

In February of 1775, Governor Dunmore had repeatedly refused to convene the House of Burgesses, forcing the leaders of Virginia to develop county committees. Hanover County elected Patrick Henry and his half brother, John Syme as its delegates to the Second Virginia Convention.  Henry was absent from this convention due to the recent passing of his first wife.  Despite his bereavement, Henry answered the call of his countrymen to attend the convention in Richmond in March, 1775.

The convention convened at St. John’s Church on March 20, 1775. On the third day of the convention, Patrick Henry took the floor.  The presentation which ensued was the most rousing bit of oration in American history and bore Henry permanent fame as one of the world’s greatest orators.  Generations since have only been able to picture in their minds, the fiery orator concluding his Give Me Liberty speech with the exalted words of “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

The convention sat in stunned silence.  Failure to move forward in preparation for war would be more than cowardice.  It would be treason toward God Himself!  Henry’s opponents were confounded and a committee was established to draw up a militia plan.

The Virginia Committee of Safety shortly ordered the formation of 2 militia regiments.  The 1^st regiment being place under the command of Patrick Henry, who was given the rank of Colonel.  The 2^nd regiment was given to the command of Mr. William Woodford, who had distinguished himself in the French and Indian War.

Try as he may, it became evident to all that the great orator lacked the skills necessary to be a military leader.  Henry did, however, have a brief military career, with some success.  In April of 1775, Virginia’s Governor Dunmore, working in what appeared to be a collaboration among the colonial governors, attempted to disarm the colonial rebels and thus incapacitate them for any type of united resistance.

The export of gunpowder from Great Britain was prohibited and an attempt was made throughout the colonies to seize powder and arms stored in the several provincial magazines. General Gage had set the example in Massachusetts by seizing ammunition and military stores at Cambridge and the powder stored at Charlestown and other places.  His example was followed in several other colonies and on April 20, 1775, Capt. Henry Collins, from the schooner Magdalen, which was moored on the James River, entered Williamsburg in the dead of night and stole some twenty barrels of powder stored at the public magazine.

After the Virginians failed numerous diplomatic attempts to either receive adequate compensation for the powder, or have it returned, it was Patrick Henry who stepped forward.  Henry viewed the incident as ‘most fortunate’ as he saw that the theft of the powder would rouse the people from north to south.

Henry declared, “You may talk to them in vain about the duties of tea, etc. These things will not affect them. But tell them about the robbery of the magazine and that the next step will be to disarm them, you bring the subject home to their bosoms and they will be ready to fly to arms to defend themselves.”

Henry then roused the local militia known as the Independent Company of Hanover and set about to take back the stolen powder. When faced with the threat of attack, Lord Dunmore agreed to repay the value of the powder, the sum of 330 pounds.  Dunmore then proceeded to draw up a proclamation against Patrick Henry for taking up arms against the king’s army.  The proclamation only served to further elevate the status of Henry among his constituents.

In early 1776, Colonel Woodford was given command of the entire Virginia militia, whereupon Henry, refusing to subordinate to what he perceived as his junior, withdrew his commission and retired from military service.

Bibliography

William Bennett, Our Sacred Honor, Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Roger Crandlemire, Founders of Freedom, J.G. Ferguson Publishing, 1964.

A.J. Langguth, Patriots: The Men Who Started the Revolution, Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Henry Mayer, A Son of Thunder, Franklin Watts Press, 1986

Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry: Practical Revolutionary, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1969

Moses Coit Tyler, Patrick Henry, Eaton Press, 1989.

David J. Vaughn, Give Me Liberty: The Uncompromising Statesmanship of Patrick Henry, Cumberland House, 1997.

William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, J. Webster, 1818.