From Sea to Shining Sea (16 page)

He took a pew midway back, sat down, yawned, and shut his eyes. He hated to be indoors on a day like this, but he had to be here. He was Dunmore County’s delegate to the Second Revolutionary Convention. The delegates had been meeting here in Richmond since Governor Lord Dunmore had dissolved the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg.

Jonathan kept his eyes closed for a while, hoping that by pretending to snooze he might avoid conversation. He had many unsettling things in his mind. The Colonies and the lives of the Colonists seemed to be coming all apart. One could not proceed along one’s chosen course because of all that was happening.

His father wanted him to take a leave and come home to help on the plantation. Extra grain would have to be planted this year, because all the counties had pledged to grow quotas of food for Boston, which the British fleet had blockaded in retaliation for the destruction of a shipment of British tea.

Tea, Jonathan thought. Tea! The world turned topsa-turva over
tea
! He sat and worried about all this, and about the effects on his career, eyes still shut, and listened to the noises of the arriving delegates.

He listened to the scuffing of shoes on the wooden floors, the scooting of chairs, the echoing knocks of canes on furniture, as the delegates wandered in and settled themselves. There were phlegmatic bursts of throat-clearing and coughing. It almost sounded like a hospital for the aged and infirm. That, he thought, might account for the plodding and cautious conduct of the Convention’s business so far: all these old men.

He heard greetings and jokes and chuckles in voices familiar and unfamiliar. He heard the stertorous voice of Edmund Pendleton, Caroline County’s conservative delegate. He heard Tom Jefferson’s voice nearby, so soft it was barely audible; he heard George Washington and Benjamin Harrison talking close behind him. He heard several voices rise in greeting to Patrick Henry, and heard Henry’s sonorous voice answer. Henry sounded grumpy—probably because the tone of the convention so far had been too calm, too careful, too conciliatory, for Henry’s taste. So many of the important delegates seemed still to yearn back to those pleasant and comfortable times when connection to the motherland had been all benign and sunny. But was it ever? Jonathan thought. Well, maybe it had been for
them
, the old favored families, the magistrates, those who flattered the Royal Governors. But never for the rest.

He opened his eyes as the session came to order, closed them again for the invocation, opened them again.

The business opened this morning with a resolution concerning Jamaica’s stance “in the unhappy contest between Great Britain and her colonies,” followed by a wish that Virginia might soon “see a speedy return of those halcyon days, when we lived a free and happy people.” Jonathan’s eyes started to close again. This, combined with spring fever, was the kind of atmosphere to put a man to sleep.

Suddenly there was a general shuffling and stirring and a volley of coughs, as Patrick Henry asked for the floor. His brow was knit as he held a piece of paper and began to read:

“Resolved, that a well-regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government …” There were murmurs throughout the church. Henry read on: “… that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother-country to keep among us, for the purpose of our defense, any standing army of mercenary soldiers, always subversive of the quiet, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support.” The murmuring grew louder. Patrick Henry glanced around the room over his spectacles,
then continued to read: “… that the establishment of such militia is, at this time, peculiarly necessary …” Now the voices were rising in volume, drowning out Henry until he raised his own voice, adding: “… to secure our inestimable rights and liberties from further violations.

“Resolved, therefore, that this colony be immediately put into a state of defense …” Again he was drowned out; again he raised his voice further:

“… to prepare a plan for imbodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose!”

Then Henry pushed his spectacles up onto his scalp and stepped down amid the hubbub that he had raised. Jonathan’s heart was pounding. He had expected nothing more radical to be proposed at this convention than a few petitions, or at most a resolution to quit importing goods from Great Britain. But this hotspur was talking the language of rebellion.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” someone was shouting. It was Richard Bland. He was one of the warmest of the patriots, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, and Jonathan half expected him to take up Henry’s cry. But when the clamor died down, Bland said instead:

“Really, sir, those resolutions are not only rash, but harsh and, and, well-nigh
impious
!” There was a rumble of voices.

Benjamin Harrison then arose, stiff with age but elegant in satin and silk. “There are still friends of American liberty in Parliament,” he exclaimed, “and as yet they’ve no cause to blush for our indiscretion! His Majesty himself appears to relent, and to look on our sufferings with an eye of pity. Is this a time to disgust our friends, extinguish their sympathies, turn their friendship into hatred, their pity into revenge?”

“Hear, hear!”

One by one, delegates got up and addressed the assembly, though in truth they were talking at Patrick Henry, who sat with his glasses on top of his head, sometimes laying a finger beside his long nose, and scowled.

They demanded to know how he could think the colony was ready for war. They wanted to know what military supplies there were, what arms, what generals, what money. “We’re poor,” cried one delegate. “If we had troops, they’d have to go naked. And yet you talk of assuming a warlike front against the most formidable nation in the world? A nation ready and armed at all points, her navies riding triumphant in every sea? Your measure, sir, sounds brave, but it’s the bravery of madmen!”

Others got up and spoke of the security and luster and domestic
comforts the colony had derived from its connection with Great Britain, and of the ray of reconciliation that was beginning to dawn on them from the east, and they contrasted this with the storms that would be raised by a call to arms. “And in such a storm the world would not even pity us,” intoned a speaker, “for we’d have rashly drawn it upon ourselves!”

“Hear, hear!”

Jonathan found himself sitting on the front edge of his bench. He was on the verge of rising to speak himself, but wasn’t sure which side he would take if he did. The men opposing Henry’s call to arms were no less patriotic than Henry; Jonathan knew that. They were just cautious; they, like Jonathan and Jonathan’s own father, felt themselves to be still Englishmen. But they had all, at times, cursed the high-handedness of the British ministry.

At length, the orations against Patrick Henry’s resolutions began to lose steam, every objection having been made several times, and suddenly Henry gathered his legs under him and stood up again. He kept his glasses on top of his head and strode to the front, and stood there, no paper in his hand now, looking from face to face until each man had grown still. He began in a gentle but distinct voice.

“No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism and the abilities of you worthy gentlemen.

“But different men often see the world in different lights. Therefore I hope it won’t seem disrespectful if I should speak forth my very different sentiments freely.”

There was considerable chair-scooting and throat-clearing as they all settled to listen to him.

“The question before this house is one of awful moment to the country. For my part, I find it no less than a question of freedom or slavery. We have a responsibility, to God and our country, to arrive at truth. If I should keep back my opinions now for fear of giving offense, I would be guilty of treason toward my country, and an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven—which I revere above all earthly kings.”

Jonathan loved Henry’s voice, and the pregnancy of his words. Sometimes it was hard to believe that a man so eloquent had failed at so many ordinary pursuits, that a man so solemn could be such a make-merry as Jonathan knew him to be.

“Mr. President,” Henry went on, “it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. But should wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty, shut our eyes to painful truth and listen to the siren song of hope? For my part, whatever anguish of the spirit it might cost, I am willing to see the whole
truth, and to provide for it. I know of no way to judge the future but by the past. Judging by the past, what has there been in the conduct of the British Ministry in the last ten years to justify those hopes with which you have tried to solace yourselves? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has lately been received? Trust it not; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Rather, ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?

“Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last argument to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen: What means this martial array, if not to force us to submission?” Now he put a keener edge on his voice, and continued: “Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for
us.
They are sent over to rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long a-forging!”

Then he dropped his voice again, and asked what the colony had with which to oppose armies and navies. “Argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years,” he said. “Entreaty and humble supplication? We have already done this to exhaustion.

“Our petitions have been slighted. Our remonstrances have produced more violence and insult. We have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after this, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.”

He now took a deep breath and cried out in a tone that made shivers run down Jonathan’s cheeks:

“There is no longer any room for hope! If we wish to be free, if we wish to preserve those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending,
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!”

Jonathan’s pulse was throbbing in his temples. He saw that the faces of many of the delegates had gone white.

Henry now lowered his voice again, but spoke with such precise enunciation that his words were as forceful as when he had shouted.

“They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed? And when a British guard shall be stationed in every
house? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies have bound us hand and foot?

“Sir, we are
not
weak! Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as this, are invincible by any force our enemy could send against us!”

Jonathan noted his use of the word “enemy” and his mouth felt dry. Henry was referring to fellow Englishmen as if they were another race. Now he went on, in the grave faces of his audience.

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no choice. Even if we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but to 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, sir,
let it come
!”

Henry paused, and he paused at the risk of being shouted down before he could finish. Or maybe he
had
finished. His last three words hung like a bloody banner in the still air over the heads of the delegates, in the rafters of the church. But no one spoke; no one even murmured.

“It is vain, sir,” Henry said with a sarcastic edge on his voice, “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 arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?” Now he spoke as if from a tightened throat.

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God,” he now nearly bellowed. “I know not what course others may take, but as for me—” He flung up his arms, his fists knotted as tight as his brows, and shouted: “
Give me liberty, or give me DEATH!
”

And in the reverberations of his words he stepped down and took his seat. There was not a whisper of applause. Jonathan felt as if his heart were as big and heavy as a mountain; his hands were shaking, and he realized that the transfixed, gaping, chalky-faced listeners were beginning to blur; he was looking at them through tears. He jumped up, as if to dodge from under the great weight upon his heart, and raised an arm. Others were now rising all around, and somebody cried:

“To arms!”

Fists were being raised and shaken.

“To arms!”

“To arms!”

Richard Henry Lee, white-wigged, his fine features drawn, face going from chalk-pale to florid as he talked, took the floor in the midst of the uproar, and talked, scarcely heard, about the realities of the situation, and the odds against the success of arms, but finally, as the noise subsided, he said: “… admitting the probable calculations to be against us, we are assured in holy writ that ‘the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,’ and, if the language of genius may be added to inspiration, I will say with our immortal bard: “Thrice is he armed, who hath his quarrel just!” Lee droned on, but Henry’s words “liberty or death” seemed to linger like echoes in the backs of all the delegates’ minds. Jonathan had never seen a roomful of people remain so agitated for so long. And when Henry’s resolution for a militia was put to vote, it was swept through with little opposition, that mostly from older members, who had come to the convention expecting a mood of reconciliation with Britain. Most of these august ones were visibly shaken by the sudden turn of events Henry’s speech had caused, but some of them were walking about with misty eyes and more youth in their step than anyone had seen for ages.