TO JAMES MADISON 1

MONTICELLO Aug. 2. 16.

DEAR SIR, Mrs. Randolph, Ellen & myself intended before this to have had the pleasure of seeing Mrs Madison and yourself at Montpelier as we menindividuals of the colony, and the highest standing in it, in public as well as in their private relations, associated under obligations to furnish each of them two able-bodied men, at their own expense, to form themselves into a regiment under the denomination of the Virginia Blues, to join the colonial force on the frontier, and place themselves under its commander, George Washington, then a colonel. They But appointed William Byrd, a member of the council, colonel of the regiment, and Peyton Randolph, I think, had also some command. the original associators had more the will than the power of becoming effective soldiers. Born and bred in the lap of wealth, all the habits of their lives were of ease, indolence, and indulgence. Such men were little fitted to sleep under tents, and often without them, to be exposed to all the intemperances of the seasons, to swim rivers, range the woods, climb mountains, wade morasses, to skulk behind trees, and contend as sharp-shooters with the savages of the wilderness, who, in all the scenes and exercises, would be in their natural element. Accordingly, the commander was more embarrassed with their care, than reinforced by their service. They had the good fortune to see no enemy, and to return at the end of the campaign rewarded by the favor of the public for this proof of their generous patriotism and good will.

When afterwards, in 1764, on the proposal of the Stamp Act, the House of Burgesses determined to send an address against it to the king, and memorials to the Houses of Lords and Commons, Peyton Randolph, George Wythe, and (I think) Robert C. Nicholas, were That to the king was by Peyton appointed to draw these papers. Randolph, and the memorial to the Commons was by George Wythe. It was on the ground of these papers that those gentlemen opposed the famous resolutions of Mr. Henry in 1765, to wit, that the principles of these resolutions had been asserted and maintained in the address and memorials of the year before, to which an answer was yet to be expected.

On the death of the speaker, Robinson, in 1766, Peyton Randolph was elected speaker. He resigned his office of Attorney-General, in He now devoted himwhich he was succeeded by his brother Randolph, father of the late Edmund Randolph, and retired from the bar. self solely to his duties as a legislator, and although sound in his

1 From the Historical Magazine, xiv., 247.

tioned to Mr Coles; but three days ago Mrs Randolph was taken with a fever, which has confined her to her bed ever since. It is so moderate that we are in the hourly hope of its leaving her and, after a

principles, and going steadily with us in opposition to the British usurpations, he, with the other older members, yielded the lead to the younger, only tempering their ardor, and so far moderating their pace as to prevent their going too far in advance of the public sentiment.

On the establishment of a committee by the legislature, to correspond with the other colonies, he was named their chairman, and their first proposition to the other colonies was to appoint similar committees, who might consider the expediency of calling a general Congress of deputies in order to procure a harmony of procedure among the whole. This produced the call of the first Congress, to which he was chosen a delegate, by the House of Burgesses, and of which he was appointed, by that Congress, its president.

On the receipt of what was called Lord North's conciliatory proposition, in 1775, Lord Dunmore called the General Assembly, and laid it before them. Peyton Randolph quitted the chair of Congress, in which he was succeeded by Mr. Hancock, and repaired to that of the House which had deputed him. Anxious about the tone and spirit of the answer which should be given (because being the first it might have effect on those of the other colonies), and supposing that a younger pen would be more likely to come up to the feelings of the body he had left, he requested me to draw the answer, and steadily supported and carried it through the House, with a few softenings only from the more timid members.

After the adjournment of the House of Burgesses he returned to Congress, and died there of an apoplexy, on the 22d of October following, aged, as I should conjecture, about fifty years.

He was indeed a most excellent man; and none was ever more beloved and respected by his friends. Somewhat cold and coy towards strangers, but of the sweetest affability when ripened into acquaintance. Of attic pleasantry in conversation, always good humored and conciliatory. With a sound and logical head, he was well read in the law; and his opinions, when consulted, were highly regarded, presenting always a learned and sound view of the subject, but generally, too, a listlessness to go into its thorough development; for being heavy and inert in body, he was rather too indolent and careless for business, which occasioned him to get a smaller proportion of it at the bar than his abilities would otherwise have commanded. Indeed, after his appointment as Attorney-General, he did not seem

little time to recruit her strength, of carrying her purpose into execution, which we shall lose no time in doing. In the meantime I salute Mrs Madison & yourself with unceasing affection & respect.

TO WILLIAM WIRT

J. MSS.

MONTICELLO, September 4, 1816.

DEAR SIR,—I have read, with great delight, the portion of the history of Mr. Henry which you have been so kind as to favour me with, and which is now returned. And I can say, from my own knowledge of the contemporary characters introduced into the canvas, that you have given them quite as much lustre as themselves would have asked. The exactness, too, of your details has, in several instances, corrected their errors in my own recollections, where they had begun to falter.

In result, I scarcely find anything needing revisal;

to court, nor scarcely to welcome, business. In that office he considered himself equally charged with the rights of the colony as with those of the crown; and in criminal prosecutions, exaggerating nothing, he aimed at a candid and just state of the transaction, believing it more Although a duty to save an innocent than to convict a guilty man. not eloquent, his matter was so substantial that no man commanded more attention, which, joined with a sense of his great worth, gave him a weight in the House of Burgesses which few ever attained. He was liberal in his expenses but correct also, so as not to be involved in pecuniary embarrassments; and with a heart always open to the amiable sensibilities of our nature, he did as many good acts as could have been done with his fortune, without injuriously impairing his He left no issue, and gave his fortune to means of continuing them. his widow and nephew, the late Edmund Randolph.

I From Kennedy's Memoirs of W. Wirt, i., 362.

yet, to show you that I have scrupulously sought occasions of animadversion, I will particularize the following passages, which I noted as I read them.

Page 1: I think this passage had better be moderated. That Mr. Henry read Livy through once a year is a known impossibility with those who knew him. He may have read him once, and some general history of Greece; but certainly not twice. A first reading of a book he could accomplish sometimes and on some subjects, but never a second. He knew well the geography of his own country, but certainly never made any other a study. So, as to our ancient charters; he had probably read those in Stith's history; but no man ever more undervalued chartered titles than himself. He drew all natural rights from a purer source the feelings of his own breast. *

He never, in conversation or debate, mentioned a hero, a worthy, or a fact in Greek or Roman history, but so vaguely and loosely as to leave room to back out, if he found he had blundered.

The study and learning ascribed to him, in this passage, would be inconsistent with the excellent and just picture given of his indolence through the rest of the work.

Page 33, line 4: Inquire further into the fact alleged that Henry was counsel for Littlepage. I am much persuaded he was counsel for Dandridge. There was great personal antipathy between him and Littlepage, and the closest intimacy with Dandridge, who was his near neighbor, in whose house he was at home as one of the family, who was his earliest

VOL. XII.-3.

and greatest admirer and patron, and whose daughter became, afterwards, his second wife.

It was in his house that, during a course of Christmas festivities, I first became acquainted with Mr. Henry. This, it is true, is but presumptive evidence, and may be overruled by direct proof. But I am confident he could never have undertaken any case against Dandridge; considering the union of their bosoms, it would have been a great crime.' * * *

TO ALBERT GALLATIN

J. MSS.

MONTICELLO, September 8, 1816.

DEAR SIR,-The jealousy of the European governments rendering it unsafe to pass letters through their postoffices, I am obliged to borrow the protection of your cover to procure a safe passage for the 1 Jefferson further wrote to Wirt concerning his Life of Patrick Henry:

"POPLAR FOREST, November 12, 1816. "DEAR SIR,-Yours of October 23d, was received here on the 31st, with the latest sheets of your work.

"They found me engaged in a business which could not be postponed. and have therefore been detained longer than I wished.

"On the subject of our ancient aristocracy, I believe I have said nothing which all who knew them will not confirm, and which their reasonable descendants may not learn from every quarter. It was the effect of the large accumulation of property under the law of entails.

"The suppression of entails reduced the spirit of the rich, while the increased influence given by the new government to the people, raised theirs, and brought things to their present level, from a condition which the present generation, who have not seen it, can scarcely believe or conceive.

66

You ask if I think your work would be the better of retrenchment? By no means. I have seen nothing in it which could be retrenched but to disadvantage. And again, whether, as a friend, I would advise