id none
of these things. Whatever letters he wrote, he wrote at a dash, and
then parted with them utterly; whatever letters were written to him,
were invariably handed over by him to the comfortable custody of luck;
and as to the correct historic perpetuation of his doings, he seems
almost to have exhausted his interest in each one of them so soon as
he had accomplished it, and to have been quite content to leave to
other people all responsibility for its being remembered correctly, or
even remembered at all.

To this statement, however, a single exception has to be made. It
relates to the great affair described in the latter part of the
previous chapter.

Of course, it was perceived at the time that the passing of the
Virginia resolutions against the Stamp Act was a great affair; but
just how great an affair it was, neither Patrick Henry nor any other
mortal man could tell until years had gone by, and had unfolded the
vast sequence of world-resounding events, in which that affair was
proved to be a necessary factor. It deserves to be particularly
mentioned that, of all the achievements of his life, the only one
which he has taken the pains to give any account of is his authorship
of the Virginia resolutions, and his successful championship of them.
With reference to this achievement, the account he gave of it was
rendered with so much solemnity and impressiveness as to indicate
that, in the final survey of his career, he regarded this as the one
most important thing he ever did. But before we cite the words in
which he thus indicated this judgment, it will be well for us to
glance briefly at the train of historic incidents which now set forth
the striking connection between that act of Patrick Henry and the
early development of that intrepid policy which culminated in American
independence.

It was on the 29th of May, 1765, as will be remembered, that Patrick
Henry moved in the committee of the whole the adoption of his series
of resolutions against the Stamp Act; and before the sun went down
that day, the entire series, as is probable, was adopted by the
committee. On the following day, the essential portion of the series
was adopted, likewise, by the House. But what was the contemporary
significance of these resolutions? As the news of them swept from
colony to colony, why did they so stir men's hearts to excitement, and
even to alarm? It was not that the language of those resolutions was
more radical or more tr