nce from home, and even then as
not getting ready to begin the long journey until many of his
associates had nearly reached the end of it.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] MS.

[91] Wirt, 70, 71.

[92] Wirt, 71, 72.

[93] Randall, _Life of Jefferson_, i. 49; Wirt, 77.

[94] Wirt, 71.

[95] Jefferson's _Works_, vi. 368.

[96] 4 _Am. Arch._ i. 350.

[97] Campbell, _Hist. Va._ 573.

[98] 4 _Am. Arch._ i. 350, 351. The narrative of these events as given
by Wirt and by Campbell has several errors. They seem to have been
misled by Jefferson, who, in his account of the business (_Works_, i.
122, 123), is, if possible, rather more inaccurate than usual.

[99] Campbell, _Hist. Va._ 573.

[100] Mason to Martin Cockburn, _Va. Hist. Reg._ iii. 27-29.

[101] The full text of this letter of instructions is given in 4 _Am.
Arch._ i. 689, 690. With this should be compared note C. in
Jefferson's _Works_, i. 122-142.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

On the morning of Tuesday, the 30th of August, Patrick Henry arrived
on horseback at Mt. Vernon, the home of his friend and colleague,
George Washington; and having remained there that day and night, he
set out for Philadelphia on the following morning, in the company of
Washington and of Edmund Pendleton. From the jottings in Washington's
diary,[102] we can so far trace the progress of this trio of
illustrious horsemen, as to ascertain that on Sunday, the 4th of
September, they "breakfasted at Christiana Ferry; dined at Chester;"
and reached Philadelphia for supper--thus arriving in town barely in
time to be present at the first meeting of the Congress on the morning
of the 5th.

John Adams had taken pains to get upon the ground nearly a week
earlier; and carefully gathering all possible information concerning
his future associates, few of whom he had then ever seen, he wrote in
his diary that the Virginians were said to "speak in raptures about
Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry, one the Cicero, and the other the
Demosthenes, of the age."[103]

Not far from the same time, also, a keen-witted Virginian, Roger
Atkinson, at his home near Petersburg, was writing to a friend about
the men who had gone to represent Virginia in the great Congress; and
this letter of his, though not meant for posterity, has some neat,
off-hand portraits which posterity may, nevertheless, be glad to look
at. Peyton Randolph is "a venerable man ... an honest man; has
knowledge,