to this request, Duane "mentioned
particularly the method of voting, whether it should be by colonies,
or by the poll, or by interests."[107] Thus Duane laid his finger on
perhaps the most sensitive nerve in that assemblage; but as he sat
down, the discussion of the subject which he had mentioned was
interrupted by a rather curious incident. This was the return of the
doorkeeper, having under his escort Mr. Charles Thomson. The latter
walked up the aisle, and standing opposite to the president, said,
with a bow, that he awaited his pleasure. The president replied:
"Congress desire the favor of you, sir, to take their minutes."
Without a word, only bowing his acquiescence, the secretary took his
seat at his desk, and began those modest but invaluable services from
which he did not cease until the Congress of the Confederation was
merged into that of the Union.

The discussion, into which this incident had fallen as a momentary
episode, was then resumed. "After a short silence," says the man who
was thus inducted into office, "Patrick Henry arose to speak. I did
not then know him. He was dressed in a suit of parson's gray, and from
his appearance I took him for a Presbyterian clergyman, used to
haranguing the people. He observed that we were here met in a time and
on an occasion of great difficulty and distress; that our public
circumstances were like those of a man in deep embarrassment and
trouble, who had called his friends together to devise what was best
to be done for his relief;--one would propose one thing, and another a
different one, whilst perhaps a third would think of something better
suited to his unhappy circumstances, which he would embrace, and think
no more of the rejected schemes with which he would have nothing to
do."[108]

Such is the rather meagre account, as given by one ear-witness, of
Patrick Henry's first speech in the Congress of 1774. From another
ear-witness we have another account, likewise very meagre, but giving,
probably, a somewhat more adequate idea of the drift and point of what
he said:--

"Mr. Henry then arose, and said this was the first general
congress which had ever happened; that no former congress
could be a precedent; that we should have occasion for more
general congresses, and therefore that a precedent ought to
be established now; that it would be a great injustice if a
little colony should have the same weight in the councils of
Amer