d
encomium of Chatham.[118] In many respects the most important, and
certainly the most difficult, of these state papers, was the address
to the king. The motion for such an address was made on the 1st of
October. On the same day the preparation of it was entrusted to a very
able committee, consisting of Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Thomas
Johnson, Patrick Henry, and John Rutledge; and on the 21st of October
the committee was strengthened by the accession of John Dickinson, who
had entered the Congress but four days before.[119] Precisely what
part Patrick Henry took in the preparation of this address is not now
known; but there is no evidence whatever for the assertion[120] that
the first draft, which, when submitted to Congress, proved to be
unsatisfactory, was the work of Patrick Henry. That draft, as is now
abundantly proved, was prepared by the chairman of the committee,
Richard Henry Lee, but after full instructions from Congress and from
the committee itself.[121] In its final form, the address was largely
moulded by the expert and gentle hand of John Dickinson.[122] No one
can doubt, however, that even though Patrick Henry may have
contributed nothing to the literary execution of this fine address, he
was not inactive in its construction,[123] and that he was not likely
to have suggested any abatement from its free and manly spirit.

The only other committee on which he is known to have served during
this Congress was one to which his name was added on the 19th of
September,--"the committee appointed to state the rights of the
colonies,"[124] an object, certainly, far better suited to the
peculiarities of his talents and of his temper than that of the
committee for the conciliation of a king.

Of course, the one gift in which Patrick Henry excelled all other men
of his time and neighborhood was the gift of eloquence; and it is not
to be doubted that in many other forms of effort, involving, for
example, plain sense, practical experience, and knowledge of details,
he was often equaled, and perhaps even surpassed, by men who had not a
particle of his genius for oratory. This fact, the analogue of which
is common in the history of all men of genius, seems to be the basis
of an anecdote which, possibly, is authentic, and which, at any rate,
has been handed down by one who was always a devoted friend[125] of
the great orator. It is said that, after Henry and Lee had made their
first speeches, Samuel Chase of Mary