often inaccurate, and generally made up of
emotional impressions rather than of facts. Any one who will take the
trouble to ascertain the enormous disadvantages under which Wirt
wrote, and which, as we now know, gave him great discouragement, will
be inclined to applaud him for making so good a book, rather than to
blame him for not making a better one.

It is proper for me to state that, besides the copious printed
materials now within reach, I have been able to make use of a large
number of manuscripts relating to my subject. Of these may be
specified a document, belonging to Cornell University, written by a
great-grandson of Patrick Henry, the late Rev. Edward Fontaine, and
giving, among other things, several new anecdotes of the great orator,
as told to the writer by his own father, Colonel Patrick Henry
Fontaine, who was much with Patrick Henry during the later years of
his life. I may add that, through the kindness of the Hon. William
Wirt Henry of Richmond, I have had access to the manuscripts which
were collected by Wirt for the purposes of his book, but were only in
part used by him. With unstinted generosity, Mr. Henry likewise placed
in my hands all the papers relating to his illustrious grandfather,
which, during the past thirty years or more, he has succeeded in
bringing together, either from different branches of the family, or
from other sources. A portion of the manuscripts thus accumulated by
him consists of copies of the letters, now preserved in the Department
of State, written by Patrick Henry, chiefly while governor of
Virginia, to General Washington, to the president of Congress, to
Virginia's delegation in Congress, and to the Board of War.

In the very front of this book, therefore, I record my grateful
acknowledgments to Mr. William Wirt Henry; acknowledgments not alone
for the sort of generosity of which I have just spoken, but for
another sort, also, which is still more rare, and which I cannot so
easily describe,--his perfect delicacy, while promoting my more
difficult researches by his invaluable help, in never once encumbering
that help with the least effort to hamper my judgment, or to sway it
from the natural conclusions to which my studies might lead.

Finally, it gives me pleasure to mention that, in the preparation of
this book, I have received courteous assistance from Mr. Theodore F.
Dwight and Mr. S. M. Hamilton of the library of the Department of
State; from the Rev. Professor W