first came
together, the blood was as yet hardly dry on the grass in Lexington
Common; on the very morning on which its session opened, the colonial
troops burst into the stronghold at Ticonderoga; and when the session
had lasted but six weeks, its members were conferring together over
the ghastly news from Bunker Hill. The organization of some kind of
national government for thirteen colonies precipitated into a state of
war; the creation of a national army; the selection of a
commander-in-chief, and of the officers to serve under him; the
hurried fortification of coasts, harbors, cities; the supply of the
troops with clothes, tents, weapons, ammunition, food, medicine;
protection against the Indian tribes along the frontier of nearly
every colony; the goodwill of the people of Canada, and of Jamaica; a
solemn, final appeal to the king and to the people of England; an
appeal to the people of Ireland; finally, a grave statement to all
mankind of "the causes and necessity of their taking up arms,"--these
were among the weighty and soul-stirring matters which the second
Continental Congress had to consider and to decide upon. For any man
to say, forty years afterward, even though he say it with all the
authority of the renown of Thomas Jefferson, that, in the presence of
such questions, the spirit of Patrick Henry was dull or unconcerned,
and that, in a Congress which had to deal with such questions, he was
"a silent and almost unmeddling member," is to put a strain upon human
confidence which it is unable to bear.

The formula by which the daily labors of this Congress are frequently
described in its own journal is, that "Congress met according to
adjournment, and, agreeable to the order of the day, again resolved
itself into a committee of the whole to take into consideration the
state of America; and after some time spent therein, the president
resumed the chair, and Mr. Ward, from the committee, reported that
they had proceeded in the business, but, not having completed it,
desired him to move for leave to sit again."[198] And although, from
the beginning to the end of the session, no mention is made of any
word spoken in debate by any member, we can yet glean, even from that
meagre record, enough to prove that upon Patrick Henry was laid about
as much labor in the form of committee-work as upon any other member
of the House,--a fair test, it is believed, of any man's zeal,
industry, and influence in any legislative