bears
ample testimony, while she prosecutes her steady opposition
to those destructive ministerial measures which your
eloquence first pointed out and taught to resent, and your
resolution led forward to resist. To your extensive
popularity the service, also, is greatly indebted for the
expedition with which the troops were raised; and while they
were continued under your command, the firmness, candor, and
politeness, which formed the complexion of your conduct
towards them, obtained the signal approbation of the wise
and virtuous, and will leave upon our minds the most
grateful impression.

Although retired from the immediate concerns of war, we
solicit the continuance of your kindly attention. We know
your attachment to the best of causes; we have the fullest
confidence in your abilities, and in the rectitude of your
views; and, however willing the envious may be to undermine
an established reputation, we trust the day will come when
justice shall prevail, and thereby secure you an honorable
and happy return to the glorious employment of conducting
our councils and hazarding your life in the defence of your
country.[223]

The public agitation over the alleged wrong which had thus been done
to Patrick Henry during his brief military career, and which had
brought that career to its abrupt and painful close, seems to have
continued for a considerable time. Throughout the colony the blame was
openly and bluntly laid upon the Committee of Safety, who, on account
of envy, it was said, had tried "to bury in obscurity his martial
talents."[224] On the other hand, the course pursued by that
committee was ably defended by many, on the ground that Patrick Henry,
with all his great gifts for civil life, really had no fitness for a
leading military position. One writer asserted that even in the
convention which had elected Patrick Henry as commander-in-chief, it
was objected that "his studies had been directed to civil and not to
military pursuits; that he was totally unacquainted with the art of
war, and had no knowledge of military discipline; and that such a
person was very unfit to be at the head of troops who were likely to
be engaged with a well-disciplined army, commanded by experienced and
able generals."[225] In the very middle of the period of his nominal
military service, this opinion of his unfitness was still