ve all, ignorant of the great thing we
mean to offer,--may we not lose her? The consequence is
dreadful. Excuse me again. The confederacy:--that must
precede an open declaration of independency and foreign
alliances. Would it not be sufficient to confine it, for the
present, to the objects of offensive and defensive nature,
and a guaranty of the respective colonial rights? If a
minute arrangement of things is attempted, such as equal
representation, etc., etc., you may split and divide;
certainly will delay the French alliance, which with me is
everything."[238]

In the mean time, however, many of the people of Virginia had received
with enthusiastic approval the news of the great step taken by their
convention on the 15th of May. Thus "on the day following," says the
"Virginia Gazette," published at Williamsburg, "the troops in this
city, with the train of artillery, were drawn up and went through
their firings and various other military manoeuvres, with the greatest
exactness; a continental union flag was displayed upon the capitol;
and in the evening many of the inhabitants illuminated their
houses."[239] Moreover, the great step taken by the Virginia
convention, on the day just mentioned, committed that body to the duty
of taking at once certain other steps of supreme importance. They were
about to cast off the government of Great Britain: it was necessary
for them, therefore, to provide some government to be put in the place
of it. Accordingly, in the very same hour in which they instructed
their delegates in Congress to propose a declaration of independence,
they likewise resolved, "That a committee be appointed to prepare a
declaration of rights, and such a plan of government as will be most
likely to maintain peace and order in this colony, and secure
substantial and equal liberty to the people."[240]

Of this committee, Patrick Henry was a member; and with him were
associated Archibald Cary, Henry Lee, Nicholas, Edmund Randolph,
Bland, Dudley Digges, Paul Carrington, Mann Page, Madison, George
Mason, and others. The two tasks before the committee--that of
drafting a statement of rights, and that of drafting a constitution
for the new State of Virginia--must have pressed heavily upon its
leading members. In the work of creating a new state government,
Virginia was somewhat in advance of the other colonies; and for this
reason, as well as on account of its gene