elieved him to be smirched with even the suggestion of so horrid
a crime. Had Patrick Henry been suspected, during the autumn and early
winter of 1776, of any participation in the foul plot to create a
despotism in Virginia, is it to be conceived that, at its very next
session, in the spring of 1777, that Assembly, composed of nearly the
same members as before, would have reelected to the governorship so
profligate and dangerous a man, and that too without any visible
opposition in either House? Yet that is precisely what the Virginia
Assembly did in May, 1777. Moreover, one year later, this same
Assembly reelected this same profligate and dangerous politician for
his third and last permissible year in the governorship, and it did so
with the same unbroken unanimity. Moreover, during all that time,
Thomas Jefferson was a member, and a most conspicuous and influential
member, of the Virginia Assembly. If, indeed, he then believed that
his old friend, Patrick Henry, had stood ready in 1776, to commit
"treason against the people" of America, and "treason against mankind
in general," why did he permit the traitor to be twice reelected to
the chief magistracy, without the record of even one brave effort
against him on either occasion?

On the 26th of December, 1776, in accordance with the special
authority thus conferred upon him by the General Assembly, Governor
Henry issued a vigorous proclamation, declaring that the "critical
situation of American affairs" called for "the utmost exertion of
every sister State to put a speedy end to the cruel ravages of a
haughty and inveterate enemy, and secure our invaluable rights," and
"earnestly exhorting and requiring" all the good people of Virginia to
assist in the formation of volunteer companies for such service as
might be required.[279] The date of that proclamation was also the
date of Washington's famous matutinal surprise of the Hessians at
Trenton,--a bit of much-needed good luck, which was followed by his
fortunate engagement with the enemy near Princeton, on the 3d of
January, 1777. On these and a very few other extremely small crumbs of
comfort, the struggling revolutionists had to nourish their burdened
hearts for many a month thereafter; Washington himself, during all
that time, with his little army of tattered and barefoot warriors,
majestically predominating over the scene from the heights of
Morristown; while the good-humored British commander, Sir William
Howe, co