mption from the most formidable assaults of the
enemy, led to great demands being made upon her both for men and for
supplies. To meet these demands, either by satisfying them or by
explaining his failure to do so, involved a copious and laborious
correspondence on the part of Governor Henry, not only with his own
official subordinates in the State, but with the president of
Congress, with the board of war, and with the general of the army.
The official letters which he thus wrote are a monument of his ardor
and energy as a war governor, his attention to details, his broad
practical sense, his hopefulness and patience under galling
disappointments and defeats.[284]

Perhaps nothing in the life of Governor Henry during his second term
of office has so touching an interest for us now, as has the course
which he took respecting the famous intrigue, which was developed into
alarming proportions during the winter of 1777 and 1778, for the
displacement of Washington, and for the elevation of the shallow and
ill-balanced Gates to the supreme command of the armies. It is
probable that several men of prominence in the army, in Congress, and
in the several state governments, were drawn into this cabal, although
most of them had too much caution to commit themselves to it by any
documentary evidence which could rise up and destroy them in case of
its failure. The leaders in the plot very naturally felt the great
importance of securing the secret support of men of high influence in
Washington's own State; and by many it was then believed that they
had actually won over no less a man than Richard Henry Lee. Of course,
if also the sanction of Governor Patrick Henry could be secured, a
prodigious advantage would be gained. Accordingly, from the town of
York, in Pennsylvania, whither Congress had fled on the advance of the
enemy towards Philadelphia, the following letter was sent to him,--a
letter written in a disguised hand, without signature, but evidently
by a personal friend, a man of position, and a master of the art of
plausible statement:--

YORKTOWN, 12 January, 1778.

DEAR SIR,--The common danger of our country first brought
you and me together. I recollect with pleasure the influence
of your conversation and eloquence upon the opinions of this
country in the beginning of the present controversy. You
first taught us to shake off our idolatrous attachment to