arduous path of duty which you have invariably travelled,
since America resolved to resist her oppressors.

Is it any pleasure to you to remark, that at the same era in
which these men figure against you, public spirit seems to
have taken its flight from Virginia? It is too much the
case; for the quota of our troops is not half made up, and
no chance seems to remain for completing it. The Assembly
voted three hundred and fifty horse, and two thousand men,
to be forthwith raised, and to join the grand army. Great
bounties are offered; but, I fear, the only effect will be
to expose our state to contempt,--for I believe no soldiers
will enlist, especially in the infantry.

Can you credit it?--no effort was made for supporting or
restoring public credit. I pressed it warmly on some, but in
vain. This is the reason we get no soldiers.

We shall issue fifty or sixty thousand dollars in cash to
equip the cavalry, and their time is to expire at Christmas.
I believe they will not be in the field before that time.

Let not Congress rely on Virginia for soldiers. I tell you
my opinion: they will not be got here, until a different
spirit prevails.

In the next paragraph of his letter, the governor passes from these
local matters to what was then the one commanding topic in national
affairs. Lord North's peace commissioners had already arrived, and
were seeking to win back the Americans into free colonial relations
with the mother country, and away from their new-formed friendship
with perfidious France. With what energy Patrick Henry was prepared to
reject all these British blandishments, may be read in the passionate
sentences which conclude his letter:--

I look at the past condition of America, as at a dreadful
precipice, from which we have escaped by means of the
generous French, to whom I will be ever-lastingly bound by
the most heartfelt gratitude. But I must mistake matters, if
some of those men who traduce you, do not prefer the offers
of Britain. You will have a different game to play now with
the commissioners. How comes Governor Johnstone there? I do
not see how it comports with his past life.

Surely Congress will never recede from our French friends.
Salvation to America depends upon our holding fast our
attachment to them. I shall date our ruin from the