ith respect to both the dates mentioned by Jefferson for the
appearance of the scheme, Edmund Randolph has left explicit testimony
to the effect that such a scheme never had any substantial existence
at all: "Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, speaks with great
bitterness against those members of the Assembly in the years 1776 and
1781, who espoused the erection of a dictator. Coming from such
authority, the invective infects the character of the legislature,
notwithstanding he has restricted the charge to less than a majority,
and acknowledged the spotlessness of most of them.... The subject was
never before them, except as an article of newspaper intelligence, and
even then not in a form which called for their attention. Against this
unfettered monster, which deserved all the impassioned reprobation of
Mr. Jefferson, their tones, it may be affirmed, would have been loud
and tremendous."[332]

For its autumn session, in 1781, the legislature did not reach an
organization until the 19th of November,--just one month after the
surrender of Cornwallis. Eight days after the organization of the
House, Patrick Henry took his seat;[333] and after a service of less
than four weeks, he obtained leave of absence for the remainder of the
session.[334] During 1782 his attendance upon the House seems to have
been limited to the spring session. At the organization of the House,
on the 12th of May, 1783, he was in his place again, and during that
session, as well as the autumnal one, his attendance was close and
laborious. At both sessions of the House in 1784 he was present and
in full force; but in the very midst of these employments he was
interrupted by his election as governor, on the 17th of
November,--shortly after which, he withdrew to his country-seat in
order to remove his family thence to the capital.

In the course of all these labors in the legislature, and amid a
multitude of topics merely local and temporary, Patrick Henry had
occasion to deal publicly, and under the peculiar responsibilities of
leadership, with nearly all the most important and difficult questions
that came before the American people during the later years of the war
and the earlier years of the peace. The journal of the House for that
period omits all mention of words spoken in debate; and although it
does occasionally enable us to ascertain on which side of certain
questions Patrick Henry stood, it leaves us in total ignorance of his
reasons