be afraid of his whelps?"[337]

In the same spirit he dealt with the restraints on British commerce
imposed during the war,--a question similar to the one just mentioned,
at least in this particular, that it was enveloped in the angry
prejudices born of the conflict just ended. The journal for the 13th
of May, 1783, has this entry: "Mr. Henry presented, according to
order, a bill 'to repeal the several Acts of Assembly for seizure and
condemnation of British goods found on land;' and the same was
received and read the first time, and ordered to be read a second
time." In advocating this measure, he seems to have lifted the
discussion clear above all petty considerations to the plane of high
and permanent principle, and, according to one of his chief
antagonists in that debate, to have met all objections by arguments
that were "beyond all expression eloquent and sublime." After
describing the embarrassments and distresses of the situation and
their causes, he took the ground that perfect freedom was as necessary
to the health and vigor of commerce as it was to the health and vigor
of citizenship. "Why should we fetter commerce? If a man is in chains,
he droops and bows to the earth, for his spirits are broken; but let
him twist the fetters from his legs, and he will stand erect. Fetter
not commerce, sir. Let her be as free as air; she will range the whole
creation, and return on the wings of the four winds of heaven, to
bless the land with plenty."[338]

Besides these and other problems in the foreign relations of the
country, there remained, of course, at the end of the war, several
vast domestic problems for American statesmanship to grapple
with,--one of these being the relations of the white race to their
perpetual neighbors, the Indians. In the autumn session of 1784, in a
series of efforts said to have been marked by "irresistible
earnestness and eloquence," he secured the favorable attention of the
House to this ancient problem, and even to his own daring and
statesmanlike solution of it. The whole subject, as he thought, had
been commonly treated by the superior race in a spirit not only mean
and hard, but superficial also; the result being nearly two centuries
of mutual suspicion, hatred, and slaughter. At last the time had come
for the superior race to put an end to this traditional disaster and
disgrace. Instead of tampering with the difficulty by remedies applied
merely to the surface, he was for striking a