ame day on which Lee thus wrote to Henry he likewise wrote to
Washington, informing him that he had done so; but, for some cause now
unknown, Washington received no further word from Lee for more than
two weeks. Accordingly, on the 11th of January, 1796, in his anxiety
to know what might be Patrick Henry's decision concerning the office
of chief justice, Washington wrote to Lee as follows:--

MY DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 26th ult. has been
received, but nothing from you since,--which is embarrassing
in the extreme; for not only the nomination of chief
justice, but an associate judge, and secretary of war, is
suspended on the answer you were to receive from Mr. Henry;
and what renders the want of it more to be regretted is,
that the first Monday of next month (which happens on the
first day of it) is the term appointed by law for the
meeting of the Superior Court of the United States, in this
city; at which, for particular reasons, the bench ought to
be full. I will add no more at present than that I am your
affectionate,

GEO. WASHINGTON.[461]

Although Patrick Henry declined this great compliment also, his
friendliness to the administration had become so well understood that,
among the Federal leaders, who in the spring of 1796 were planning for
the succession to Washington and Adams, there was a strong inclination
to nominate Patrick Henry for the vice-presidency,--their chief doubt
being with reference to his willingness to take the nomination.[462]

All these overtures to Patrick Henry were somewhat jealously watched
by Jefferson, who, indeed, in a letter to Monroe, on the 10th of July,
1796, interpreted them with that easy recklessness of statement which
so frequently embellished his private correspondence and his private
talk. "Most assiduous court," he says of the Federalists, "is paid to
Patrick Henry. He has been offered everything which they knew he would
not accept."[463]

A few weeks after Jefferson penned those sneering words, the person
thus alluded to wrote to his daughter, Mrs. Aylett, concerning certain
troublesome reports which had reached her:--

"As to the reports you have heard, of my changing sides in
politics, I can only say they are not true. I am too old to
exchange my former opinions, which have grown up into fixed
habits of thinking. True it is, I have condemned t