the
very human dislike which even churchmen might have to paying in the
form of a compulsory tax what they would have cheerfully paid in the
form of a voluntary contribution. Perhaps the best modern defense of
these laws is by A. H. Everett, in his _Life of Henry_, 230-233; but
his statements seem to be founded on imperfect information. Wirt,
publishing his opinion under the responsibility of his great
professional and official position, affirms that on the whole
question, "the clergy had much the best of the argument." _Life of
Henry,_ 22.

[46] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 510.

[47] _Ibid._ i. 513, 514.

[48] _Ibid._ i. 496, 497.

[49] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 497.

[50] Maury, _Mem. of a Huguenot Family_, 419.

[51] Maury, _Mem. of a Huguenot Family_, 419, 420.

[52] _Ibid._ 420.

[53] This cannot be true except in the sense that he had never before
spoken to such an assemblage or in any great cause.

[54] Wirt, 23-27.

[55] _Ibid._ 29.

[56] Maury, _Mem. of a Huguenot Family_, 418-424, where the entire
letter is given in print for the first time.

CHAPTER V

FIRST TRIUMPHS AT THE CAPITAL

It is not in the least strange that the noble-minded clergyman, who
was the plaintiff in the famous cause of the Virginia parsons, should
have been deeply offended by the fierce and victorious eloquence of
the young advocate on the opposite side, and should have let fall,
with reference to him, some bitter words. Yet it could only be in a
moment of anger that any one who knew him could ever have said of
Patrick Henry that he was disposed "to trample under foot the
interests of religion," or that he had any ill-will toward the church
or its ministers. It is very likely that, in the many irritations
growing out of a civil establishment of the church in his native
colony, he may have shared in feelings that were not uncommon even
among devout churchmen there; but in spite of this, then and always,
to the very end of his life, his most sacred convictions and his
tenderest affections seem to have been on the side of the institutions
and ministers of Christianity, and even of Christianity in its
historic form. Accordingly, both before and after his great speech, he
tried to indicate to the good men whose legal claims it had become
his professional duty to resist, that such resistance must not be
taken by them as implying on his part any personal unkindness. To his
uncle and namesake, the Reverend Patrick Henry, wh