Madison and Jefferson by Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein Read Free Book Online Page A

hard to imagine that Madison meant for Washington to be exchanged.
    So how was it that Patrick Henry was able to endear himself to so many of his fellow Virginians? Jefferson again: “I think he was the best humoured man in society I almost ever knew, and the greatest orator that ever lived. He had a consummate knoledge [
sic
] of the human heart.” The original editor of the Madison papers has speculated that Patrick Henry might have been too “fiery” for Madison’s tastes. But Henry, at this juncture, seems rather to have
embodied
Madison’s Revolutionary spirit.
    The personalities of Henry and Washington were rather different: the one gregarious, the other grave. But they received the same number of votes and held similar views while members of the Virginia delegation to the First Continental Congress. Perhaps the most formidable combination of mind and voice in that delegation belonged to Richard Henry Lee, who was born the same year as Washington. Lee had grown up nearby on the estate of Stratford (whose best known occupant, yet unborn, would be his grandnephew, Confederate general Robert E. Lee). The Lees were already an influential Virginia clan, and Richard Henry was English-educated. The Virginia delegation may not have been quite as intimidating as Madison wished it were, but in their secret proceedings the Virginians were animated and decisive. The southern group worked closely with a Massachusetts delegation that included cousins John and Samuel Adams; combined, they challenged the conservative elements in other colonies point by point. 21
“We Shall Fall Like Achilles”
    Virginia was not fully committed to independence until it tasted British tyranny directly in the form of the royal governor, John Murray, the fourth Lord Dunmore. Appointed in 1770, Dunmore was a passionate Scotsman trained in the military and prone to explosive outbursts. At least one newspaper described him as a “devil more damned in evil.” He was berated for his sexual indulgences with “black ladies” and mocked for convening a “promiscuous ball.” In 1775–76, Lord Dunmore was the most hated man in the colony. Madison to Bradford: “We defy his power as much as we detest his villainy.” 22
    On April 21, 1775, following instructions from the British ministry, Dunmore had removed gunpowder from the public magazine in Williamsburg. He did so clandestinely, ordering a few of his men to slip into town before dawn and carry off fifteen barrels. They loaded them onto a war vessel docked nearby. An alarm was sounded, which drew a crowd, angry and armed, to the town green. A group of the colony’s leading men addressed the royal governor at the palace, with reasoned arguments to counteract the energy of the masses. The gunpowder belonged to the colony and not to the king, they claimed. It should be returned because of rumors that a slave revolt was imminent.
    Pleased with their mild response, Dunmore offered assurances that the powder would be returned if needed for defense. But the next day the governorabruptly changed his mind. Finding himself accosted by one angry alderman, he lashed out at the entire colony, threatening to free all slaves and reduce the colonial capital to ashes. Dunmore is alleged to have snarled: “I have once fought for the Virginians, and by God I will let them see that I can fight against them.” 23
    Within a week, six hundred men had mustered in Fredericksburg, ready to march on Williamsburg. Urged by Pendleton and others to disband, the majority took their leaders’ advice. But a few volatile companies thought otherwise. One was an independent company from Jefferson’s Albemarle County, and another was from Madison’s Orange County. They joined forces with Patrick Henry’s Hanover County band and marched east. When news of Henry’s troop movement reached the governor, Dunmore fumed that if the marchers did not stop, he would free untold numbers of slaves and spread “devastation where I can