the latter reason solely, that we refer to these petty aggressions, and the rebuke they called forth.

The proposed meeting was held on the 18th of July, 1840. Much feeling was manifested the Whig gentlemen of the county taking the lead in the proceedings. It was resolved to hold a subsequent meeting, and to appoint a committee of twentyone to report thereat the sense of the county on the attacks made on Mr. Jefferson. The committee comprised the most distinguished gentlemen of Albemarle-leading and eminent men in different religious sects—persons who had held important offices, and who were known throughout the State, and, in some instances, throughout a much wider sphere, as civilians and politicians.

They were William C. Rives, Lucian Minor, Thomas Wood, Thomas W. Maury, Richmond Terrell, Isaac A. Coles, John T. Brown, John H. Craven, John Timber. lake, Robert H. Carter, Allan W. Magruder, Gen. William F. Gordon, Col. Nimrod Bramham, Charles J. Merriwether, Col. Thomas Durrett, Walter Coles, Reuben Maury, Col. George W. Kinsolving, Thomas H. Brown, Richard Gamble, and Alonzo Gooch.

The proceedings of the adjourned meeting were thus contemporaneously published under the authority of its officers:

"At a very numerous meeting of the people of Albemarle, at their Court House in Charlottesville, on the 3d of August, 1840 (being court-day), held pursuant to the call made by a preliminary meeting of July 18th, in order to consider a recent publication in the (Philadelphia) Episcopal Recorder, reflecting upon Thomas Jefferson:

"The assembly was called to order by Gen. Wm. F. Gordon, who briefly recited the wrong done by the aforementioned publication to the memory of Mr. Jefferson, and to the people of his county, in ascribing to them feelings utterly at war with the reverence which they cherish for him, and suggested the tone and character of the vindication that became them. Then, on the motion of Gen. Gordon, Col. Bramham was called to the chair, and Mr. Lucian Minor appointed Secretary.

"Mr. William C. Rives, as Chairman of the Committee of 21, appointed at the preliminary meeting, then reported the following preamble and resolution, which were unanimously adopted by the meeting, viz. :

"The citizens of Albemarle, here assembled, have seen with deep and painful regret, certain strictures on the character and memory of Mr. Jefferson, contained in a letter of the Reverend written from Charlottesville, under date of the 27th May last, and published in the Episcopal Recorder of the 13th June. Having been made parties, in some sort, to this posthumous disparagement of their illustrious countryman by the ascription of sentiments of peculiar aversion and want of respect for his name, to the very neighborhood in which he lived and died,' and where the writer alleges he found his character worse than even he, with the most unfavorable prepossessions, ever conceived it to be-they feel themselves called on by a solemn duty to the dead, to disavow for themselves all privity or participation in the sentiments here imputed. If Mr. Jefferson, like other men who have passed through long and busy lives, should have had the misfortune to create some individual enmities, it was hoped that even these had long since been silenced and disarmed at the sacred precincts of the tomb. But that there ever was, among the great body of his neighbors and countymen, any other sentiment towards him than one of professed gratitude for his services to the cause of American freedom of an admiration (in which the whole world partook), of his character as one of the boldest and most sagacious champions of human rights, and of cordial respect for

him in the relations of social life-no one, it is believed, who has had an opportunity of personally knowing the true state of the facts, will venture to assert.

"History, indeed, has preserved an emphatic and touching testimony borne to his merits, in these respects, by the body of his countymen, thirty-one years ago, in their address of welcome to him on his return among them, after his retirement from the Presidency. Who, among us, can have forgotten the eloquent and affecting appeal he then made, with the erectness of conscious integrity, to the 'triers of the vicinage'-those who had been 'the eye-witnesses and observers' of his daily life! Of you, my neighbors,' he said, 'I may ask in the face of the world' -whose ox have I taken, or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed, or from whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith?' The same testimony, which the people of Albemarle then zealously bore to the living citizen and statesman, we their descendants and successors, this day feel ourselves solemnly impelled by our duty to the dead, to reiterate and renew.

"In vindicating the memory of Mr. Jefferson from the injurious representations above referred to (representations originating, as we hope, in unintentional error on the part of Dr. -), we are not to be considered as either justifying or criticising the opinions of Mr. Jefferson on the subject of our holy religion, with whose promises and precepts a faith, sacredly cherished, has indissolubly united the dearest hopes and interests of many of us. But this consideration does not, in our view, cancel the obligations of truth and candor, nor should it withhold the award of discriminative justice to a great public benefactor and patriot, who lived and died among us, and with the monuments of whose useful labors the history and archives of the nation, the Statute-book of Virginia, and the very face of our land, and especially our own portion of it, are profusely covered over.

"Resolved, therefore, that the foregoing declaration be adopted as an expression of the sense of this meeting, on the occasion which has brought us together; and that copies of it, together with this resolution, attested by the signatures of the President and Secretary of the meeting, be furnished for publication to the newspapers printed in this place, and in the City of Richmond.

"Attest,

"LUCIAN MINOR, Secretary."

"N. BRAMHAM, Chairman.

We have struck out the name of the author of the letter published in the Episcopal Recorder, wherever it occurs in these proceedings. He acted in perfect good faith in the first instance, and has in the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman voluntarily and frankly made ample retraction and reparation for all unintentional error. His name is by far too conspicuous to be concealed from those who desire to trace it out; but we at least will not aid to place it before the world in what we regard as purely an adventitious and disagreeable connection.

The reverend gentleman placed in our hands the following paper:

To HENRY S. RANDALL.

"In any reference which you may make in your memoir of Mr. Jefferson to certain resolutions adopted at a meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1840, occasioned by the publication of a letter from me in the Episcopal Recorder in Philadelphia, permit me also to say:

"That in that letter I stated only the fact of my having heard in Charlottesville assertions more derogatory to the character of Mr. Jefferson than I had ever

heard before; I did not repeat those assertions, nor express any judgment of their truth-I did suppose them to be true, however, and therefore made no reserve in referring to them. I have since become convinced that they were not true. And I must now consider it my duty to express my regret that I was led in any way to refer to them in a public communication, and to withdraw all responsibility for their future propagation, believing them now to be unfounded imputations upon the private character of Mr. Jefferson."

APPENDIX NO. XXXVIII.-VOL. III., p. 565.

Correction in regard to Patrick Henry's action on the question of Independence.

Partly from a letter addressed by General Charles Lee to Mr. Henry, and partly from an omission, which could not have been expected, in Wirt's Life of Henry (to say nothing of other earlier historical productions), we were led into the error which is corrected below by one of the most candid and accurate historical investigators and critics of our country. We need not say with what deep gratification we insert the correction.

NORFOLK, VA., January 15, 1858.

MY DEAR SIR: I have read the first volume of your Life of Jefferson with the deepest interest, but I would not have troubled you with a letter until I had read the forthcoming volumes, had I not seen an error into which you had fallen respecting Patrick Henry, which I hope it is not too late to correct. You speak of the backwardness of Henry in sustaining the measure of Independence in the Virginia Convention of May, 1776. ́ You allude to the subject on three several occasions, and, for the sake of accuracy, I will quote your words. You say, rather doubtingly (vol. i. p. 128), "Would Wirt have claimed for Henry such a remarkable prescience in regard to the Declaration of Independence, had he known that a letter would one day see the light, which seems to conclusively show that Mr. Henry actually hesitated a little in regard to making that declaration when it was finally proposed ?" This is an interrogative, but demands an answer unfavorable to Henry. But, in a note on the page quoted above, you say: "As Mr. Henry did not oppose the resolution of independence in the Convention, he probably did not allow the views expressed to General Lee to become public. But this, perhaps, explains why, on this occasion of occasions, Henry's 'supernatural voice' was not heard." And again, on page 141, you observe: "It might or might not have been foreseen that the 'supernatural voice' of the old popular leader in the Convention (Henry) would remain silent." You cite as your authority the letter of Gen. Charles Lee to Patrick Henry (Am. Archives, Fifth Series, vol. i., 96), dated May 7, 1776, in which Lee states the objections to an immediate declaration made by Henry in conversation the day before, and endeavors to refute them. With this letter I have been familiar since its publication, and I readily see how well adapted it is to lead astray. Yet, it does not, strictly speaking, authorize the assertion, or even an, innuendo, that Henry was silent when the proposition of independence was about to be decided by the Virginia Convention. The statements of Lee in their utmost.

extent, merely show that eight days before the resolution of independence was adopted by the body, Henry had in private conversation with Lee urged some arguments against an immediate declaration, "before the pulse of France and Spain was felt." Henry well knew the ability of Lee and his familiarity with foreign topics, and, following his old and familiar habit of gathering intelligence, might very naturally urge objections derived from the temper of foreign powers in order to elicit the views and opinions of Lee. Strictly speaking, then, this letter of the 7th of May, referring wholly to a conversation held on the sixth, can prove nothing conclusively concerning what one of the parties actually said or did eight days later in a public body.

But, fortunately, we are not left to mere inferences from the letter of Gen. Lee on this subject. We have direct and positive testimony to prove that Henry, so far from being neutral or silent when the resolution instructing the delegates of Virginia in Congress to propose independence was discussed and decided in the Convention, he was its boldest and most eloquent advocate on the floor. We know from the express declaration of a member of the committee which drafted the Declaration of Rights and the first constitution of Virginia, and who was, at one time certainly, a mortal enemy of Henry, that the resolution of independence was drawn by Pendleton, was offered in committee by Gen. Nelson, and was "sustained against all opposition by Henry with that abounding energy and eloquence of which he was a master," and to which no writer has done more ample justice than yourself. Such was the testimony of Edmund Randolph, uttered four years after the death of Henry, in the hall of the House of Delegates in Richmond, over the corpse of Pendleton. (Virginia Gazette, Nov. 2d, 1803, in the library of Virginia.)

I cannot blame you for not knowing the contents of an old newspaper published more than half a century ago, of which but a single copy is in existence; and when I saw the error into which you had been led by the letter of Lee, I knew that no man living would more cordially desire to exonerate the memory of Henry than yourself. With great respect,

HENRY S. RANDALL, Esq.

I am very truly yours,

HUGH B. GRIGSBY.

An incident connected with the Declaration of Independence.

Some of the old painters were fond of introducing a homely or even a grotesque minor accessory into their stateliest pictures. Here is something of the kind without borrowing from imagination. The following is from a letter to us from a familiar visitor at Monticello, General J. Spear Smith, of Maryland: '

"Whilst the question of Independence was before Congress, it had its meetings near a livery stable. The members wore short breeches and silk stockings, and with handkerchief in hand, they were diligently employed in lashing the flies from their legs. So very vexatious was this annoyance, and to so great an impatience did it arouse the sufferers, that it hastened, if it did not aid, in inducing them to promptly affix their signatures to the great document, which gave birth to an empire republic.

"This anecdote I had from Mr. Jefferson, at Monticello, who seemed to enjoy it

1 Son of Mr. Jefferson's life-long friend, General Samuel Smith, of Maryland.

very much, as well as to give great credit to the influence of the flies. He told it with much glee, and seemed to retain a vivid recollection of the severity of an attack, from which the only relief was signing the paper, and flying from the

scene.

Jefferson's letters to Thomas Mann Randolph as N. R.

In vol. ii. p. 523, an extract is given from a letter from Mr. Jefferson to N. R., and it is mentioned in a note that "these initials occur here and again, where it would seem that the letters must have been addressed to his son-in-law, Colonel T. M. Randolph." Their second occurrence is in same volume, p. 601, and it is there suggested or intimated in a note that the "fictitious direction" may have been intended to guard against the suspected infidelities of the post.

We since learn that the letters were, as we supposed, written to Randolph, but that the direction was not "fictitious," as would appear in the Congress edition, where the letters only appear. Mr. Jefferson, in writing his son-in-law's initials, habitually combined them into an abbreviated character, which was mistaken for N. R.