reat part and who
never was a laggard:--

"Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among
our constituents, although we often wished to have gone
faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent
colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part,
differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait
somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself
have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which
breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold
with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in
undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than,
perhaps, existed in any other part of the union."[95]

All deprecated a quarrel with Great Britain; all deprecated as a
boundless calamity the possible issue of independence; all desired to
remain in loyal, free, and honorable connection with the British
empire; and against the impending danger of an assault upon the
freedom, and consequently the honor, of this connection, all stood on
guard.

One result, however, of this practical unanimity among the leaders in
Virginia was the absence, during all this period, of those impassioned
and dramatic conflicts in debate, which would have called forth
historic exhibitions of Patrick Henry's eloquence and of his gifts for
conduct and command. He had a leading part in all the counsels of the
time; he was sent to every session of the House of Burgesses; he was
at the front in all local committees and conventions; he was made a
member of the first Committee of Correspondence; and all these
incidents in this portion of his life culminated in his mission as one
of the deputies from Virginia to the first Continental Congress.

Without here going into the familiar story of the occasion and
purposes of the Congress of 1774, we may briefly indicate Patrick
Henry's relation to the events in Virginia which immediately preceded
his appointment to that renowned assemblage. On the 24th of May, 1774,
the House of Burgesses, having received the alarming news of the
passage of the Boston Port Bill, designated the day on which that bill
was to take effect--the first day of June--"as a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition
for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our
civil rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and one
mind firmly to oppose, by all