an be represented according to their numbers, I am
satisfied.'

"The subject was then debated at length by Lynch, Rutledge,
Ward, Richard Henry Lee, Gadsden, Bland, and Pendleton, when
Patrick Henry again rose:--

"'I agree that authentic accounts cannot be had, if by
authenticity is meant attestations of officers of the crown.
I go upon the supposition that government is at an end. All
distinctions are thrown down. All America is thrown into one
mass. We must aim at the minutiae of rectitude.'"

Patrick Henry was then followed by John Jay, who seems to have closed
the debate, and whose allusion to what his immediate predecessor had
said gives us some hint of the variations in Revolutionary opinion
then prevailing among the members, as well as of the advanced position
always taken by Patrick Henry:--

"'Could I suppose that we came to frame an American
constitution, instead of endeavoring to correct the faults
in an old one, I can't yet think that all government is at
an end. The measure of arbitrary power is not full; and I
think it must run over, before we undertake to frame a new
constitution. To the virtue, spirit, and abilities of
Virginia we owe much. I should always, therefore, from
inclination as well as justice, be for giving Virginia its
full weight. I am not clear that we ought not to be bound by
a majority, though ever so small; but I only mentioned it as
a matter of danger worthy of consideration.'"[111]

Of this entire debate, the most significant issue is indicated by the
following passage from the journal for Tuesday, the 6th of
September:--

"_Resolved_, that in determining questions in this Congress,
each colony or province shall have one vote; the Congress
not being possessed of, or at present able to procure,
proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each
colony."[112]

So far as it is now possible to ascertain it, such was Patrick Henry's
part in the first discussion held by the first Continental
Congress,--a discussion occupying parts of two days, and relating
purely to methods of procedure by that body, and not to the matters of
grievance between the colonies and Great Britain. We have a right to
infer something as to the quality of the first impression made upon
his associates by Patrick Henry in consequence of his three speeches
in this discussion, fro