m the fact that when, at the close of it, an
order was taken for the appointment of two grand committees, one "to
state the rights of the colonies," the other "to examine and report
the several statutes which affect the trade and manufactures of the
colonies," Patrick Henry was chosen to represent Virginia on the
latter committee,[113]--a position not likely to have been selected
for a man who, however eloquent he may have seemed, had not also shown
business-like and lawyer-like qualities.

The Congress kept steadily at work from Monday, the 5th of September,
to Wednesday, the 26th of October,--just seven weeks and two days.
Though not a legislative body, it resembled all legislative bodies
then in existence, in the fact that it sat with closed doors, and that
it gave to the public only such results as it chose to give. Upon the
difficult and exciting subjects which came before it, there were, very
likely, many splendid passages of debate; and we cannot doubt that in
all these discussions Patrick Henry took his usually conspicuous and
powerful share. Yet no official record was kept of what was said by
any member; and it is only from the hurried private memoranda of two
of his colleagues that we are able to learn anything more respecting
Patrick Henry's participation in the debates of those seven weeks.

For example, just two weeks after the opening of this Congress, one of
its most critical members, Silas Deane of Connecticut, in a letter to
his wife, gave some capital sketches of his more prominent associates
there, especially those from the South,--as Randolph, Harrison,
Washington, Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. The
latter he describes as "a lawyer, and the completest speaker I ever
heard. If his future speeches are equal to the small samples he has
hitherto given us, they will be worth preserving; but in a letter I
can give you no idea of the music of his voice, or the high-wrought
yet natural elegance of his style and manner."[114]

It was on the 28th of September that Joseph Galloway brought forward
his celebrated plan for a permanent reconciliation between Great
Britain and her colonies. This was simply a scheme for what we should
now call home rule, on a basis of colonial confederation, with an
American parliament to be elected every three years by the
legislatures of the several colonies, and with a governor-general to
be appointed by the crown. The plan came very near to adoption.[115]
The