enounced in a letter by Richard Henry Lee as
exhibiting "confusion of ideas, aristocratic pride, contradictory
reasoning with evident ill design."

On the fifteenth of May Archibald Cary reported, from the committee of
the whole house, a preamble and resolutions which were unanimously
adopted. The preamble recited how all the efforts of the colonies to
bring about a reconciliation with Great Britain, consistently with the
constitutional rights of America, had produced only additional insults
and new acts of oppression; and it recapitulated these acts. The first
resolution instructed the Virginia delegates in congress to propose to
that body "to declare the United Colonies free and independent states;"
the second ordered the appointment of a committee to prepare "a
declaration of rights," and a plan of government. The preamble and
resolutions were drawn up by Edmund Pendleton, offered in committee of
the whole house by Thomas Nelson, Jr., and supported by the eloquence
of Patrick Henry.[647:A] On the next day the resolutions were read to
the troops quartered at Williamsburg, under command of General Andrew
Lewis; a _feu de joie_ was fired amid the acclamations of the people,
and the union flag of the American States waved from the capitol, and in
the evening Williamsburg was illuminated.

Patrick Henry in a letter, dated at Williamsburg, May twentieth, wrote
to Richard Henry Lee: "The grand work of forming a constitution for
Virginia is now before the convention, where your love of equal liberty
and your skill in public counsels might so eminently serve the cause of
your country. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I fear too great a bias to
aristocracy prevails among the opulent. I own myself a democratic on the
plan of our admired friend, J. Adams, whose pamphlet I read with great
pleasure. A performance from Philadelphia is just come here, ushered in,
I'm told, by a colleague of yours, B----, and greatly recommended by
him. I don't like it. Is the author a whig? One or two expressions in
the book make me ask. I wish to divide you and have you here to animate,
by your manly eloquence, the sometimes drooping spirits of our country,
and in congress to be the ornament of your native country, and the
vigilant, determined foe of tyranny. To give you colleagues of kindred
sentiments is my wish. I doubt you have them not at present. A
confidential account of the matter to Colonel Tom,[647:B] desiring him
to use it according to his dis