lowed his brilliant appeal to the God of battles; but in a milder vein. He state of affairs with the reflection: "Thrice is he armed, who hath his quarrel just, The local efforts of opposition in the different colonies had now ripened into the scheme of the Continental Congress concluded a review of the existing of 1774. Lee, in the General Assembly of Virginia at Williamsburg, was an ardent advocate of the measure, and took his seat in this illustrious body. He followed Henry's opening speech, and was soon engaged in the committees for the preparation of the several addresses which were among the early labors of the Congress. There has been some discussion as to the author. ship of these papers. Mr. Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, it appears, wrote the Petition to the King, Mr. Jay the Address to the People of Great Britain, and Lee the Memorial to the People of British America. It is not easy nor is it always desirable to separate one member of a committee from another in the preparation of a report; but we have the important testimony of Jay to Lee's authorship of the paper assigned to him. These documents produced a most favorable impression in behalf of the American cause. Arthur Lee, who was in confidential communication with Chatham at the time of their arrival in London, reported to his brother in America the compliment to the Congress of the great Commoner: "the whole of your countrymen's conduct has manifested such wisdom, moderation and manliness of character, as would have done honor to Greece and Rome in their best days." The second Virginia Convention of 1775, at Richmond, was of importance in the affairs of the country. It was the scene of one of Patrick Henry's great oratorical triumphs. Lee fol Lee was returned to the Congress next year at Philadelphia, and distinguished himself in its busy proceedings; in putting the country in a state of defence, providing means of communication and other incidents of the new military necessities. It was the Congress which elected George Washington commander-in-chief of the Ame rican forces. To Lee belonged the honor of presiding in the committee to which was referred the preparation of his commission and instructions. Lee, too, prepared the second Appeal to the Inhabitants of Great Britain. It was an able sequel to his previous address, equally calm and well reasoned, but more impressive in its appeal as the hours for pacification grew fewer. The sword gleams through the peaceful toga. "Yet conclude not that we propose to surrender our property into the hands of your ministry, or vest your 'This was communicated to Wirt by Chief Justice Marshall, who had the recollection from his father, a member of the Convention. Memoir of R. H. Lee, of July, and a committee, consisting of Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, was appointed to draw up, in the meantime, a Declaration of Indepen dence. It is said that Lee, according Parliament with a power which may ston, and others, who still thought terminate in our destruction. The the movement premature, were in great bulwarks of our Constitution we opposition. The question was ad have desired to maintain by every journed on the tenth to the first day temperate, by every peaceable means; but your ministers, equal foes to British and American freedom, have added to their former oppressions an attempt to reduce us by the sword to a base and abject submission. On the sword, therefore, we are compelled to rely to parliamentary usage, would have for protection. Should victory declare in your favor, yet men trained to arms from their infancy and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap nor easy conquest. Of this at least we are assured, that our struggle will be glorious, our success certain; since even in death we shall find that freedom which in life you forbid us to enjoy." been chairman of this committee, in place of Jefferson, had he not been suddenly called home by the illness of his wife. The declaration was adopted before his return. Jefferson consoled his absence by forwarding to him the original draft of this great paper with the amended copy adopted by Congress. "You will judge," Jefferson writes, "whether it is the better or worse for the critics." 1 The business of the Congress wore on; Lee was active on its committees; Lee shortly returned to Congress, there were negotiations of war, and and became immersed in its more conferences with commanders: it was important duties; but in the summer time for the country to avow what she of the following year he was compelled was doing, and proclaim herself an by ill health to retire. He was again independent nation. To Lee again fell elected in 1778, again retired in 1780, the post of honor. He was the mover and again returned in 1784, when he of the resolution, June 7, 1776: "That was chosen President of that body. these United Colonies are, and of right In the intervals of service, he was ought to be, free and independent | employed in the Assembly of his States; that they are absolved from native State. In 1787, he was once all allegiance to the British Crown; more in Congress, where he served on and that all political connection be the committee which reported the tween them and the State of Great" Ordinance for the Government of the Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- Territory of the United States Northsolved." The resolution was debated with great earnestness the next day, in speeches by Lee and John Adams, who had seconded it. Dickinson, Living west of the Ohio," with the provision precluding slavery and involuntary servitude otherwise than in punish 'This original draft appears printed in the Appendix to the Memoir of Lee. ment of crimes, whereof the party shall parliamentary life. He was, as we have been duly convicted. The Convention at Philadelphia had, meanwhile, adopted the Constitution, and Lee voted in Congress for submitting it to the people. He was, however, a zealous opponent of its acceptance, and in his own State took part with Patrick Henry in opposition to it. It was by Henry's intrigue that he was sent under its provisions to the Senate of the First Congress in place of Madison. He then took an active part in the amendments of the Constitution, which were supposed to check its "consolidating" tendencies. In 1792, debilitated in health, he resigned his seat in the Senate, and finally retired from public life. He had fought for ten years against the gout with great resolution; but it gained the mastery at last, and put an end to his life at his seat, Chantilly, in Westmoreland, in his sixty-fourth year, June 19, 1794. The mental characteristics of Lee may be summed up in an eminent turn for have seen, constantly employed in public affairs, always looked to on occasions of moment, and ready to serve alike in the councils of his State and his country. To a talent for the business of committees he united eloquence in debate. He spoke readily with ease and correctness, in pleasing accents, suggesting to his admirers the milder enthusiasm of Cicero by the side of the Demosthenic rage of his companion, Patrick Henry. His figure was tall, his features were commanding. He was graceful in gesture, though he had lost the use of one hand, in early life, by an accident from a gun in sporting. It is his glory to have written his name in legible characters on some of the most memorable pages of American history. The man selected to address the people of Great Britain on the eve of the Revolution, to give the first instructions to General Washington, to propose the initial resolution of the Declaration of Independence, is not likely to be forgotten. GEORGE WASHINGTON. WASHINGTON IRVING commences his | the picturesque era of the early days of life of George Washington with a the Plantagenets, when the De Wessyng genealogical chapter tracing the anti- tons did manorial service in the battle quity of his family to the eleventh cen- and the chase, to the military Bishop tury. Though the transcendent merit of Durham. Following these spirited of his hero little needs this blazonry, scenes through the fourteenth century which, as he himself intimated on one to the fifteenth, we have a glimpse occasion, his occupation in active busi- of John de Wessyngton, a stout, controness had given him no time to ferret versial abbot attached to the cathedral. out, yet it is not to be denied that it is After him, we are called upon to trace quite in harmony with the character of the family in the various parts of EngWashington, that his family should be land, and particularly in its branch of traced through an ancient and honor- Washingtons-for so the spelling of the able descent. He is placed in history name had now become determined-at as a connecting link between too great Sulgrave, in Northamptonshire. They eras of civilization, and it is important were loyalists in the Cromwellian era, to know that the goodly tree of his fair when Sir Henry gained renown by his fame has its roots in the one, while it defence of Worcester. While this event extends its widely spread, still growing was quite recent, two brothers of the branches into the other. He certainly race, John and Lawrence, emigrated to would be less a representative man Virginia in 1657, and established themwere his origin unknown, or had he selves as planters, in Westmoreland just arrived, a chance comer, to do his county, bordering on the Potomac and work of revolutionizing a nation. On Rappahannock, in the midst of a disthe contrary, he was especially fitted trict destined to produce many eminent for his great employment by the place men for the service of a State then of his birth, leaning fondly on the undreamt of. One of these brothers, parent country as the Old Dominion, the John, a colonel in the Virginia service, estates and institutions by which he was the grandfather of Augustine, was surrounded, and the recollections who married Mary Ball, the belle of of an elder time which these circum- the county, and became the parent of stances implied. In supplying these George Washington. The family home traditions, Mr. Irving carries us back to was on Bridges' Creek, near the banks of the Potomac, where, the oldest of six children by this second marriage of his father, the illustrious subject of our sketch was born on the twenty-second of February, 1732. school," by a village pedagogue, named Hobby, one of his father's tenants, who joined to his afflictive calling the more melancholy profession of sexton-a shabby member of the race of instruc tors, who in his old age kept up the association by getting patriotically fuddled on his pupils' birth-days. The boy could have learnt little there which was not better taught at home. Indeed we find his mother inculcating the best precepts. In addition to the Scriptures and the lessons of the Church, which always form the most important part of such a child's education, she had a book of excellent wisdom, as the event proved, especially suitable for the guidance of her son's future life, in Sir Matthew Hale's "Contemplations, Moral and Divine"-a book written by one who had attained high public dis tinction, and who tells the secret of his worth and success. The very volume out of which Washington was thus taught by his mother is preserved at Mount Vernon. He had, however, some limited school instruction with a Mr. Williams, whom he attended from his half brother, Augustine's, home, in Westmoreland, and from whom he learnt a knowledge of accounts, in which he was always skilful. His ciphering book, neatly written out, may be seen among other relics of his early years, in the public archives at Washington. Another juvenile note-book of this time, penned when he was thirteen, contains not only forms of business, as bonds, The domestic instruction of Wash- leases, and the like, but copies of verses ington was of the best and purest. He and "Rules of Behavior in Company had been early indoctrinated in the and Conversation," full of homely prac rudiments of learning, in the "field tical wisdom of the Benjamin Franklin Augustine Washington was the owner of several estates in this region of the two rivers, to one of which, on the Rappahannock, in Stafford County, he removed shortly after his son's birth, and there the boy received his first impressions. He was not destined to be much indebted to schools or school-masters. His father, indeed, was not insensible to the advantages of education, since, according to the custom of those days with wealthy planters, he had sent Lawrence, his oldest son by his previous marriage, to be educated in England; an opportunity which was not given him in the case of George; for before the boy was of an age to leave home on such a journey, the father was suddenly taken out of the world by an attack of gout. This event happened in April, 1743, when George was left to the guardianship of his mother. The honest merits of Mary, "the mother of Washington," have often been matters of comment. All that is preserved of this lady, who survived her husband forty-six years, and of course lived to witness the matured triumphs of her son-he was seated in the Presidential chair when she died-bears witness to her good sense and simplicity, the plainness and sincerity of her household virtues. |