Cary of Ampthill, called "Old Iron," a man of low stature, grim, irascible, with piercing eyes, who, when Henry was spoken of as dictator, sent him word that "the day of his appointment should be the day of his death, for he should find his (Cary's) dagger in his heart before the sunset of that day;" Richard Bland, an old man nearly blind and wearing a bandage over his eyes, the author of the famous " Enquiry into the Rights of the American Colonies," and called the Virginia Antiquary; Thomas Nelson, of a family distinguished for patriotism and integrity, tall, blue-eyed, and full of courtesy, who was to sign the Declaration, command in the field, and become Governor of Virginia; John Page, the pious churchman, to become a member of the Committee of Safety, and also Governor of Virginia; Benjamin Harrison, also one of the "Signers," large of person, suffering from gout, but full of pleasantry and good humor; Peyton and Edmund Randolph, resolute patriots, the one to become president of the First Congress, and the other Governor of Virginia and the first Attorney-General and Secretary of State of the United States; George Wythe, the able lawyer; Robert Carter Nicholas, the excellent financier; and many more. Above these rose a smaller group who became the great landmarks of the time, each of whom was connected with some notable event or change in the current of thought and action. These were Henry, Jefferson, Lee, Pendleton, and Mason.

Henry has been spoken of. He was the leader of the leaders. Jefferson said of him that he "spoke as Homer wrote," and that he "gave the first impulse to the ball of the Revolution;" but the impulse once given, others directed it in its course, tracing out for it the path

which it was to follow. Among these latter Thomas Jefferson was the foremost. His father was Peter Jefferson of 66 Shadwell," in Albemarle, and here Jefferson was born in April, 1743. At seventeen he was sent to William and Mary College; afterwards studied and began the practice of law; when he was about thirty married a young lady of Charles City with a beautiful face and a considerable estate; and following his bent entered ardently into politics. We have the portrait of him as a young man. He was tall, and his figure was "angular and far from beautiful," his face sunburnt, his eyes gray, and his hair sand-colored. His disposition was gay and mercurial, and he was an excellent performer on the violin; a squire of dames, and a participant in all the gayeties of the little Capital. Of this early period of his life his letters to John Page from Williamsburg, present a vivid picture. They give an account of his love mishaps with Miss Rebecca Burwell, a young lady of the Capital, whom he styles "Belinda," and are in vivid contrast with the popular idea of the gray politician and President. He was not, however, an idler, and acquired a fondness for belles lettres, more especially for the Italian poets and the rhapsodies of Ossian. His religious doubts seem to have already begun, and have been attributed to his association, at this time, with Governor Fauquier, who was a confirmed free-thinker. The statement is probably true, and he never shook off the sinister influence. Long afterwards he and his friend John Page would discuss

1 The Burwells were an old and worthy family of York and Gloucester. Of Lewis Burwell, Lieutenant-Governor in 1750, it was said that he "had embraced almost every branch of human knowledge in the circle of his studies."

Christianity in the observatory at "Rosewell;" but his pious host could make no impression upon him.

Entering the Burgesses at twenty-six, Jefferson soon became a man of mark. He scarcely ever addressed the House, but was, from the first, in consultation with the leaders who recognized his ability. It was seen that his temperament and views were those of the révolutionnaire. Under the suave and composed manner was an inflexible resolution. He was by nature an iconoclast. His intellect was a machine, which rolled on pitilessly, crushing with its heavy wheels all old-world prejudices. His inexorable logic shrunk from nothing. While other thinkers, even the most advanced, recoiled from the consequences of the abstract principles which they advocated, Jefferson followed out his trains of reasoning to and beyond the bounds of treason. He was the great political free-thinker of his age, as he was a free-thinker on religious questions. He may be styled the American Voltaire, discarding faith as an absurdity, and resting his convictions on the chillest logic. He had no respect for the existing state of things in Virginia. Not only the political fabric but the whole frame-work of society revolted him. He scoffed at the Planter class, to which he himself belonged; called them "cyphers of aristocracy" and denounced them as obstructionists; and even laughed at the claims of his mother's family, the Randolphs, to ancient pedigree, to which every one, he said, "might ascribe the faith and merit he chose." The flout was gratuitous, for the Randolphs were an old and honorable family, but Jefferson would not spare even his own blood.

To sum up the character of this remarkable man, he was a skeptic, a democrat, an overturner, and a rebuilder.

From the first he is ready to undermine the very bases of authority; soon he will announce their overthrow, and lay down the principles upon which the new fabric must rest. His "Summary View of the Rights of British America," written in 1774, is the germ of the Declaration. His opinions are already matured. The paper was sent to the Virginia Convention as the proposed basis of instructions to the delegates in Congress, and gives the exact measure of Jefferson's genius as a revolutionary leader. Its tone is bold, almost imperious. The young writer does not mince his words. His Majesty is informed that his officials are "worthless ministerial dependents;" that if the Americans suffered themselves to be transported for trial they would be "cowards meriting the everlasting infamy now fixed on the authors of the Act." The King is notified that "Kings are the servants not the proprietors of the people, and that the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest." The tone of the paper indicates the marked change which had taken place in the attitude of the Americans toward England. It was a long way from "your Majesty's obedient humble servants to these brusque phrases, and Jefferson's concluding words: "This, Sire, is our last, our determined resolution."

The paper was not adopted, but it was ordered to be published, and led to the selection of Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.

VIII.

LEE, MASON, AND PENDLETON.

THE three men who took the most conspicuous part in Virginia affairs after Henry and Jefferson,-if they could be said to come after them, - were Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and Edmund Pendleton.

Richard Henry Lee belonged to a distinguished family of the "Northern Neck," between the Rappahannock and Potomac. He was born at "Stratford," in Westmoreland, in January 1732; and was thus nearly of the exact age of Washington. All the traditions of his

family were Cavalier. He was a descendant of the Richard Lee who had plotted with Berkeley to set up the flag of Charles II. in Virginia; and his ancestors had been noted, in all generations, for their royalist sentiments. To look to such a family for a leader against the Crown seemed hopeless, and yet Richard Henry Lee was to prove as much of an extremist as Patrick Henry. He was educated in England, and from his early manhood took part in public affairs. As early as 1768 he conceived the scheme of the "Committees of Correspondence," and in 1773 procured its adoption in the House of Burgesses. His fame as the mover of the Declaration of Independence was yet to come.

Lee was at this time forty-two years old, graceful in person, extremely cordial in his manners, and so elegant a speaker that he was said to have practiced his gestures before a mirror. He was called the "Gentleman of the Silver Hand," and wore a black bandage on one hand to hide a wound which he had received while shooting