The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1913-04-25

forests. and came very deliberately
and soberly to their statesman's view.
Randolph and Pendleton and Wythe
and Bland had themselves turned,
after the first hesitation, TO act with
ardent men like Lee in framing the
memorials to king, lords and commons
which were to go from the burgesses
along with the resolutions of the
stamp act congress in New York; and
Washington, who had never hesitated,
but had only gone slowly and with his
eyes open, with that self poise men
had found so striking in him from the
first. came steadily with the rest to
the at last common purpose of reso-
lutte opposition.
Repeal of the Act.
The repeal of the act came to all
like a great deliverance.
Governor Fauquier had deemed it
his duty to dissolve the assembly
upon the passage of Henry's resolu-
tons. but he had acted without pas
sion in the matter, and had kept the
respect of the men he dealt with. He
was not a man, indeed, to take public
business very seriously having been
bred a man of fashion and a courtier
rather than a master of affairs. He
loved gay company and the deep ex-
element of the gaming table, not the
round of official routine. Affable. gem
erous, elegant, scholar and real lover
of letters, he vastly preferred the
talk of vivacious women and accom-
plished men to the business of the
general court, and was a man to be
liked rather than consulted.
A Royalist Governor.
Washington, always admitted to the
intimacy of official circles at Will
iamsburg, very likely relished the gal
liant Fauquier better than the too Off
cious Dinwiddie 1t was, unhappily,
no portent to see a man still devoted
to dissipation at siXty-two, even
though he were governor of one of his
majesty's colonies and a trusted ser
want of the crown and Fauquier's
gifts as a man of wit and of instructed
tastes made his companionship no less
acceptable to Washington than to the
other men of discernment who fire.
quented the bathrooms and receptions,
ate formal dinners, and played quiet
games of cards during the brief season
at the little capital
Tt did not seriously disturb life there
UNFOLD vnxUpr
of parliament to tax, while the bur-
gesses strenuously opposed it. Wash
ington. for one, did not hesitate on
that account to be seen often in
friendly talk with the governor. or to
accept frequent invitations to the
palace" He was of the temper
which has so distinguished the nObler
sort of Englishmen in politics; he
might regard opposition as a public
duty, but he never made it ground
of personal feeling or private spite.
A Man of Influence.
In a sense. indeed. he had long been
regarded as belonging to official cir
cles in the colony, more intimately
than any other man who did not hold
office. He has been put forward by
the Fairfaxes in his youth; men in
the council and at the head of affairs
had been his sponsors and friends
from the first; he had been always
like his brother before him, member
of one of the chief groups in the col
ony for influence and a confidential
1t was even understood that he was
himself destined for the council, when
it should be possible to put him in ii
without seeming to give too great a
preponderance to the Fairfax interest
already so much regarded in its make
up.
The first furry of differing views
and conflicting purposes among the
Virginian leaders had passed off. The
judgment of high-spirited men every
where sustained Henry-gave him I'M
mistakable authorization as leader;
put all public men in the way of I'M
derstanding their constituents. Some
were bold and some we're timid, but
all were animated by the same hope
and purpose, and few were yet intern
pirate.
Henry an Accepted Leader.
Sensible of the Importance of unan
unity among our constituents" said
Jefferson afterwards, looking back tc
that time when he was young and in
the first flush of his radical senti
ments, although we often wished tc
have gone faster, we slackened our
pace, that our less ardent colleagues
might keep up with US; and they. or
their part. differing nothing from us
in principle. quickened their gait
somewhat beyond that which their
prudence might of itself have ad
vised"
Patrick Henry was received to the
place he had earned; and although the
older leaders resumed that sway in
counsel to which their tried skill N.
varied experience in affairs fairly en-
titled them, there was no longer any
jealous exclusion OF new men. Hen
rvs fame crept through the colonies