Primary tabs
"To His Excellency PATRICK HENRY, Jun˙, Esq˙, Governour of the Commonwealth of VIRGINIA.
The humble Address of the First and Second VIRGINIA Regiments:
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: Permit us, with the sincerest sentiments of respect and joy, to congratulate your Excellency upon your unsolicited promotion to the highest honours a grateful people can bestow.
Uninfluenced by private ambition, regardless of sordid interest, you have uniformly pursued the general good of your country, and have taught the world that an ingenuous love of the rights of mankind, an inflexible resolution, and a steady perseverance in the practice of every private and publick virtue, lead directly to preferment, and give the best title to the honours of an uncorrupted and vigorous State.
Once happy under your military command, we hope for more extensive blessings from your civil administration.
Interested, as your Excellency is, in some measure, with the support of
We are, may it please your Excellency, your Excellency' s most devoted and most obedient servants.
To which his Excellency was pleased to return the following Answer:
Gentlemen of the First and Second VIRGINIA Regiments:
Your Address does me the highest honour. Be pleased to accept my most, cordial thanks for your favourable and kind sentiments of my principles and conduct.
The high appointment to which my fellow-citizens have called me, was indeed unsolicited, unmerited. I am, therefore, under increased obligation to promote the safety, dignity, and happiness of the Commonwealth.
While the civil powers employed in establishing a system of Government, liberal, equitable, in every part of which the genius of equal liberty breathes her blessed influence, to you is assigned the glorious task of saving, by your valour, all that is dear to mankind. Go on, gentlemen, to finish the great work you have so nobly and successfully begun. Convince the tyrants again that they shall bleed, that America will bleed to her last drop, ere their wicked schemes find success.
The remembrance of my former connection with you shall be ever dear to me. I honour your profession. I revere that patriot virtue which, in your conduct, hath produced cheerful obedience, exemplary courage, and contempt of hardship and danger. Be assured, gentlemen, I shall feel the highest pleasure in embracing every opportunity to contribute to your happiness and welfare; and I trust the day will come when I shall make one of those that hail you among the triumphant deliverers of America.
I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your most obedient and very humble servant,
P˙ HENRY, Jun.
Address of the First and Second Virginia Regiment to Patrick Henry, on his appointment of Governour, Answer of the Governour
v6:1602
v6:1603
a young Empire, our hearts are willing, and arms ready, to maintain your authority as Chief Magistrate; happy that we have lived to see the day when freedom and equal right, established by the voice of the People, shall prevail through the land.