Deeply impressed with a grateful sense of the obligations we lie under to you for the polite, humane, and tender treatment manifested to us throughout the whole of your conduct, while we have had the honor of being under your command, permit us to offer to you our sincere thanks, as the only tribute we have in our power to pay to your real merits. Notwithstanding your withdrawing yourself from service fills us with the most poignant sorrow, as it at once deprives us of our father and general, yet, as gentlemen, we are compelled to applaud your spirited resentment to the most glaring indignity. May your merit shine as conspicuous to the world in general as it hath done to us, and may Heaven shower its choicest blessings upon you. WILLIAMSBURG, February 29, 1776. His reply to this warm-hearted message was in the following words:-- GENTLEMEN,--I am extremely obliged to you for your approbation of my conduct. Your address does me the highest honor. This kind testimony of your regard to me would have been an ample reward for services much greater than I have had the power to perform. I return you, and each of you, gentlemen, my best acknowledgments for the spirit, alacrity, and zeal you have constantly shown in your several stations. I am unhappy to part with you. I leave the service, but I leave my heart with you. May God bless you, and give you success and safety, and make you the glorious instruments of saving our country.[221] The grief and indignation thus exhibited by the officers who had served under Patrick Henry soon showed itself in a somewhat violent manner among the men. The "Virginia Gazette" for that time states that, "after the officers had received Colonel Henry's kind answer to their address, they insisted upon his dining with them at the Raleigh Tavern, before his departure; and after the dinner, a number of them proposed escorting him out of town, but were prevented by some uneasiness getting among the soldiery, who assembled in a tumultuous manner and demanded their discharge, and declared their unwillingness to serve under any other commander. Upon which Colonel Henry found it necessary to stay a night longer in town, which he spent in visiting the several barracks; and used every argument in his power with the soldiery to lay aside their imprudent resolution, and to continue in the service, which he had quitted from motives in which his honor alone was concerned."[222] Moreover, several days after he had left the camp altogether and had returned to his home, he was followed by an address signed by ninety officers belonging not only to his own regiment, but to that of Colonel Woodford,--a document which has no little value as presenting strongly one side of contemporary military opinion respecting Patrick Henry's career as a soldier, and the treatment to which he had been subjected.