For its autumn session, in 1781, the legislature did not reach an organization until the 19th of November,--just one month after the surrender of Cornwallis. Eight days after the organization of the House, Patrick Henry took his seat;[333] and after a service of less than four weeks, he obtained leave of absence for the remainder of the session.[334] During 1782 his attendance upon the House seems to have been limited to the spring session. At the organization of the House, on the 12th of May, 1783, he was in his place again, and during that session, as well as the autumnal one, his attendance was close and laborious. At both sessions of the House in 1784 he was present and in full force; but in the very midst of these employments he was interrupted by his election as governor, on the 17th of November,--shortly after which, he withdrew to his country-seat in order to remove his family thence to the capital. In the course of all these labors in the legislature, and amid a multitude of topics merely local and temporary, Patrick Henry had occasion to deal publicly, and under the peculiar responsibilities of leadership, with nearly all the most important and difficult questions that came before the American people during the later years of the war and the earlier years of the peace. The journal of the House for that period omits all mention of words spoken in debate; and although it does occasionally enable us to ascertain on which side of certain questions Patrick Henry stood, it leaves us in total ignorance of his reasons for any position which he chose to take. In trying, therefore, to estimate the quality of his statesmanship when dealing with these questions, we lack a part of the evidence which is essential to any just conclusion; and we are left peculiarly at the mercy of those sweeping censures which have been occasionally applied to his political conduct during that period.[335]