That was on the 30th of May. The next morning, the terrible Patrick being at last quite out of the way, those veteran lawyers and politicians of the House, who had found this young protagonist alone too much for them all put together, made bold to undo the worst part of the work he had done the day before; they expunged the fifth resolution. In that mutilated form, without the preamble, and with the last three of the original resolutions omitted, the first four then remained on the journal of the House as the final expression of its official opinion. Meantime, on the wings of the wind, and on the eager tongues of men, had been borne, past recall, far northward and far southward, the fiery unchastised words of nearly the entire series, to kindle in all the colonies a great flame of dauntless purpose;[72] while Patrick himself, perhaps then only half conscious of the fateful work he had just been doing, travelled homeward along the dusty highway, at once the jolliest, the most popular, and the least pretentious man in all Virginia, certainly its greatest orator, possibly even its greatest statesman. FOOTNOTES: [57] Wirt, 24. [58] Meade, _Old Families and Churches of Va._ i. 220. [59] Maury, _Mem. of a Huguenot Fam._ 423. [60] Wirt, 39-41. [61] Mem. by Jefferson, in _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 91. [62] Jefferson's _Works_, vi. 365. [63] Mem. by Jefferson, in _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 91. [64] These documents are given in full in the Appendix to Wirt's _Life of Henry_, as Note A. [65] _Jour. Va. House of Burgesses._ [66] Of this famous series of resolutions, the first five are here given precisely as they are given in Patrick Henry's own certified copy still existing in manuscript, and in the possession of Mr. W. W. Henry; but as that copy evidently contains only that portion of the series which was reported from the committee of the whole, and was adopted by the House, I have here printed also what I believe to have been the preamble, and the last two resolutions in the series as first drawn and introduced by Patrick Henry. For this portion of the series, I depend on the copy printed in the _Boston Gazette_, for July 1, 1765, and reprinted in R. Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 180 note. In Wirt's _Life of Henry_, 56-59, is a transcript of the first five resolutions as given in Henry's handwriting: but it is inaccurate in two places. [67] Mem. by Jefferson, in _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 91. [68] Mem. by Jefferson, in _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 91. Henry was aided in this debate by Robert Munford, also, and by John Fleming: W. W. Henry, _Life, Corr. and Speeches of P. Henry_, i. 82_n._