[83] As the historic importance of the Virginia resolutions became more and more apparent, a disposition was manifested to deny to Patrick Henry the honor of having written them. As early as 1790, Madison, between whom and Henry there was nearly always a sharp hostility, significantly asked Edmund Pendleton to tell him "where the resolutions proposed by Mr. Henry really originated." _Letters and Other Writings of Madison_, i. 515. Edmund Randolph is said to have asserted that they were written by William Fleming; a statement of which Jefferson remarked, "It is to me incomprehensible." _Works_, vi. 484. But to Jefferson's own testimony on the same subject, I would apply the same remark. In his Memorandum, he says without hesitation that the resolutions "were drawn up by George Johnston, a lawyer of the Northern Neck, a very able, logical, and correct speaker." _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 91. But in another paper, written at about the same time, Jefferson said: "I can readily enough believe these resolutions were written by Mr. Henry himself. They bear the stamp of his mind, strong, without precision. That they were written by Johnston, who seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly unfounded." _Works_, vi. 484. In the face of all this tissue of rumor, guesswork, and self-contradiction, the deliberate statement of Patrick Henry himself that he wrote the five resolutions referred to by him, and that he wrote them "alone, unadvised, and unassisted," must close the discussion. [84] Verified from the original manuscript, now in possession of Mr. W. W. Henry. [85] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 392. [86] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 514, 515. [87] _Works of John Adams_, ii. 249. [88] _Works of Jefferson_, vi. 368. [89] _Life of Henry_, 66. CHAPTER VII STEADY WORK From the close of Patrick Henry's first term in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in the spring of 1765, to the opening of his first term in the Continental Congress, in the fall of 1774, there stretches a period of about nine years, which, for the purposes of our present study, may be rapidly glanced at and passed by.