He had established a horse-express between Virginia and Poughkeepsie, and between New Hampshire and the little capital. Eight States having ratified, the signature of New Hampshire, the next in order, would mean union and a trial of the Constitution, a prospect which could not fail to influence the thinking men of the anti-Federal party; but it was from the ratification of Virginia that he hoped the greatest good. This State occupied much the same position in the South that New York did in the North, geographically, commercially, historically, and in the importance of her public men. And she was as bitterly opposed to union, to what a narrow provincialism held to be the humiliation of the States. Patrick Henry, her most powerful and eloquent leader, not through the selfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrow genius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall were Madison's only assistants of importance against the formidable opponent of union, and it was well understood among leaders that Jefferson, who was then American minister in France, gave the Constitution but a grudging and inconsistent approval, and would prefer that it failed, were not amendments tacked on which practically would nullify its energies. But although Hamilton had such lieutenants as John Jay, Philip Schuyler, Duane, and Robert Livingston, Madison had the inestimable, though silent, backing of Washington. The great Chief had, months since, forcibly expressed his sentiments in a public letter; and that colossal figure, the more potent that it was invisible and mute, guided as many wills as Madison's strenuous exertions and unanswerable dispassionate logic.