"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George
the Third -----." The Speaker sprang to his feet, crying, "Treason!
treason!" The whole assembly was in an uproar, shouting with the
Speaker, "Treason! treason!" Not only the royalists, but others who were
thoroughly alarmed by the orator's audacious words, joined in the
cry. But never for a moment did Henry flinch. Fixing his eye upon the
Speaker, and throwing his arm forward from his dilating form, as though
to hurl the words with the power of a thunderbolt, he added in a tone
none but he himself could command, "May profit by their example." Then,
with a defiant look around the room, he said, "If this be treason, make
the most of it."

Fifty-nine years afterwards Jefferson continued to speak of that great
occasion with unabated enthusiasm. He narrated anew the stirring scenes
when the shouts of; "treason, treason," echoed through the Hall.

In his record of the debate which followed the speech of Henry he
described it as "most bloody." The arguments against the resolutions,
he said were swept away by the "torrents of sublime eloquence" from the
lips of Patrick Henry. With breathless interest, Jefferson, standing in
the doorway, watched the taking of the vote on the last resolution. It
was upon this resolution that the battle had been waged the hottest.
It was carried by a majority of a single vote. When the result was
announced, Peyton Randolph, the King's Attorney General, brushed by
Jefferson, in going out of the House, exclaiming bitterly with an oath
as he went, "I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote."

The next day, in the absence of the mighty orator, the timid Assembly
expunged the fifth resolution and modified the others. The Governor,