ONLY CONTEMPORARY REPORT OF PATRICK HENRY'S FAMOUS "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH" SPEECH TO VIRGINIA CONVENTION.


Virginia Gazette, no 1234. [Richmond]: John Dixon and Wm. Hunter, April 1, 1775. 4 pp. Folio (450 x 275 mm). Pages moderately toned and thumbed, disbound from larger volume.Patrick Henry's famous speech to the 1775 Virginia Convention featuring the rallying cry, "Give me liberty or give me death!" was delivered extemporaneously and not recorded either in the Congressional records or the media of the day. We only know the text of it because historian William Wirt reconstructed the speech in 1800 through correspondence with men who attended the convention at the time. Nonetheless, the present issue of the Virginia Gazette does indeed record the events of the Virginia Convention as they occurred. On March 20th, the paper records the names of those in attendance, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, and others, along with a summary of daily activities. The first few days were taken up with general business, but on the 23rd, the paper reports, the delegates began the preparation for war: "Resolved, that a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen & yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government, that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us, for the purpose of our defense, any standing army of mercenary forces ... and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support ... Resolved, therefore, that this colony be immediately put into a posture of defence, and that Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Cater Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Lemuel Riddick, George Washington ... be a committee to prepare a plan for the embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose."Page 3 of this issue also includes a warning from the Royal Governor to the colonists about their revolutionary activities: "Whereas certain persons, stiling themselves Delegates of several ... colonies in America, having presumed, without his Majesty's authority or consent to assemble together at Philadelphia in the months of September & October last [First Continental Congress], ... to resolve that it will be necessary that another Congress should be held at the same place on the 10th of May next unless redress of certain pretended grievances be obtained before that time ... I am commanded by the King ... to require all magistrates ... to use their utmost endeavours to prevent any such appointments of deputies & to exhort all ... to desist from such an unjustifiable proceeding, so highly displeasing to his Majesty."