Editing Patrick Henry (section)

===Renewed involvement and First Continental Congress (1773–1775)===
In 1773, Henry came into conflict with the royal governor, [[John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore]]. The governor, appointed in 1771, had sent British soldiers to [[Pittsylvania County, Virginia|Pittsylvania County]] to aid in apprehending a gang of counterfeiters. Once captured, they were immediately taken to Williamsburg for trial before the General Court, ignoring precedent that judicial proceedings should begin in the county where the offense took place or where the suspect had been captured. This was a sensitive matter especially because of the recent [[Gaspee Affair|''Gaspee'' Affair]] in Rhode Island, in which the British sought to capture and transport overseas for trial those who had burned a British ship. The Burgesses wanted to rebuke Dunmore for his actions, and Henry was part of a committee of eight that drafted a resolution thanking the governor for the capture of the gang but affirming that using the "usual mode" of criminal procedure protected both the guilty and the innocent.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=152–155}} They also penned a plan, adopted by the Burgesses, for [[Committees of correspondence|a committee of correspondence]] to communicate with leaders in other colonies to inform and coordinate with each other. The members included Henry.{{sfn|Mayer|p=175}}

Although Henry had by this time come to believe that conflict with Great Britain, and independence, were inevitable,{{sfn|Kukla|p=138}} he had no strategy for this. The Burgesses were sitting when in 1774, word came that Parliament had voted to [[Boston Port Act|close the port of Boston]] in retaliation for the [[Boston Tea Party]], and several burgesses, including Henry, convened at the [[Raleigh Tavern]] to formulate a response. According to [[George Mason]], a former burgess from [[Fairfax County, Virginia|Fairfax County]] who joined the committee in the work, Henry took the lead. Mason and Henry formed a close political relationship that lasted until Mason's death in 1792. The resolution that Henry's committee produced set June 1, 1774, the date upon which the Port of Boston was to be closed, as a day of fasting and prayer. It passed the Burgesses, but Dunmore dissolved the body. Undeterred, the former legislators met at the Raleigh Tavern and reconstituted themselves as a convention to meet again in August, after there was time for county meetings to show local sentiment. They also called for a boycott of tea and other products.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=139–141}}

The five [[Virginia Conventions]] (1774–1776) would guide the Colony of Virginia to independence as royal authority came to an end. Their work was advanced by many resolutions of county meetings, denying the authority of Parliament over the colonies and calling for a boycott of imports.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=141–143}} The first convention met in Williamsburg in the chamber of the Burgesses beginning on August 1; Dunmore was absent from the capital [[Lord Dunmore's War|fighting the Native Americans]] and could not interfere. Divided between those who wanted separation from Britain and those who still hoped for some accommodation, it met for a week; one major decision was the election of delegates to [[First Continental Congress|a Continental Congress]] in [[Philadelphia]]. Henry was chosen as one of seven delegates, tying for second place with Washington, burgess for Fairfax County, both receiving three votes less than Randolph.{{sfn|Mayer|pp=198–204}}

[[File:Washington Pendleton Henry cropped.jpg|thumb|left|19th century engraving of Washington (center), Henry (right) and Pendleton riding to Philadelphia for the [[First Continental Congress]]]]
As Washington's estate, [[Mount Vernon]], lay on the way from Scotchtown to Philadelphia, he invited Henry to stop there and to ride to Philadelphia with him. Henry and Pendleton, another Virginia delegate to the Congress and a political rival of Henry's, accepted the invitation.{{sfn|Mayer|pp=205–206}} Delegates and prominent Philadelphians took an intense interest in the Virginians, who had taken the lead in resistance to Britain but whom few in the other colonies had met. This was Henry's first stay in the North aside from a brief business trip to New York in 1770,{{sfn|Kukla|p=145}} but he found that his actions were well known.<ref name = "a" /> The sessions began on September 5, 1774, at [[Carpenters' Hall]].{{sfn|Mayer|p=209}} [[Silas Deane]] of Connecticut described Henry as "the compleatest speaker I ever heard&nbsp;... but in a Letter I can give You no Idea of the Music of his Voice, or the highwrought, yet Natural elegance of his Stile, or Manner".{{sfn|Kukla|p=146}}{{sfn|Mayer|p=212}} The secretary of the Congress, [[Charles Thomson]], wrote that when Henry rose, he had expected little from a man dressed as plainly as a rural minister. "But as he proceeded, [he] evinced such [an] unusual force of argument, and such novel and impassioned eloquence as soon electrified the whole house. Then the excited inquiry passed from man to man&nbsp;... 'Who is it? Who is it?' The answer from the few who knew him was, it is ''Patrick Henry''."{{sfn|Kukla|pp=147–148}}

Henry was involved in the first dispute within the Congress on whether each colony should have an equal vote, taking the position that there should be [[proportional representation]] giving the larger colonies a greater voice. He argued that colonial borders must be swept away in the need for Americans to unify and create a government to fill the void left with the end of British authority, "Fleets and armies and the present state of things shew that Government is dissolved. Where are your landmarks? your boundaries of colonies? The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."{{sfn|Mayer|pp=212–213}} Henry lost the argument, and his theatrics made Congress's leaders afraid he would be unpredictable if placed on the lead committee charged with composing a statement regarding colonial rights. Instead, he was put on the next most important committee, one inquiring into commercial regulation. In the end, though, neither committee produced much of importance.{{sfn|Mayer|pp=214–217}} Henry believed the purpose of the Congress should be to mobilize public opinion towards war. In this, he found common cause with [[John Adams]] and [[Samuel Adams]] of Massachusetts, but not all were of that opinion.{{sfn|Mayer|pp=218–219}} According to Tate, Henry "turned out not to be an especially influential member of the body".<ref name = "a" /> The Congress decided on a [[Petition to the King|petition to the king]]; Henry prepared two drafts, but neither proved satisfactory. When Congress on October 26 approved a draft prepared by [[John Dickinson]] of Pennsylvania, who had consulted with Henry and also [[Richard Henry Lee]], Henry had already departed for home, and Lee signed on his behalf. The petition was rejected in London.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=155–156}}

After the birth of their sixth child in 1771, Patrick's wife [[Sarah Shelton Henry]] began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness, and one reason for the move from Louisa County to Scotchtown was so they could be near family members. Henry's biographer, [[Jon Kukla]] believes she was the victim of [[postpartum psychosis]], for which there was no treatment. At times, she was restrained in a form of [[straitjacket]]. Although Virginia had opened the first public mental facility in North America in 1773, Henry decided that she was better off at Scotchtown and prepared a large apartment for her there. She died in 1775, after which Henry avoided all objects that reminded him of her and sold Scotchtown in 1777.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=158–160}}