How did one guy manage to rally up a colony to go fight a war against an entire country thousands of miles away? Patrick Henry manages to do this in his famous Speech to the Virginia Convention. Henry's point was made in his famous speech using many literary devices. He moved people by stating different facts that anyone in the convention would know about and used them to get the people motivated enough to start the war.
One of many devices used by Patrick Henry was metaphors. Henry used the metaphor "[w]e are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts[ ]" to explain the way that England had been treating the colonies until now. It first explains that we as a colony close our eyes to the dark truth and only listen to what is told to us by England. The quote also is used to show that we have been turned to beasts fighting for freedom and independence. Patrick Henry tells us "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience." He uses this metaphor to give him credibility in the fact that he has lots of experience so he has more knowledge to guide them in the right direction to fight against England. It's also used to give them hope that there are people to guide them in the right direction with the same kind of experience he has.
Patrick Henry also used a lot of pathos in his speech to the Virginia convention. His famous line in his speech, "[ ] give me liberty, or give me death!", was a pathos statement. This is pathos because it tries to get to their feelings about going to war with England. He tries to show how devoted to this war he is and he wants them to be the same way.
In conclusion Patrick Henry was able to rally up the convention because he was able to get to their emotions and gave himself credibility. The credibility that was given made it easy for the convention to believe him so they were able to put more trust into him.