assuming ways made him a friend of every one. These circumstances early made him a man of no small mark in the distinguished body of which he was a member, and those about him soon came to understand the spell which had caused the hardy mountaineers to press him upon them by the warrant of three elections. Thus happily he entered upon his political career, and his constituents continued their support, until, in 1785, he left their district and removed to Albemarle County. During these years he was often prominent in the House of Delegates. His name appears upon many important committees, and he took a favoring part in the legislation of those years, directed towards the development of that part of the State which afterwards became the State of Kentucky. In the intervals of legislative labors he devoted himself to the study of law, and being admitted to the bar in 1785, he resigned his seat at the conclusion of the session of that year and began his practice in the courts of Charlottesville.
In the same year he married Miss Mary Hopkins Cabell, a woman of most brilliant and original mind, and of honorable descent. The Cabells were an old West of England family, living about Frome in Somersetshire. In the old church of St. Nicholas in that town, a memorial window of the Cabell family dating from early Tudor times is yet to be seen, and the elder branch of the family occupying to this day its ancient seats in the neighboring counties, still owns and claims its American kindred.
