he had taken on the fatal day are yet preserved by one of his descendants who followed his great-grandfather's profession. These were a full and accurate transcript of what had occurred up to the moment when the fatal clot invaded his perhaps too active brain. Thus he literally died in harness, after having on the Sunday previous ejaculated the supplication in the litany service, "From battle, murder and sudden death, good Lord, deliver us."
Mr. Emmet was remarkable for display of courtesy to Bench and Bar, and slow to anger. On one occasion early in his career, he and William Pinckney were opponents in the Supreme Court at Washington in a case that the latter had greatly at heart, and Mr. Pinckney appears to have traveled out of the merits to indulge in personal references to his opponent, with a view perhaps — as are often forensic tactics — of irritating and weakening reply. The incident, however, seemed to have operated as a hone for sharpening his intellect without ruffling his temper. When the argument ended he said to the Court, "Perhaps I ought to notice the remarks of the opposite counsel, but they belonged to a species of warfare in which I have had the good fortune to have found no experience. I am willing to leave my adversary whatever advantage he may gain from display of his talent in that direction. When I came to this country I came as a friendless stranger, but I am proud to say that from the Bar generally, and from the Bench universally I have experienced nothing but politeness and even kindness. I have been accustomed to admire and even reverence the learning and eloquence of the gentleman, and he was the last man from whom I should have expected personal observations of the kind in question. The learned gentleman had once filled the highest office his country could bestow at the Court of St. James — as a subject of which I was born — but I am sure he did not acquire his breeding in that school." Court and Bar looked delighted, for William Pinckney's manner was often overbearing. But in Wheaton's life of Pinckney appears a report of the apology that the latter immediately tendered, viz.: "The manner of the gentleman in reply reproaches me by its forbearance and urbanity, and hastens the repentance which reflection would have produced. I offer him a cheerful atonement. Cheerful because it puts me to rights with myself, and because tendered to an interesting stranger whom adversity has tried, and affliction" (evidently referring to the execution of his brother Robert) "struck severely to the heart; to an exile whom any country might be proud to receive, and every man of generous temper would be ashamed to offend." Perhaps at this atonement Mr. Emmet may have felt what Frederick R. Coudert expressed when, having been roughly treated by an adversary's speech, and the latter having regretfully apologized, Mr. Coudert observed, "I now rejoice at the incident be cause of the charming recompense."
The following traditional anecdote is of record in the annals of the New York Bar, illustrative of the craft and shrewdness of Mr. Emmet as a counselor. The transaction to which it refers having been bruited about publicly at the time, gave him much popular fame. A journeyman sadler of the city, having accumulated a few hundred dollars, purposed to establish him self in a suburban village, and while at its inn entrusted its landlord with the keeping over night of two hundred dollars. This, on demand the next morning the rogue denied having received. The guest had not taken a receipt, nor was it the time when a suitor could witness for himself, and Mr. Emmet was obliged to inform him that he had been tricked without recourse, "but," added he, "if you have another two hundred, return and tell him you must have been mistaken, and apologetically, taking a friend with you as a witness, deposit another two hundred
