either of my two predecessors ( Ch. Livingston & Ch. (!) ) from 177710 1814 cited to me or even suggested. I took the court as if it had been a new institution, & never be fore known to the U. S. I had nothing to guide me, & was left at liberty to assume all such English chancery powers and jurisdiction as I thought applicable under our con stitution. This gave me great scope, & I was only checked by the revision of the Senate & court of Errors. I opened the gates of the court immediately, & admitted almost gratuitously the first year 85 coun sellors, though I found there had not been but 13 admitted for 13 years before. Busi ness flowed in with a rapid tide. The result appears in the seven volumes of Johnson's Ch. reports. My study in Equity jurisprudence was very much confined to the topics elicited by the cases. I had previously read, of course, the modern Equity reports, down to the time, & of course I read all the new ones as fast as I could procure them. I remember reading Pear Williams as early as 1792 and made a digest of the leading doctrines. The business of the court of chancery oppressed me very much, but I took my daily exercise, & my delightful country rides among the Catskill or the Vermont mountains with my wife, & kept up my health and spirits. I always took up the cases in their order, & never left one until I had finished it. This was only doing one thing at a time. My practice was first to make myself- perfectly & accurately (mathematically accurately) master of the facts. It was done by abridg ing the bill, & then the answers, & then the depositions, & by the time I had done this slow & tedious process I was master of the cause & ready to decide it. I saw where justice lay and the moral sense decided the cause half the time, & I then sed down to search the authorities until I had exhausted my books, & I might once & a while be em barrassed by a technical rule, but I most 1 Blank in original.
always found principles suited to my views of the case, & my object was to discuss a point (2) as never to be teazed with it again, & to anticipate an angry & vexatious appeal to a popular tribune by disappointed counsel. During those years at Albany, I read a great deal of English literature, but not with the discipline of my former division of time. The avocations of business would not permit it. I had dropped the Greek as it hurt my eyes. I persevered in Latin, & used to read Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Salust, Taci tus, &c & Ciceros offices, & some of them annually. I have read Juvenal, Horace & Virgil eight or ten times. I read a great deal in Pothiers works and always consulted him when applicable. I read the Ed & 2 reviews & Annl register ab initia & thor oughly, & voyages & travels & the Waverly novels &c, as other folks did. I have always been excessively fond of voyages and travels. In 1823 a solemn era in my life arrived. I retired from the office at the age of 60, & then immediately with my son visited the Eastern States. On my return the solitude of my private office & the new dinasty did not please me. I besides would want income to live as I had been accustomed. My eldest daughter was permanently settled in N York, & I resolved to move away from Albany, & I ventured to come down to N. Y. & be Chamber Counsel, & the trustees of Columbia College immediately tendered me again the old office of professor which had been dormant from 1795. It had no salary, but I must do something for a living, & I undertook (but exceedingly against my in clination) to write & deliver law lectures. In the two characters of Chamber Coun sellor and College lecturer, I succeeded by steady perseverance beyond my most san guine expectations, & upon the whole the five years I have lived here in this City since 1823 have been happy & prosperous, & I live aside of my daughter, & I take excur sions every Summer with my wife & daughter
- " So " omitted.
