SOME VIRGINIA LAWYERS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT. By Saujf. E. Marshall Hardy. I. "What men want is not talent, it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor."
VIRGINIA has produced so many men great in law, as in everything else, that, seeking in the grand old State for men who have distinguished themselves in the legal profession, I have found so many names that deserve mention that, restricted by the length of a magazine article, I have hardly known how to choose, and, in choosing, am sure many are omitted I should have mentioned. I regret this the more because, from my earliest days, I have been taught to revere everything worth reverence in that " land of my fathers." The first jury trial in America was when Capt. John Smith triumphed over his foes in the Jamestown (Va.) Council in 1607. One of the first instances where the law was enforced in Virginia was where a man was tried, condemned, and publicly whipped because " he engaged himself to marry two women at one time." Campbell says : " In 1734 died John Holloway, Esq., who had practiced law in Virginia twenty years with reputation and success." He was fourteen years speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was born in England and served in the British army under William III. Sir John Randolph says: "He was more distinguished for industry than learning and as relying more upon the subtle artifice of an attorney than the solid reasoning of a lawyer." However, he had a great reputation and, although his fees were exorbitant, he found numerous clients. He is described as haughty, passionate and, the gravest fault of all in a Virginian's eyes, inhospitable. Another early lawyer of reputation was
William Hopkins. He practiced in Virginia twelve years and then returned to England to die. He is said to have been well educated, a fine Latin and French scholar, and a very handsome man. He had a large practice. Campbell says : ' His fees were moderate; he was candid and fair in argument, and never disputed plain points." Sir John Randolph called him vain, but, according to Campbell, "As they had quarreled, his testi mony is not to be regarded, and Mr. Hopkins was a man of high order whose early death was deplored in Virginia." John Ambler was born in Yorktown, Dec. 31, 1735, and died at Barbadoes, May 27, 1766. He was the uncle of the wife of Chief-Justice Marshall, a descendant of the Huguenot Jaquelins, and naturally a man of consequence in the colony, as he belonged to a family of note and was himself wealthy, having inherited a large property. The Amblers were a very religious people, and one of them said : — "We boast not that we deduce our birth From loins enthroned, or rulers of the earth; But higher far our high pretensions rise, Children of parents, pass'd into the skies." John Ambler was sent, at ten years of age, to Leeds Academy in Yorkshire, Eng land, then graduated with credit at Cambridge, and studied law at the Middle Temple. He traveled over Europe and, when he returned, was accounted one of the most accomplished scholars in the colony. He was perfect master of seven languages. He represented the borough of Jamestown. He died when he was thirty-one. He was buried in the
1 I am indebted for the matter used in this article to various histories and biographies, and to the kindly aid of numerous Virginia friends. I therefore can claim little part in it, except the work of collecting and arranging.
