Glances at our Colonial Bar. unpatriotic excesses, he remarked to the foreman, " You have indeed vindicated the jury's title — grand." Oliver Ellsworth, after having served as judge of the superior court of Connecticut, was made federal chief justice and, while in that high office, was sent on a special mission to the court of Bonaparte, who, in his brusque way, asked what was his occu pation in the United States. He answered, "My 'chief business is 'jus tice.'" A distressing chronic malady caused him to resign to make way, as it turned out, for Mar shall. Loth, however, to part with him, Con necticut nomi nated him her chief justice, but he declined and prophetically said, " I shall WILLIAM H. shortly be, as I hope, a member of the Heavenly Court, in the light of the Chief Justice of the Universe." He soon afterwards died at only threescore. At the age of twenty-seven, Patrick Henry was known in Hanover, Virginia, as a lazy pettifogger and a hanger-on at his fatherin-law's tavern bar where he often served drinks. Previously he had tried business and failed; and always thought more of hunting and fishing than of mental exercise.
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At last he found opportunity. In his twenty-eighth year there was a contest be tween the tax authorities and the clergy on the question of stipend for the latter in the nature of tithes. A court had decided that the parsons were entitled to some pay. One of them brought suit against a parishioner in the court where his father was local justice of the peace, with a jury of six who were to assess damages. Lawyers shun ned fighting the clergy and the lazy pettifogger was employed as a dernier ressort. But he was not afraid of " the par sons "; and, in a speech, rhetori cally flayed them before a jury for their greed. There had to be some nominal damage given, under technical law, DRAYTON. but so surpris ingly eloquent was he that the jury brought in only six pence against his client. Thereafter he became a hunter of legal precedents and a fisher of verdicts; attended legal bars and became leading patriotic lawyer with Sons of Liberty as public clients. So that in his reputation as patriotic orator his legal fame was rather merged. But he should be remembered as lawyer also; and Wirt's biography of him does his short but sue
