a man and not acquired. Swift was his model, and his language was always plain, concise and pointed. A keen sense of hu mor, a brilliant wit, a biting tongue, a mas terful logic, made him an adversary at the bar to be' feared. Judge Murphy, in his ad dress before the societies of the University, says : " Two individuals who received their education during the war were destined to keep alive the remnant of our literature, and prepare the public mind for the establishment of this University. They were William R. Davie and Alfred Moore. Each of them had endeared himself to his country by taking an active part in the latter scenes of the war; and, when public order was restored and the courts of justice were opened, they appeared at the bar, where they quickly rose to emi nence, and for many years shone like mete ors in North Carolina. . . . Davie took Bolingbroke for his model; and Moore, Dean Swift. . . . Public opinion was divided upon the question as to whether Moore or Davie excelled at the bar. . . . Davie is certainly to be ranked among the first orators, and his rival, Moore, among the first advocates, which the American nation has produced." In 1790, indignant at what he considered an unconstitutional infringement upon his rights by the creation of the office of SolicitorGeneral, and being worn and exhausted by the constant and arduous toil and labor en tailed upon him by a large practice, he re signed his office; and, virtually abandoning his practice, retired to his plantation. He was a Federalist in politics, and, in 1795, was defeated for the Senate of the United States by one vote. In 1798, he was elected one of the Judges of the State and took his seat upon the bench. In delivering the opinion in State v. Вата Jeringan (3 Mur phy, 12), Chief Justice Taylor pays high tribute to his character and ability : " The very question, however, before us, has been decided in the case of State v. Hall, in 1799, by a Judge whose opinions on every subject, but particularly on this, merit the highest
respect. Judge Moore was appointed Attor ney General a very short time after this act of assembly was passed, and discharged for a series of years the arduous duties of that office in a manner which commanded the admiration and gratitude of his contempora ries. . . . His profound knowledge of the criminal law was kept in continual exercise by a most varied and extensive practice at a period when the passions of men had not yet subsided from the ferment of a civil war, and every grade of crime incident to an unsettled society made continual demands upon his acuteness. No one ever doubted his learn ing and penetration; or that, while he en forced the law with an enlightened vigilance and untiring zeal, his energy was seasoned with humanity, leaving the innocent nothing to fear and the guilty but little to -hope. The opinion of such a man, delivered on an occasion the most solemn on which a judge could act—when doubt in him would have been life to the prisoner—assumes the au thority of a cotemporary exposition of the statute, and cannot but confirm me in the sentiments I have expressed." In this connection, I am reminded of a tradition that I heard from some of the sen iors of the bar when I was, first admitted to it. About the year 18 16, there was a band of robbers and outlaws operating chiefly in Duplin, Sampson, Wayne and the nearby territory, whose chief purpose was enticing slaves from their masters under the promise of freedom and spiriting them away to the far Southern States and selling them. Chief among these were the Jernigans, and chief among them was the Barna Jernigan above mentioned. He had been indicted and con victed for enticing away the slave of one John Coor Pender, then sheriff of Wayne County. The story runs, that as Coor Pender was on his way to court to give evidence against Barna Jernigan, he was waylaid, shot and killed by one of the band. His eldest son, then a lad of about nineteen years of age, vowed to devote his life to the pursuit and
