VOL. XVI.
No. 2.
BOSTON.
FEBRUARY, 1904
PATRICK HENRY AS A LAWYER. BY EUGENE L. DIDIER. TO the study of the law, which is said to require the labor of twenty years, Patrick Henry gave only six weeks, during which time he read Coke upon Littleton, and the laws of Virginia. With so small a preparation, it required an immense genius to win laurels in so arduous a profession. He was twentyfour years old when he secured a license to practise law, of which Jie was so ignorant that he did not know how to draw a declaration or plea, and incapable, it is said, of the most common business of the profession, even of the mode of entering a suit, giving a notice, or making a motion in court. Thomas Jef ferson gave the following account of Patrick Henry's examination and admittance to the bar: "In the spring of 1760 he came to Williamsburg to obtain a license as a lawyer, and he called on me at college. He told me he had been reading law only six weeks. Two of the examiners, however, Peyton and John Randolph, men of great facility of temper, signed his license with as much reluctance as their dispositions would permit them to show. Mr. Wythe absolutely refused. Rob ert C. Nicholas refused also at first; but, on repeated importunities and promises of future reading, he signed. These facts I had after ward from the gentlemen themselves; the two Randolphs acknowledged that he was very ignorant of the law, but that they per ceived him to be a young man of genius, and did not doubt that he would soon qualify himself." It was a happy thought that turned Patrick
Henry to the bar, for it was the only profes sion which opened to him the pathway to fame, fortune and future distinction. There can be no doubt but that, after securing his license, he qualified himself by sufficient study to attend to the business that came to him during his first years at the bar. A care ful examination of the latest records show that, from September, 1760, down to the end of 1763, when he rose to great eminence in the "Parsons' Cause," he entered 1185 cases in his fee-book. After the distinction ac quired by that celebrated case, his practice became enormous, and so continued as long as he remained at the bar. Thomas Jefferson had only 504 cases in the same space of time that Patrick Henry had 1118. When he had been at the bar four years, . the famous case of the Clergy v. the People of Virginia came up for a final hearing. Ac cording to the law of 1748, the clergy had the right to receive their annual stipend either in tobacco at i6s. 8d. per hundred pounds or the amount in money at the mar ket value of tobacco. One season, owing to a short crop, the planters raised the price of tobacco to 505. per hundred, and the clergy refused to accept their stipend at i6s. 8d., and demanded payment in money at the mar ket value of tobacco. They appealed to the court, and the court decided in favor of the clergy, although the popular feeling was against them. The court was right according to the law. John Lewis, a prominent lawyer, who was counsel for the planters, was so
