Patrick Henry as a Lawyer.
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a manner that baffles all description. It the court room was packed to its utmost ¿eemed to operate by mere sympathy, and by capacity, and during three days he held the his tones he could make you laugh or cry at large audience spellbound by his transcen pleasure. A memorable case was that of John dent eloquence. The cause was adjourned Hook, a wealthy Scotchman, who was sus over to the next spring term of the court, pected of being unfriendly to the American when the great orator even exceeded his for cause during the Revolution. At the time mer argument, and won, not only the ad when Virginia was invaded by Cornwallis and miring attention of an audience composed Phillips, in 1781, an army commissary named for the most part of lawyers, but also a com pliment from the judge who wrote the opin Venable, had seized two steers belonging to Hook, for the use of the half-starved Amer ion of the court. ican soldiers. At the close of the war Hook In any cause in which he engaged, whether brought an action of trespass against Mr. law or public affairs, he always proved him Venable, and Patrick Henry appeared in his self a good fighter; his mind and heart worked together in advocating the cause in ¡ defence. He had complete control over the feelings of the court, jury and spectators, and which he was interested. But, while doing kept the court room in a roar of laughter at the utmost to win—striking hard blows, right one moment and at another touched their and left, using every weapon of offence and patriotic hearts by describing the distress of defence—he never bore malice. the American soldiers suffering from cold As already mentioned, his success in the and hunger. Then he thundered, "where Parsons' Case gave an immense impetus to was the man who had an American heart in his professional business. From that time his bosom, who would not have thrown open his fee-books show an enormous increase in his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of the number of his cases. In a day he had his house, the portals of his breast, to have risen from obscurity to great distinction, and received, with open arms, the meanest soldier in a colony remarkable for its great men, he of that little band of famished patriots? was recognized as the greatest orator and Where is the man? There he stands—but statesman. As he became more and more whether the heart of an American beats in absorbed in public affairs, his professional business gradually declined. In the year his bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge." Judge Stuart describes the scene that fol 1765, his cases numbered 547, but declined lowed: "He then carried the jury, by the every year until 1773, when his fee-book powers oí his imagination, to the plains shows only seven cases. The next year he around Yorktown, the surrender of which gave himself entirely to politics, and thence had followed soon after the act complained forth until after the Revolution, he retired of; he depicted the surrender in the most from the practice of the law. glowing and noble colors of his eloquence— His eminence in the profession enabled the audience saw before their eyes the humili him to command the highest fees that had ation and dejection of the British, as they up to that time ever been paid in Virginia. It marched out of their trenches—they saw the was as a criminal lawyer that Patrick Henry triumph that lighted up every patriot face, was most successful. A contemporary de and heard the shouts of victory, and the cry scribes him as perfect master of the passions of Washington and liberty, as it rung and of his auditory, whether in the tragic or echoed through the American ranks, and comic line. The tones of his voice, to say was reverberated from the hills and shores of nothing of his manner and gesture, were in the neighboring river—but hark! what sinuated into the feelings of his hearers, in
