Page:Life And Letters Of Thomas Jefferson -- Hirst (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.89541).pdf/74

 a pleader. "Well," was the reply, "it is hard to tell, because he always took the right side."

Afterwards at Congress, and in the legislative assembly of Virginia, Jefferson came to share Washington's dislike of public oratory and consequently of the lawyers who infested public bodies. Long speeches, he said, usually came from lawyers, "whose trade it is to contest everything, concede nothing, and talk by the hour." In his eyes a Congressman, or Senator, who consumed public time by useless verbosity, deserved castigation as richly as if he were wasting public money. Whether in the service of the state or in retirement Jefferson felt that time was the most precious of all commodities. For that reason he practised punctuality, but confessed in his old age to Van Buren that (owing to the unpunctuality of others) this habit had proved unprofitable. Experience had taught him the truth of an Oxford epigram that "punctuality is the thief of time."

At twenty-six Jefferson was ready to take a hand in politics. Two years after his admission to the Bar, he was elected a member of the Virginian House of Burgesses to represent Albemarle county. Like George Washington, who had stood for Frederick county eleven years before, Jefferson kept open house and treated the free and independent electors to punch as freely as the customs of Colonial Virginia required. Soon after his election, on May 11, 1769, the Assembly was convened, and the new member was honoured with the task of drafting a "most humble and dutiful address" to Governor Botetourt, who had succeeded Fauquier. With the repeal of the Stamp Act the storm it provoked had blown over, and the new customs duties had not been much noticed in Virginia. The new governor was popular. He came in a State coach