Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/101

 by the brightest luminaries of the American bar. His was a mind on which nothing was lost; on which no useful seed could be cast, without shooting into all the luxuriance of which its nature was susceptible. Thus improving every hint, and ramifying every principle which was brought into his view, there is reason to believe that a few years must have made him not only a master of the general canons of property, but of the modifications and exceptions of more frequent occur- rence, by which those canons are restrained and govern- ed. In support of this conclusion, I find that in January 1773, Robert C. Nicholas, who had enjoyed the first practice at the bar, and who, by virtue of his office of treasurer, was forced to relinquish that practice, com- mitted, by a pubHc advertisement, his unfinished busi- ness to Mr. Henry; a step which a man so remarkably scrupulous in the discharge of eveiy moral duty, would not have taken, had there been any incompetency on the part of his substitute.

The British ministry, however, did not permit Mr. Henry to waste himself in forensic exertions. The joy of the Americans, on the repeal of the stamp act, was very short-lived. That measure had not been, on the part of the British parliament, a voluntary sacrifice to truth and right. The ministry and their friends disavow- ed this ground; and were foin\^ard, on every occasion, to convince the colonies that they had nothing to ex- pect, either from the clemency or the magnanimity of the British cabinet. Thus on a question of supplies for the army in the session of parliament of 1766-7, a motion was made in the house of commons, that the revenues arising and to arise in America, be applied to subsisting the troops now there, and those other regi- ments which it is proposed to setid; in support of which,

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