Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/336

 312 SKETCHES OF THE

��SECTION IX.

Mr. Henry still continued, however, rather through necessity than choice, the practise of the law: and in the fall of this year, 1791, a cause came on, to be argued before the circuit court of the United States, in which he made what has be^i considered his most distin- guished display of professional talents. This was the celebrated case of the British debts; a case in which, from its great and extensive interest, the whole power of the bar of Virginia was embarked, and which was discussed with so much learning, argument, and elo- quence, as to have placed that bar, in the estimation of the federal judges, (if the reports of the day may be accredited,) above all others in the United States.

The cause was argued first in 1791, before judges Johnson and Blair, of the supreme court, and Griffin, judge of the district; and afterwards in 1793, before judges Jay and Iredell, and the same district judge. Mr. Henry was one of the counsel for the defendant, and argued the cause on both occasions. The deep interest of the question in a national point of view, and the manner in which it involved more particularly, the ho- nour of the state of Virginia, and the fortunes of her citizens, had excited Mr. Henry to a degree of prepa- ration which he had never before made; and he came forth on this occasion, a perfect master of every prin- ciple of law, national and municipal, which touched the subject of investigation in the most distant point.

Of the first argument, a manuscript report is still extant, taken in short-hand by Mr. Robertson, the same

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