Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/339

 eloquence of that man who awakened and hushed, at his pleasure, "the stormy wave of the multitude?" who, by his powers of speech, roused the whole American people, from north to south? put the revolution into motion and bore it upon his shoulders, as Atlas is said to do the heavens? to whose charms of persuasion, not the rabble merely, but all ranks of society have borne the most unanimous evidence? who moved, not merely the populace, the rocks and stones of the field, but " by the summit took the mountain oak, and and made him stoop to the plain?" — Instead then, of comparing our descriptions of Mr. Henry's eloquence, with the specimens which his reporters have made of it, let the reader compare that description with the effects which it actually wrought, and the universal tes- timony which is borne to it, by the rapturous admiration of every one who ever had the happiness to hear him; and the author, so far from being afraid of the charge of exaggeration, will be apprehensive only, of that of presumption, in attempting a description of powers so perfectly undescribable.

But to return to his argument in the case of the British debts. In order to render intelligible the analysis which we propose to give to the reader, it will be neces- sary to prefix to it, a statement of the case, of the plead- ings, and the points made in argument, by the opening counsel.

William Jones, a British subject, as surviving partner of the mercantile house of Farrell and Jones, brought an action of debt, in the federal court at Richmond, against doctor Thomas Walker, of the county of Albemarle, in Virginia, on a bond which bore date before the revolu- tionary war; to wit, on the 11th of May, 1 112. To this action the defendant pleaded ^ve several pleas:

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