Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/389

 Stances of his manner, with a very interesting minute- ness. " Mr. Henry/' he said, " had taken ample notes of the arguments of his adversaries: the people would give him his own time to examine his notes, and select the argument or remark that he meant to make the subject of his comments, observing in these pauses the most profound silence. If the answer which he was about to give was a short one, be would give it, without removing his spectacles from his nose — but if he was ever seen to give his spectacles a cant to the top of his wig, it ivas a declaration of war, and his adver- saries must stand clear.''

I propose to give a few specimens only of his mode of answering the arguments of the opposing counsel. It had been urged by them, that the laws of nations had declared only the estate of an alien enemy liable to con- fiscation — but that debts were mere rights — cfwses in action — and therefore not of a confiscable character. His answer to this, is a happy mixture of ridicule and argument. It is short, and I shall give it in his own words.

" But a chose in action is not liable to forfeiture. Why.^ Because it is too terrible to be done. There is such a thing as straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel. Things much more terrible have been done — things, from which our nature, where it has any pre- tensions to be pure and correct, must recoil with horror. Show me those laws which forfeit your life, attaint your blood, and beggar your wife and children. Those san- guinary and inhuman laws, to which every thing valua- ble must yield, are to be found in the code of that people, under whom the plaintiff now claims. Is it so terrible to confiscate debts, when they forfeit life, and coi^vpt the very source of your blood? Though every

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