Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/22

 The Will of a Great Lawyer. it was claimed, was an "alien enemy during the Revolutionary War, and therefore had forfeited his inheritance." The will was probated in Richmond, July, 1835, at a general court held at the capital. It is in the Chief Justice's handwriting. It is dated the ninth of April, 1832, and has five codicils, dated August 13, 1832; 29th of March, 1834; July 3, 1834; Nov. 6, 1834, and July 3, 1835, the last having been written a few days before his death. At the end of each codicil is, " This codicil was wholly written by myself.— J. Marshall." The will begins: "I, John Marshall, do make this my last will and testament, en tirely in my own hand-writing, this ninth day of April, 1832. I owe nothing on my own account." He then arranges for the management of an estate he held in trust, and for the settlement of a suit for some property he had purchased and some paper he was on as surety for a friend. It is an interesting fact that the suit he mentions, so great is "the law's delay," was not settled until forty years after his death, and his heirs were so many by that time that each received only eleven dollars as his or her share of several thousands. He divides his estate equally between his only daughter and his five sons, his wife having died several years before. He leaves his daughter's share in trust, saying: "I have long thought that the pro vision intended by a parent for a daughter ought, in common prudence, to be secured to herself and children, so as to protect her and them from distress, whatever casualties may happen. Under this impression, with out derogating from the esteem and affec tion I feel for my son-in-law, I give to my nephew, Thomas M. Ambler, in trust, to apply the annual profits to the maintenance of my daughter and her family and for the education of her children, for her and their separate use, not to be subject to the con trol of her husband or to the payment of his debts."

He recommends that his son-in-law be employed as agent to manage his daughter's estate, and if his son-in-law survive his daughter, one half of the annual profits of the property bequeathed in trust for his daughter and her family, be paid to him for his own use. His love for his wife is a matter of history and has been dwelt upon in every biogra phy of him; it was truly " the ruling pas sion of his life," and although she had been dead several years, he remembered her every wish. At her request he gives to one of her friends the dividends on ten bankshares during life, "as a token of my wife's gratitude for long and valuable attentions," and he says : " My beloved wife requested me while living to hold in trust for our daughter one hundred bank-shares, to pay the dividends to her during my life and to secure the same to her and her children when Providence should call me, also, from this world. In compliance with the wish of her whose sainted spirit has fled from the sufferings inflicted on her in this life, I give," etc. "My daughter will never forget that this is the gift of the best and most affectionate of mothers." In his will was enclosed for each of his children a beautiful eulogy of his wife, which he had written on the first anniversary of her death. He gives to each of his grandsons named John, one thousand acres of land, and adds, "if at the time of my death either of my sons should have no son named John, then I give the land to any son he may have named Thomas in token of my love for my father and veneraion for his memory. If there shall be no son, named John or Thomas, then I give the land to the eldest sons, and if no sons to the daughters." He says : " I had heretofore appointed my sons and son-in-law as executors of my last will. In the apprehension that the ap pointments of so many executors may pro duce some confusion in the management of