Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/470

 THE EARLY VIRGINIA BAR great prejudice and charge of the inhabi tants of this collony; for prevention thereof, be it enacted by the authoritee of this present grand assembly, that noe person or persons whatsoever, within this collony either lawyers or any other, shall pleade in any court of judicature within this collony, or give councill in any cause, or controvercie whatsoever, for any kind of reward or profitt whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, upon the penalty of ffive thousand pounds of tobacco upon every breach thereof. And because the breakers thereof, through their subtillity, cannot easily be discerned, Bee it, therefore, enacted, that every one pleading as an attorney to any other person or persons, if either pit. or defendant desire it, shall make oath that he neither directly nor indirectly is a breaker of the act afore said. " (i Hen. Stats. 495-482.) Even after such a seeming death blow to the profession, the fraternity, with the perseverance which they have ever shown, struggled on in this crippled condition with the hope of ultimately convincing the public of their error and the usefulness of the craft in affairs politic. This they finally accom plished at an early age, for there was, in a few years, a repeal of the statute, leaving the bar ever afterwards free of such perse cution. During these early days there was little to distinguish our brothers-in-arms from the prosperous planters or merchants of the period; that is, before the war with England, inasmuch as we were a dependent colony, we looked to the mother-country for support in things military as well as civil. Mercantile transactions were in their infancy; there were few courts and those were held, for the most part, at the capital. But although the trials of those great causes, which have formed precedents in our law, and the record of forensic eloquence had not yet made their appearances, the profession was gradually becoming moulded into concrete form; and, in the early eighteenth century, such names as Sir John Randolph and Edward Barradall

357

— barristers educated and equipped in England at her courts at Westminster — begin to throw a glimmer of light upon this hitherto prosaic period of legal attainments. One can readily see with such men ot influ ence, wealth and education entering the legal life of the colony, that it was a step towards the placing the profession of law upon the eminence which it has since enjoyed. These two great barristers of early days —: for they were the prototypes of what "was best in their calling — practiced, for the most part, at the bar of the general court, the highest tribunal of the colony in those days; and history records that Mr. Randolph was in the habit of lecturing upon the law to the young men of the day who were in attendance at the College ot William and Mary, in which place his remains lie at the present time in a vault beneath the chancel ot the chapel. These two, being of aristocratic parentage, were educated far above the middle class, and laid the foundation for [that subse quent period which may well boast of the greatest galaxy of legal minds ever associated in any of the original thirteen colonies, either before or since; for now sprang into prominence the great Wythe, Pendleton, the Randolphs, Peyton and John, sons of Sir John, Mason and others. The change to a more democratic atmos phere from that of the oldj knights was beginning to be felt; the colony had com menced to extend its civilization toward the great blue range on the west; trade of every description was on the increase; courts were more often held; fees were becoming estab lished upon a currency basis; and more young men were coming to the bar. In this manner the Guild was being formed; and so popular had it become to be a member thereof, that the greatest ambition of the young Virginian of the day was to be a disciple of a creed so honorably established. The outlying counties from the capital at Williamsburg being sparsely populated, it is at Williamsburg we find the principal