Such wells of truth were not sounded except by
great intellectual efforts, and it is chiefly owing to the necessity
which then existed of making such efforts, that we boast of the great
lawyers of past times.
In a short time after his appearance in the courts he was elected to the
Legislature, and was one of its members in the great session of '98,
when the resolutions prepared by Mr. Madison were introduced. The next
year he represented the Williamsburg District in Congress, being
successor to Judge Marshall in that body, and was present during the
stormy period of Mr. Jefferson's election to the Presidency over Burr.
Few statesmen have more truly appreciated the grandeur of Mr.
Jefferson's teachings than did the subject of this notice.
He declined a reelection to Congress, and came to Norfolk in 1802, then
a place of extensive foreign commerce, and soon entered upon a large and
important practice. During the same year he married a daughter of the
late Col. Nivison, and from that time to the present continued to reside
among us. With the exception of the interrupting years of the war of
1813-14, and of a short period, during which he represented this city in
the Legislature on a special occasion, he practised his profession with
the honor and success that were to have been expected from one who was,
while yet a young man, pronounced by Judge Marshall and Judge Roane to
be unsurpassed, if equalled, by any competitor of his day.
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