Copyright, 1906, by R. A. Lancaster, Jr.
Home of Patrick Henry During His Last Two Terms as Governor of Virginia.
We call this amusing, and so it was to those who knew Patrick Henry. He was a lawyer, to be sure, but one who knew almost nothing about the law and had never made a public speech in his life. He was only twenty-seven years of age, and those years had gone over him mainly in idleness. In his boyhood days he had spent his time in fishing, hunting, dancing, and playing the fiddle, instead of working on his father's farm. As he grew older he liked sport too much and work too little to make a living. He tried store-keeping and failed through neglect of his business. He married a wife whose father gave him a farm, but he failed with this, too, fishing and fiddling when he should have been working, and in two years the farm was sold. Then he went back to store-keeping, and with the same result. The trouble was his love for the fiddle and the fishing-line, which stood very much in the way of business. He was too lazy and fond of good company and a good time to make a living for himself and his wife.
The easy-going fellow was now in a critical situation. He had to do something if he did not want to starve, so he borrowed some old law-books and began to read law. Six weeks later he applied to an old judge for a license to practise in the courts. The judge questioned him and found that he knew nothing about the law; but young Henry pleaded with him so ardently, and promised so faithfully to keep on studying, that the judge gave him the license and he hung out his shingle as a lawyer.
Whatever else Patrick Henry might be good for, people thought that to call himself a lawyer was a mere laughing matter. An awkward, stooping, ungainly fellow, dressed roughly in leather breeches and yarn stockings, and not knowing even how to pronounce the king's English correctly, how could he ever succeed in a learned profession? As a specimen of his manner of speech at that time we are told that once, when denying the advantages of education, he clinched the argument by exclaiming, "Nait'ral parts are better than all the larnin' on airth."
As for the law, he did not know enough about it to draw up the simplest law-paper. As a result, he got no business, and was forced, as a last resort, to help keep a tavern which his father-in-law possessed at Hanover Court-House. And so he went on for two or three years, till 1763, when the celebrated case came up. Those who knew him might well look on it as a joke when the word went round that Patrick Henry was going to "plead against the parsons." That so ignorant a lawyer should undertake to handle a case which all the old lawyers had refused might well be held as worthy only of ridicule. They did not know Patrick Henry. It is not quite sure that he knew himself. His father sat on the bench as judge, but what he thought of his son's audacity history does not say.
When the day for the trial came there was a great crowd at Hanover Court-House, for the people were much interested in the case. On the opening of the court the young lawyer crossed the street from the tavern and took his seat behind the bar. What he saw was enough to dismay and confuse a much older man. The court-room was crowded, and every man in it seemed to have his eyes fixed on the daring young counsel, many of them with covert smiles on their faces. The twelve men of the jury were chosen. There were present a large number of the clergy waiting triumphantly for the verdict, which they were sure would be in their favor, and looking in disdain at the young lawyer. On the bench as judge sat John Henry, doubtless feeling that he had a double duty to perform, to judge at once the case and his son.
The aspiring advocate, so little learned in the law and so poorly dressed and ungainly in appearance, looked as if he would have given much just then to be out of the court and clear of the case. But the die was cast; he was in for it now.
The counsel for the clergymen opened the case. He dwelt much on the law of the matter, whose exact meaning he declared was beyond question. The courts had already decided on that subject, and so had his sacred majesty, the king of England. There was nothing for the jury to do, he asserted, but to decide how much money his clients were entitled to under the law. The matter seemed so clear that he made but a brief address and sat down with a look of complete satisfaction. As he did so Patrick Henry rose.
This, as may well be imagined, was a critical moment in the young lawyer's life. He rose very awkwardly and seemed thoroughly frightened. Every eye was fixed on him and not a sound was heard. Henry was in a state of painful embarrassment. When he began to speak, his voice was so low that he could hardly be heard, and he faltered so sadly that his friends felt that all was at an end.