On this day there were new faces both among the counsel for the defense and for the prosecution. Now associated with Edmund Randolph and John Wickham was Benjamin Botts, the youngest lawyer on either side, bubbling over with the wit and sprightliness of youth. Already he had made his mark at the Virginia bar.
When Caesar Rodney peremptorily retired from the case President Jefferson at once recognized that the plodding District Attorney Hay needed reinforcement. William Wirt seemed the ideal choice; the summons went out from the White House and Wirt accepted. Wirt’s Swiss and German background, which he inherited respectively from his father and his mother, showed itself in his curly blond hair, his blue eyes, and his fair complexion. He was built in heroic proportions, over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, with thick eyebrows, a wide forehead, a prominent nose, and ample chin. With his agreeable countenance he combined rare good humor and graciousness. A young woman who came under his spell remarked that Wickham was handsome but that he seemed insignificant in contrast to the manly beauty of Wirt. The same young woman observed that while Wickham went out of his way to please he could not suppress an air of condescension. Wirt, on the other hand, contrived to give the flattering impression, not that he was trying to please, but that he himself was being entertained.
Like Hay, Wirt was self-made. His father, too, was an innkeeper in the 1770’s, at Bladensburg, Maryland, a few miles north of the future site of the national capitol. At an early age William was left an orphan, but from the start he had the gift of making friends. Among other accomplishments he sang and played the violin. His schooling completed he read law, moved to Virginia, and was admitted to practice in Culpeper County. There he met and married a daughter of Dr. George Wilmer, a man of prominence in the community and a friend of Thomas Jefferson. Through his father-in-law Wirt was introduced to Jefferson and also to Madison and Monroe and was an ardent follower of what was known in the political world as “the Virginia dynasty.”
These early associations, combined with his own superior talents, played an important part in the fashioning of Wirt’s career. Five years after their marriage Wirt’s young wife died and the rising young lawyer moved to Richmond. For a time he held the office of clerk of the House of Delegates, then served briefly as Chancellor of Virginia. He was a frequent visitor at Gray House, the home of Colonel Robert Gamble, a prosperous merchant. This imposing dwelling, on a hill overlooking the James River and commanding an extensive view of the river valley and the rolling country of Chesterfield County on the other side, had been built for Colonel Gamble by Benjamin Latrobe, an architect recently arrived in this country from England. In 1802 Wirt took as his second wife Colonel Gamble’s daughter Elizabeth, and through that connection became the brother-in-law of Governor William H. Cabell who married Elizabeth’s older sister Agnes.
Wirt was well known to the Richmond bar where he had appeared in a number of important cases. A notable one was in defense of the nephew of Chancellor Wythe, law teacher of Jefferson and Marshall. The nephew was charged with the murder of his uncle by putting arsenic in his coffee. Wirt was reluctant to take the case and did so only under a sense of duty. He handled it so successfully that the nephew was exonerated. If that constituted a gross miscarriage of justice, as many then believed, the blame could not be put on Wirt. He was now to have an equally spectacular chance to show whether he would be as good a prosecutor as he had been a defender. At the time of the trial the Wirts were sharing the Gray House with the Gambles senior and the Cabells. It was a gay and accomplished household.
Present also with the prosecution was Alexander MacRae, who held the honorable office of Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. One of the seven sons of a Scotch parson who was an ardent Tory in the Revolution, MacRae showed his independence by embracing the American cause and ending as an equally ardent Republican. He had a reputation at the local bar for a sharp tongue and a sour disposition. One observer remarked that where Wirt used a rapier MacRae’s favorite weapon was a meat axe. In contrast to Wirt’s bonhomie MacRae gave the impression of being completely indifferent to popularity. MacRae was among the elect in residence on Shockoe Hill. His house was within a stone’s throw of those of the Chief Justice and Mr. Wickham. Neighborly though they may have been, neighborliness did not extend to Mr. MacRae being included in Mr. Wickham’s notorious dinner.
So dense was the crowd in the courtroom that it was with difficulty that Chief Justice Marshall, clad in his robes of office, made his way to the bench. He was accompanied by Judge Cyrus Griffin, of the Federal district court, who sat with the Chief Justice throughout the trial.
Cyrus Griffin was no ordinary man. He was fortunate in being born the son of Col. Leroy Griffin, of Lancaster County, Virginia, and his wife, Mary Anne Bertrand. His parents sent him to be educated in England, a privilege that was reserved for the sons of the well-to-do. He studied law in the Temple, then met and married Lady Christina, daughter of John Stuart, sixth Earl of Traquair, in the Scottish peerage. On his return to this country, in spite of his years in England and his Scottish wife, he adhered to the American cause, was elected to the Continental Congress, and for a time served as its president. In politics he was a Federalist.
Now he sat beside Chief Justice Marshall. Once in the course of the long trial the Chief Justice inquired of Judge Griffin about past procedure, in a minor incident leading up to the trial, on which his recollection was vague. From Judge Griffin he received an answer. If the Chief Justice ever deferred to him again, if the Chief Justice so much as asked his colleague how he was bearing up under the heat, the record is silent on the matter.
At the time of the trial Judge Griffin had been on the Federal bench for 18 years. In the course of that long service there were many times when he had had to render decisions. In rendering them he must perforce have had to think. Cyrus Griffin was not a wax effigy. There must have been a heart beating under his judicial robes. He must have taken pride in his office. But if the Chief Justice, other than on the occasion mentioned, reflected that it would be considerate at least to make a pretense of consulting his fellow jurist, the record does not show it.