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dly, that he sometimes acted as host, especially in the absence of his father-in-law,--receiving all comers, and providing for their entertainment; and it was from this circumstance that the tradition arose, as Jefferson bluntly expressed it, that Patrick Henry "was originally a barkeeper,"[23] or, as it is more vivaciously expressed by a recent writer, that "for three years" after getting his license to practice law, he "tended travelers and drew corks."[24] These statements, however, are but an exaggeration of the fact that, whenever visiting at the tavern of his father-in-law, he had the good sense and the good feeling to lend a hand, in case of need, in the business of the house; and that no more than this is true may be proved, not only from the written testimony of survivors,[25] who knew him in those days, but from the contemporary records, carefully kept by himself, of his own earliest business as a lawyer. These records show that, almost at once after receiving his license to practice law, he must have been fully occupied with the appropriate business of his profession. It is quite apparent, also, from the evidence just referred to, that the common history of his life has, in another particular, done great injustice to this period of it. According to the recollection of one old man who outlived him, "he was not distinguished at the bar for near four years."[26] Wirt himself, relying upon the statements of several survivors of Patrick Henry, speaks of his lingering "in the background for three years," and of "the profits of his practice" as being so inadequate for the supply of even "the necessaries of life," that "for the first two or three years" he was living with his family in dependence upon his father-in-law.[27] Fortunately, however, we are not left in this case to grope our way toward the truth amid the ruins of the confused and decaying memories of old men. Since Wirt's time, there have come to light the fee-books of Patrick Henry, carefully and neatly kept by him from the beginning of his practice, and covering nearly his entire professional life down to old age.[28] The first entry in these books is for September, 1760; and from that date onward to the end of the year 1763,--by which time he had suddenly sprung into great professional prominence by his speech in "the Parsons' Cause,"--he is found to have charged fees in 1185 suits, besides many other fees for the preparation of legal papers out of
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