seems
to have come reluctantly, was founded, as is now evident, on the
long-suppressed memorandum of Jefferson, who therein states that,
after failing in merchandise, Patrick "turned his views to the law,
for the acquisition or practice of which however, he was too lazy.
Whenever the courts were closed for the winter session, he would make
up a party of poor hunters of his neighborhood, would go off with
them to the piny woods of Fluvanna, and pass weeks in hunting deer, of
which he was passionately fond, sleeping under a tent before a fire,
wearing the same shirt the whole time, and covering all the dirt of
his dress with a hunting-shirt. He never undertook to draw pleadings,
if he could avoid it, or to manage that part of a cause, and very
unwillingly engaged but as an assistant to speak in the cause. And the
fee was an indispensable preliminary, observing to the applicant that
he kept no accounts, never putting pen to paper, which was true."[30]

The last sentence of this passage, in which Jefferson declares that it
was true that Henry "kept no accounts, never putting pen to paper,"
is, of course, now utterly set aside by the discovery of the precious
fee-books; and these orderly and circumstantial records almost as
completely annihilate the trustworthiness of all the rest of the
passage. Let us consider, for example, Jefferson's statement that for
the acquisition of the law, or for the practice of it, Henry was too
lazy, and that much of the time between the sessions of the courts was
passed by him in deer-hunting in the woods. Confining ourselves to the
first three and a half years of his actual practice, in which, by the
record, his practice was the smallest that he ever had, it is not easy
for one to understand how a mere novice in the profession, and one so
perfectly ignorant of its most rudimental forms, could have earned,
during that brief period, the fees which he charged in 1185 suits, and
in the preparation of many legal papers out of court, and still have
been seriously addicted to laziness. Indeed, if so much legal business
could have been transacted within three years and a half, by a lawyer
who, besides being young and incompetent, was also extremely lazy, and
greatly preferred to go off to the woods and hunt for deer while his
clients were left to hunt in vain for him, it becomes an interesting
question just how much legal business we ought to expect to be done by
a young lawyer who was not incompeten