l Court, then occupied by men of great ability,
learning, and dignity in their profession. He soon became eminent
among them, and, in process of time, the first at the bar, taking into
consideration his superior learning, correct elocution, and logical
style of reasoning; for in pleading he never indulged himself with an
useless or declamatory thought or word; and became as distinguished by
correctness and purity of conduct in his profession, as he was by his
industry and fidelity to those who employed him. He was early elected
to the House of Representatives, then called the House of Burgesses, and
continued in it until the Revolution. On the first dawn of that, instead
of higgling on half-way principles, as others did who feared to follow
their reason, he took his stand on the solid ground, that the only link
of political union between us and Great Britain, was the identity of
our Executive; that that nation and its Parliament had no more authority
over us, than we had over them, and that we were co-ordinate nations
with Great Britain and Hanover.

In 1774, he was a member of a Committee of the House of Burgesses,
appointed to prepare a Petition to the King, a Memorial to the House of
Lords, and a Remonstrance to the House of Commons, on the subject of the
proposed Stamp Act. He was made draughtsman of the last, and, following
his own principles, he so far overwent the timid hesitations of
his colleagues, that his draught was subjected by them to material
modifications; and, when the famous Resolutions of Mr. Henry, in 1775,
were proposed, it was not on any difference of principle that they
were opposed by Wythe. Randolph, Pendleton, Nicholas, Bland, and other
worthies, who had long been the habitual leaders of the House; but
because those papers of the preceding session had already expressed the
same sentiments and assertions of right, and that an answer to them was
yet to be expected.

In August, 1775, he was appointed a member of Congress, and in 1776,
signed the Declaration of Independence, of which he had, in debate,
been an eminent supporter. And subsequently, in the same year, he was
appointed by the Legislature of Virginia, one of a committee to revise
the laws of the state, as well of British, as of Colonial enactment,
and to prepare bills for re-enacting them, with such alterations as
the change in the form and principles of the government, and other
circumstances, required: and of this work, he executed th