eral states. The leading object of the present
session was to refer the answers of the states to a committee, and to
report an argument in defence of the resolutions of the previous year.
The report, since so well known as the Report of '99, or the Virginia
Report, drawn by Madison, was the consequence. When it was presented to
the House of Delegates, it was discussed by the prominent men of both
parties with eminent ability. Young Taylor performed his part with his
usual zeal and force, and, by the side of his illustrious namesake,
George Keith Taylor, opposed the adoption of the Report, which
prevailed, however, by a decided majority. He also sustained Mr. Adams
for the presidency in preference to Mr. Jefferson; and, when Mr.
Jefferson was elected, he opposed his administration up to 1802, when
Tazewell came to reside in Norfolk. Though opposed then, and as long as
he lived, to the party which, with few and short intermissions, has
controlled, from 1789 to the present day, the political action of the
state, his devotion to our blessed mother was as pure and as ardent as
was ever felt by any son who drew nurture from her bosom; and he was as
prompt to avenge her wrongs as to assert her rights--at once a
D'Aguessau in the forum and a Bayard in the field. Nor was that
affection unreturned. When the clouds of war were gathering round her,
Virginia entrusted her safety and her honor to his sword; and when the
returning light of peace shone upon her hills and valleys and over the
green savannahs of the East, and he had withdrawn from the arena of his
splendid fame, she invested him with her ermine, which he wore with
becoming grace to his dying hour; and she stood in tears at his tomb.

In this young man, Tazewell was to find an intimate friend, a fit, an
able, and a lifelong competitor. They were nearly of the same age: they
had been classmates in College, and had been in the Assembly together;
and while Tazewell was studying law in Mr. Wickham's office in Richmond,
Taylor was following suit a few doors off in the office of Gen.
Marshall. Even on the score of physical beauty they were not unmatched.
Though belonging to different models, each in his sphere was, in youth,
in middle life, and in old age, among the finest looking men of their
generation. Sometimes the aspect of Taylor was magnificent. I saw him
one afternoon thirty years ago as he was returning from the court in
Portsmouth. He was passing from Toy and King's co