ng eloquence ruled the fierce democracy of
the day, and bespoke its ancestral source, and of others who were about
to step on the threshold of professional life, the young man, sitting at
the clerk's table, and intent upon his work, raising now and then his
dark chestnut eyes to the Counsel or to the Court, his jet black hair
curling about his tall forehead, his erect port telling of the military
exercises in which he so much delighted and excelled, seems, in vision,
to rise before me. Born in Henrico, within a stone's throw of the
birthplace of Henry Clay, who was his intimate personal friend and
colleague in the clerk's office under Peter Tinsley,--the county-man and
colleague also of our late esteemed fellow-citizen, Thomas Williamson,
another pupil of Tinsley,--he had performed such faithful service in the
General Court, that at the age of twenty-four, he was chosen, in May of
the preceding year, the clerk of the Norfolk Courts. His skill in his
business, the industry and integrity that shone in all his paths, his
cordial and polished manners, his martial spirit, which approached
something too near "an appetite for danger," but which was finely
tempered to the social sphere, conciliated the public esteem; and, while
he acquired the reputation of the readiest and the ablest clerk of his
day, he became, during the excited period from 1802 to 1815, when war
with Spain, with France, with England, was the order and the trouble of
the day, one of the most complete soldiers of our citizen corps. Leaning
to the federal side in politics, he, like the gallant Taylor, knew no
party when the sword was to be drawn. At the early age of twenty-five he
was made Colonel of the Ninth Regiment, was in active service during the
Douglas war, as the affair that grew out of the affair with the
Chesapeake was called, and, during the late war with Great Britain,
commanded in the field the Second and Ninth Regiments, establishing an
exactness of discipline and an _esprit du corps_ which was a favorite
topic of remark in the army. He was the soul of honor. His name was an
authority, his word was a witness, wherever the one was known or the
other uttered; and there were those who predicted for him, whether he
should engage in the field or at the bar, a brilliant fame. Between him
and Tazewell, who were nearly of the same age, the most affectionate
friendship existed--a friendship which, founded on mutual esteem, and
cemented by mutual kindness,