d by the country, and it attempted
to secure the recognition of its principles by a policy that was
temporizing and expedient. It lacked the courage of the old Democratic
Party.

Upon the defeat of the Constitution, I turned my attention to the
profession in the office of Mr. Joel Giles, with whom I had studied.
He had been a lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the House and the
Senate, and of the Constitutional Convention. He was a bachelor,
economical in his expenditures, rigid in his opinions, just in every
thing, and a most careful student and conscientious practitioner. He
was a patent lawyer, and as lawyer and mechanic he was the superior of
any other person that I have known. As an advocate his services were
not valuable. He seemed timid, and his style was not adapted to jury
trials nor to hearings by the court. However, in patent cases he could
make himself understood by the court, and he had influence resting upon
the belief that he was free from deception which was the fact.

Mr. Giles was then attorney for Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing
machine. He had been counsel for Howe from the first, when Howe was in
extreme poverty and unable to pay fees. In the early stages of the
contest Mr. Giles conducted the case without present compensation, and
at the end, when Howe's income was enormous for the period, Mr. Giles
accepted only very moderate fees, and he was content therewith. Mr.
Howe was a peculiar character: odd in his ways, but generous with his
income:--so generous that at his death his fortune was very small. In
my long acquaintance with Mr. Giles I never knew that he made charges
for services against any one or that he ever presented a bill, although
he sometimes spoke of the indifference and neglect of his clients in
the matter of money. Some paid and others did not. Mr. Howe paid all
that Mr. Giles required, but that was very little compared with the
service rendered. The litigation over the Howe patent was severe and
the questions in a mechanical point of view were nice questions. Mr.
Giles began with the invention, and he became a master of the case.
Mr. Howe was indebted to Mr. Giles for the success of his litigation
which established his claim to the invention, secured to him as the
proceeds what might have been an enormous fortune, and placed his name
in the list of the names of great inventors. The patent-law practice
is the most exhausting branch of the legal profession, an