effect, that then, with God's help, the Court would be the counsel of the prisoner, and would see that he had a fair trial. And no doubt he had a fair trial, and was convicted a second time, and sentenced to death. But the pardon that ensued was not improbably induced, in part, by what had happened. The life of the prisoner was saved, and the conduct of Judge Chase was made an article of the impeachment subsequently preferred against him by the House of Representatives; and sixteen out of thirty-four senators recorded against him, upon that charge, the vote of guilty. The larger number voted for his acquittal, upon the ground, probably, of the absence of all corrupt or oppressive intention. It was acknowledged that the previously declared opinion of the Court had been sound in point of law.

I was present at this scene, in April, 1800, and have given it as my memory retains it. The act of the Court was not regarded by the Bar as one of intended oppression of either the prisoner or his counsel, but as a great mistake, resulting, in part, from the character of the principal judge, a very learned and able man, but confident and rather imperious, and in part from his greater familiarity with the Maryland practice, where the Judge used to respond, and perhaps still does, more exclusively for the law, and the jury for the facts, or rather more dividedly or separately, than was, in point of form, the usage in Penn

sylvania. In a criminal cause like this, however, the course of the Court would probably have been regarded as a mistake anywhere. It served as a signal lesson to stimulate the sense of professional independence, in asserting all the rights of counsel, of the accused, and of the jury, in criminal causes; and fitly closed Mr. Lewis's career in this description of case.

The range of judicial questions which occurred between the peace of 1783, with Great Britain, and the end of the last Federal Administration of the Government, in the year 1801, the most brilliant part of Mr. Lewis's professional life, and when his intellectual powers were certainly in their zenith, was remarkably large and important. Before the country had attained the lawful age of man or woman, the fullest demands for juridical wisdom and experience were upon it. Questions of prize and of the jurisdiction of the admiralty, - questions concerning the rights of ambassadors and the privileges of consuls,— concerning the obligations of neutrality, the right of expatriation, the right of naturalization by the States, the construction of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, the case of the Virginia debts, and of confiscations and attainders complete or incomplete before the peace, the constitutional powers of the Federal Courts, the powers of Congress, the constitutionality of the carriage tax, the nature and characteristics of direct taxes imposed under the Federal Constitution,

-questions of conflict between the authority of the States and of the United States, and between the States severally under the Confederation, and cases of high crimes, both at sea and on land, against the United States, were rising up from day to day for solution; and in most of them Mr. Lewis took a part, and held a position, that was worthy of the questions, and worthy of his own powers also.

His general manner in arguing an important cause, cannot be well appreciated by the reader, without some recollection of his rather peculiar person and countenance; and yet the effect of the whole man in action, was so remote or different from the appearance of his person at rest, that no one could infer the one from the other. At rest, strictly speaking, he never was, while in Court; but when he was not trying or arguing a cause, he was quizzing or joking, or mooting or smoking, generally in a state of unrest. When fully engaged in argument, he saw nothing and thought of nothing but his cause; and, in that, would sometimes rise to the fervor and energy of a sibyl.

He was about six feet in height as he stood, and would have been more if he had been bent back to a perpendicular from the curve,-not a stoop of the shoulders,-in which he habitually inclined forwards. At the same time he was very spare of flesh, and destitute of almost all dimensions but length.

His countenance was intellectual, but its general

effect was hurt by his spectacles, and by the altitude and length of his nose, of which, nevertheless, he was immensely proud. The nose so entirely absorbed the expression of his eyes and the rest of his features, that most of the young gentlemen at the Bar, in his time, could draw a striking likeness of Mr. Lewis, by a simple outline of his nose. When the spectacles were entirely removed from his eyes, to see or read near at hand, you perceived that their expression was kindly and gentle; but when he looked through his glasses at the Court or jury, they assumed the expression that belonged to the sentiment or passion that moved him, and sometimes it was a rather truculent

one.

He abominated the Gallican invention, as he called it, of pantaloons, and stuck to knee breeches all his life; and, under the same prejudice, he adhered to hair powder and a cue, because the French revolutionists had first rejected them from their armies. When he presented himself, in what he deemed the only forensic dress, a full suit of black and powdered head, even a stranger would expect to hear something worth hearing from that animated and imposing figure; and by the first sentences of his speech, usually addressed, with a self-confident sweep of the head, and in a deep baritone voice, to the Court, and, if necessary, to the jury, the attention of every one would be arrested.

His first attitude was always as erect as he could make it, with one hand insinuated between his waistcoat and his shirt, and the other lying loose upon his loin; and in this position, without any action but that movement of the head, he would utter two or three of his first sentences, generally well-prepared to introduce some notice of the position and solicitude of his client, or some special characteristic of the case, and almost universally, some general principle or truth that he held to underlie his client's cause, and to bespeak the favor of the Court and jury. Then, with a quick movement, and sometimes with a little jerk of the body, he would bring both his hands to his sides, and begin the action. And it was pretty vehement action from that time to the conclusion; his head dropping or rising, his body bending or straightening up, and his arms singly or together relieving his head, and doing their part of a rather animated duty, but without a vestige of grace or preparation in any of his movements, all of them, however, sympathizing with the temper or expression of the moment. His voice never failed him. It was deep, sonorous, and clear to the last; and his pronunciation, without the least monotony or affectation, always conformed to the best standards in the language.

He had one, and I think only one, peculiarity, which never deserted him in solemn speaking, though it was not observable in conversation. It was not,