had been previously in force, the mostimportant were effected by the act abolishing the right of primogeniture, and directing the real estate of persons dying intestate, to be equally divided among their children, or other nearest relations; by the act for regulating conveyances, which converted all estates in tail into fees simple, thus destroying one of the supports of the proud and overbearing distinctions of particular families; and finally by the act for the establishment of religious freedom. Had all the proposed bills been adopted by the legislature, other changes of great importance would have taken place. A wise and universal system of education would have been established, giving to the children of the poorest citizen the opportunity of attaining science, and thus of rising to honour and extensive usefulness. The proportion between crimes and punishments would have been better adjusted, and malefactors would have been made to promote the interests of the commonwealth by their labour. But the public spirit of the assembly could not keep pace with the liberal views of Wythe.”

In the year 1777, Mr. Wythe was elected speaker of the house of delegates, and during the same year was appointed judge of the high court of chancery of Virginia. On the new organization of the court of equity, in a subsequent year, he was appointed sole chancellor, a station which he filled, with great ability, for more than twenty years.

During the revolution, Mr. Wythe suffered greatly in respect to his property. His devotion to public services left him little opportunity to attend to his private affairs. The greater part of his slaves he lost by the dishonesty of his superintendant, who placed them in the hands of the British. By economy and judicious management, however, Mr. Wythe was enabled, with the residue of his estate, and with his salary as chancellor, to discharge his debts, and to preserve his independence.

Of the convention of 1787, appointed to revise the federal constitution, Mr. Wythe was a delegate from Virginia, having for his colleagues Washington, Henry, Randolph, Blair, Madison, and Mason. During the debates, he acted for the most part as chairman, Being convinced that the confederation was defective in the energy necessary to preserve the union and liberty of America, this venerable patriot, then beginning to bow under the weight of years, rose in the convention, and exerted his voice, almost too feeble to be heard, in contending for a system, on the acceptance of which he conceived the happiness of his country to depend. He was ever attached to the constitution, on account of the principles of freedom and justice which it contained ; and in every change of affairs he was steady in supporting the rights of man. His political opinions were always firmly republican. Though in 1798 and 1799, he was opposed to the measures which were adopted in the administration of President Adams, and reprobated the alien and sedition laws, and the raising of the army, yet he never yielded a moment to the rancour of party spirit, nor permitted the difference of opinion to interfere with his private friendships. He presided twice successively in the college of electors in Virginia, and twice voted for a president whose political principles coincided with his

own.

“ After a short, but very excruciating sickness, he died, June 8, 1806, in the eighty-first year of his age. It was supposed that he was poisoned; but the person suspected was acquitted by a jury of his countrymen. By his last will and testament, he bequeathed his valuable library and philosophical apparatus to his friend, Mr. Jefferson, and distributed the remainder of his little property among the grandchildren of his sister, and the slaves whom he had set free. He thus wished to liberate the blacks, not only from slavery, but from the temptations to vice. He even condescended to impart to them instruction; and he personally taught the Greek language to a little negro boy, who died a few days before his preceptor.

“ Chancellor Wythe was indeed an extraordinary man. With all his great qualities, he possessed a soul replete with benevolence, and his private life is full of anecdotes, which prove,

pated from the follies of youth, he sustained an unspotted reputation. His integrity was never even suspected.

“ While he practised at the bar, when offers of an extraordinary, but well merited compensation, were made to him by clients, whose causes he had gained, he would say, that the labourer was indeed worthy of his hire; but the lawful fee was all he had a right to demand; and as to presents, he did not want, and would not accept them from any man. This grandeur of mind, he uniformly preserved to the end of his life. His manner of living was plain and abstemious. He found the means of suppressing the desires of wealth by limiting the number of his wants. An ardent desire to promote the happiness of his fellow men, by supporting the cause of justice, and maintaining and establishing their rights, appears to have been his ruling passion.

“ As a judge, he was remarkable for his rigid impartiality, and sincere attachment to the principles of equity; for his vast and various learning; and for his strict and unwearied attention to business. Superior to popular prejudices, and every corrupting influence, nothing could induce him to swerve from truth and right. In his decisions, he seemed to be a pure intelligence, untouched by human passions, and settling the disputes of men, according to the dictates of eternal and immutable justice. Other judges have surpassed him in genius, and a certain facility in despatching causes; but while the vigour of his faculties remained unimpaired, he was seldom surpassed in learning, industry, and judgment.

“ From a man, entrusted with such high concerns, and whose time was occupied by so many difficult and perplexing avocations, it could scarcely have been expected, that he should have employed a part of it in the toilsome and generally unpleasant task of the education of youth. Yet, even to this, he was prompted by his genuine patriotism and philanthropy, which induced him for many years to take great delight in educating such young persons as showed an inclination for improvement. Harassed as he was with business, and enveloped with papers belonging to intricate suits in chancery, he yet found time to keep a private school for the instruction of a

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few scholars, always with very little compensation, and of ten demanding none. Several living ornaments of their country received their greatest lights from his sublime example and instruction. Such was the upright and venerable Wythe.”

RICHARD HENRY LEE.

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RICHARD HENRY LEE, a descendant from an ancient and distinguished family in Virginia, was born in Westmoreland county, of that province, on the twentieth of January, 1732. As the schools of the country for many years furnished but few advantages for an education, those who were able to meet the expense, were accustomed to send their sons abroad for instruction. At a proper age, young Lee was sent to a flourishing school, then existing at Wakesfield, in the county of Yorkshire, England. The talents which he possessed, industriously employed under the guidance of respectable tutors, rendered his literary acquisitions easy and rapid ; and in a few years he returned to his native country, with a mind well stored with scientific and classical knowledge.

For several years following his return to America, he continued his studies with persevering industry, greatly adding to the stock of knowledge which he had gained abroad, hy which he was still more eminently fitted for the conspicuous part he was destined to act in the approaching revolutionary struggle of his country.

About the year 1757, Mr. Lee was called to a seat in the house of burgesses. For several years, however, he made but an indifferent figure, either as an orator or the leader of a party, owing, it is said, to a natural diffidence, which prevented him from displaying those powers with which he was gifted, or exercising that influence to which he was entitled. This impediment, however, was gradually removed, when he rapidly rose into notice, and became conspicuous as a poli

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tical leader in his country, and highly distinguished for a natural, easy, and at the same time impressive eloquence.

In the year 1765, Patrick Henry proposed the celebrated resolutions against the stamp act, noticed in the preceding sketch of the life of Mr. Wythe. During the debate on these resolutions, Mr. Lee arrived at the seat of government, soon after which he entered with great spirit into the debate, and powerfully assisted in carrying these resolutions through the house, in opposition to the timidity of some, and the mistaken judgment of others.

The above strong and spirited resolutions served, as has already been noticed in a former page, to rouse the energies of the Americans, and to concentrate that feeling, which was spending itself without obtaining any important object. Not long after the above resolutions were carried, Mr. Lee presented to his fellow citizens the plan of an association, the object of which was an effectual resistance to the arbitrary power of the mother country, which was manifesting itself in various odious forms; and especially in that detestable measure, the stamp act. The third article of the constitution of this association will show the patriotic and determined spirit which prevailed in the county of Westmoreland, the people of which generally united in the association. “ As the stamp act does absolutely direct the property of people to be taken from them, without their consent, expressed by their representatives, and as in many cases it deprives the British American subject of his right to be tried by jury, we do determine, at every hazard, and paying no regard to death, to exert every faculty to prevent the execution of the stamp act, in every instance, within the colony."

The influence of this association, and of other associations of a similar kind, rendered the execution of the stamp act difficult, and even impossible. It was a measure to which the Americans would not submit; and the ministry.of Great Britain were reluctantly forced to repeal it. To Mr. Lee, as well as to his countrymen, the removal of the stamp act was an occasion of no small joy; but the clause accompanying the repealing act, which declared the power of parliament to bind