had been so carefully worked out in the written oration, was, I doubt not, spoiled by the embarrassment under which it was delivered.

Perhaps it may be thought that the honor of speaking the Valedictory, in the manner in which the task was executed, was hardly worth the pain and mortification which it brought with it. Philosophically considered, this is true; for I might have gone home, after my examination, without further labors, or trials, or mortifications.

And as a mere calculation of interest, my college honor was of no consequence in my future pursuits. I doubt whether a dozen persons out of my own family connection, in the new world upon which I was afterwards to enter, even knew that this mark of distinction had been awarded to me. Yet, in the little world of a college, it is as much valued, and as much the object of ambition, as the high offices of government in the great political world. And I confess that I would, at that time, have endured much more than I did rather than not have obtained it. Such is ambition in the little world and the great, and so early do our teachers and instructors plant it in our hearts. I do not say that it is wrong. For when it is properly regulated, and directed to proper objects, it often leads the possessor to great personal sacrifices for the benefit of others. But I doubt whether it promotes often his own happiness, however successful he may be.

Having graduated, I returned home to my family. This was in the fall of 1795. I remained at home during the ensuing winter, which was idly spent in the amusements of the country. My father kept a pack of hounds, and was fond of fox-hunting. It was the custom to invite some other gentleman, who also kept fox-hounds, to come with his pack on a particular day, and they hunted with the two packs united. Other gentlemen, who were known to be fond of the sport, were also invited, so as to make a party of eight or ten persons, and sometimes more. The hunting usually lasted a week. The party always rose before day, breakfasted by candle-light, - most commonly on spareribs (or bacon) and hominy,— drank

pretty freely of eggnog, and then mounted and were in the cover, where they expected to find a fox, before sunrise. The foxes in the country were mostly the red, and, of course, there was much hard riding over rough ground, and the chase apt to be a long We rarely returned home until late in the day; and the evening was spent in gay conversation on the events and mishaps of the day, and in arrangements for the hunt of the morrow, or in playing whist for moderate stakes. There was certainly nothing like drunkenness or gambling at these parties. I myself

'one.

never

played. By the end of the week the hunters

were pretty well tired, and the party sepaBut before they parted, a time was always

and dogs

rated.

fixed when my father was to bring his dogs to his friend's house, or they were to meet by invitation at the house of some other gentleman of the party, where another week would be passed in like manner; and these meetings, with intervals of about a fortnight or three weeks, were kept up until the end of the season. I joined in all of them; and when not so engaged, my father, with my elder brother and myself, hunted with his own dogs when the weather was fit.

It was an idle winter, and a very different one from my winters at college. It was intended, I presume, to give me a season of relaxation and amusement before I entered on the study of the law; and I liked it and enjoyed it greatly. For although my health was not robust, and eggnog was very apt to give me a headache, yet, in the excitement of the morning, I forgot the fatigues of the preceding day, and rode as hard as anybody, and followed the hounds with as much eagerness. By the end of the winter I was a confirmed fox-hunter. But by this time I began to feel tired of this idle life, and impatient to begin the study of the law. It was the profession my father had always desired me to follow, and which I myself preferred. Accordingly, in the spring of 1796, I went to Annapolis, to read law in the office of Jeremiah Townley Chase, who was, at that time, one of the Judges of the General Court of Maryland. This Court had original jurisdiction in all civil cases,

throughout the State of Maryland, where the matter in dispute exceeded £1 Maryland currency, ($2.663), and in criminal cases of the higher grade. It sat twice a year at Annapolis for the Western Shore, and twice at Easton for the Eastern Shore; and jurors from every county of the respective Shores were summoned to attend it. This Court was abolished in 1805, and courts sitting in the several counties substituted in its place. It may now perhaps, at this day, be a matter of surprise that it was continued so long; for it was exceedingly inconvenient to the suitors who resided in the distant counties to attend it, and the costs of bringing witnesses to Annapolis and Easton, and keeping them there sometimes for weeks together, was oppressive, and often ruinous to the parties. There were no railroads or steamboats at that time, and stages were almost in their infancy in Maryland; and such as had been established were as rough as a road-wagon, and found only between the principal towns, and running then only once or twice Almost everybody came on horseback to

a week.

Annapolis, except those coming from Baltimore. But the Court was maintained by the confidence the people entertained in the ability and impartiality of the tribunal, and their fear that, if a change was made, and courts for each county constituted in its place, that injustice, and not justice, would be brought to their doors. They would have been shocked be

yond measure in that day, at the idea of trying a case, civil or criminal, out of doors, or in the newspapers, before it was tried in Court, or while it was under trial, or after it had been there decided. Young America was not then born.

The Court consisted of three judges, always selected from the eminent men of the bar; the jurors from each county were taken from the most respectable and intelligent class of society; and, generally speaking, the jury who tried the cause probably never heard of it before they were empanelled, and had no knowledge whatever of the parties, except what they gathered from the testimony. There was every security, therefore, for an impartial trial. The extent of its jurisdiction, and the importance of the cases tried in it, brought together, at its sessions, all that were eminent or distinguished at the bar on either of the Shores for which it was sitting.

The sessions at Annapolis were of course the most important, from the great population, extent of territory, and commercial character of the Western Shore. Several of the most eminent lawyers in the State resided in the city. From the character of the Judges of the General Court, of the bar who attended it, and the business transacted in it, Annapolis was considered as the place, of all others in the State, where a man should study law, if he expected to attain eminence in his profession. There were generally between