Название: The Life of John Marshall, Volume 1: Frontiersman, soldier, lawmaker, 1755-1788
Автор: Albert J. Beveridge
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40388
isbn:
Jacquelin Ambler had been made Treasurer of State, and, early in June, 1780, the family removed from Yorktown to Richmond, stopping for a day or two in Williamsburg. While there "a ball was … given … by certain gentlemen in compliment … 'to the Misses Amblers.'" Eliza Ambler describes the incidents of this social event. The affair was "simple and frugal as to its viands," she writes, "but of the brilliancy of the company too much cannot be said; it consisted of more Beauty and Elegance than I had ever witnessed before… I was transported with delight." Yet she could not "treat … the prime mover in this civility with common good manners… His more successful friend Marshall, was devoted to my sister."520
This "ball" ended John Marshall's college studies; the lure of Mary Ambler was greater than that of learning to the none too studious captain. The abrupt ending521 of the notes he was making of Mr. Wythe's lectures, in the midst of the course, otherwise so inexplicable, was caused by her two days' sojourn in the college town. Forthwith he followed to Richmond, where, for two weeks he gayly played the part of the head of the family (acted "Pa," as Marshall quaintly expresses it), apparently in Jacquelin Ambler's absence.522
Although he had scarcely begun his studies at William and Mary; although his previous instruction by professional teachers was meager and fragmentary; and although his father could well afford the small expense of maintaining him at Williamsburg long enough for him to secure at least a moderate education, John Marshall never returned to college.523 No more lectures of Professor Wythe for the young lover. He would begin his professional career at once and make ready for the supreme event that filled all his thoughts. So while in Richmond he secured a license to practice law. Jefferson was then Governor, and it was he who signed the license to the youth who was to become his greatest antagonist. Marshall then went to Fauquier County, and there, on August 28, 1780, was admitted to the bar. "John Marshall, Gent., produced a license from his Excellency the Governor to practice law and took the oaths prescribed by act of Assembly," runs the entry in the record.524
He waited for the recruiting of the new troops he was to command, and held himself in readiness to take the field, as indeed he rushed to do without orders when Arnold's invasion came. But the new troops never were raised and Marshall finally left the service. "I continued in the army until the year 1781," he tells us, "when, being without a command, I resigned my commission in the interval between the invasion of Virginia by Arnold and Phillips."525
During this season of inaction he resolved to be inoculated against the smallpox. This was another effect which falling in love had on the young soldier; for he could, had he wished, have had this done more than once while with Washington's army.526 He would now risk his health no longer. But the laws of Virginia made the new method of treating smallpox almost impossible.527 So away on foot528 went John Marshall to Philadelphia to be made proof against this disfiguring malady.
According to Marshall's own account, he covered the ground at an amazing pace, averaging thirty-five miles a day; but when he arrived, so disreputable did he appear that the tavern refused to take him in.529 Long-bearded and slovenly clothed, with battered hat and uncouth manners, he gave the unfavorable first impression which the same causes so often produced throughout his life. This is not to be wondered at, for, writing twenty years afterward, when Marshall as Chief Justice was at the height of his career, his sister-in-law testifies that his "total negligence of person … often produced a blush on her [Marshall's wife's] cheek."530 But he finally secured lodgings, was inoculated, and, made secure from the attacks of the dreaded scourge, back he fared to Virginia and Mary Ambler.
And Marshall made love as he made war, with all his might. A very hurricane of a lover he must have been; for many years afterward he declared to his wife's sister that "he looked with astonishment at the present race of lovers, so totally unlike what he had been himself."531 In a touching letter to his wife, written almost half a century later, Marshall thus recalls the incidents of his courtship: —
"I begin with the ball at York, and with the dinner on the fish at your house the next day: I then retrace my visit to York, our splendid assembly at the Palace532 in Williamsburg, my visit to Richmond where I acted Pa for a fortnight, my return the ensuing fall and the very welcome reception you gave me on your arrival from Dover, our little tiffs & makings up, my feelings while Major Dick533 was courting you, my trip to the cottage,534 the lock of hair, my visit again to Richmond the ensuing fall, and all the thousand indescribable but deeply affecting instances of your affection or coldness which constituted for a time the happiness or misery of my life and will always be recollected with a degree of interest which can never be lost while recollection remains."535
When he left the army in 1781, Marshall, although a member of the bar, found no legal business to do.536 He probably alternated between the Oak Hill plantation in Fauquier County, where his help was sadly needed, and Richmond, where the supreme attraction drew him. Thus another year wore on. In this interval John Marshall engaged in politics, as was the custom of young gentlemen of standing and ambition; and in the fall of 1782 was elected to the House of Delegates from Fauquier County.537 This honor was a material help, not only in his career, but in his suit for the hand of Mary Ambler.
Also, membership in the Legislature required him to be, where his heart was, in Richmond, and not two months had John Marshall been in the Capital as a member of Virginia's Legislature when he was married. "In January [3d] 1783," writes Marshall, "I intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler, the second daughter of Mr. Jacquelin Ambler, then Treasurer of Virginia, who was the third son of Mr. Richard Ambler, a gentleman who had migrated from England, and settled at York Town, in Virginia."538
The Ambler abode in Richmond was not a romantic place for the wedding. The primitive town was so small that when the Ambler family reached it Eliza exclaimed, "where we are to lay our weary heads Heaven knows!" And she describes the house her father rented as "a little dwelling" so small that "our whole family can scarcely stand up altogether in it"; but Jacquelin Ambler took it because, poor as it was, it was "the only decent tenement on the hill."539
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519
Marshall's Notebook; MS. See
520
Betsy Ambler to Mildred Smith, 1780;
521
See
522
Marshall to his wife,
523
Marshall could have had at least one year at William and Mary, for the college did not close until June, 1781. Also he could have continued to attend for several weeks after he left in June, 1780; for student John Brown's letters show that the college was still open on July 20 of that year.
524
County Court Minutes of Fauquier County, Virginia, 1773-80, 473.
525
526
Marshall, with other officers, did go to Philadelphia in January or February of 1777 to be inoculated for smallpox (Marshall to Colonel Stark, June 12, 1832, supporting latter's pension claim; MSS. Rev. War, S. F. no. 7592, Pension Bureau); but evidently he was not treated or the treatment was not effective.
527
First, the written permission to be inoculated had to be secured from all the justices of the county; next, all the neighbors for two miles around must consent – if only one of them refused, the treatment could not be given. Any physician was fined ten thousand dollars, if he inoculated without these restrictions. (Hening, ix, 371.) If any one was stricken with smallpox, he was carried to a remote cabin in the woods where a doctor occasionally called upon him. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 79-80; also De Warville, 433.)
528
Horses were very scarce in Virginia at this time. It was almost impossible to get them even for military service.
529
530
Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy;
531
532
"The Palace" was a public building "not handsome without but … spacious and commodious within and prettily situated." ("Notes on Virginia": Jefferson;
533
Richard Anderson, the father of the defender of Fort Sumter. (Terhune:
534
A country place of Edward Ambler's family in Hanover County. (See Pecquet du Bellet, i, 35.) Edward Ambler was now dead. His wife lived at "The Cottage" from the outbreak of the war until her death in 1781. (
535
Marshall to his wife, Feb. 23, 1826; MS.
536
Most of the courts were closed because of the British invasion. (Flanders, ii, 301.)
537
538
539
Betsy Ambler to Mildred Smith, 1780;