of the men of the bench or bar of that distant time, the recollection would be pleasant to myself; but my daughters, who used to give me that aid, are all away and distant from me, and writing at my age has become painful and difficult. If you will direct your inquiries to any one or all of these gentlemen, I will answer them to the best of my remembrance with pleasure, as soon as my health or strength will permit.

Mr. Gibbons was my law-instructor. After my own father, he was the best friend I ever knew. He was a great lawyer, well read in his profession, which he acquired in Charleston under the direction of a Mr. Parsons, an Irish gentleman of high grade in the law. The result from his professional labors while I lived with him was three thousand pounds sterling a year. This I knew, as I was his collector and Mrs. Gibbons his treasurer. There was then no bank-paper. His note-book was to him of great value, for he had distinctly noted every important case that had occurred during his whole practice, giving the points on which it turned and the opinion of the judge; and, as these judges in those times were Judge Walton of Augusta and Judge Houstoun of Savannah, these decisions carried more weight with the jury than the decisions of the King's Bench.

Mr. Gibbons was not a very fluent speaker. He was very quick in discovering the weak point of his opponent, and his memory was always ready to give the law that bore upon it. His commentary upon the law was, in short, in clear, distinct terms, very pointed; and sometimes he indulged in witticisms, which increased as he grew older, from his intimate association with Peter Carnes the elder, the wittiest lawyer I ever have known, and whose wit obscured his profound law-knowledge in the eyes of the many. Mr. Gibbons in his nature was very open, frank, and manly, and very determined. This gave him a few warm friends and many bitter

enemies.

It gives me pleasure to state that Gen. James Jackson, the noblest man with whom it has been my lot to be acquainted,-when I called upon him, as Governor, to give me a letter to Mr. King, our then minister in London, kept me to dine with him; and he asked me what were Mr. Gibbons's receipts from his profession. I replied, "Three thousand pounds per annum. "My own were about that amount when I unwisely left my profession for politics. Mr. Gibbons, as a whole, was the greatest lawyer in Georgia." Let me say to you that Gen. Jackson and Mr. Gibbons had exchanged three shots at each other: they were considered the bitterest enemies by the public. A high-minded man feels no enmity. In this way I can go through your list, if it suits Yours respectfully,

you.

STEPHEN F. MILLER, Esq.

THOMAS SPALDING.

(Circular.)

SKETCHES OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF GEORGIA.

I am collecting materials for a work in behalf of which I earnestly invoke the courtesies of the bar. It will embrace a list of the Colonial and State judges, with the dates of their respective commissions, so far as the official record may disclose,—an outline of our judicial system from its inception to the present time,-and biographical memoirs of distinguished lawyers who are dead. Occasional notices of the living will also be introduced. My steady aim will be to do justice through facts. There will be added a complete roll of practising attorneys, with the States of their

nativity and year of admission to the bar. In preparing this work I shall be greatly obliged to gentlemen for information

1. Respecting deceased members who by their energy and talents rose high in the profession,-with an account of their early struggles, their first and subsequent locations, and their peculiarities before the court or jury. Of judges, their usual method of presiding, whether prompt or dilatory, clear or diffuse in reasoning, and whether patient or restless under argument.

2. Anecdotes showing wit and humor in court or in social intercourse between members of the bar; also scenes with witnesses under examination, or with the bench, where the joke or the repartee excited attention.

3. Remarkable trials, with a brief notice of the difficulties both as to facts and law, the principal questions raised evincing research and adroitness, and also the judges and counsel who shared in the labor.

4. Old letters of a free and rambling character, too good to be lost, where privacy does not forbid their publication. Extracts from these would revive the memory of the dead and rescue many a gem from oblivion. If the originals are sent me, they will be held in confidence, and returned after copying such portions as shall be permitted.

5. Incidents of every description, picked up at random, such as may amuse by their drollness or novelty,-quaint sayings and jovial companionship, all forming a part of the lawyer's experience on the circuit. From the foregoing the plan of the work may be fully understood. Some of the names which I desire to introduce biographically are

JUDGES.-Dooly, Cobb, Walton, Early, Houstoun, Stith, Jones, Stevens, T. U. P. Charlton, Davies, Crawford, S. W. Harris, Griffin, Tait, Lamar, Reid, Montgomery, Gamble, J. Schley, Shorter, Gresham, Tracy, the brothers Polhill, &c.

MEMBERS OF THE BAR.-T. P. Carnes, R. H. Wilde, Gibbons, Noel, Upson, D. B. Mitchell, C. Harris, N. Ware, Van Allen, F. Walker, Rutherford, W. H. Torrance, S. Rockwell, B. Franklin, T. Fitch, O. H. Skinner, O. H. Prince, J. S. Frierson, W. Crocker, A. Martin, T. F. Foster, D. G. Campbell, J. W. Campbell, T. Glascock, J. C. Terrell, R. W. Habersham, G. Cary, E. J. Black, W. W. Gordon, R. A. Beall, J. Millen, J. M. Kelly, W. H. Anderson, &c.

Several gentlemen, one of whom was admitted to the bar in 1795, and others of forty and thirty years' standing in the profession, have heartily approved my object, and have promised me the benefit of their recollections. A fragment from one, and a brief sketch from another, comparatively, as leisure may permit, will afford materials for an interesting volume, which, if my correspondents will give me their early attention, I shall be able to deliver from the press during the year 1851, with several fine mezzotint engravings.

The bench and bar of Georgia are worthy of the intended memorial. Let it be accomplished. As to my qualifications, I claim nothing higher than patience and industry equal to the task. STEPHEN F. MILLER.

XX.

JAMES M. KELLY.

THE profession will read with friendly interest the biography of the first Reporter of the Supreme Court of Georgia. His early life was checkered with good and evil; his last years were prosperous and happy; and it will be the object of the author to trace, with some degree of minuteness, a career the like of which, as a whole, has rarely terminated with so much credit.

JAMES MADISON KELLY was of Scotch descent, and was born in Washington county, Georgia, January, 1795. His opportunities for education were very limited; but still, obeying a natural bias, he contrived to read and improve himself sufficiently to act as clerk in a store. Finding his way to some relatives in Cumberland county, North Carolina, he was employed several years behind the counter in Fayetteville. Here he became an expert salesman and a fine book-keeper. Not satisfied with his prospects, and hoping to better his condition in some way, he returned to Georgia about his twenty-fifth year. It is known that he taught school in Twiggs county a while. He soon afterward became manager of the estate of James Johnston, deceased, who by his first marriage was the father of Young Johnston, Esq., late of Macon, and also the father of the first wife of the Hon. Thomas W. Harris, formerly Judge of the Superior Court of the Southern circuit. These facts are mentioned to connect Mr. Kelly with proceedings which, however disagreeable at the time, no doubt laid the foundation of his legal character.

In the year 1823, Mr. Kelly intermarried with Mrs. Amy Johnston, the widow, who was the mother of a younger set of children, one of whom was the first wife of the late Larkin Griffin, Esq., of the city of Macon. Mrs. Kelly had several slaves, and her dower, for her young husband to begin his fortunes. It may have been that the property of the estate was kept mostly together under his direction. At all events, Judge Harris set up claims which brought him and Mr. Kelly into antagonistic positions in court,—the former having sued out process, by virtue of which the latter was committed to prison. The particulars are not necessary to be stated. There was nothing to impeach the integrity of Mr. Kelly in the

matter; and at this point of his history, while gazing from the window of the debtors' room on the moving forms outside, and reflecting upon his situation, his soul took a panoramic view of life which it never abandoned to the last. A man of honest principles, as he felt himself to be, desiring knowledge, confined in jail for no crime whatever, yet in due form of law, his curiosity was excited to look into his own case, and to discover what kind of network or system of rules governed the country, depriving men of personal freedom, regulating titles to property, guarding and destroying reputation, life, and all that is dear to man.

After his discharge from prison, and working through the difficulty, he reported the case in a newspaper, a beginning which, twenty years afterward, he matured into volumes with the most gratifying publicity. How strange, how truly romantic, the inception and the sequel compared! An overseer, a plain farmer, his dwelling a prison, a love of strong drink ripening daily into a habit, the future indeed appeared gloomy enough. Yet the moral landscape, however barren it might appear to others, had a rich coloring to his mind. Fame disturbed his dreams: how it was to be achieved he saw not. The hopeful nature of Mr. Kelly, his kindness of heart, his love of books,-of " Clayton's Georgia Justice,"-never yielded to despair. He was elected a justice of the peace; and never did Mansfield relish and dignify the King's Bench with more zest than Mr. Justice Kelly enjoyed on reading his commission, and in dispensing law "as he understood it." He was applied to for a warrant against a man for hog-stealing he issued it, had it returned before him, and gave final judgment. His book, written before the penitentiary of Georgia was established, prescribed thirty-nine lashes for the offence, without saying a word about trial by jury in the Superior Court. He ordered the accused to receive the stripes; and the constable, with a lively regard for the public justice, executed the sentence forthwith. The result was that a nest of hog-thieves was broken up: they fled from the county, and all remaining people shouted the praise of Justice Kelly. He was indeed a "terror to evil-doers." dockets and official papers, every process under his hand, all his mandates, were a model of neatness. "Before me, James M. Kelly, a justice of the peace in and for said county, personally came A B," always heralded a correct description of the matter in hand, whether on the civil or criminal side of the court.

His

But the district of six miles square, with its monthly court, and thirty-dollar limits, was too small a field for his ambition. He

sighed for wealth as the ladder of promotion; and, to obtain it rapidly, he united in a commercial business with the late John McIntyre, in Marion, Twiggs county. In the year 1825, they laid in a stock of goods more or less suited to the market. McIntyre was then postmaster, and Kelly was made his deputy, thus constituting themselves partners in trade, partners in office. And there was another relation between them of a very cordial nature: both loved the bottle, vying with each other in the happiness it afforded; both waited on customers and then relieved their fatigue by sampling liquors. In less than twelve months, perfect disaster overwhelmed their affairs. McIntyre had been a book-keeper and notary public in the Branch Bank of Darien, at Marion,-had been deputy clerk of the Superior Court, was unrivalled in his beautiful penmanship and skill in accounts. He died, insolvent and a drunkard, two years afterward, leaving poor Kelly to bear the partnership-burden alone. He was compelled to sell the whole of his property for his creditors, and was perhaps assisted by the sheriff in this delicate operation. At all events, he circulated as a broken man, and was so held by merchants and others.

And here no disrespect is intended to either party, living or dead, by referring to a little circumstance. While Mr. Kelly was selling goods, a creditor* obtained judgment against him in Twiggs Inferior Court. Subsequently he sold a slave or two to a rich plantert in his vicinity, and also one slave to another neighbor,‡ to raise money. The execution was transferred to the first-named purchaser, who, for some cause, omitted to satisfy it out of the property he bought from Kelly, although it was believed he could easily have done so without loss to himself. The transferee had the execution levied upon the negro in the hands of the other purchaser, who interposed a claim. The issue was tried at July Term, 1827, on which occasion the author made his début for the claimant. The plaintiff's case was fully made out by the proof that Kelly had been in possession of the property, as his own, after the rendition of judgment. The ground taken by counsel for the claimant was that it was unjust and oppressive for the transferee to hold the execution open to pursue an innocent purchaser after he had ample means of the defendant in his hands to pay it; and the legal presumption was that, as the transfer was older than his purchase, and the levy subsequent to it, the execution was in fact satisfied.

*The late McCormick Neal.

The late Gen. H. H. Tarver.

Daniel W. Shine.