Colonial jurist, born at Port Royal, Bermuda, on the 29th of June 1752. He was educated at William and Mary, and took up the study of law; went to Bermuda with an expedition against the island in 1775, but returned to the colonies in 1777 and served in the army during the Revolutionary War, being promoted to lieutenant-colonel at the siege of Yorktown. In 1778 he married Mrs. Frances Bland Randolph, mother of John Randolph. After the war he was successively judge of the general court of Virginia; professor of law, and chancellor, at William and Mary; commissioner to revise and digest the laws of Virginia; president of the court of appeals 1803 to 1811; and then judge of the United States district court of eastern Virginia till 1827. He published How Far the Common Law of England is the Common Law of the United States; A Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal for its Gradual Abolishment in Virginia (1796); Letters on the Alien and Sedition Laws (1799); besides considerable poetry; and edited an edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries, with Notes and References (1803). He died at Edgewood, Nelson County, VA, on the 10th of November 1828.
