hand, or anything else, for he could answer on the instant, clearly and without the slightest confusion, or distraction of his purpose.

"Unexampled success attended his professional efforts, so characterized by shrewdness and zeal. When the war summoned him from these toils, he had a larger practice than any other man in the state. I have no doubt, he tried four times more causes, at least, than any other lawyer, during the ten years preceding the war. The same qualities which make him efficient in the war, made him efficient as a lawyer. Fertile in resources and stratagem; earnest and zealous to an extraordinary degree; certain of the integrity of his client's cause, and not inclined to criticise or inquire whether it was strictly constitutional' or not, but defending the whole line with a boldness and energy that generally carried court and jury alike. His ingenuity is exhaustless. If he makes a mistake in speech or action, it has no sinister effect, for the reason that he will himself discover and correct the error, before any 'barren spectator' has seized upon it.

"He is faithful and tenacious to the last degree. There is no possibility of treachery in his conduct. He would not betray the devil to his fellow.' Every other prominent Massachusetts democrat, when it became profitable to do so, condemned a previous coalition that had been entered into between them and the freesoilers after they had taken and consumed its fruits. General Butler's political interests strongly urged him to the same dishonor. But he never hesitated an instant, and uniformly justified the coalition, and openly defended it in every presence and to the most unwilling ears. In his personal relations the same traits are observable. He is quite too ready, I have sometimes thought, to forgive (he never forgets) injuries, but his memory never fails as to his friends.

"The basis of Napoleon's character,' says Gourgand, 'was a pleasant humor.' And a man who jests,' continues Victor Hugo, 'at important junctures, is on familiar terms with events.'

"A pleasant humor and a lively wit, and their constant exercise, are the possession and the habit of General Butler. Everybody has his anecdote of him. Let me refer to one anecdote of him in this respect, and that shall suffice for the hundreds that I might recall.

"The general was a member of our house of representatives

one year, when his party was in a hopeless and impotent minority, except on such occasions as he contrived to make it efficient by tactics and stratagems of a technical, parliamentary character. The speaker was a whig, and a thorough partisan. The whigs were well drilled and had a leader on the floor of very great capacity, Mr. Lord, of Salem. During one angry debate, General Butler attempted to strangle an obnoxious proposal of the majority by tactics. Accordingly he precipitated upon the chair divers questions of order and regularity of proceeding, one after the other. These were debated by Mr. Lord and himself, and then decided by the speaker uniformly according to the notions advanced by Mr. Lord. The general bore this for some time without special complaint, contenting himself with raising new questions. At length, however, he called special attention to the fact that he had been overruled so many times by the chair, within such a space of time, and that, as often, not only had the speaker adopted the result of Mr. Lord's suggestions, but generally had accepted the same words in which to announce it; and, said he, 'Mr. speaker, I cannot complain of these rulings. They doubtless seem to the speaker to be just. I perceive an anxiety on your part to be just to the minority and to me, by whom at this moment they are represented, for, like Saul, on the road to Damascus, your constant anxiety seems to be, LORD, what wilt thou have me to do?'

"No man in America can remember facts, important and unimportant, like General Butler. Whatever enters his mind remains there for ever. And his knowledge, as I have said, is available the instant it is needed, without confusion or tumult of thought. The testimony delivered through days of dreary trials, without minutes or memoranda of any kind, he could recall in fresher and more accurate phrases, remembering always the substance, and generally all the important expressions, with far more precision than the other counsel and the court could gather it from their writing books,' wherein they had endeavored to record it. Practice for a long series of years had so disciplined his mind in this respect that I think it quite impossible for him to forget. And as he has mingled constantly with every business and interest of humanity since he was admitted to the bar, he has become possessed of a marvelous extent and variety of knowledge respecting the affairs of mankind." These passages, written by men conversant with the bar of

Massachusetts, and who knew him before he had become known to the nation, are better for our purpose than the observations of later friends. They illustrate the main position, that General Butler used all the means known to the law to get his cases, leaving the whole responsibility of maintaining justice to those who made and those who administered the laws.

One example of what a writer styles General Butler's legerdemain. A man in Boston, of respectable connections and some wealth, being afflicted with a mania for stealing, was, at length, brought to trial on four indictments; and a host of lawyers were assembled, engaged in the case, expecting a long and sharp contest. It was hot summer weather; the judge was old and indolent; the officers of the court were weary of the session, and anxious to adjourn. General Butler was counsel for the prisoner. It is a law in Massachusetts, that the repetition of a crime by the same offender, within a certain period, shall entail a severer punishment than the first offense. A third repetition, involves more severity, and a fourth, still more. According to this law, the prisoner, if convicted on all four indictments, would be liable to imprisonment in the penitentiary, for the term of sixty years. As the court was assembling, General Butler remonstrated with the counsel for the prosecution, upon the rigor of their proposed proceedings. Surely, one indictment would answer the ends of justice; why condemn the man to imprisonment for life for what was, evidently, more a disease than a crime? They agreed, at length, to quash three of the indictments, on condition that the prisoner should plead guilty to the one which charged the theft of the greatest amount. The prisoner was arraigned.

"Are you guilty, or not guilty ?"

"Say guilty, sir," said General Butler, from his place in the bar, in his most commanding tone.

The man cast a helpless, bewildered look at his counsel, and said nothing.

"Say guilty, sir," repeated the General, looking into the prisoner's eyes.

The man, without a will, was compelled to obey, by te very constitution of his infirm mind.

"Guilty," he faltered, and sunk down into his seat, crushed with a sense of shame.

"Now, gentlemen," said the counsel for the prisoner, "have I, or have I not, performed my part of the compact ?"

"You have."

"Then perform yours."

This was done. A Nol. Pros. was duly entered upon the three indictments. The counsel for the prosecution immediately moved for sentence.

General Butler then rose, with the other indictment in his hand, and pointed out a flaw in it, manifest and fatal. The error consisted in designating the place where the crime was committed.

"Your honor perceives," said the general, "that this court has no jurisdiction in the matter. I move that the prisoner be discharged from custody."

Ten minutes from that time, the astounded man was walking out of the court-room free.

The flaw in the indictment, General Butler discovered the moment after the compact was made. If he had gone to the prisoner, and spent five minutes in inducing him to consent to the arrangement, the sharp opposing counsel, long accustomed to his tactics, would have suspected a ruse, and eagerly scanned the indictment. He relied, therefore, solely on the power which a man, with a will, has over a man who has none, and so merely commanded the plea of guilty. The court, it is said, not unwilling to escape a long trial, laughed at the maneuver, and complimented the successful lawyer upon the excellent "discipline" which he maintained among his clients.

This was a case of legal "legerdemain." Many of General Butler's triumphs, however, were won after long and perfectly contested struggles, which fully and legitimately tested his strength as a lawyer. Perhaps, as a set-off to the case just related, I should give one of the other description.

A son of one of the general's most valued friends made a voyage to China as a sailor before the mast, and returned with his constitution ruined through the scurvy, his captain having neglected to supply the ship with the well-known antidotes to that disease, lime juice and fresh vegetables. A suit for damages was instituted on the part of the crew against the captain. General Butler was retained to conduct the cause of the sailors, and Mr. Rufus Choate defended the captain. The trial lasted nineteen working days.

General Butler's leading positions were: 1. That the captain was bound to procure fresh vegetables if he could; and, 2. That he could. In establishing these two points, he displayed an amount of learning, ingenuity and tact, seldom equaled at the bar. The whole of sanitary science and the whole of sanitary law, the narratives of all navigators and the usages of all navies, reports of parliamentary commissions and the diaries of philanthropical investigators, ancient log-books and new treatises of maritime law; the testimony of mariners and the opinions of physicians, all were made tributary to his cause. He exhibited to the jury a large map of the world, and, taking the log of the ship in his hand, he read its daily entries, and as he did so, marked on the map the ship's course, showing plainly to eye of the jury, that on four different occasions, while the crew were rotting with the scurvy, the ship passed within a few hours' sail of islands, renowned in all those seas for the abundance, the excellence, and the cheapness of their vegetables. Mr. Choate contested every point with all his skill and eloquence. The end of the daily session was only the beginning of General Butler's day's work; for there were new points to be investigated, other facts to be discovered, more witnesses to be hunted up. He rummaged libraries, he pored over encyclopedias and gazetteers, he ferreted out old sailors, and went into court every morning with a mass of new material, and followed by a train of old doctors or old salts to support a position shaken the day before. In the course of the trial, he had on the witness-stand nearly every eminent physician in Boston, and nearly every sea-captain and shipowner. Justice and General Butler triumphed. The jury gave damages to the amount of three thousand dollars; an award which to-day protects American sailors on every sea.

Such energy and talent as this, could not fail of liberal reward. After ten years of practice at Lowell, with frequent employment in Boston courts, General Butler opened an office in Boston, and thenceforward, in conjunction with a partner in each city, carried on two distinct establishments. For many years he was punctual at the depot in Lowell at seven in the morning, summer and winter; at Boston soon after eight; in court at Boston from half past nine till near five in the afternoon; back to Lowell, and to dinner at half past six; at his office in Lowell from half past seven till midnight, or later. When the war broke out, he had the most lucrative prac