. The great American book of biography . orney,but with little else, in his pocket. A tall, plain, poor, friendless youthwas young Henry Clay, when he set upin Lexington, and announced himself acandidate for practice as an had not even the means of paying his board. I remember, he said, in a speech in 1842, how comfortable Ithought I should be if I could make ^100, Virginia money, per year; andwith what delight I received my first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes weremore than realized. I immediately rushed into a lucrative practice. Less than two years after his arrival at Lexington
. The great American book of biography . orney,but with little else, in his pocket. A tall, plain, poor, friendless youthwas young Henry Clay, when he set upin Lexington, and announced himself acandidate for practice as an had not even the means of paying his board. I remember, he said, in a speech in 1842, how comfortable Ithought I should be if I could make ^100, Virginia money, per year; andwith what delight I received my first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes weremore than realized. I immediately rushed into a lucrative practice. Less than two years after his arrival at Lexington, in April, 1799, Clay hadachieved a position sufficiently secure to ask for and to obtain the hand ofLucretia Hart, the daughter of a man of high character and prominent standingin the State. She was a very estimable woman, and a most devoted wife to prosperity increased rapidly ; so that soon he was able to purchase Ash-land, an estate of some six hundred acres, near Lexington, which afterwardbecame famous as Henry Clays AN OLD VIRGINIA .MANSION. i8o HENRY CLAY. During the first thirteen years of Henry Clays active Hfe as a politician, heappears only as the eloquent champion of the policy of Mr. Jefferson, whom heesteemed the first and best of living men. After defending him on the stumpand aiding him in the Kentucky Legislature, he was sent in 1806, when scarcelythirty, to fill for one term a seat in the Senate of the United States, made vacant by the resignation of oneof the Kentucky home at the endof the session, he re-enteredthe Kentucky support of President Jef-fersons policy of non-inter-course with the warrinornations of Europe, who werepreying upon American com-merce, Mr. Clay proposedthat members of the Legis-lature should bind them-selves to wear nothing thatwas not of American manu-facture. A Federalist mem-ber, ignorant of the fact thatthe refusal of the people touse foreign imports hadcaused the repeal of theStamp
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