WILLIAM TILGHMAN. 31 



property, — and at the last standing clear iu his great 

 account of justice impartially administered to the 

 poor and the rich, the guilty and the innocent, — he 

 that does this is entitled to the homage which man 

 ought to render to man, and may claim, but not till 

 then, to stand his reputation hj the side of the late 

 venerated Chief Justice. 



From the time that he took his seat on the Bench 

 at March Term, 1806, for the space of more than 

 ten years, he delivered an opinion in every case but 

 five, the arguments in four of which he was prevented 

 from hearing by sickness, and in one by domestic 

 affliction ; and in more than two hundred and fifty 

 cases, he either pronounced the judgment of the 

 Court, or his brethren concurred in his opinion and 

 reasons without a comment. 



His attention from the beginning to the end of the 

 twenty-one years that he presided in the Supreme 

 Court, was undeviatingly given to every case; and 

 he prepared himself for all that required considera- 

 tion at his chamber, by taking an accurate note of 

 the authorities cited by counsel, and of the principal 

 heads and illustrations of their argument. 



This labour was not performed to accumulate the 

 evidences of his devotion to business, nor under sub- 

 jection to an inveterate habit. He was far above all 

 this. He did it under a sense of conscientious duty 

 to retain such minutes as would enable him to exam- 

 ine the authorities, and to review the observations of 

 counsel, after the illusion and perhaps the excite- 



