Graduating with credit in 1804, he repaired to the famous Law School
at Litchfield in Connecticut, where he remained a year and a half, and
won general esteem. Tradition reports him a diligent student and an
admirable debater there. As to his moral conduct, that was always
irreproachable. That is to say, he was at every period of his life
continent, temperate, orderly, and out of debt. In 1806, being then
twenty-four years of age, he returned to South Carolina, and, after
studying a short time in a law office at Charleston, he went at last
to his native Abbeville to complete his preparation for the bar. He
was still a law student at that place when the event occurred which
called him into public life.
June 22d, 1807, at noon, the United States frigate Chesapeake,
thirty-eight guns, left her anchorage at Hampton Roads, and put to
sea, bound for the Mediterranean. The United States being at peace
with all the world, the Chesapeake was very far from being in proper
man-of-war trim. Her decks were littered with furniture, baggage,
stores, cables, and animals. The guns were loaded, but rammers,
matches, wadding, cannon-balls, were all out of place, and not
immediately accessible.
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