Nearly fifty years later, he said in the same city, when he retired from public life, "In looking back upon my origin and progress through life, I have great reason to be thankful. My father died in 1781, leaving me an infant of too tender years to retain any recollection of his smiles or endearments. My surviving parent removed to this State in 1792, leaving me, a boy fifteen years of age, in the office of the High Court of Chancery, in the city of Richmond, without guardian, without pecuniary means of support, to steer my course as I might or could. A neglected education was improved by my own irregular exertions, without the benefit of systematic instruction. I studied law principally in the office of a lamented friend, the late Governor Brooke, then attorney-general of Virginia, and also under the auspices of the venerable and lamented Chancellor Wythe, for whom I had acted as amanuensis. I obtained a license to practise the profession from the judges of the court of appeals of Virginia, and established myself in Lexington in 1797, without patrons, without the favor or countenance of the great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly board, and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members. I remember how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia money, per year, and with what delight I received the first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed into a successful and lucrative practice." His cases at first were largely criminal. His first marked case was that of a woman who, in a moment of passion, shot her sister-in-law. Clay could not bear to see a woman hanged, and she heretofore the respected wife of a respected man. He pleaded "temporary delirium," and saved her life. It is said that no murderer ever suffered the extreme penalty of the law who was defended by Henry Clay. He saved the life of one Willis, accused of an atrocious murder. Meeting the man later, he said, "Ah! Willis, poor fellow, I fear I have saved too many like you who ought to be hanged." When Clay was public prosecutor, he took up the case of a slave, much valued for his intelligence and honor, who, in the absence of his owner, had been unmercifully treated by an overseer. In self-defence the slave killed the overseer with an axe. Clay argued that had the deed been done by a free man it would have been man-slaughter, but by a slave, who should have submitted, it was murder. The colored man was hanged, meeting death heroically. Clay was so overcome by the painful result of his own unfortunate reasoning that he at once resigned his position, and never ceased to be sorry for his connection with the affair.