There was a day in the history of the Old Dominion when a great lawsuit was to be tried,--a great one, that is, to the people of Hanover County, where it was heard, and to the colony of Virginia, though not to the country at large. The Church of England was the legal church in Virginia, whose people were expected to support it. This the members of other churches did not like to do, and the people of Hanover County would not pay the clergymen for their preaching. This question of paying the preachers spread far and wide. It came to the House of Burgesses, which body decided that the people need not pay them. It crossed the ocean and reached the king of England, who decided that the people must pay them. As the king's voice was stronger than that of the burgesses, the clergy felt that they had an excellent case, and they brought a lawsuit to recover their claims. By the old law each clergyman was to be paid his salary in tobacco, one hundred and sixty thousand pounds weight a year. There seemed to be nothing to do but pay them, either in cash or tobacco. All the old lawyers who looked into the question gave it up at once, saying that the people had no standing against the king and the clergy. But while men were saying that the case for the county would be passed without a trial and a verdict rendered for the clergy, an amusing rumor began to spread around. It was said that young Patrick Henry was going to conduct the case for the people. [Illustration: Copyright, 1906, by R. A. Lancaster, Jr. HOME OF PATRICK HENRY DURING HIS LAST TWO TERMS AS GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.] We call this amusing, and so it was to those who knew Patrick Henry. He was a lawyer, to be sure, but one who knew almost nothing about the law and had never made a public speech in his life. He was only twenty-seven years of age, and those years had gone over him mainly in idleness. In his boyhood days he had spent his time in fishing, hunting, dancing, and playing the fiddle, instead of working on his father's farm. As he grew older he liked sport too much and work too little to make a living. He tried store-keeping and failed through neglect of his business. He married a wife whose father gave him a farm, but he failed with this, too, fishing and fiddling when he should have been working, and in two years the farm was sold. Then he went back to store-keeping, and with the same result. The trouble was his love for the fiddle and the fishing-line, which stood very much in the way of business. He was too lazy and fond of good company and a good time to make a living for himself and his wife.