Marshall had now to meet a total denial of Lord Fairfax’s title. His argument of ten or twelve pages shows already the characteristics, the cogency, clear method, and neat precision of thought and speech, by which his later work was marked. “I had conceived,” he says, “that it was not more certain that there was such a tract of country as the Northern Neck than that Lord Fairfax was the proprietor of it.... Gentlemen cannot suppose that a grant made by the crown to the ancestor for services rendered or even for affection can be invalidated in the hands of an heir because these services and affections are forgotten, or because the thing granted has, from causes which must have been foreseen, become more valuable than when it was given. And if it could not be invalidated in the hands of the heir, much less can it be in the hands of the purchaser.” As regards the construction of the grant: “Whether Lord Fairfax’s grant extended originally beyond the forks of the rivers or not, will no more admit of argument than it ever could have admitted of a doubt. But whether it should be bounded by the north or south fork of the Rappahannock was a question involved in more uncertainty.... It is, however, no longer a question, for it has been decided.... That decision did not create or extend Lord Fairfax’s right, but determined what the right originally was. The bounds of many patents are doubtful; the extent of many titles uncertain: but when a decision is once made on them, it removes the doubt and ascertains what the original boundaries were.” In reference to a personal appeal in behalf of certain settlers, he says, “Those who explore and settle new countries are generally bold, hardy, and adventurous men, whose minds as well as bodies are fitted to encounter danger and fatigue; their object is the acquisition of property, and they generally succeed. None will say that the complainants have failed; and if their hardships and dangers have any weight in the court, the defendants share in them, and have equal claim to countenance; for they, too, with humbler views and less extensive prospects, have explored, bled for, and settled a till then uncultivated desert.”