The final arguments began on the 20th of February. The first speech in behalf of Chase was delivered by Joseph Hopkinson, a young Philadelphia attorney, whose effort stirred the admiration of Federalists and Republicans alike. He dwelt upon "the infinite importance" of the implications of this case for the future of the Republic, contrasted the frivolity of the charges brought against Chase with the magnitude of the crimes of which Warren Hastings had been accused, and pointed out that, whereas in England only two judges had been impeached in half a century, in America, "boasting of its superior purity and virtue," seven judges had been prosecuted within two years. More loosely wrought, but not less effective was Martin's address, the superb climax of a remarkable forensic career! The accusation against Chase he reduced to a charge of indecorum, and he was ready to admit that the manner of his friend "bore a stronger resemblance to that of Lord Thurlow than of Lord Chesterfield," but, said he, our judges ought not to be "like the gods of Epicurus lolling upon their beds of down, equally careless whether the laws of their country are obeyed or violated, instead of actively discharging their duties." The closing argument, which fell to the managers, was assigned to Randolph. It was an unmitigated disaster for the cause in behalf of which it was pronounced. "I feel perfectly inadequate to the task of closing this important debate on account of a severe indisposition which I labor under," were Randolph's opening words, but even this prefatory apology gave little warning of the distressing exhibition of incompetence which was to follow. "On the reopening of the court," records John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs, "he [Randolph] began a speech of about two hours and a half, with as little relation to the subject-matter as possible ... without order, connection, or argument; consisting altogether of the most hackneyed commonplaces of popular declamation, mingled up with panegyrics and invectives upon persons, with a few well-expressed ideas, a few striking figures, much distortion of face and contortion of body, tears, groans and sobs, with occasional pauses for recollection, and continual complaints of having lost his notes." So ended the ambition of John Randolph of Roanoke to prove himself another Burke!