"Do you know a gentleman in Virginia by the name of Peyton, the author of some resolutions in the House of Delegates in 1810, on the subject of a conflict between the government of the Union and the State governments." "Yes," replied Mr. Sheffey, "he lives in Staunton, and is the leader of the bar in the circuit." "I am not surprised to learn it," rejoined Mr. Webster. "Is he a speaker," said Mr. Webster. "Not in a popular sense," replied Sheffey. "He is not a florid speaker, indulges in no meretricious display of rhetoric, but thoroughly armed in the strength of his knowledge, research and cultivated ability, without any effort to display it, he possesses gigantic power, and by it he has risen to the head of the profession. And he is not only a great, but a good man." "It is a misfortune to your people and the country that such a man should not have been sent to Washington long ago," said Mr. Webster. "He would have maintained Virginia's proud intellectual supremacy, and by the soundness of his views enhanced her influence."[26] [26] In 1851-52, Mr. Webster then Secretary of State, dispatched his son, John Lewis Peyton, to Europe and expressed a wish to have him permanently in the diplomatic service. At the death of Judge Stuart, in 1830, the vacancy occasioned by the death of that jurist, Lucas P. Thompson, of Amherst county, then a young man who had distinguished himself in the Constitutional Convention of 1829 and 1830, became a candidate for the office of Judge. Mr. Peyton was brought forward by his friends. Thompson had made himself popular on the basis question, and was regarded as one of the most rising young men of his contemporaries. He was the junior of Mr. Peyton. My father, at that time, was a member of the House of Delegates from Augusta county. The contest for Judge came off. My father, the ardent advocate of Mr. Peyton, was sustained in his opinion of him by some of the ablest jurists of Virginia, amongst them was Benjamin Watkins Leigh, who said to him that "Mr. Peyton was the greatest lawyer west of the Blue Ridge." The then Senator from this district, a personal enemy, without cause, however, of Mr. Peyton, exerted all his popularity and power in favor of Mr. Thompson, and on his election, said that he had accomplished a long cherished wish, that of defeating an ambition of Mr. Peyton. But he signally failed. It is well known that Mr. Peyton did not wish the office of Judge, much preferred to retain the greatly more lucrative and equally honorable situation of public prosecutor, as in the interest of a large and growing family.