For several weeks before the trial of this cause in 1791, Patrick Henry secluded himself from all other engagements, and settled down to intense study in the retirement of his home in the country. A grandson of the orator, Patrick Henry Fontaine, who was there as a student of the law, relates that he himself was sent off on a journey of sixty miles to procure a copy of Vattel's Law of Nations. From this and other works of international law, the old lawyer "made many quotations; and with the whole syllabus of notes and heads of arguments, he filled a manuscript volume more than an inch thick, and closely written; a book ... bound with leather, and convenient for carrying in his pocket. He had in his yard ... an office, built at some distance from his dwelling, and an avenue of fine black locusts shaded a walk in front of it.... He usually walked and meditated, when the weather permitted, in this shaded avenue.... For several days in succession, before his departure to Richmond to attend the court," the orator was seen "walking frequently in this avenue, with his note-book in his hand, which he often opened and read; and from his gestures, while promenading alone in the shade of the locusts," it was supposed that he was committing his speech to memory.[420] According to another account, so eager was his application to this labor that, in one stage of it, "he shut himself up in his office for three days, during which he did not see his family; his food was handed by a servant through the office door."[421] Of all this preparation, not unworthy to be called Demosthenic, the result was, if we may accept the opinion of one eminent lawyer, that Patrick Henry "came forth, on this occasion, a perfect master of every law, national and municipal, which touched the subject of investigation in the most distant point."[422] It was on the 14th of November, 1791, that the cause came on to be argued in the court-house at Richmond, before Judges Johnson and Blair of the Supreme Court, and Judge Griffin of that district. The case of the plaintiff was opened by Mr. Counsellor Baker, whose argument lasted till the evening of that day. Patrick Henry was to begin his argument in reply the next morning.