It was not until two years after this time that we find Erskine interested in the proceedings of the courts. He subsequently declared that, while a witness of judicial proceedings, it often occurred to him in the course of the argument on both sides how much more clearly and forcibly he could have presented the points and urged them on the minds of the jury. It was this consciousness that led him one day, while dining with Lord Mansfield, to ask: “Is it impossible for me to become a lawyer?” The answer of the Lord Chancellor did not utterly discourage him; and he became a student of Lincoln’s Inn at the age of twenty-five. In order to abridge his term of study, he determined to take a degree at one of the universities, as, being a nobleman’s son, he was entitled to do on examination and without residence. In fulfilment of this design, he became a member of Trinity College, at Cambridge, in 1776, while he was prosecuting his legal studies in London, and still holding his commission in the army as a means of support. In July of 1778, when in his twenty-ninth year, he was called to the bar. A singular combination of circumstances almost immediately brought him forward into great prominence. He had been retained as junior counsel with four eminent advocates for the defence of one Captain Bailie, who had disclosed certain important corruptions of the government officials in charge of Greenwich Hospital. Bailie was prosecuted for libel, and the influence of the government was so great, that the four older counsellors advised him to accept of a compromise by withdrawing the charges and paying the costs. From this opinion Erskine alone dissented. Bailie accepted the advice of the young advocate with enthusiasm, and thus threw upon him the chief responsibility of conducting the cause. The result was one of the most extraordinary triumphs in the history of forensic advocacy. Erskine’s power revealed itself, not only in the remarkable learning and skill which he showed in the general management of the cause, but in the clearness with which he stated the difficult points at issue, and the overpowering eloquence with which he urged his positions on the court and the jury. It was his first cause. He entered Westminster Hall in extreme poverty; before he left it he had received thirty retainers from attorneys who had been present at the trial. Demand for his services continued rapidly to increase, till within a few years his income from his profession amounted to 12,000 pounds a year.