In contrast to these rising luminaries was Edmund Randolph, the eldest in the group. Men developed early in those days and though Randolph was only 54 years old he was nearing the close of a distinguished career. He traced his descent from William Randolph of Turkey Island and his wife Mary Isham. In producing worthy descendants these two were to Virginia what Jonathan Edwards was to New England. They produced in quantity as well as quality, and were referred to as the Adam and Eve of Virginia. In the drama that was unfolding in Richmond both prosecution and defense were represented by a rash of their descendants. Proud though he may have been of his heritage, Aaron Burr could not complain that in Richmond he was not largely in the company of his social peers. At the outbreak of the Revolution, leaving William and Mary College, where he had been an apt student of the law, Randolph through his breeding and ability gravitated to the staff of General Washington. His military service was brief. It soon was apparent that, like Jefferson, his talents were better suited to matters of state than to the battlefield. From the age of 20 he was not out of office during the succeeding 32 years. He served as mayor of Williamsburg, Attorney General of Virginia, member of the Continental Congress, Governor of his state, member of the Constitutional Convention, and Attorney General of the United States in Washington’s Cabinet. Now in the twilight of his career, he was present to add dignity to the defense. As a staunch Federalist he considered it no more than his duty to lend his talents to thwarting the Jeffersonians in their determination to convict Burr. Ten years junior to Edmund Randolph was his colleague John Wickham. Wickham was something of an outsider to Virginia. Born on Long Island in the colony of New York, the son of Tories, he was educated in France for a military career. He returned home at the outbreak of the Revolution just in time to be arrested by the American patriots, but he was released in the care of a Virginia uncle. At the close of that conflict he gave up the idea of a military career and read law. Now, at the age of 44 years, he was the recognized leader of the Virginia bar. Hay had measured swords with Wickham in the Richmond courts enough times to recognize that he lacked Wickham’s skill and dexterity. Wickham’s years abroad had endowed him with a sophistication unknown to the average Virginia squire or merchant who traveled little beyond the local frontiers. Tom Moore, the supercilious young Irish poet who paid this country a critical visit at the turn of the century and abused almost everybody from the President down, made an exception of Wickham. He said he was the only gentleman he had discovered during his American travels and that he would grace any court.