Yates was at the time of writing his Minutes 49 years of age. During the Revolution he had written political essays highly esteemed over the signature of the Rough Hewer. He had been for eleven years a judge of the Supreme Court of New York--a judge of the old school before the days of stenographers and printed arguments and was well trained in taking notes of what counsel said. The Minutes of Yates are manifestly the work of a man accustomed to take down the ideas rather than the words of public speakers. His reports of the debates are briefer than Madison's showing much less of the reporter and much more of the lawyer or judge accustomed to analyze and to note the scope and sense of an argument. His report of the chief speech of Pinckney, that of June 25th, when compared with the full speech written out by Pinckney for Madison is a remarkably clear and accurate and full abstract. It is also valuable as giving us an abstract of the conclusion of the speech which Pinckney neglected to furnish. Madison says in his letter to Judge Duer, "Mr. Yates's notes as you observe are very inaccurate; they are also in some respects grossly erroneous." There are indeed mistakes resulting from his non-acquaintance with the delegates; and especially in his confusing the names of the two Pinckneys, the first name of each being the same as the first name of the other and both being delegates from the same State. But be that as it may, Yates correctly characterized the speech of Randolph as "long and elaborate," and Pinckney's draught as a "system" of a "new government"; and he certainly knew enough to distinguish between the delivery of a long speech and the reading of a formal document. The fact therefor must be regarded as established as firmly as any fact recorded in the annals of the Convention that on the day when Pinckney presented his draught to the Convention he did not deliver and could not have delivered a speech making 27 pages of printed matter.