of which Warren Hastings had been accused, and pointed out that,
whereas in England only two judges had been impeached in half a century,
in America, "boasting of its superior purity and virtue," seven judges
had been prosecuted within two years. More loosely wrought, but not
less effective was Martin's address, the superb climax of a remarkable
forensic career! The accusation against Chase he reduced to a charge of
indecorum, and he was ready to admit that the manner of his friend
"bore a stronger resemblance to that of Lord Thurlow than of Lord
Chesterfield," but, said he, our judges ought not to be "like the gods
of Epicurus lolling upon their beds of down, equally careless whether
the laws of their country are obeyed or violated, instead of ACTIVELY
discharging their duties."

The closing argument, which fell to the managers, was assigned to
Randolph. It was an unmitigated disaster for the cause in behalf of
which it was pronounced. "I feel perfectly inadequate to the task of
closing this important debate on account of a severe indisposition which
I labor under," were Randolph's opening words, but even this
prefatory apology gave little warning of the distressing exhibition
of incompetence which was to follow. "On the reopening of the court,"
records John Quincy Adams in his "Memoirs," "he [Randolph] began a
speech of about two hours and a half, with as little relation to the
subject-matter as possible... without order, connection, or argument;
consisting altogether of the most hackneyed commonplaces of popular
declamation, mingled up with panegyrics and invectives upon persons,
with a few well-expressed ideas, a few striking figures, much distortion
of face and contortion of body, tears, groans and sobs, with occasional
pauses for recollection, and continual complaints of having lost his
notes." So ended the ambition of John Randolph of Roanoke to prove
himself another Burke!

But while their frontal assault on the reason of the court was thus
breaking down, the impeachers, led by the President, were attempting
a flank movement on its virtue. They especially distrusted the
"steadiness" of certain New England and New York Senators and hoped
to reach the hearts of these gentlemen through Aaron Burr, the
Vice-President. Burr had heretofore found himself vested with the role
of Lucifer in the Republican Paradise. Now he found himself suddenly
basking in a perpetual sunburst of smiles both from the great central
lumi