George Clinton, himself of the strongest Irish sympathies because of Irish birth, and an adversary of King George during revolu tionary times. Emmet arrived at New York City in the year of Hamilton's decease, and was after only a short pupilage admitted and wel comed to its Bar. He succeeded from the start, for he was well grounded in the prin ciples of the common law, and being a med ical jurisprudent, found his learning as a physician additionally serviceable. He was magnetic in manner, of polished behavior, and a florid and impassioned orator without sacrificing logic. His hobby as a college student had been mathematics, and as every lawyer knows, he who is master of Euclid and differential calculus readily grasps the skill of syllogisms and enthymeme, and can demonstrate legal problems with persuasive effect to court or jury. Although Governor George Clinton had given warm welcome to Thomas Addis Emmet, and by his influence tided him over the quicksands of Bar-admission, there were several leading members of it who stood aloof from " the interloper," and who, to put it in plain English, showed jealousy of him. It was, too, the era of the Adams alien legislation, and politics had some hand in the feeble attempt to put Emmet into Coventry. But Cadwallader D. Colden, one of Governor Clinton's allies, who had been mayor of the city, and who led in its society, took Emmet by the hand, and be ing a Bar leader, became of great value to the Irish barrister. As appears from page 386 of 2 Carnes, New York Reports, objection was expressly made to Emmet's admission, which took place at the February term of the Supreme Court, 1805, on the ground of his alienage, and the discussion resulting in the Court's exercising its discretion was accentuated by the adoption of a rule at an ensuing term re quiring citizenship in admission to the Bar (1 Johnson's Reports, 528).
The first reported case in which Mr. Emmet appeared is that of Mumford v. McPherson, 1 Johnson, 414, in which he successfully defended on appeal a nonsuit that he had obtained at nisi prius on the point that a plaintiff, suing upon a verbal warranty that the ship which he sold was copperfastened, could not maintain his dec laration after a bill of sale had been offered in evidence that was silent as to warranty. His brief is given, in which he cites memor able English cases on the subject of the rela tion of parol contracts to those put in writing. This relation is so well settled now-a-days that a reading of the old case cited sounds oddly. Emmet cited cases from Yelverton and Peake, stating that verbal and written warranty could not coalesce. It seems that the case was subsequently cited in twelve different decisions in many States. In the next volume of Johnson, in Welsh v. Hill, p. 100, Mr. Emmet argues for, and obtains the discharge of his defendant client because of flaws in the bail piece. At page 104 of the same volume (People v. Van Blarcom) he brings his experience in Brit ish pauper lore to bear in charging a town with maintenance in its poorhouse which it claimed appertained to another town, and his ingenious distinctions as to statutes seemed to have puzzlingly invited the Court's attention — James Kent being pre siding justice. In Pintard v. Ross, p. 186, Mr. Emmet brought an old practitioner to book, in correcting and taking advantage of his blunders in procedure. This case must have brought him good advertisement, for his client, John Pintard, was one of New York's most eminent citizens in his day. That clientele also showed that his learning and ability both at nisi prius and in banco were appreciated by the highest class of liti gants. In Smith v. Elder, 3 Johnson, p. 105, he seems to have been retained be cause of his knowledge of foreign and inter national law — the action being with respect to contraband of war on ship-board; and
