116 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS his table at Monticello, he loved to speak of that great day, and to describe the thrill and ecstasy of the. moment when the wonderful orator, inter rupted by cries of "Treason," uttered the well- known words of defiance: "If this be treason, make the most of it!" Early in 1767, about his twenty- fourth birthday, Jefferson was admitted to the bar of Virginia, and entered at once upon the practice of his profession. Connected through his father with the yeomen of the western counties, and through his mother with the wealthier planters of the eastern, he had not long to wait for business. His first account-book, which still exists, shows that in the first year of his practice he was employed in sixty-eight cases before the general court of the province, besides county and office business. He was an accurate, painstaking, and laborious prac titioner, and his business increased until he was employed in nearly five hundred cases in a single year, which yielded an average profit of about one pound sterling each. He was not a fluent nor a forcible speaker, and his voice soon became husky as he proceeded; but James Madison, who heard him try a cause, reports that he acquitted himself well, and spoke fluently enough for his purpose. He loved the erudition of the law, and attached great importance to the laws of a country as the best source of its history. It was he who suggested and promoted the collection of Virginia laws known
