Innes

against Dunmore at Hampton; and, as lieutenant-
colonel of the 15th Virginia Regiment and some-
time aide to Washington, fought at Trenton,
Princeton, Brandy wine, Germantown, and Mon-
mouth before resigning his commission. After
serving as navy commissioner in 1778, and presi-
dent of the board of war for Virginia in 1779, he
represented successively James City County and
WilHamsburg in the Assembly from 1780 to 1782
and from 1783 to 1787, interrupting his legisla-
tive career at Washington's request to raise a
home regiment, which he commanded at York-
town. The Continental Congress elected him
judge-advocate of the army on July 9, 1782, but
he did not accept the appointment. He married
Elizabeth, daughter of James Cocke of Williams-
burg, and left one child, Ann, who married Pey-
ton Randolph of Wilton.

His courteous address, humor, accurate and
varied learning, and lofty principle soon com-
bined with his eloquence to carry him to the first
rank at the Virginia bar, where probably his
most important suit was the famous British debt
cause in Richmond from 1791 to 1793, in which
he was associated with Henry and Marshall for
the defendant. The effect of his majestic yet
modulated voice, his occasionally vehement ac-
tion, and his nervous, graceful style was almost
incredibly moving: in general estimation he was
more nearly Patrick Henry's equal in addressing
popular bodies than any of his contemporaries,
and some considered Innes the greater orator.
A man of such colossal stature that he could not
"ride an ordinary horse or sit in a common chair,
and usually read or meditated in his bed or on the
floor" (Grigsby, post, vol. I, 326), his vast size
imparted dignity to his manner. In the Vir-
ginia Convention of 1788 he was chosen by the
friends of the Constitution to make the final ap-
peal for its adoption without amendments, and
produced a profound impression, even Henry,
the spokesman of the opposition, paying tribute
to his splendid eloquence as "magnificent... fit
to shake the human mind" (Ibid., p. 333). On
Nov. 23, 1786, he succeeded Edmund Randolph
as attorney-general of Virginia, defeating John
Marshall for the office, and was tendered the at-
torney-generalship of the United States by Presi-
dent Washington, but personal reasons caused
him to decline it, as they doubtless led him to
neglect Jefferson's appeal to stand for Congress
(A. A. Lipscomb, The Writings of Thomas Jef-
ferson, 1903, vol. VIII, 145-46). It is said that
he would have been sent as envoy to France in
1797, instead of Marshall, had his health per-
mitted. He was in Philadelphia discharging his
duties as commissioner under Jay's treaty when

Inness

he died "of a dropsy of the abdomen" and was
buried in Christ Church burial-ground, near the
grave of Franklin.

Despite His brilliant promise, his substantial
achievement, and the remarkable esteem in
which such compeers as Pendleton, Wythe, Taze-
well, Jefferson, and Washington held him, no
less for his greatness of soul than for his copious
talents, oblivion overtook Innes's fame even with
his generation. Had he been granted longer life,
free from the ill-health and family cares which
harassed his last years, it seems improbable that
any office to which he might have aspired would
have been denied him. Unfortunately for his
reputation with posterity he used tongue and
sword more often than pen; his name appears
only rarely in accounts of current political con-
troversies, his attendance upon the courts fre-
quently preventing his participation in legis-
lative debate; and, most damaging, his carefully
formulated speeches were not adequately re-
ported, so that no fair specimen of his oratory
remains.

[H. B. Grigsby, "Va. Federal Convention of 1788,"
Va. Hist. Soc. Colls., n.s. vols. IX, X (1891); Va. Mag.
of Hist, and Biog., Apr. 1896, Apr. 1897, July 1897,
July 1905, July 1925, Apr. 1926; Wm. and Mary Coll.
Quart., Jan. 1917; Calendar of Va. State Papers, vols.
IV (1884), VII (1888), VIII (1890); L. G. Tyler,
WilHamsburg (1907) ; R. M. McElroy, Ky. in the Na-
tion's Hist. (1909); E. G. Swem and J. W. Williams,
A Reg. of the Gen. Assembly of Va. (1918).]

A.C.G.Jr.

INNESS, GEORGE (May i, i82S~Aug. 3,
1894), landscape painter, born on a farm two
miles from Newburgh, N. Y., was the fifth of a
family of thirteen children. His father, John
William Inness (1792-1873), was of Scotch de-
scent, but was born in America, his forebears
having crossed the Atlantic soon after the Ameri-
can Revolution. He was an energetic and pros-
perous New York merchant, who, having made a
competence in the grocery business, retired tem-
porarily for recreation and rest His wife, Cla-
rissa Baldwin, died in 1841, a year and a day
after the birth of her thirteenth child. George
Inness was a delicate child of a nervous tem-
perament, but strong of will and full of ambition.
The family returned to New York City while he
was still an infant; but very soon, in 1829, re-
moved to another country home in the outskirts
of Newark, N. J., where his boyhood was passed.
His progress at school was often interrupted by
ill health; moreover his teacher reported that he
"would not take education." His father then
tried to make a grocer of him, but with no suc-
cess, and the experiment was given up after a
month's trial Finally the boy urged his father
to allow him to study drawing, and accordingly

487