Patrick Henry’s involvement in the British Debts Case could be considered the crowning achievement of his successful law career. The case was heard in the United States District Court in Richmond in 1791 and 1793, and on appeal in 1796 in the United States Supreme Court. The case centered on whether British merchants had the right to collect pre-war debts owed to them by residents of post-revolutionary Virginia.
Among the several points of the law that Henry and the defense team argued was the Virginia Sequestration Act of 1777, which directed monies owed to British merchants to be paid to the Virginia state treasury. The defense team of Henry, John Marshall, James Innes, and Alexander Campbell argued this point and others against the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which stated British debts should be recoverable by British merchants.
Perhaps these were Patrick Henry’s most significant moments in the courtroom, but as with the points of the case itself, the verdict was convoluted. Upon the conclusion of the 1793 trial, the defendant was awarded credit for payments made to the state treasury in lieu of payment to the British creditor, yet was still responsible for the balance owed to the merchants. This was a victory for Henry and the defense. In 1796, however, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict in favor of the plaintiff, on the grounds that the Treaty of Paris annulled the subsequent acts of Virginia.
Access Patrick Henry’s arguments here, as recorded in Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches (vol. 2), 1891, by William Wirt Henry.
