He won additional honors in the famous India-rubber suits, which have been mentioned elsewhere in this volume, acting as one of the counsel of Charles Goodyear, and being associated with Daniel Webster. Brady applied himself with intense energy to master the case, and when the trial came off at Trenton, in the United States Circuit Court, before Justices Grier and Dickerson, he opened the case in a speech which lasted two days, and which Daniel Webster said in the beginning of his remarks had so exhausted it as to leave him nothing to say.
Turning to Mr. Brady, Mr. Webster said, "You have cut a highway through this case, and if it is won, it will be because of the manner in which you have brought it before the court." The suit was won by Goodyear.
"In connection with the India-rubber cases is a fact which testifies to his character. A salary of twenty-live thousand dollars a year for life was offered to be settled on him by the rubber company, if he would advise a certain course; but not deeming it right, he rejected the offer. When in France, in 1851, the rubber cases coming in controversy there, Mr. Brady substantially gave in French, to Etienne Blanc, the French advocate, the materials for his brief."
Mr. Brady practiced law for thirty-four years, and during the major part of that time there was scarcely a case of great importance, in either the civil or criminal courts, in which he did not figure. He was compelled to refuse case after case from lack of time to give to it; and yet he frequently found time to respond to the appeals of the courts to defend men indicted for capital offenses who were unable to procure counsel. In some of these cases he had scarcely any chance of preparation, but he always managed to secure the acquittal of his client, in spite of this drawback. The spirit of kindliness which had so endeared him to his boyhood's friends pervaded every action of his maturer life, and he never displayed more energy, more unceasing vigilance, more irresistible