loop-hole they will find in the case, when it comes to trial, we cannot
foresee. Eaton, Stoddart, Wilkinson, and two others whom I must not
name, will satisfy the world, if not the judges, of Burr's guilt. And I
do suppose the following overt acts will be proved. 1. The enlistment
of men, in a regular way. 2. The regular mounting of guard round
Blannerhassett's island, when they expected Governor Tiffin's men to be
on them _modo guerrino arraiati_. 3. The rendezvous of Burr with his
men at the mouth of Cumberland. 4. His letter to the acting Governor of
Mississippi, holding up the prospect of civil war. 5. His capitulation,
regularly signed with the aid of the Governor, as between two
independent and hostile commanders.

But a moment's calculation will show that this evidence cannot be
collected under four months, probably five, from the moment of deciding
when and where the trial shall be. I desired Mr. Rodney expressly to
inform the Chief Justice of this, inofficially. But Mr. Marshall says,
'More than five weeks have elapsed since the opinion of the Supreme
Court has declared the necessity of proving the overt acts, if they
exist. Why are they not proved.' In what terms of decency can we
speak of this? As if an express could go to Natchez, or the mouth of
Cumberland, and return in five weeks, to do which has never taken less
than twelve. Again, 'If, in November or December last, a body of
troops had been assembled on the Ohio, it is impossible to suppose the
affidavits, establishing the fact, could not have been obtained by the
last of March.' But I ask the Judge, where they should have been lodged?
At Frankfort? at Cincinnati? at Nashville? St. Louis? Natchez? New
Orleans? These were the probable places of apprehension and examination.
It was not known at Washington till the 26th of March, that Burr would
escape from the western tribunals, be retaken and brought to an eastern
one: and in five days after (neither five months nor five weeks, as the