astonished. I told him I was no soldier, and could not fight. He said it made no odds; he did not want me to fight; he wanted me to go and live with Mrs. Blennerhassett and the children, either at Natchez or some other place, while he went on the expedition. I talked to him again, and told him the people had got it into their heads that he wanted to divide the Union. He said Colonel Burr and he could not do it themselves; all they could do was to tell the people the consequence of it.

Taylor, as well as several other witnesses, were called to testify concerning events in December of 1806 at Blennerhassett's Island--the prosecution's one overt act of treason on which it pinned itsI know not whether they were armed with different things.

On August 20, Burr interrupted the prosecution's case to ask the court to arrest further prosecution testimony on the ground that the evidence "utterly failed to prove any overt act of war had been committed" and that he was shown to have been one hundred miles distant from Blennerhassett's Island at the time the overt act charged was shown to have taken place. Several days of argument on Burr's motion followed. Chief Justice Marshall offered his praise for the lawyers who participated, saying that they presented their arguments with "a degree of eloquence seldom displayed on any occasion." It took Marshall three hours to read his lengthy opinion. When he had finished, he had swept away the prosecution's case.