warfare, for if the Yankees should steal into one of our camps and murder our soldiers before they could get possession of their arms it would be considered right." Then Mr. Davis repeated his remark of the day previous we should be fully protected by the Government. We then left, and the next day Surratt started for the North.

The deposition of the other witness, taken by me at the same time as that of his companion, covers the second interview with Davis, an, though narrating the conversation and proceedings in substantially the same terms as those just recited, may yet be properly submitted in this place, as follows:

From Mr. ---'s (naming the official before alluded to) office we all, that is --- (the said official), Surratt, --- (naming the other witness), and myself went to the office of Mr. Davis, the Confederate President, where we were instroduced to Mr. Davis by --- (the said official). A conversation then ensued between Davis, --- (the said official), and Surratt, but it was conducted in so low a tone that I did not hear it distinctly. When we rose to leave Mr. Davis shook us by the hand and said that we must act bravely and succeed. I replied that we would have to act bravely and succeed, for if we were caught we might have to dance upon nothing. --- (the said official) said, "No; for if any of us were caught and sentenced to be hung, that they would notify the Yankee Government that they would hang a dozen for one." Mr. Davis then spoke and said that we should be fully protected, and that the enterprise in which we were about to engage was justified by the laws of war. He added, "If two or more Yankees should steal into my house at night and kill me their Government would laud them and reward them as heroes." --- (the said official) said to us that it was the same as falling on soldiers in their camp and killing them before they could get their arms. While we were conversing papers were delivered by Davis and --- (the said official) to Surratt. Davis, in handing the packet to Surratt, told him to deliver it to Colonel Thompson, and said that it contained all the authority which had been asked for. I saw Surratt the next day when he was about leaving for the North, but I did not accompany him, but declined doing so.

To these recitals there is only to be added the statement of both witnesses that Surratt informed them that he had been assured by Jacob Thompson that a fund, to quote again from the testimony, "of $200,000 had been set apart for the purpose and would be distributed among the parties engaged in killing the President."

These witnesses, whose personal testimony remains at the command of the Government, are regarded as entirely reliable, and as they are without any motive whatever to misrepresent, it is believed that their statements may be accepted as strictly true. Moreover, they are so strikingly corroborated by the previous testimony exhibited as to make the events to which they testify appear but a logical sequence of those which had preceded them. The interviews which these witnesses recount are stated to have taken place in the latter part of March, and it is added by them that Surratt proceeded to the North immediately afterward. At this point the narrative is taken up by a witness upon the conspiracy trial, who states that Surratt arrived in Washington on April 3; that he had in his possession a considerable quantity of gold; that he remained in Washington but a few hours, in the course of which he stated to the witness that he had just come from Richmond, where he had seen Davis and Benjamin, and that he proceeded on the same evening, April 3, to Montreal, where he arrived on April 6. Another witness upon the same trial testifies that on April 6 or 7 he was present in Jacob Thompson's room at his hotel in Montreal; that Surratt was also present, having just arrived from Richmond with dispatches, among which were communications both from Davis and Benjamin; and that Thompson, laying his hand upon these dispatches, exclaimed, referring to the assent of the rebel authorities to the scheme of assassination, "This makes the thing all right." From the testimony of the witness last before cited we have next the fact that Surratt left Montreal on April 12, and from another witness the act that on the 14th he was seen about 2 o'clock in