It will be remembered that he carried the dispatches from the Richmond government to the Canada conspirators, sanctioning the arrangements that had been made by them to secure the assassinations they had planned; that he arrived with these dispatches at Montreal on the 6th of April; and that the execution of the plot was at once entered upon, those of the conspirators who were to take an active part preparing immediately and starting for Washington, boasting openly of what they would do when they should have reached their destination. Some of these were known, and will be hereafter referred to by name; but there would seem to have been a number of them whose names were never learned. John H. Surratt came back, either alone or in company with some of them. That he was in Washington, aiding and abetting, on the day and night of the assassination, was positively sworn to by one of the witnesses who was well acquainted with him; and from the concurrence of testimony, there is good reason to believe that he was one of the two parties with whom Booth was in communication on the sidewalk in front of the theatre, as heretofore narrated, and that he acted as monitor, calling the time for Booth. He seems, however, to have had the bumps both of cautiousness and secretiveness largely developed, and so kept himself as much as possible out of sight in the transaction in which he was no doubt, at the same time, an active participant. He most probably left Washington on the first train after the work was done, as we have no trace of him again until we find him at Burlington, Vt., on his way to Canada, on the 18th of April. As it is my purpose to devote a chapter or two to his case especially, I shall not, at this time, pursue it any further; but as he was undoubtedly a very active and important factor in the conspiracy, and escaped justice merely by escaping capture at the time, and so securing a civil trial after the war was over, a history of his case naturally comes within the scope of my plan, and will serve to illustrate what I have already said in relation to the existing facts in regard to the population of the District of Columbia that would have rendered a civil trial futile in the cases brought before the Commission. CHAPTER X. EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO ATROCITIES NOT EMBRACED IN THE CHARGE AND SPECIFICATIONS, FOR WHICH DAVIS AND HIS CANADA CABINET WERE RESPONSIBLE.