Before entering upon the consideration of the evidence a few prefatory remarks seem to be necessary. At an early period of the rebellion Jefferson Davis and his cabinet felt the necessity of sending some of the strongest men of the Confederacy to establish their headquarters in Canada, to look after the interests of the rebel cause, both at home and abroad, and to render assistance to that cause in every way that they could. Amongst its agents thus sent to Canada we find Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior during Buchanan's administration; Clement C. Clay, who had been a United States Senator from Alabama; Beverly Tucker, who had been a circuit judge in Virginia; George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George Harper, and others of less note, acting in subordinate capacities under the above conspicuous leaders and agents. These agents had been domiciled within the territory of a neutral government to carry on belligerent operations, contrary to the laws of nations and also of war; and the operations planned by them from time to time, and sometimes executed, were of the highest moral turpitude. The fact that, although the government of Canada held the position of a neutral power as between the belligerents, yet its people, in the proportion of five to one, sympathized with the rebellion, made it very favorable to the execution of the schemes of these Southern emissaries. They also occupied a position that geographically was most favorable to their purposes. They were within easy and constant communication with the enemies of the government that were to be found in every Northern State, and at the same time were able to afford a place of refuge for rebel prisoners who were able to find means of escape from Northern prisons. Canada was a place where disloyal refugees and persons accused of offenses against the government congregated all through the war; and so Jefferson Davis's Canada Cabinet was never at a loss for material for carrying out its plans without regard to their character. They were constantly surrounded by desperate and reckless men, who were in deep sympathy with them in their desperate purpose to overthrow the government, and like them, ready to engage in anything that might give aid in carrying out that purpose. From the head of the rebel government on down through the ranks of this class of its agents, there appears to have been no restraint from any moral consideration. The honorable men of the Confederacy were found, to a large extent, in the ranks of its soldiers engaged in open warfare. The assassination plot was the last card of these desperate men; it was preceded by many others in which the laws of war and the laws of morals were utterly ignored. We will, therefore, in the first place, present some of the most flagrant of these, in regard to which the evidence makes Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet responsible, in order that from these revelations