enterprise, and were ready to give it up. He advised Booth, before going farther, to go and see how it would be taken at R----d. But timid as they might be by nature, the whole group was so completely under the ascendency of Booth that they did not dare disobey him when in his presence; and after the surrender of Lee, in an excess of malice and rage which was akin to madness, he called them together and assigned each his part in the _new crimes_ [the italics are ours], the purpose of which had arisen suddenly in his mind out of the ruins of the abandoned abduction scheme. This plan was as brief and simple as it was horrible. Powell, _alias_ Payne, the stalwart, brutal, simple-minded boy from Florida, was to murder Seward; Atzerodt, the comic villain of the drama, was assigned to remove Andrew Johnson; Booth reserved for himself the most difficult and most conspicuous role of the tragedy; it was Herold's duty to attend him as a page, and aid in his escape." In this rather long extract, in which the situation is pictured with a facile pen, there are two assumptions that are wholly irreconcilable with the evidence. The first is, that the plot was at first to capture the President and carry him to Richmond, whether with or without the approbation of the Canada conspirators, our author's assume cannot be known. The evidence does not show that such a plot was really entertained either by Booth or his co-conspirators in Canada. Conover testified that he heard this scheme discussed at a meeting of the latter in February; but it does not appear that it was ever considered practicable, or was really entertained by them. The proposition was too quixotic to receive the serious consideration of rational, intelligent men. All the testimony in regard to the Canada conspirators shows that they were all the time from October, 1864, devoting all their thoughts to securing the assassination, not only of the President, but also of the others named in the charge and specifications, and that by nothing but the assassination of all of these men could the political end which they sought be secured. This assumption of our authors is shown by the testimony to be wholly untenable. The next assumption to which I take exceptions is equally untenable in the light which the testimony throws on the subject. It is, that the assassination was the result of a hasty impulse of rage and disappointment, akin to madness; that a new crime was thus conceived, which grew out of the ruins of the abduction plot, which I have already sufficiently shown was never entertained by any of the parties. So far from being the result of a hasty impulse, the testimony clearly proves that it had been long entertained, and that they had all been planning, preparing, and arranging for its execution for months.