"The man to whom Surratt made this statement, did as it was his high duty to do--he made known his discovery to the American minister. There is no treaty of extradition with the Papal States; but so heinous is the crime with which Surratt is charged, such bad notoriety had his name obtained, that his Holiness the Pope and Cardinal Antonelli ordered his arrest without waiting for a formal demand from the American government. Having him arrested, he escaped from his guards by a leap down a precipice--a leap impossible to any but one to whom conscience made life valueless. He made his way to Naples, and then took passage in a steamer that carried him across the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandria, in Egypt. He was pursued, not by the 'blood hounds of the law,' that seem to haunt the imagination of the prisoner's counsel [this refers to a remark made by Mr. Merrick when discussing the motion to quash the panel], but by the very elements, by destruction itself, made a slave in the service of justice. The inexorable lightning thrilled along the wires that stretch through the waste of waters that roll between the shores of Italy and the shores of Egypt, and spake in his ear its word of terrible command; and from Alexandria, aghast and manacled, he was made to turn his face towards the land he had polluted by the curse of murder. He is here at last to be tried for his crime. And when the facts which I have stated have been proved, as proved they assuredly will be, if anything is ever proved by human testimony, and when all the subterfuges of the defense have been disproved, as disproved they assuredly will be, we, having done our duty in furnishing you with that proof of the prisoner's guilt, in the name of the civilization he has dishonored, in the name of the country he has betrayed and disgraced, in the name of the law he has violated and defied, shall demand of you that retribution, though tardily, shall yet surely be done, upon the shedder of innocent and precious blood." Before the hearing of evidence was entered upon, the prisoner presented the following petition to the Court:-- "_To the Honorable, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding the Criminal Court in March Term, 1867._ "The petition of John H. Surratt shows that he has been put upon his trial in a capital case in this court; that he has exhausted all his means, and such further means as have been furnished him by the liberality of his friends, in preparing for his defense, and he is now unable to procure the attendance of his witnesses. He therefore prays your honor for an order that process may issue to summon his witnesses, and to compel their attendance at the cost of the government of the United States, according to the statute in such cases made and provided." This petition was signed, sworn to in open court, and attested by the clerk according to law, and was granted by the court.