That the purpose of this conspiracy was to assassinate the heads of the government from its very first inception, is made clear by the whole run of the evidence brought out on the two trials. Atzerodt, in his confession, which he had gotten up to be used in his defence, claims that he was a member of a conspiracy to kidnap the President, and carry him to Richmond. John H. Surratt, in his Rockville lecture, claims the same thing. They both claim that when Booth laid aside this plan as impracticable, and proposed to change it to a conspiracy to assassinate, that they withdrew, and would have nothing further to do with it. It is evident that the statements of both are false, both as regards the original purpose of the conspiracy, and also their abandonment of it. Surratt in his confessions to McMillen stated that he received a letter from Booth in Montreal on the 10th of April. This letter was written from New York, and summoned him to Washington at once, as it had become necessary for them to change their plans and to act quickly. He left Montreal in obedience to this summons on the 12th of April, and was in Elmira on the morning of the 13th. In his defense of an _alibi_, he tried to prove that he remained at Elmira until after the 15th, and then returned to Montreal, where he arrived on the 18th. His counsel argued that the plan up to that time had been to capture, and that it was then for the first time that Booth had determined to assassinate; that this was the change of plan referred to in his letter, and that, as Surratt, according to their plea, never saw him after this change of plan had been determined upon, he knew nothing about it, and was never a member of a conspiracy to assassinate. He admitted that he left Montreal in response to Booth's letter, but claimed that he did not go any further than Elmira, in his defense.