These comments were sharp, yet the pages of Blennerhassett’s diary were not so severe upon any of the witnesses for the government as they were upon Burr himself. Blennerhassett had wakened to the discovery that Burr was, after all, but a vulgar swindler. The collapse of Burr’s courage when confronted by Cowles Meade and the Mississippi militia at Cole’s Creek January 17; his desertion of Blennerhassett and his flight toward Spanish territory; the protest of the bills which he had drawn on pretended funds in New York, and which Blennerhassett had indorsed under Allston’s guaranty; the evident wish of Allston to repudiate this guaranty as he had repudiated Burr; and the ruin which had fallen on Blennerhassett’s property at the island,--taught the Irishman how thoroughly he had been duped:[335]-- “The present trial cannot fail to furnish ample testimony, if not to the guilt, at least to the defect of every talent under the assumption of which this giddy adventurer has seduced so many followers of riper experience and better judgment than myself.” Yet Burr’s mastership in deportment, his superficial dignity, his cheerfulness and sanguine temperament, and the skill with which he managed legal tactics, made an impression on Blennerhassett’s mind:-- “As a jockey might restore his fame in the course after he had injured it on the tight-rope, so, perhaps, the little ‘Emperor’ at Cole’s Creek may be forgotten in the attorney at Richmond.”[336] For a few days the trial went on undisturbed, while the government put Eaton, Truxton, Peter Taylor, the Morgans, and a number of other witnesses on the stand to prove an overt act of treason at Blennerhassett’s island; but nothing short of Blennerhassett’s own confession could place the matter in a clear light, and Burr’s chief fear was evidently that Blennerhassett should turn State’s evidence. To prevent this, Allston was persuaded to pay the more pressing demands against Blennerhassett, and Burr exerted himself to conciliate him. On the other hand, Jefferson seemed to hope that he could be won over.[337] Duane, of the “Aurora,” visited him in prison August 23, and offered to serve as an intermediary with the government.[338] Had matters gone as the President hoped, something might have come of this manœuvre; but before further pressure could be employed, the chief-justice struck the prosecution dead. August 19 Burr’s counsel suddenly moved to arrest the evidence. The government, they said, had gone through all its testimony relating to the overt act charged in the indictment; it admitted that Burr was hundreds of miles distant from the scene; and as the district-attorney was about to introduce collateral testimony of acts done beyond the jurisdiction of the court, it became the duty of the defence to object.