One emissary between the two accused reported to Blennerhassett that “Burr lives in great style and sees much company within his gratings, where it is as difficult to get an audience as if he were really an emperor.” Another described Burr as being “as cheerful as ever. But as a jockey might restore his fame in the course, after he had injured it on a tight rope, so perhaps the little ‘Emperor’ at Cole’s Creek, may be forgotten in the attorney at Richmond.” Blennerhassett’s use of the word “Emperor” as applied to Burr is peculiarly reminiscent of the language Peter Taylor attributed to him on their journey back to the island from Kentucky in the fall of 1806. The heat was oppressing Blennerhassett again. “I find it very agreeable,” he wrote in his diary, “to get upon a chair by which I am enabled to raise my mouth to the lower tier of openings in the gratings of the windows and breathe another air for half an hour.” When Court convened next day Mr. Wickham took up the question of what constituted an overt act of levying war, which must be proved before the guilt of treason can attach to the principal. Here the Chief Justice interrupted to inquire if any adjudged case could be produced where the court was called upon to decide, and did decide, that the evidence submitted to the jury did or did not amount to proof of overt act. Mr. Hay broke in to say that he never knew the attempt to be made but once. That was before Judge Patterson, of the Supreme Court, and it had been unsuccessful. Mr. Wickham, notwithstanding, insisted that, “It is the right and duty of the court to instruct the jury what amounts in law to an overt act of levying war.” That was an important point and more was to be heard of it. Mr. Wickham concluded his argument with a satiric peroration of which Mr. Hay was the butt: “But what did the gentleman say in defining the ‘levying of war’? That there is no necessity for arms, nor for the employment of force! That there is no necessity even for potential force to effect the intended purpose by terror! That there is no necessity for the act to be public! That an overt act of treason may be committed without arms, without force, either actual or potential. If this were the law there would be no safety!” In the time allotted to him Mr. Wickham had fairly well covered the English precedents touching on the case and exhibited other evidences of his profound legal knowledge. Had the poet Tom Moore been present he would have had even more tangible reason than enjoying the gracious hospitality of the gentleman’s house for saying that Mr. Wickham could hold his own in any court.