If this was making war against the United States, declared Mr. Botts, then “If I run away and hide to avoid a beating, I am guilty and may be convicted of assault and battery!” Here Mr. Botts suggested the propriety of adjourning. When Court met next morning and Mr. Botts resumed his argument he was in the same facetious mood. Once more he went back to the charge of levying war and recalled the failure of the grand juries in Mississippi and Kentucky to indict. “The Mississippi Territory and Kentucky, as we are informed, were the seat of war,” he observed. “But the simpletons of that State and Territory hunted but could not find the war. They were so stupid as not to perceive in a collection of men without arms, without any possible means of annoyance, without any hostile disposition and without the possibility of getting away their women and families, anything criminal, much less any aptitude to overturn two mighty empires. “It remained for us, the proud members of the Virginia bar, to come out and astonish the world with the profundity of our learning in matters of war. They have ascertained that there was a terrible war. I ask you what manner of war was it? We have had a much more serious war here than on the island. We have had here a carnage of breaths, sour looks and hard words and the roaring of vocal cannon. We have had a battle with the laws and the Constitution fought courageously and furiously by our enemy. “Is it not a mockery to speak of the war on Blennerhassett’s Island? Shall we not be the sport of Europe and the world by such a discussion?” In spite of the nation’s independence, which it now had enjoyed for a matter of more than thirty years, the Virginia bar still did obeisance to that of England. Though Burke had died in 1797 and Charles James Fox and the younger Pitt had gone to join their fathers within the year, counsel in the Burr case transferred their veneration to their successors in Westminster. They seemed to have imagined fatuously that this spirit of camaraderie was reciprocated and that the great men of England had temporarily put aside the affairs of empire to follow every move being made by opposing counsel in the hall of the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond. Now, continued Mr. Botts, Mr. Hay had said that constructive treason in this country would not be dangerous. Mr. Botts would suppose an imaginary case. He would suppose there had been well-grounded apprehension of an approaching war with a neighboring and powerful nation. He would suppose that the United States had a feeble army in the neighborhood of the boundary line between the two countries, and that the American general had orders to fall back. Mr. Botts, be it noted, was as good at making hypothetical cases for the defense as was Mr. Wirt for the prosecution.