However, pursued the speaker, private friendship for the accused and his connections was not his only inducement. He was as well thankful to Heaven that when a question as to the right construction of the principles of treason was to be decided--on which the happiness or misery of the present and future ages depended--he was to have an opportunity to exert to the utmost his feeble talents in opposing principles which he considered so destructive as those advanced on the present occasion. If he and his colleagues, said Mr. Martin, were able to satisfy the Court that the principles the reverse of those contended for on the part of the prosecution ought to be established, he would think he had not lived in vain. Mr. Martin took pains to make it clear that neither Colonel Burr nor his counsel had ever admitted or suggested that Harman Blennerhassett was guilty of treason. What then was the propriety of Mr. Wirt saying that they were willing to sacrifice him, and that he might be hanged without pity or remorse on their part? Mr. Martin then brought to bear all the wisdom acquired during his thirty-six years at the bar. He referred to Hale and Hawkins. He recalled the Statute of 39 Elizabeth Cap. 15, wherein A and B both consented to enter a house to rob and only A entered and B stood by, wherefore A was “ousted of his clergy” while B still had it. He cited the case of Pudsey in 1 Hale 534 to show how it came within the general principles of the cases of constructive presence as stated in Foster 349. He, too, mentioned the case of My Lord Dacre who came with a band of men to steal deer in the park of one Pelham. And he noted that Hawkins, in his second volume, Chapter 9, section viii, page 442, also explained very clearly the principle of constructive presence. He admitted that in Great Britain there was a species of treason which consisted in the intention without any act consummating the guilt of treason. He meant, of course, compassing the death of the king when the crime was only imagined. But in America, since there was no king, there were only two species of treason, which were levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. “Sir,” he exclaimed, “I execrate a contrary doctrine as highly tyrannical and oppressive. And here I beg leave to enter my censure against the decisions of the court in Pennsylvania on this subject in the cases of what are called the Whiskey and the Hot Water Insurrections.”