Altogether different was the impression made by the incident on Washington Irving who was among the spectators in the courtroom that morning. Allowance must, no doubt, be made for the fact that Irving counted himself as being in the Burr camp and was altogether sympathetic with the Colonel in his misfortune. According to Irving, Burr, his back to the entrance, was facing the judge and conversing with his counsel when the General arrived. “Wilkinson,” said Irving, “strutted into Court, and took his stand on a parallel line with Burr on his right hand. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey-cock, and bracing himself up for the encounter of Burr’s eye. “The latter did not take any notice of him until the judge directed the clerk to swear General Wilkinson. At the mention of his name Burr turned his head, looked him full in the face with one of his piercing regards, swept his eye over his whole person from head to foot, as if to scan its dimensions, and then coolly resumed his former position and went on conversing with his counsel as tranquilly as ever. The whole look was over in an instant, but it was an admirable one. There was no appearance of study or constraint in it; no affectation of disdain or defiance; a slight expression of contempt played over his countenance, such as you would show on regarding any person to whom you are indifferent, but whom you considered mean and contemptible.” In the next issue of the _Enquirer_, Editor Ritchie, under his nom de plume of the “Resident of Richmond Hill,” presented a third version of the encounter. He, of course, championed the Government’s star witness, as the mouthpiece of the Jefferson Administration would have been expected to do. “He [Wilkinson],” wrote Ritchie, “has met Colonel Burr in the presence of the court and a gaping crowd, but who can say that his countenance was flushed and apprehensive or sicklied o’er with the pale cast of fear and guilt? That was a deep mortification to some; had he but fainted or betrayed the least timidity, it would have been a luscious conquest of federalism.” Still another witness of the scene who, in spite of the heat of that partisan battle, somehow managed to maintain a neutral attitude, reported that the meeting had been anticipated for so long by the two principals and had been so often rehearsed in their imaginations that the actual performance of neither party was convincing. Such is the evidence which posterity is invited to hear and weigh, and from it arrive at a decision as to which of the two principals came off the better.