This remark started Libby to thinking. He was scared stiff before. Now he became a nervous wreck. He knew that Greathouse was powerful enough to be at large on bail. He knew that Rubery and I had influential connections. He was himself a poor fellow from Canada, adrift on the Pacific Coast, without a cent or a friend. He saw himself made what we moderns call the “goat” for the whole Chapman incident and concluded that the wisest thing was to look out for his own hide. Somehow I have never had it in my heart to blame Libby overmuch for whatever happened. My impression is that he intended to “sit tight” until he thought himself left in the lurch. Be that as it may, the day after the visit of Greathouse, Libby sent for the United States District Attorney, made a complete statement of all he knew concerning the outfitting of the Chapman and our designs against the commerce of the coast, adding, I am sorry to say, some details that were false. This confession, brought on as I believe by the foolish talk of Greathouse, absolutely sealed our doom. We were brought to trial on October 2 in the United States Circuit Court, Judge Stephen J. Field and Judge Ogden Hoffman sitting in bank, with an array of eminent counsel on each side. It did not take long to pick a jury in those days. The very dogs of San Francisco knew of the Chapman case, yet the twelve good men and true who swore they were unbiased were impaneled in less than an hour. Some of them were later noted. Here are the names: John Wheeler, Jacob Schrieber, A. S. Iredale, Samuel Millbury, Joseph D. Pearson, Joseph A. Conboie, G. W. Chesley, J. K. Osgood, James W. Towne and W. P. C. Stebbins. The evidence against us was overwhelming. Law and Libby told their stories in great detail. About half of it was rank perjury. They related conversations that never took place. Also incidents that existed only in their imaginations. Everything was set forth in its blackest light. The witnesses were well drilled and were not shaken by cross-examination. All of the other incidents were proved, the purchase of the ship through a custom-house broker named Bunker, the purchase of cannon and arms, the false manifest of the vessel and the assemblage of a considerable fighting force. The Government also proved that Greathouse and myself were citizens of the United States, not of the revolted States, while Rubery was classed as a common foreign adventurer. This, it seems, was necessary to establish the charge of high treason. Our lawyers made the best of a bad job. They argued manfully many points of law concerning which I have no recollection, except that they contended that the mere loading of a ship with arms did not constitute a crime any more than buying a pistol constituted murder; that in order to constitute the overt act the ship must sail for its destination. On this point the court held that leaving the wharf and laying to in the stream constituted “sailing.”