If there was ever a partisan, it was Salmon P. Chase, but at the same time he was a great lawyer and an honest and fearless man. "Lincoln," he said, "wanted Jeff. Davis to escape. He was right. His capture was a mistake, his trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled!" Significant words truly from that source, and they explain the vote of the great judge who would have quashed the indictment against Mr. Davis no less than the question so often asked, "Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?" Immediately after Mr. Davis' release on bond, he went with his family to New York, and a few weeks later to Montreal, where he continued to reside until May of the following year when he again appeared before the Circuit Court in Richmond for trial. But despite the efforts of his counsel to force a trial of the case, it was dismissed by the government and thus ended ingloriously the boast of the government that it intended "in the arch traitor Davis to make treason odious." XXXIV. Freedom, Reverses, Beauvoir Impaired in health and longing for rest far away from the tragic scenes of the past few years, Mr. Davis accepted the invitation of English friends to visit them. But it was soon discovered that his visit was to be a continuous ovation. Everywhere he was greeted as though he had been the conqueror instead of the vanquished. The spirit that prompted those manifestations he appreciated, but it revived sad memories of the cause for which he had staked all and lost, and to avoid this lionizing he took up his residence in Paris. The cordiality of the Frenchmen, however, surpassed that of their English brethren, and Mr. Davis soon found himself so much in the public eye that he decided to return to England. Before quitting Paris, the emperor conveyed his desire for an audience, which Mr. Davis courteously refused. Napoleon, he conceived, had acted in bad faith with the South and such was the moral rectitude of the man that he could never disguise his contempt for any one, of however exalted station, whom he believed to be guilty of double dealing of any kind. As the guest of Lord Leigh and the Duke of Shrewsbury in Wales, Mr. Davis' health gradually improved until he felt himself once more able to enter an active business of life. The war had left him a poor man, and when a life insurance company of Memphis offered him its presidency with a fair salary he accepted, and with his family returned to America. The people of Memphis soon after his arrival presented him a fine residence, but this he refused. Mr. Davis was probably a very poor business man and his associates of the insurance company were in no way superior, for its affairs soon became anything but prosperous. All of his available capital was invested in it, but this he gladly sacrificed in order to sell his own company to a stronger one which could protect the policies of the former. [Illustration: The Davis Mansion]