"That whenever the probability is of a definite and limited nature whether in proportion of 100 to 1 or 1,000 to 1 or any rate is immaterial, it cannot be made the ground of conviction, for to act upon it in any case would be to decide that for the sake of convicting many criminals, the life of one innocent man might be sacrificed [Starkie 508.]" Same defendants, for murder of Hyrum Smith were requested to enter into recognizance of $5,000 each (with fourteen sureties) to the June term, 1845. At said term case was called, and Elliot and Lamborn not answering, the cause was dismissed for want of prosecution and defendants discharged. Colonel John Hay, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for December, 1869, published an article on this subject. Although but a mere boy at the time of this trial he had within his reach sources of correct information. (He was a member of the State department subsequently.) He says: "The case was closed. There was not a man on the jury, in the court, in the county, that did not know the defendants had done the murder. But it was not proven, and the verdict of not guilty was right in law. * * * The elisors presented 99 men before 12 were found ignorant enough and indifferent enough to act as jurors." The fact is, the trial amounted to nothing more than a farce. The law had been outraged, the honor of the State betrayed, her plighted faith was shamefully broken, and there was not virtue enough in the people to demand its vindication. Nor is this at all an exaggerated statement of the matter. The governor of Illinois himself--Thomas Ford--admits all that is here said. Of the atrocious deed itself and his determination to bring the murderers to justice he says: _I had determined from the first that some of the ringleaders in the foul murder of the Smiths should be brought to trial. If these men had been the incarnation of Satan himself, as was believed by many, their murder was a foul and treacherous action, alike disgraceful to those who perpetrated the crime, to the State, and to the governor, whose word had been pledged for the protection of the prisoners in jail, and which had been so shamefully violated; and required that the most vigorous means should be used to bring the assassins to punishment_. [1] Speaking of the trial, Governor Ford says: