"I had occasion to look into his record, and published a statement in reference to his character, in which I proved conclusively that any petit jury in any New England state would have convicted him of grand larceny upon the evidence by his own declarations,--his own letters. These charges were made by me when he was living. Every opportunity was given him to make his defense; he had no defense to make but a lie. He had been a member of McPherson's body-guard that stopped near Mrs. Jacob Thompson's residence in Mississippi. He was there taken sick and taken into her house and nursed and kindly treated by her. At that time and under those circumstances, he, or some one with his knowledge and connivance, stole the deeds and patents and valuable papers belonging to the Thompson estate. After the war he settled here and wrote a letter to Mrs. Thompson. In his first letter he thanked her for her kind and Christian treatment of him while he was sick, although he was an enemy to her cause, saying that he would ever hold it in remembrance. The second letter called to her mind the fact that she had lost those valuable papers, and offered to return them or have them returned to her for a consideration. She wrote him back. The correspondence was published in full. Finally, he wrote to her if she wanted these papers better than she wanted $10,000, to send him on the money and get the papers. That was about his language, written in the most abominable and illiterate style." The matter was placed in the hands of lawyers, who induced Applegate with $300 to surrender the papers. General James H. Clanton, under oath, spoke thus of Harrington, speaker of the house of representatives: "Mr. Harrington came to Mobile very poor, from the northeast somewhere. He was never a soldier that we knew of. He is now very rich. Just after the war he was charged with running free negroes into Cuba. I do not know whether it is true or not. The present sheriff of Montgomery county showed me a reward offered for him, from what purported to be a northwestern paper, on a charge of bank robbery. He requested me to say nothing about it lest Harrington should get away. He said he was going for him that night; that he had his accomplice in jail, and the accomplice said Harrington was the man. The description he showed me was lifelike." Asked whether it could not be a mistake, the general replied: