On the 6th of July, I was arraigned in the criminal court, Judge Crawford presiding, on one of the larceny indictments, to which I pleaded not guilty; whereupon my counsel, Messrs. Hall and Mann, moved the court for a continuance till the next term, alleging the prevailing public excitement, and the want of time to prepare the defence and to procure additional counsel.  But the judge could only be persuaded, and that with difficulty, to delay the trial for eighteen days.

When this unexpected information was communicated to the committee at Boston, a correspondence was opened by telegraph with Messrs. Seward, Chase and Fessenden.  But Governor Seward had a legal engagement at Baltimore on the very day appointed for the commencement of the trial, and the other two gentlemen had indispensable engagements in the courts of Ohio and Maine.  Under these circumstances, as Mr. Hall was not willing to take the responsibility of acting as counsel in the case, and as it seemed necessary to have some one familiar with the local practice, the Boston committee retained the services of J.M.  Carlisle, Esq., of the Washington bar, and Mr. Hildreth again proceeded to Washington to give his assistance.  Just as the trial was about to commence, Mr. Carlisle being taken sick, the judge was, with great difficulty, prevailed upon to grant a further delay of three days.  This delay was very warmly opposed, not only by the District Attorney, but by the same Mr. Radcliff whom we have seen figuring as chairman of the mob-committee to wait on Dr. Bailey, and who had been retained, at an expense of two hundred dollars, by the friends of English, as counsel for him, they thinking it safest not to have his defence mixed up in any way with that of myself and Sayres.  Before the three days were out, Governor Seward, having finished his business in Baltimore, hastened to Washington; but, as the rules of the court did not allow more than two counsel to speak on one side, the other counsel being also fully prepared, it was judged best to proceed as had been arranged.

The trials accordingly commenced on Thursday, the 27th of July, upon an indictment against me for stealing two slaves, the property of one Andrew Houver.

The District Attorney, in opening his case, which he did in a very dogmatic, overbearing and violent manner, declared that this was no common affair.  The rights of property were violated by every larceny, but this case was peculiar and enormous.  Other kinds of property were protected by their want of intelligence; but the intelligence of this kind of property greatly diminished the security of its possession.  The jury therefore were to give such a construction to the laws and the facts as to subject violators of it to the most serious consequences.

The facts which seemed to be relied upon by the District Attorney as establishing the alleged larceny were—­that I had come to Washington, and staid from Monday to Saturday, without any ostensible business, when I had sailed away with seventy-six slaves on board, concealed under the hatches, and the hatches battened down; and that when pursued and overtaken the slaves were found on board with provisions enough for a month.