government was its sole, its only inspiration.  When, therefore, we shall show, on the part of the accused, acts of intense disloyalty, bearing arms in the field against that government, we show, with him, the presence of an animus toward the government which relieves this accusation of much, if not all, of its improbability.  And this course of proof is constantly resorted to in criminal courts.  I do not regard it as in the slightest degree a departure from the usages of the profession in the administration of public justice.  The purpose is to show that the prisoner, in his mind and course of life, was prepared for the commission of this crime:  that the tendencies of his life, as evidenced by open and overt acts, lead and point to this crime, if not as a necessary, certainly as a most probable, result, and it is with that view, and that only, that the testimony is offered.”

Is there anything in Mrs. Surratt’s mind and course of life to show that she was prepared for the commission of this crime?  The business transaction by Mrs. Surratt at Surrattsville, on the fourteenth, clearly discloses her only purpose in making this visit.  Calvert’s letters, the package of papers relating to the estate, the business with Nothe, would be sufficiently clear to most minds, when added to the fact that the other unknown package had been handed to Mrs, Offutt; that, while at Surrattsville, she made an inquiry for, or an allusion to, Mr. Lloyd, and was ready to return to Washington when Lloyd drove up to the house.  Does not this open wide the door for the admission of the plea of “reasonable doubt”?  Had she really been engaged in assisting in the great crime, which makes an epoch in our country’s history, her only object and most anxious wish would have been to see Lloyd.  It was no ruse to transact important business there to cover up what the uncharitable would call the real business.  Calvert’s letter was received by her on the forenoon of the fourteenth, and long before she saw Booth that day, or even before Booth knew that the President would be at the theatre that night, Mrs. Surratt had disclosed her intention to go to Surrattsville, and had she been one moment earlier in her start she would not have seen Booth at all.  All these things furnish powerful presumptions in favor of the theory that, if she delivered the message at all, it was done innocently.

In regard to the nonrecognition of Payne, the third fact adduced by the prosecution against Mrs. Surratt, we incline to the opinion that, to all minds not forejudging, the testimony of Miss Anna E. Surratt, and various friends and servants of Mrs. Surratt, relative to physical causes, might fully explain and account for such ocular remissness and failure.  In times and on occasions of casual meeting of intimate acquaintances on the street, and of common need for domestic uses, the eyesight of Mrs. Surratt had proved treacherous and failing.  How much more liable to fail her