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Mississippi Historical Society.
to convict Colonel Burr of the offenses with which he was charged, so as to bring them within the Territory; 3d, that a warrant might issue, transmitting the accused to a court having competent jurisdiction to try and punish him, if guilty of the crime alleged against him. This motion Mr. Poindexter supported in an argument of great ability, but the court dividing upon it, it was overruled.8 The grand jury then retired. The Attorney-General declined to prefer an indictment and left the courthouse, whence he did not return until summoned by the court. He was desired by the court to examine the presentments of the grand jury, when he found to his surprise that that body had presented the acting Governor for calling out the militia, the manner in which Colonel Burr had been induced to surrender to the civil authority, the proceedings at New Orleans, and perhaps the conduct of President Jefferson in taking steps to crush the imputed operations of Burr. The Attorney-General declared he would only notice these presentments to denounce them as unwarrantable. It is proper to add, that a portion of the grand jury dissented from these proceedings and withheld their signatures from them. Judge Rodney likewise censured that body. On the evening of the same day Colonel Burr went to the residence of the late Benijah Osmun, three miles south of Washington (the plantation at present of Mrs. James Smith), upon the pretext of spending the night. Colonel Osmun was a native of New Jersey, had been in the army of the revolution, was a gentleman of high character, federal in politics, and strongly attached, from early associations, to Colonel Burr. He and the late Lyman Harding of Natchez, one of the most profound and subtle lawyers that ever practiced at our bar, were the securities on Burr?s recognizance. When it was ascertained that Colonel Burr had left Colonel Osmun?s and had not
?The court was composed of Judges Rodney and Bruin. The former was a native of Delaware, had been an officer of the revolution and lived and died here beloved and venerated by the community. The latter seems to have been suspected of an undue bias for Colonel Burr, but this arose, in our view, more from political prepossessions and the singular influence Burr was capable of exercising over his associates, than from any want of integrity. However, from the date of Colonel Burr?s visit to him, he lost the confidence of the people, and on the nth of April, 1808, the Legislative Council of the Mississippi Territory, by resolution, solicited his removal from office.
A Trip Through the Piney Woods.?Claiborne. 501
umed to Washington the Attorney-General had a judgment eritered on the recognizance, a scire facias was issued against "arding and Osmun, but, we believe, the proceedings were Subsequently quashed on the ground of informality. The fact ljy-Mr. Harding outwitted the venerable Judge Rodney at the oiiset. When Osmun and himself appeared before him with 'the-prisoner, Mr. Harding sat down to draw the recognizance, d after beginning it said it was useless to go through with it, that they would acknowledge themselves bound before him
?	and he might make out the instrument in due form at his leisure, soothe recognizance was not reduced to writing until the departure of Colonel Burr from the presence of the Judge.
It will be remembered that when Burr surrendered to the 'authorities of this Territory he earnestly stipulated that he ?-should not be placed or permitted to fall in the hands of General .Wilkinson, who was then in command of the western military division of the United States, and had removed his headquarters from Natchitoches to New Orleans. This stipulation, it is believed, Mr. Meade, the acting Governor, and afterwards Robert ^Villiams (who arrived about the time of Burr?s surrender), ?the Governor, intended in good faith to respect; but General Wilkinson, influenced in part by private motives and by instructions from President Jefferson, which have never yet been published, and stimulated by an agent of the government (the .late John Graham, then Secretary of the Territory of Orleans, afterwards Chief Clerk in the Department of State and Com-.missioner of the General Land Office) who had, under instructions from the Secretary of State, followed Burr through the vwestem country and down to Washington, determined to seize -him at all hazards, with or without the consent of the territorial authorities, and send him on to the seat of the national government.
I.. He accordingly ordered Captain Hook, Lieutenants Mulford ?and Peter, and Dr. Davidson of the army, to proceed to the town of Washington, in the costume of private citizens; to > seize him if possible, and deliver him at New Orleans to Lieutenant Jones, who had been ordered by Commissioner Shaw to receive him on board his vessel. They were accompanied by
?	the late Dr. Carmichael of Wilkinson County. They accord-