[1315] Thompson's "view" was published as a series of letters to Marshall immediately after the trial closed. (See infra, 533-35.)
[1316] Jefferson to Thompson, September 26, 1807, Works: Ford, x, 501-02.
[1317] Plumer, Aug. 15, 1807, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[1318] Hay to Jefferson, Oct. 15, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.
[1319] This statement is lucid, conspicuously fair, and, in the public mind, would have cleared Burr of any taint of treason, had not Jefferson already crystallized public sentiment into an irrevocable conviction that he was a traitor. (See Annals, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 766-78.)
[1320] Ib.
[1321] Burr to his daughter, Oct. 23, 1807, Davis, ii, 411-12.
[1322] Hay to Jefferson, Oct. 21, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.
[1323] Blennerhassett Papers: Safford, 301. If this were only the personal opinion of Burr's gifted but untrustworthy associate, it would not be weighty. But Blennerhassett's views while at Richmond, as recorded in his diary, were those of all of Burr's counsel and of the Richmond Federalists.
[1324] No wonder the Government abandoned the case. Nearly all the depositions procured by Hay under Jefferson's orders demonstrated that Burr had not the faintest intention of separating the Western States from the Union, or even of attacking Mexico unless war broke out between Spain and the United States. See particularly deposition of Benjamin Stoddert of Maryland, October 9, 1807 (Quarterly Pub. Hist. and Phil. Soc. Ohio, ix, nos. 1 and 2, 7-9); of General Edward Tupper of Ohio, September 7, 1807 (ib. 13-27); and of Paul H. M. Prevost of New Jersey, September 28, 1807 (ib. 28-30).