"We shall show him in conference with Herold in the evening; we shall show him purchasing a contrivance for disguise an hour or two before the murder.
"When the last blow had been struck, when he had done his utmost to bring anarchy and desolation upon his native land, he turned his back upon the abomination he had wrought, he turned his back upon his home and kindred, and commenced his shuddering flight.
"We shall trace that flight, because in law flight is the criminal's inarticulate confession, and because it happened in this case as it always happens, and always must happen, that in some moment of fear or of elation, or of fancied security, he, too, to others, confessed his guilty deeds. He fled to Canada. We will prove to you the hour of his arrival there and the route he took. He there found safe concealment, and remained there several months, voluntarily absenting himself from his mother. In the following September he took his flight. Still in disguise, with painted face, and painted hair, and painted hand, he took ship to cross the Atlantic. In mid-ocean he revealed himself and related his exploits, and spoke freely of his connection with Booth in the conspiracy relating to the President. He rejoiced in the death of the President, he lifted his impious hand to heaven and expressed the wish that he might live to return to America and serve Andrew Johnson as Abraham Lincoln had been served. He was hidden for a time in England, and found there sympathy and hospitality; but soon was made again an outcast and a wanderer by his guilty secret. From England he went to Rome, and hid himself in the ranks of the Papal army in the guise of a private soldier. Having placed almost the diameter of the globe between himself and the dead body of his victim, he might well fancy that pursuit was baffled, but by the happening of one of those events which we sometimes call accidents, but which are indeed the mysterious means by which Omnicient and Omnipotent justice reveals and punishes the doers of evil, he was discovered by an acquaintance of his boyhood. When denial would not avail he admitted his identity, and avowed his guilt in these memorable words: 'I have done the Yankees as much harm as I could. We have killed Lincoln, the nigger's friend.'
"The man to whom Surratt made this statement, did as it was his high duty to do—he made known his discovery to the American minister. There is no treaty of extradition with the Papal States; but so heinous is the crime with which Surratt is charged, such bad notoriety had his name obtained, that his Holiness the Pope and Cardinal Antonelli ordered his arrest without waiting for a formal demand from the American government. Having him arrested, he escaped from his guards by a leap down a precipice—a leap impossible to any but one to whom conscience made life valueless. He made his way to Naples, and then took passage in a steamer that carried him across the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandria, in Egypt. He was pursued, not by the 'blood hounds of the law,' that seem to haunt the imagination of the prisoner's counsel [this refers to a remark made by Mr. Merrick when discussing the motion to quash the panel], but by the very elements, by destruction itself, made a slave in the service of justice. The inexorable lightning thrilled along the wires that stretch through the waste of waters that roll between the shores of Italy and the shores of Egypt, and spake in his ear its word of terrible command; and from Alexandria, aghast and manacled, he was made to turn his face towards the land he had polluted by the curse of murder. He is here at last to be tried for his crime.
And when the facts which I have stated have been proved, as proved they assuredly will be, if anything is ever proved by human testimony, and when all the subterfuges of the defense have been disproved, as disproved they assuredly will be, we, having done our duty in furnishing you with that proof of the prisoner's guilt, in the name of the civilization he has dishonored, in the name of the country he has betrayed and disgraced, in the name of the law he has violated and defied, shall demand of you that retribution, though tardily, shall yet surely be done, upon the shedder of innocent and precious blood."
Before the hearing of evidence was entered upon, the prisoner presented the following petition to the Court:—
"To the Honorable, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding the Criminal Court in March Term, 1867.
"The petition of John H. Surratt shows that he has been put upon his trial in a capital case in this court; that he has exhausted all his means, and such further means as have been furnished him by the liberality of his friends, in preparing for his defense, and he is now unable to procure the attendance of his witnesses. He therefore prays your honor for an order that process may issue to summon his witnesses, and to compel their attendance at the cost of the government of the United States, according to the statute in such cases made and provided."
This petition was signed, sworn to in open court, and attested by the clerk according to law, and was granted by the court.
The government introduced eighty-five witnesses in chief to sustain the various counts in the indictment, and ninety-six in rebuttal. The defense introduced ninety-eight witnesses to overthrow the testimony of the witnesses in chief on the part of the government, and twenty-three in surrebuttal, making in all three hundred and two witnesses that were examined during the trial. The examination of these witnesses occupied the period of thirty-nine days. The hearing of the evidence commenced on the 17th of June, and was concluded on the 26th of July. The arguments in the case were concluded on the 7th of August, and on that day Judge Fisher delivered his charge to the jury and gave them the case. On Saturday, the 10th day of August, just two months from the commencement of the trial, the jury reported that they stood about equally divided in favor of conviction and acquittal, and that there was no prospect of their being able to agree.
The Court inquired whether anything was to be said why the jury should not now be discharged. Mr. Bradley said: "The prisoner gave no consent to any discharge of the jury. If they were to be discharged he wants it understood that it was against his will and protest."