Dick, the District Attorney, has a fair claim to a participation in these honours.
"He was anxious to lose no time, in calling the attention of the district court of the United States, to the violent proceedings, during the week that had followed the arrival of the first messenger of peace; but Hall insisted on a few days being exclusively given to the manifestation of the joyous feelings, which the termination of the war excited. He did not yield to Dick's wishes till the 21st. The affidavits of the clerk of the district court, of the marshal of the United States, of the attorney of Louallier, and of the commander at the barracks, were then laid before the court."
The case presented to the court, was substantially such as appears in the foregoing narrative. Hall was as resolute in his court, as Jackson at the head of an army; the Judge was as fearless in maintaining the law, as the General had been in trampling upon it. "On motion of the Attorney of the United States, a rule to show cause, why process of attachment should not issue against Jackson, was granted."
On the return day, the General, accompanied by one of his aids, appeared before the court, and presented his answer to the rule. Some legal questions were discussed and decided on the propriety of admitting the answer. Finally, the rule was made absolute, that is, the attachment was ordered. The General is still haunted by bad advisers.
"Jackson's advisers now found he could not be defended on the merits, with the slightest hope of success, as the attorney of the United States would probably draw from him by interrogatories, the admission, that both Louallier and the judge were kept in prison, long after persuasive evidence had been received at head quarters, of the cessation of the state of war. They therefore recommended to him not to answer the interrogatories, which would authorize the insinuation that he had been condemned unheard.
"It appears that some of his party, at this period, entertained the hope that Hall could be intimidated, and prevented from proceeding further. A report was accordingly circulated, that a mob would assemble in and about the court-house—that the pirates of Barataria, to whom the judge had rendered himself obnoxious before the war, by his zeal and strictness, in the prosecution that had been instituted against several of their ringleaders, would improve this opportunity of humbling him. Accordingly, groups of them took their stands, in different parts of the hall, and gave a shout when Jackson entered it. It is due to him to state, that it did not appear that he had the least intimation that a disturbance was intended, and his influence was honestly exercised to prevent disorder."
When the General was called, "he addressed a few words to the court, expressive of his intention not to avail himself of the faculty to answer interrogatories." The District Attorney then addressed the court, with firmness, but good temper. In conclusion he said,—
"That credulity itself could not admit the proposition, that persuasive evidence that the war had ceased, and belief that necessity required that violent measures should be persisted in to prevent the exercise of the judicial power of the legitimate tribunal, could exist, at the same time, in the defendant's mind."
The defendant—General Jackson—resorted to a strange equivocation to extricate himself.
"The general made a last effort to avert the judgment of the court against him, by an asseveration, he had imprisoned Dominick A. Hall, and not the judge: his attention was drawn to the affidavit of the marshal, in which he swore Jackson had told him, 'I have shopped the judge.'