862 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

822 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Mr, Nickolas presented an affidavit made by the prisoner and
moved for a continuance. The affidavit alleged that the following
persona are material witnesses in his defense, viz,: William Gard~-
her of Portsmouth; Tench Coxe of Philadelphia; Judge Bee of
South Carolina; Timothy Pickering late of Philadelphia; William
B. Giles of the County of Amelia; Gen Blackburn of the County of
Bath, That he expects to prove by the said William Gardner he
was Commissioner of Loans for the State of New Hampshire, under
the government of the United States, and that he was turned out of
the said office of Commissioner of Loans because ha, said Gardner, re-
fosed to subscribe an address circulated in the town of Portsmouth,
in New Hampshire, and presented to the President of the United
States in the year 1798, at the instance of several inhabitants of the
said town, in which address unequivocal approbation of the con-
duct of the said President, in the administration of the United
States is expressed. That he expects to prove by the evidence of
Tench Core, that he, in the year 1798, held an important office, to-
wit: Commissioner of the Revenue, from which office the said Coxe
was ejected by the present President of the United States, heeause
he did not approve the measures of his the said President’s admin-
istration, or the prinefples on which it was conducted. That ho
verily expects toe prove by Judge Bee that he did receive from the
President of the United States, in the year 1799, a letter, in which
he the said President did advise and request the said Judge Bes,
then acting in his judicial charaeter, to deliver to the Consul of the
British nation in Charleston, Jonathan Robbina, alias Thomas Nash,
who had been apprehended and carried before the said Judge on 5
charge of murder committed on the high seas, on board the British
frigate Hermione, That he shall be able to prove, by the evidence
of Timothy Pickering, that the President of the United States was
in possession of dispatches from Mr, Vans Murray, American Min-
ister in Holland, containing assurances on the part of the French
Republie that Ambassadors from the United States would be re
ceived in a way satisfactory to the people and government of the
United States, many weeks while Congress was in session, before
he communicated the same to Congress. That he believes that he
shall be able to prove by the evidence of Stephen Thompson Mason
and William B, Giles, that John Adams, President of the United
States, has unequivocally avowed, in conversation ‘with them, prin-
ciples utterly incompatible with the principles of the present Con-
stitution of the United States; prineiplea which could not be ear-
ried into operation under any political institation wthout the a
tablishment of a direct, powerful, and dangerous aristocracy; that
he declared, in express terms, to the said Stephen Thompson Mason,
that he had no‘more idea that the present Federal Constitntion
could, for any length of time, control the people of the United
States, than that it could control the motion of the planets; that
he also declared to the said Stephen Thompson Mason, that ho
had no more ider that a political society could exist withoot a dis-
tinction of ranks, than that an army could exist without officers;