The Enquirer

We received on Tuesday night from Washington,
a pamphlet containing the Queries addressed
by the committee of the Senate to John Smith,
with his answers as finally given!—We have not
yet perused the whole of this vindication; but if
the remainder, be marked by the same spirit & credibility
as the part we have read, we pronounce
it to be a complete and uncompensated mass of
sophisms, mistakes and misrepresentations.
Mr. Smith is polite enough to say of the Editor
of this paper, that "it is understood (he) was
employed by the administration to take in short
hand each part of the trial." The mistake is certainly
a very unimportant one; and as such it is
scarcely worthy of correction; but it is an indisputable
fact, that the Editor of this paper was
not employed by the administration or by any other
person, to take in short hand any part of this disgraceful
trial.
But there is one point, in which John Smith
has committed a more important and daring mistake.
This contradiction is due to the character
of an honest man; who, though humble and poor
in his external circumstances, is in the eye of every
virtuous and discriminating man, far more entitled
to our respect and sympathies, than the
senator John Smith, clothed as he is with the sullied
ermine of his office. This individual against
whom Mr. Smith has hurled the poisoned arrow
of calumny, is Peter Taylor, the humble and honest
gardener of Herman Blennerhassett.
Peculiar circumstances had made this man one of
the witnesses against the character of Mr. S.
The committee of the Senate in their first interrogatory
demand of him, whether he has any explanations
to offer respecting "the testimony of
Peter Taylor, respecting you, in the volume of
printed evidence communicated by the President
of the U. S. to Congress, p. 45." Mr. Smith
therefore found it necessary to invalidate the testimony
of this witness; but he repels it by the
grossest misrepresentation or mistake. "It is not
true, says he, to dismiss Peter Taylor. I believe,
that by witnesses of the first respectability, I can
prove his contradictions on his several examinations
and in the different parts of each examination,
and his want of character as a man of truth
and veracity."
Is there a man who was present at Burr's trial,
who will not vouch for the inaccuracy of both
these statements? Is there a man present, who
does not know that Peter Taylor's testimony was
uniformly consistent with itself, and that his general
character was that of a man of the most
unsullied truth and veracity? We heard this
witness during three separate examinations; and
never have we heard a witness whose tale was
more clear, more consistent, and more marked to
the eye of every impartial man by the artless lineaments
of native truth. This, we are sure, was
the universal sentiment. As to his general character,
though particular enquiries were made
of every witness who came from his neighborhood,
or was supposed to be acquainted with
him; though it was a great object with the counsel
for the accused to overset this great prop of
the prosecution, this second witness of the overt
act; yet was there not a solitary whisper breathed
to his disadvantage. Every man who knew
him, bore testimony to the blunt honesty and artless
integrity of this humble gardener. Even
Blennerhassett himself was proved to have spoken
in the highest terms of his veracity.