[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]

At this distant day, when we can calmly review
all the facts which led to Max Greyslaer's being put
upon trial for his life, there would hardly seem to
be sufficient evidence against him even to warrant
the indictment under which he was tried. It must
be recollected, however, that the force of circumstantial
evidence is always much enhanced by the
state of public opinion at the time it is adduced
against a culprit; nor should we, whose minds
are wholly unbiased by the fierce political prejudices
which clouded the judgment and warped the
opinions of men in those excited times, pass upon
their actions without making many charitable allowances
for the condition of things which prompted
those actions.

The clemency which the noble-hearted Lafayette—
who, being then in charge of the northern department
of the army of the United States, had his
headquarters at Albany—the clemency which this

[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]

right-minded leader and statesman exercised toward
Walter Bradshawe, by ameliorating the rigours of
his confinement, and even (if tradition may be believed)
permitting him to be present at his levees,
affords sufficient proof how public opinion may be
perverted in favour of a criminal by the subtle arts
and indefatigable labours of a zealous faction working
in his behalf. If one so keenly alive to everything
that was just and honourable as Lafayette,
could be blinded as to the real character and deserts
of a detected spy like Bradshawe, is it wonderful
that the intrigues of the same faction which
reprieved his name from present infamy, should for
the time awaken the popular clamour against the
besotted admirer of a woman whose fair fame was
already blasted by its association with that of an
Indian paramour?

How far the grand jury which returned the indictment
against Greyslaer were influenced by that
clamour, and what underhand share the great portion
of its members may have had in first raising it,
we shall not now say. Those men, with their deeds,
whether of good or evil, have all passed away from
the earth; it is not our duty to sit in judgment
upon them here, nor is it necessary for us to examine
into the feelings and principles, whether honest
or otherwise, by which those deeds were actuated.

Something is due, however, to the leading Whigs
of Albany, who allowed the issue of life and death
to be joined under the circumstances which we have
detailed. Something to extenuate the cold indifferance
with which they appear to have permitted the
proceedings to be hurried forward, and the life and
character of one of their own members, not wholly
unknown for his patriotic services, to be thus jeoparded:
and, happily, their conduct upon the occasion
is so easily explained, that a very few words will

[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]

possess the reader of everything we have to say
upon the subject.

The horrid crime of assassination was in those
days of civil discord but too common, while each
party, as is well known, attempted to throw the stigma
of encouraging such enormities upon the other.
The life of General Schuyler, of Councillor Taylor,
and of several other Whig dignitaries of the province
of New-York, had been repeatedly attempted;
and when the outrage was charged upon the Tory
leaders, their reply was ever that these were only
retaliatory measures for similar cruelties practised
by the Patriot party; though the cold-blooded murder
of a gallant and regretted British officer by a
wild bush-fighter on the northern frontier was the
only instance of this depravity that is now on record
against the Republicans. Still, as the Whigs had
always claimed to be zealous supporters of all the
laws which flow from a free constitution, they were
galled by this charge of their opponents; and the
desire to wipe off the imputation from themselves,
and fix the stigma where alone it should attach, rendered
them doubly earnest in seeking to bring an offender
of their own party to justice. They were
eager to prove to the country that they were warring
against despotism and not against law; and that,
wherever the Whig party were sufficiently in the
ascendency to regulate the operation of the laws,
they should be enforced with the most impartial
rigour against all offenders. In the present instance,
these rigid upholders of justice, as old Balt the hunter
used afterward to say, “stood so straight that
they rayther slanted backwards.”

The appearance of Greyslaer upon the eventful
morning of his trial was remembered long afterward
by more than one of the many females who
crowded the courtroom on the occasion; but when

[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]

long years and the intervention of many a stirring
theme among the subsequent scenes of the Revolution
had made his story nearly forgotten, the antiquated
dame who flourished at that day would still
describe to her youthful hearers the exact appearance
of “young Major Max” as his form emerged
from the crowd, which gave way on either side,
while he strode forward to take his place in the prisoner's
box.

The gray travelling suit in which he came to Albany,
and which he now wore, offering no military attraction
to dazzle the eye, the first appearance of the
prisoner disappointed many a fair gazer, who had
fully expected to see the victim of justice decked
out with all the insignia of his rank as a major in
the Continental army. But his closely-fitting riding-dress
revealed the full proportions of his tall and
manly figure far better, perhaps, than would the
loose habiliments, whose broad skirts and deep flaps
give such an air of travestie to the unsoldier-like
uniforms of that soldierly day. And the most critical
of the giddy lookers-on acknowledged that it
would be a pity that the dark brown locks, which
floated loosely upon the shoulders of the handsome
culprit, should have been cued up and powdered
after the fashion which our Revolutionary heroes
copied from the military costume of the great Frederic.
But, however these trifling traditional details
may interest some, we are dwelling perhaps
too minutely upon them, when matters of such thrilling
moment press so nearly upon our attention.

Before the preliminary forms of the trial were
entered upon, it was observed by the officers of the
court that the prisoner at the bar seemed wholly
unprovided with counsel; and the presiding judge,
glancing toward an eminent advocate, seemed about
to suggest to Major Greyslaer that his defence had

[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]

better be intrusted to a more experienced person
than himself. Greyslaer rose, thanked him for his
half-uttered courtesy, and signified that he had already
resisted the persuasions of the few friends
who were present to adopt the course which was
so kindly intimated; but that he was determined that
no means but his own should be used to extricate
him from the painful situation in which he was placed.
His story was a plain one; and, when once
told, he should throw himself upon God and his
country for an honourable acquittal.

The words were few, and the tone in which the
prisoner spoke was so low, that nothing but the profound
silence of the place, and the clear, silvery utterance
of the speaker, permitted them to be audible.
Yet they were heard in the remotest corner of
that crowded court; and the impression upon the
audience was singularly striking, considering the
commonplace purport which those few words conveyed.

There is, however, about some men a character
of refinement, that carries a charm with it in their
slightest actions. It is not that mere absence of all
vulgarity, which may be allowed to constitute the
negative gentleman, but a positive spiritual influence,
which impresses, more or less, even the coarsest
natures with which they are brought in contact.

Max Greyslaer was one of the fortunate few who
have possessed this rare gift of nature, and its exercise
availed him now; for, ere he resumed his
seat, every one present felt, as by instinct, that it
was impossible for that man to be guilty of the brutal
crime of murder!

The trial proceeded. The jury were impanelled
without delay, for there was no one to challenge
them in behalf of the prisoner; and he seemed
strangely indifferent as to the preliminary steps of

[figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]

his trial. The distinguished gentleman who at that
time filled the office of attorney-general for the
State of New-York, was absent upon official duty
in another district. But his place was supplied by
one of the ablest members of the Albany bar, who,
though he had no professional advocate to oppose
him, opened his cause with a degree of cautiousness
which proved his respect for the forensic talents
of the prisoner at the bar. His exordium,
indeed, which was conceived with great address,
consisted chiefly of a complimentary tribute to
those talents; and he dwelt so happily upon the
mental accomplishments of the gentleman against
whom a most unpleasant public duty had now arrayed
his own feeble powers, that Greyslaer was
not only made to appear a sort of intellectual giant,
who could cleave his way through any meshes of
the law; but the patriotic character, the valuable military
services, and all the endearing personal qualities
of the prisoner, which might have enlisted public
sympathy in his favour, were lost sight of in the
bright but icy renown which was thrown around his
mental abilities.

In a word, the prisoner was made to appear as a
man who needed neither aid, counsel, nor sympathy
from any one present; and the jury were adroitly
put on their guard against the skilful defence of
one so able, that nothing but the excellence of his
cause would have induced the speaker, with all the
professional experience of a life passed chiefly in
the courts of criminal law, to cope with him. He
(the counsel for the prosecution) would, in fact,
have called for some assistance in his own most
difficult task, in order that the majesty of the laws
might be asserted by some more eloquent servant
of the people than himself, but that some of his
most eminent brethren at the bar, upon whom he

[figure description] Page 236.[end figure description]

chiefly relied, were absent from the city; and,
though the evidence against the prisoner was so
plain that he who runs may read, still his duty was
so very painful that he felt he might not set forth
that evidence with the same force and circumspection
that might attend his efforts under less anxious
circumstances.

Having succeeded thus in effecting a complete
revolution as to the different grounds occupied by
himself and the unfortunate Max, the wily lawyer
entered more boldly into his subject. And if Greyslaer,
who as yet had hardly surmised the drift of
his discourse, blushed at the compliments which
had been paid to his understanding, he now reddened
with indignation as the cunning tongue of detraction
became busy with his character; but his ire
instantly gave way to contempt when the popular
pleader came to a part of his speech in which, with
an ill-judged reliance upon the sordid prejudices of
his hearers, he had the audacity to attempt rousing
their political feelings by painting the young soldier
as by birth and feeling an aristocrat, the son
and representative of a courtier colonel, who in his
lifetime had always acted with the patrician party
in the colony. The allusion, which formed the
climax of a well-turned period, brought Greyslaer
instantly to his feet; and he stretched out his arm
as if about to interrupt the speaker. But his look
of proud resentment changed suddenly into one of
utter scorn as he glanced around the court. His
equanimity at once returned to him; and he resumed
his place, uttering only, in a calm voice, the
words, “You may go on, sir.”

The shrewd lawyer became fully aware of his
mistake from the suppressed murmur which pervaded
the room before he could resume. He had,
by these few last words, undone all that he had

[figure description] Page 237.[end figure description]

previously effected. He had caused every one present
to remember who and what the prisoner was
up to the very moment when he stood here upon
trial for his life.

The experienced advocate did not, however, attempt
to eat his words, or flounder back to the safe
ground he had so incautiously left, but hurried on
to the next branch of the subject as quickly as possible;
and now came the most torturing moment for
Greyslear. The speaker dropped his voice to tones
of mystic solemnity; and almost whispering, as if he
feared the very walls might echo the hideous tale he
had to tell if spoken louder, thrilled the ears of all
present with the relation of the monstrous loves of
Alida and Isaac Brant, even as the foul lips of Bradshawe
had first retailed the scandal.

The cold drops stood upon the brow of Greyslaer;
and as the low, impassioned, and most eloquent tones
of the speaker crept into his ears, he listened shuddering.
Fain would he have shut up his senses
against the sounds that were distilled like blistering
dew upon them, but his faculty of hearing seemed
at once sharpened and fixed with the same involuntary
intenseness which rivets the gaze of the spellbound
bird upon its serpent-charmer. And when
the speaker again paused, he drew the long breath
which the chest of the dreamer will heave when
some horrid fiction of the night uncoils itself from
his labouring fancy.

The advocate ventured then to return once more
to the character of the prisoner himself ere he closed
this most unhappy history. He now, though, only
spoke of him as the luckless victim of an artful and
most abandoned woman. But he had not come
there, he said, to deplore the degradation which,
amid the unguarded passions of youth, might overtake
a mind of virtue's richest and noblest promise.

[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]

The public weal, alas! imposed upon him, and upon
the intelligent gentlemen who composed the jury before
him, a far sterner duty—a duty which, painful
as it was, must still be rigidly, impartially fulfilled.
And no matter what accidents of fortune may have
surrounded the prisoner—no matter what pleading
associations, connected with his youth and his name,
might interpose themselves—no matter what sorrowful
regrets must mingle with the righteous verdict
the evidence would compel them to give in,
they were answerable alike to God and their country
for that which they should this day record as
the truth.

The testimony, as we have already detailed it, was
then entered into; and, as the reader is in possession
of the evidence, it need not be recapitulated
here.

Greyslear seemed to have no questions to put in
cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution,
and this part of the proceedings was soon disposed
of. The impression made by the testimony
was so strong, that the prosecuting attorney scarcely
attempted to enforce it by any comments; and now
the prisoner for the first time opened his lips in his
own defence.

“I come not here,” said Greyslear, “to struggle
for a life which is valueless; and, though there are
flaws in the evidence just given which the plain
story I might tell would, I think, soon make apparent
to all who hear me, I am willing to abide by
the testimony as it stands. I mean,” said he, with
emphasis, “the testimony immediately relating to
the transaction which has placed me where I am.
But, regardless as I may be of the issues of this
trial as regards myself, there is another implicated
in its results whom that gentleman—I thank
him for the kindness, though God knows he little

[figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]

meant it as such—has given me the opportunity of
vindicating before the community where she has
been so cruelly maligned. Death for me has no
terrors, the scaffold no shame, if the proceedings
by which I perish shall providentially, in their progress,
make fully clear her innocence.”

The counsel for the prosecution here rose, and
suggested that the unfortunate prisoner had better
keep to the matter immediately before the court.
He saw no necessity for making a double issue in
the trial, &c., &c. The spectators, who were already
impressed by the few words which Greyslaer
had uttered, murmured audibly at the interruption.
But Max only noticed the rudeness by a cold bow
to the opposite party, as, still addressing the court,
he straightway resumed.

“The learned advocate, who has given such signal
proofs of his zeal and his ability in this day's
trial, has directed his chief efforts to prove a sufficient
motive for the commission of the act with
which I am charged. In the attempt to accomplish
this, the name of a most unfortunate lady has
been dragged before a public court in a manner not
less cruel than revolting. I have a right to disprove,
if I can, the motive thus alleged to criminate me;
and the vindication of that lady's fame is thus inseparably
connected with my own. But, to wipe off
the aspersions on her character, I must have time to
send for the necessary documents. The court will
readily believe that I could never have anticipated
the mode in which this prosecution has been conducted,
and will not, therefore, think I presume upon
its lenity in asking for a suspension of the trial for
two days only.”

The court looked doubtingly at the counsel for
the state, but seemed not indisposed to grant the
privilege which the prisoner asked with such

[figure description] Page 240.[end figure description]

confidence; but the keen advocate was instantly upon
his feet, and, urging that the prisoner had enjoyed
every opportunity of choosing such counsel as he
pleased, insisted that it was too late to put in so feeble
a plea, merely for the purpose of gaining time,
in the vain hope of ultimately defeating justice.
The calmness of Greyslaer, the apparent indifference
to his fate which had hitherto been most remarkable,
vanished the instant the bench had announced
its decision against him; and his voice now
rung through the crowded chamber in an appeal that
stirred the hearts and quickened the pulses of every
one around him.

“What!” he said, “is the life of your citizens so
valueless that the hollow forms of the law—the law,
which was meant to protect the innocent, shall thus
minister to their undoing? Does the veil of justice
but conceal a soulless image, as deaf to the appeal
of truth as she is painted blind to the influence of
favour? Sir, sir, I warn you how you this day
wield the authority with which you sit there invested.
You, sir, are but the servant of the people; and
I, though standing here accused of felony, am still
one of the people themselves, until a jury of my
peers has passed upon my character. An hour since,
and irregular, violent, and most unjust as I knew
these precipitate proceedings to be—an hour since,
and I was willing to abide by their result, whatever
fatality to me might attend it. I cared not, recked
not for the issue. But I have now a new motive
for resisting the doom which it seems predetermined
shall be pronounced upon me: a duty to perform
to my country, which is far more compulsory than
any I might owe to myself. Sir, you cannot, you
shall not, you dare not thus sacrifice me. It is the
judicial murder of an American citizen against
which I protest. I denounce that man as the

[figure description] Page 241.[end figure description]

instrument of a political faction, hostile to this government,
and plotting the destruction of one of its officers.
I charge you, sir, with aiding and abetting in a conspiracy
to take away my life. I call upon you to
produce the evidence that Walter Bradshawe is not
yet living. I assert that that man and his friends
know well that he has not fallen by my hands, and
that they, the subtle and traitorous movers of this
daring prosecution, have withdrawn him for a season
only to effect my ruin. Let the clerk swear the
counsel for the prosecution; I demand him to take
his place on that stand as my first witness in this
cause.”

The effect of this brief and bold appeal upon every
one present was perfectly astounding. Its influence
in our time can only be appreciated by remembering
how generally the taint of disaffection
attached to the upper classes of society in the Province
of New-York, and how withering to character
was the charge of Toryism, unless the suspicion
could be instantly wiped away. It would seem,
too—though Greyslaer had only ventured upon this
desperate effort to turn the tables upon his persecutors
in momentary suspicion that he was unfairly
dealt with—it would seem that there was really
some foundation for the charge of secret disaffection
which he so boldly launched against his wily foe.
For the lawyer turned as pale as death at the words
wherewith the speech of Max concluded; and he
leaned over and whispered to the judge with a degree
of agitation which was so evident to every one
who looked on, that his altered demeanour had the
most unfavourable effect for the cause of the prosecution.
What he said was inaudible, but its purport
might readily be surmised from the bench announcing,
after a brief colloquy, “that the prisoner
was in deep error in supposing that the counsel for

[figure description] Page 242.[end figure description]

the prosecution was animated by any feeling of
personal hostility toward him. That learned gentleman
had only attempted to perform the painful
duty which had devolved on him, to the best of his
ability, as the representative of a public officer now
absent, who was an immediate servant of the people.
As an individual merely, the known benevolence
of that gentleman would induce him to wish
every indulgence granted to the prisoner; and,
even in his present capacity, he had but now interceded
with the bench for a suspension of the trial until
time might be given for the production of the documents
which the accused deemed essential to his
defence. The court itself was grieved to think
that the prisoner at the bar had forfeited all title to
such indulgence by the unbecoming language he
had just used in questioning the fairness with which
it came to sit upon this trial; but the situation of
the prisoner, his former patriotic services, and his
general moderation of character, must plead in excusing
this casual outbreak of his feelings, if no intentional
indignity or disrespect to the court was
intended. These documents, however, it is supposed,
will be forthcoming as soon as—”

“Jist as soon, yere honour—axing yere honour's
pardon—jist as soon as those powdered fellows with
long white poles in their hands will make room for
a chap to get through this tarnal biling o' people and
come up to yonder table.”

“Make way there, officer, for that red-faced man
with a bald head, who is holding up those papers
over the heads of the crowd at the door,” cried the
good-natured judge to the tipstaff, the moment he
discovered the source whence came the unceremonious
interruption.

“Stand aside, will ye, manny?” said Balt, now
elbowing his way boldly through the crowd; “don't

[figure description] Page 243.[end figure description]

ye see it's the judge himself there that wants me?
Haven't ye kept me long enough here, bobbing up
and down to catch the eye of the major? Make way,
I say, feller-citerzens. I'm blowed if I wouldn't
as lief run the gauntlet through as many wild Injuns.
Lor! how pesky hot it is,” concluded the
countryman, wiping his brow as he got at last within
the railing which surrounded the bar.

“Come, come, my good fellow,” said the judge,
“I saw you holding up some papers just now at
the door; why don't you produce them, and tell us
where they came from?”

“Came from? Why, where else but out of the
brass beaufet where I placed 'em myself, I should
like to know! and where I found this pocketbook
of the major's, which I thought it might be well to
bring along with me, seeing I had to break the lock,
and it might, therefore, be no longer safe where I
found it.”

“The pocketbook! That contains the very paper
I want,” cried Greyslaer.

“I doesn't hold all on 'em you'd like to see
though, I guess, major,” said Balt, handing him a
packet, which Max straightway opened before turning
to the pocketbook, and ran his eye over the papers:

“Memorandum of a release granted by Henry
Fenton to the heirs of, &c.; notes of lands sold by
H. F. in township No. 7, range east, &c., &c.;” murmured
Max; and then added aloud, “these appear
to be merely some private papers of the late Mr.
Fenton, with which I have no concern; but here is a
document—” said he, opening the pocketbook.

“One moment, one moment, major,” cried Balt,
anxiously; “I can't read written-hand, so I brought
'em all to ye to pick out from; but I mistrust it must
be there if you look carefully, for I made out the

[figure description] Page 244.[end figure description]

word Max, with a big G after it, when I first took
those papers from the clothes of Mr. Fenton.”

Greyslaer turned over the papers again with a
keener interest, and the next moment read aloud:

“In the matter of Derrick de Roos, junior, and
Annatie, the Indian woman; deposition as to the
parentage of Guise or Guisbert, their child, born
out of wedlock, taken before Henry Fenton, justice
of the peace, &c., certified copy, to be deposited
with Max Greyslaer, Esquire, in testimony of the
claim which the said child might have upon his care
and protection, as the near friend and ward of Derrick
de Roos, senior, who, while living, fully acknowledged
such claim, in expiation of the misdeeds
of his son.

“N. B.—The mother of the child has, with her
infant, disappeared from the country since this deposition
was taken. She is believed, however, to be
still living among the Praying Indians of St. Regis
upon the Canada border.

The deposition, whose substance was given in
this endorsement, need not be here recapitulated;
and the reader is already in possession of the letter
from Bettys to Bradshawe, sufficiently explaining
their first abduction of Miss De Roos,[12] which letter
Greyslaer straightway produced from the pocketbook,
and read aloud in open court. The strong
emotion which the next instant overwhelmed him
as he sank back into his seat, prevented Max from
adding any comment to this unanswerable testimony,
which so instantly wiped every blot from the
fair fame of his betrothed.

As for Balt, he only folded his arms, and looked
sternly around to see if one doubting look could
be found among that still assemblage; but the next

[figure description] Page 245.[end figure description]

moment, as he rightly interpreted the respectful
silence which pervaded the place, he buried his face
in his hat, to hide the tears which burst from his
eyes and coursed down his rude and furrowed
cheeks.

The counsel for the prosecution—who, with an
air of courtesy and feeling, at once admitted the authenticity
of these documents—was the first that
broke the stillness of the scene. And his voice rose
so musically soft in a beautiful eulogium upon the
much-injured lady, whose story had for the moment
concentrated every interest, that his eloquence was
worthy of a far better heart than his; but, gradually
changing the drift of his discourse, he brought it back
once more to the prisoner, and reminded the jury that
the substantial part of the evidence upon which he
had been arraigned was as forcible as ever. The
motives for Bradshawe's destruction at the hands of
the accused was proved even more strongly than
before. There was no man present but must feel
that the prisoner had been driven to vengeance by
temptation such as the human heart could scarcely
resist. But, deep as must be our horror at Bradshawe's
villany, and painfully as we must sympathize
with the betrothed husband of that cruelly-outraged
lady, there was still a duty to perform
to the law. The circumstances which had been
proved might induce the gentlemen of the jury to
recommend the prisoner to the executive for some
mitigation of a murderer's punishment, but they
could not otherwise affect the verdict which it was
their stern and sworn duty to render.

“And you don't mean to let the major go, arter
all?” said Balt, addressing himself to the lawyer
with little show of respect, as the latter concluded
his harangue.

[figure description] Page 246.[end figure description]

“Silence, sir, silence; take your seat,” said a
tipstaff, touching Balt on the shoulder.

“And why haven't I as good a right to speak here
as that smooth-tongued chap?”

“You must keep silence, my worthy fellow,” said
the judge. “I shall be compelled to order an officer
to remove you if you interrupt the proceedings
by speaking again.”

“But I will speak again,” said Balt, slapping his
hat indignantly upon the table. “I say, you Mister
Clark there, take the Bible and qualify me.
I'm going into that witnesses' box. You had better
find out whether Wat Bradshawe is dead or no
afore you hang the major for killing on him.”

But the relation which Balt had to give is too important
to come in at the close of a chapter, and it
may interest the reader sufficiently to have it detailed
with somewhat more continuity than it was
now disclosed by the worthy woodsman.

eaf153v2.n12

[12] See chapter xiv, book ii.

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