It waited for no verified complaint : it made no pretence that a breach of any written Law or of any other enactment was necessary, to warrant an arrest: it received secret, e.v parte "information" as all which was needed to authorize the arrest, the confinement, and the infliction of punishment on its victims, not unfreiiuently xyithout a hearing or an examination: and it held those who were accused, and tried them in secret Sessions, and passed judgments on them, not unfrequently without permitting them to confront their accusers or to see and read the papers on wliich they liad been arrested, and held, and tried -- in one notable instance, the accused was not permitted to xee the fifteen affidavits, which had been trumi)e(l up against him, after he had been arrested and thrown into a jail, nor to know their contents nor the nature of the accusation, until he was brought out for trial when they were only read to him ; and copies of those affidavits were withheld from him, by a formal vote of tlie Congress, when they were asked for and wheji the cost of copying them was tendered, only because the publication of those several pa|)ers would have exposed the fifteen partisan tools and the eminently genteel hand who had guided them in a shameless

1 See, in the JounmU aud Currespmulence of tlie Congresn and in the HLilorU-al Mammripls relnlimj lo Hit: War «/ (/ic liei'iilutitm, preserved in the ollice of tlie Secretaiy of State, iit Alliaiiy, llip reci.rds aud paperb ill the several cases, among nthera, of Angus McDonald, I 'ai>taiii Patrick Sinclair, ('aptain .Tidiaii Cliristiaii Drewidz, John Jlorrell, Adam Patrick, Isaiah Purdy, ('aptain Melancton Lawrence, .Joseph Allicock, Captain Charles De liay, and .lolm Caiidell. A simple reference to the several papers, in detail, would require more room than can be given to it, in this place.