.
Breckenridge declaring that he believed he should be able to reverse the
verdict. On what ground he founded this opinion we do not know: whether
he felt convinced that the local prejudice against his client and the
influence of his enemies in the County of ---- had mainly contributed to
bring about the unfavorable result of the present hearing, and he hoped
to escape these adverse agencies by a change of venue,--or whether
he counted on a change of public feeling after the first burst of
excitement had subsided, to bear him through,--or whether he had
discovered the falsehood of the testimony of the sister-in-law,--or,
finally, whether it was that he had obtained a clearer and more
favorable insight into the case, and recognized grounds of hope
therein,--it is impossible now to say. But it is certain, that to
the defendant and his friends he declared his confidence of a final
acquittal, if the cause were transferred to the appellate court; and
John Breckenridge was not a man to boast emptily, or to hold out hopes
which he knew could never be realized. But at this crisis occurred a
strange misunderstanding, which drove from the support of the wretched
victim of Fate the only man who thoroughly understood the case in all
its minutest details, and would have been most likely to conduct it to
a happy termination. When the preparations for the last struggle were
almost completed, and the time set for the final trial drew near, Mr.
McC----, who, as Captain Wilde's brother-in-law, had been most active
and zealous in his behalf, was informed by some officious intermeddler
that Breckenridge had said in confidential conversation among his
friends, "that the case was entirely desperate, that he had no hope
whatever of altering the verdict by an appeal, and the family would save
money by letting the law take its course, there being no doubt of the
justice of the sentence." Mr. McC----, believing that he might rely on
the word of his informant, unfortunately, without making any inquiry as
to the truth of the tale, and without assigning any reason, wrote to Mr.
Breckenridge a curt letter of dismissal, and immediately employed George
---- to conduct the further defence. This gentleman, surpassed by no
man in Kentucky as a logician, lawyer, and orator, was inferior to the
discarded attorney in that great requisite of a jury-lawyer, personal
popularity, besides laboring under the disadvantage of being new to the
case, and having but a