Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1859 — The Plot. [ARTICLE]

The Plot.

Our readers will remember that the Baltimore Patriot gave, what it claimed to be, an authentic version of a deep laid plot in which Gov. Willard was the moving spirit, Cook the emissary, Brown and his followers the deluded tools, and Harper’s Ferry the result—with a view to political capital. As.a witness to the truth of its assertions the Patriot desired the public to icafeh Cook’s trial. The trials are now’ over and we have seen that all the parties implicated in the Harper’s Ferry affair, who have been tiied at Charleston, have been found guilty of treason as well as murder and insurrection, except Cook, the brother-in-law of Gov. Willard, of Indiana. In this case the Jury returned a verdict of murder and insurrection only, on both of which counts he had plead guilty. The history of the emeute impliplicates Cook quite as fully as it does Brown, and more fully than it does the negroes, Copeland and Green. If Brown was guilty of treason against the State of Virginia, so also was Cook; and if the verdict in the case of the former is in accordance with the law and the testimony, that in the case of the latter is not. Either Brown lias been unjustly and illegally condemned for treason, or Cook has been unjustly and illegally acquitted on that account. Why this exception in the case of Cook, the man against whom we arc told public sentiment in Virginia has been more violent, from the begining, than it has been against either of his associates! Il is to be explained only upon the hypothesis started by the Patriot, viz; that Cook was a mere instrument in the hands of Democratic leaders to lure old Brown and his associates into the crazy scheme in which they embarked, for the purpose of influencing the late election and the result in IB6o—-that he was to escape if possible, but if captured was to be pardoned in consideration of his services to Democracy.— Toledo Blade.