heir scandalous misrepresentation of
the same to the admiralty board, as will be seen in their
statement No. 20, is truly characteristic of the British official
accounts. We likewise wrote to Mr. Beasly on that day, giving him
a short history of the affair, but as he did not acknowledge the
receipt of the letter, we concluded it had been intercepted. On
the 14th we received a letter from him dated the 12th, of which
No. 18 is a copy--in answer to which No. 19 is a copy. On the 16th
we received another from him, of which No. 20 is a copy; in the
interim he had seen a copy of our report, sent by a private
conveyance, which seemed to have greatly altered his opinion
concerning the affair. In his letter of the 14th was an extract
from the statement or report sent him by the admiralty board. On
receiving which we wrote to admiral Duckworth, of which No. 21 is
a copy.

On the 22d of April, Mr. King, appointed by the American agents at
London, and a Mr. Larpent on the part of the government, with a
magistrate of the county of Devon, arrived at the depot to
investigate the affair; they were employed the greater part of
three days in taking the deposition, respecting the same; and
though we would not hastily prejudge Mr. King's report, we deem it
necessary to state, that our anticipations of it are not of the
most favourable nature, from his not appearing to take that
interest in the affair which the injuries his countrymen had
received demanded, as far the greater part of their time was
employed in taking the depositions of Shortland's witnesses, most
of whom were the principal actors, on that day, and of course were
implicated with him in his guilt. On learning Mr. King was about
leaving the depot, we addressed a note to him, stating, that we
had a number of witnesses waiting, whose depositions we conceived
would be of importance, and requested him to have them taken; we
received to this note no answer, and he immediately left the
depot. The particular points on which those depositions would have
born, related to the picking the hole in the wall and breaking the
locks of the gate leading into the market-square--they would have
exonerated the prisoners generally from having any share in those
acts, or even a knowledge of their having been committed. As these
were the two principal