ted
unconditionally, by the unfortunate witnesses of the unhappy and
barbarous transaction.

Even Mr. King himself, in his letter to Mr. Adams, furnishes a
tardy acknowledgment, that he had not completed the duties to
which he had been called. "Considering it of much importance (he
says) that the report, whatever it might be, should go forth under
our joint signatures, I have forborne to press some of the points
which it involves as far as otherwise I might have done." And why
did Mr. King forbear to press every point involved in the report?
Was it from a disposition to perform his whole duty to his
country; or, rather, from a too common admiration of British
principles and British characters.

The numerous affidavits accompanying the report made by the
committee of the prisoners, together with the reply to the report
of Messrs. King and Larpent, afford the most positive testimony in
contradiction to many of its prominent features. We can form no
other opinion respecting this report, than either that Mr. King
was overreached by his colleague, or that he was pre-determined to
fritter down the abuses which the British Government and its
agents had lavished upon their American prisoners. Why either
Messrs. King or Larpent should decline the examination of all the
witnesses offered by the prisoners, is wholly inexplicable, unless
we attribute to them a mutual and fixed determination to justify
the conduct of Shortland and his accomplices, at the expense of
criminating hundreds of Americans, who were no less entitled to
credibility than either of themselves. Hereafter "let no such men
be trusted."

The treatment of the prisoners appears to have proceeded from the
same principles of inhumanity, which have given rise to the
hostile operations of the British Commanders upon our maritime and
inland frontiers, during the continuance of the late contest. Such
principles belong only to Savages or their allies. The outrages at
the river Raisin, Hampton, Havre de Grace, Washington, and those
attempted at New-Orleans, it was thought, might have filled the
measure of British barbarities. But to the prisons of Dartmoor was
transferred the scene of its completion. Americans, armed in
defence of their soil, their Constitution, and natural rights,
were too invincible to the "veteran" co