In the report from the admiralty board to Mr. Beasly, (a copy of which he has transmitted to us) it is stated that the prisoners, when called upon to give an account of the circumstances of the 6th, exonerated Captain Shortland and the English government from any blame respecting the same, and accused their own government and its agent of being the cause.
We, on the contrary, solemnly declare, that it was expressly stated to Admiral Rowley, that whatever anxiety might have existed among the prisoners for a speedy release, could, in no way whatever, be construed to have had any collusion or connection with that event.—That the prisoners, so far from having any idea of attempting to break out, if the gates had been opened, and every one suffered to go who might wish to do so, not one in a hundred would have left the prison, having no means of subsistence in a foreign country, and being likewise liable to IMPRESSMENT, when by staying a few days longer, they would, probably, be embarked for their native country.
They, on the contrary, accused Captain Shortland of being the sole mover and principal perpetrator of the unprovoked and horrid butchery.
Conceiving, from your well known character in the British navy for integrity and candor, that you would not wish to have your name the medium of imposing such a gross misrepresentation and such direct falsehoods on the admiralty board and the British public, we have taken the liberty of thus addressing you, and have the honor to subscribe ourselves, your most obedient and very humble servants,
Wm. Hobart, Walter Colton, Henry Allen, Thomas B. Mott, Wm. B. Orne,
Committee of American Prisoners, Dartmoor.
[In addition to the documents furnished by the committee of the Dartmoor prisoners, we lay the following affidavit of Archibald Taylor before the public. Will people doubt this evidence also? Is it likely that common soldiers, hired assassins, would make use of similar expressions from their own impulses? or is it not much more conformable to common sense to believe that this was the language held by their officers, and that they echoed it.]
City of New York, ss.
Archibald Taylor, late commander of the Paul Jones, private armed vessel of war, being duly sworn, doth depose and say—
That he was a prisoner in Dartmoor prison at the time of the late massacre of Americans; that after the affair of the 6th of April, and on the night of the same day, he was in the prison No. 3, assisting Thomas Smith, late his boatswain, who was shot through his leg by the soldiers in the yard, when an order was received to have all the wounded removed from the prisons to the hospital; and while this deponent was carrying the said Thomas Smith to the door of the prison, to deliver him to the guards selected to receive him, some of the soldiers observed to this deponent, "this is in turn for the affair at New Orleans, where you killed our men, and now we have our revenge"—and further this deponent saith not.
ARCHIBALD TAYLOR.