We then returned to the prisons and appointed a committee of ten to take depositions of a great number of persons who were best acquainted with the particular facts. The committee being severally sworn, proceeded to make all possible inquiry into the circumstances of the massacre, and prepare every testimony to lay before the jury which were to sit over the bodies the next day.
At two in the afternoon arrived an Admiral and another officer of high rank in his Majesty’s navy, and after introducing themselves to the prisoners, in a very friendly and feeling manner, expressed their extreme regret for the horrid and barbarous act of Capt. Shortland, and informed us that they had come clothed with proper authority to make inquiry into the conduct of Capt. Shortland in the late unhappy event and his conduct during his agency at the prison. They assured us, that he would be called to an account by the government, and that a fair investigation should be had of all his conduct.
I have omitted to mention a circumstance which occurred during the dreadful scene of the night. A lamp-lighter, who was in the act of lighting the lamp at the door of prison No. 3, in which I myself resided, being compelled to take refuge among the prisoners, was forced by the hurrying group into the prison. He belonged to the same regiment of soldiers who were that moment committing these most horrid outrages. He was immediately seized by the prisoners, and conveyed to a particular part of the prison, and the prisoners being in the most enraged state, it was immediately proposed to put him to death, and sacrifice him to our resentment, as a just retaliation of our injury; but on cool deliberation and debate throughout the prison, it was thought better to spare him; and to the pleasing astonishment of this man, half dead with fear, he was told to rest easy, for his life should not be taken, but he should be preserved, that the whole world might distinguish the difference of humanity between unprovoked British soldiers, and the injured and provoked American seamen; accordingly, when the doors were opened to take out the wounded, the man was released, which astonished and confounded the whole soldiery, who felt the force of the reproach with the keenest remorse, and were compelled to express the highest respect for this generous revenge.
The following is a correct list of killed and wounded on the 6th of April, 1815, and contains a true statement of their condition at 12 o’clock on the 8th day of the same month.
Killed.
John Haywood, black, Virginia, discharged; the ball entered a little posterior to the acromion of the left shoulder, and passed obliquely upwards; made about the middle of the right side its egress of the neck.
Thomas Jackson, N. Y. Orbit of N. Y., the ball entered the left side of the belly nearly in a line with the navel, and made its egress a little below the false ribs in the opposite side; a large portion of the intestinal canal protruded through the wound made by the ingress of the ball. He languished until 3 o’clock of the 7th, when he died.
John Washington, Maryland, Rolla privateer; the ball entered at the squamore process of the left temporal bone, and passing through the head, made its exit a little below the cruceal ridge of the occipital bone.
James Mann, Boston, Ciro; the ball entered at the inferior angle of the left scapula, and lodged under the integument of the right pectoral muscle. In its course, it passed through the inferior margin of the right and left lobes of the lungs.
Joseph Toker Johnson, not known; the ball entered at the inferior angle of the left scapula, penetrated the heart, and passing through both lobes of the lungs, made its egress at the right axilla.