Note I.—Dict. Nat. Biog.
Although reference is made to the dubious case of the flogging of the man Paterson during Wall’s outward voyage to Goree, there is no mention of the fact that four other soldiers were flogged by the Governor’s order on the same day and the day following the punishment of Benj. Armstrong, and that two of these also died of their wounds. There seems to be no authority for the statement that Wall “appears to have been in liquor” when he passed sentence on the men, and as such a presumption, which was never put forward by the prosecution, sweeps away all defence, and proves that the act was murder, it should not be accepted without the most trustworthy evidence. Mrs Wall’s father, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, never became Lord Seaforth; her brother did. Since Wall did not remain at Goree for more than two years, and left the island on July 11, 1782, it is evident that he did not become Governor in 1779. His letter to Lord Pelham, offering to stand his trial, was written on October 5, 1801, not on October 28. State Trials, vol. xxviii. p. 99.
Note II.—State Trials of the Nineteenth Century. By G. Latham Brown (Sampson Low, 1882). Vol. i. pp. 28-42.
On page 31 the author states that he has searched the records of the Privy Council in vain for a report of the charges brought against Wall by Captain Roberts in 1783. As stated previously, he would have found what he required in the columns of the Morning Post of August 13, or the Gazetteer, August 14, 1783. It is strange that he is unaware that Wall flogged to death two other soldiers besides Benj. Armstrong.
Note III.—Edinburgh Review, January 1883, vide criticism of G. L. Brown’s book, p. 81.
To the writer of this review belongs the credit of being the first to hint a doubt as to the justice of Wall’s conviction.
Note IV.—A Tale without a Name—a tribute to Joseph Wall’s noble wife—will be found in the works of James Montgomery, Longman (1841), vol. iii. p. 278. Vide also Life of Montgomery, by Holland and Everett. Longman (1855), vol. iii. p. 253.
Note V.—Other contemporary authorities are Letters from England by Don Alvarez Espriella, Robert Southey, vol. i. pp. 97, 108, and the familiar Book for a Rainy Day, by J. T. Smith, pp. 165-173.
THE KESWICK IMPOSTOR
THE CASE OF JOHN HADFIELD, 1802-3
“... a story drawn
From our own ground,—the Maid of Buttermere,—
And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife
Deserted and deceived, the Spoiler came,
And woo’d the artless daughter of the hills,
And wedded her, in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage bonds....
Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earth
Her new-born infant....
... Happy are they both,
Mother and child!...”
—The Prelude, Book vii. Wordsworth.