Jean Jacques Tardee. 339 



dentist, who, being engaged to go down to Sullivan's Island, to perform 

 an operation upon the teeth of a lady resident there, the negroes at- 

 tached to the pilot-boat had offered to convey him to the island for a 

 small remuneration, and upon coming accordingly to the vessel, he had 

 been met and assaulted by the owner, and was compelled, in his own 

 defence, to fire the pistol. The plausibility of this account, and his 

 manner, assumed as that of an injured and much-outraged man, added 

 to the inadmissibility of the evidence of the negroes in support of the 

 charge, had almost ensured his dismissal, when search was previously 

 made in the trunk, from which was produced a deed of transfer of the 

 pilot-boat, with her tackle, furniture, and negroes, to Jean Jacques 

 Tardee, bearing the forged signature of the complainant himself, and a 

 large and most imposing seal. At sight of this the confidence of the 

 Frenchman deserted him ; he attempted no explanation of the docu- 

 ment, and was immediately committed to prison. It being subsequently 

 thought that the charge of piracy could not be suported, owing to the 

 incompleteness of any overt act, the vessel not having been unmoored, 

 the indictment was accordingly founded upon a conspiracy to have 

 stolen and feloniously carried away the vessel ; upon which charge 

 Tardee was arraigned, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for a 

 term of two years. 



These occurrences brought to the remembrance of the citizens of 

 Charleston the melancholy circumstances of an affair of recent occur- 

 rence, in which the captain and several of the passengers and crew of a 

 packet-ship, trading thence to the port of New York, had been carried 

 off by poison. This tragic occurrence had happened at sea, and a negro 

 cook being suspected under circumstances of extreme probability, upon 

 the arrival of the vessel at Charleston, the unfortunate man was tried, 

 condemned, and executed. It now, however, was remembered that 

 Tardee had been a passenger in the vessel at the time, that he and two 

 fellow-passengers, having the appearance of Spaniards of fortune, had 

 not partaken, upon pretences of religious scruples, of the food which 

 had contained the deadly adulteration ; and it was moreover known, 

 that Tardee had been a witness of a quarrel which had occurred be- 

 tween the captain and the cook upon the morning in question, when 

 the latter had declared his intention to be revenged in consequence, a 

 circumstance which, upon his trial, had sealed his condemnation. 

 There now remained little doubt that Tardee and his accomplices were 

 the perpretators of the murderous deed, that an artful advantage had 

 been taken of the occurrence of the quarrel and declarations of revenge, 

 to ensure the success of the plot for which they had embarked as pas- 

 sengers, and none doubted now that the unfortunate negro had died an 

 innocent man. This is the case related by Captain Hall, of the fifteenth 

 dragoons, in his " Travels in North America in the year 1817'" He 

 was present in Charleston at the time of the trial of the negro, and, 

 though his impressions of the innocence of the man were not founded 

 on any other than the favourable feeling, which humanity often raises in 

 the breast of an Englishman in a land of slavery, and, though human 

 judgment could not unravel a design laid with such diabolical cunning, 

 it is certain that our amiable officer was too correct in his narrative of an 

 affair which he has treated with such power and pathos. With all this 

 accumulation of crime upon his head, still Tardee was imprisoned but a 



