230 BAD EFFECTS OF TUE FALSE REPORT. 



candidly judge their cnlpabilitj'. In the first place, 

 no doubt, the^' were driven to an extremity by hun- 

 ger and suliering; and, knowing that, as deserters, 

 they would meet with no sympathy, in such emer- 

 gency they concocted this method to obtain relief for 

 their necessities: but why did they not, if such was 

 their intention, substitute a fictitious name for that 

 of our ship, and avoid particularizing as they did ? 

 Secondly, should any amount of personal suffering 

 induce men to embitter for months the whole tenor 

 of the existence of manj^ bappy circles, who, on the 

 reception of such fatal news through relatives and 

 friends, without any rebutting information on the 

 subject, would at once set us down as irrecoverably 

 lost? 



Here was a prettj' kettle of fish — some thirtj'-two 

 of us consigned to the tender mercies of David Jones, 

 Esq., the hereditary enemy of our profession, with as 

 little remorse as if we were so many kittens ; but, 

 fortunately, the same mail that conveyed the papers 

 containing the baleful news, gave us opportunity to 

 send our own missives explanatory of the proceed- 

 ings ; but then our letters from Ilobartown, in July, 

 were sufiicient evidence of our safety; so that, 

 although it might create some uneasiness, it would 

 be but evanescent. 



Some months before we touched at Frenchman's 

 Bay, one of our boatsteerers received a letter from 

 his family, in which was contained the report of a 

 vessel having been seen by a merchantman in the 

 South Atlantic, bottom up. She was evidently a 

 whaler, a barque, and bore on her stern the name of 

 Pacific, New Bedford. This was thought to be us, 



