. MAJOR SEMPLE LISLE. 375 



** M. and fclf ? I;, not wifhing to deceive the 

 " officer, informed him he never had any ; and 

 " that he was nothing but a convid:, and was 

 *' fent out for feven years tranfportation. The 

 ** Governor was informed what I had re- 

 " ported, and acquainted Semple with it, who 

 ** went to Minchin's quarters, and afked his 

 " advice what he fliould do in the bufinefs?. 

 " Minchin advifed him to feek and run mc 

 " through, and there would be nothing more 

 *' faid about his charadter. Minchin being 

 " very intimate with Semple, went next morn- 

 " ing, in company with him, to the Governor's, 

 ** carrying a parcel of papers belonging to him, 

 ** one of them faid to be a Dutch Commiilion 

 *' in the cavalry * : and Minchin told the Go- 

 " vernor the faid Semple was a gentleman of 

 ** rank and fortune, a palTenger on board the 

 Lady Shore 3 and that he knew him to be an 



<r 



* I am more afhamed, if poffible, of Prater's folly and 

 bafenefs, than of the trouble I give my readers in remarking 

 it. There was, it feems, a paper which he could not read, 

 and this I called, what it really was, a Dutch Commiffion ; 

 but furely his own ignorance was no fiifficient reafon for his 

 affertion. By the fame rule he might deny any other paper 

 to be authentic ; he wiflied to vilify me in the eyes of all 

 ftiankind, and therefore finding his ftory difregarded by the 

 diftinguiflied perfonages of Rio Grande, he attempted to cir* 

 culate it in England, where, to his difgrace, the falfehood of 

 his aifertion is univerfally known. 



B b 4 " officer 



