Doc. No. 36.
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pay up the endorsements; grief hurried my affectionate mother to t h e grave ; my father did not long survive so great a bereavement ; my sister and myself are now the only heirs to the property claimed in this letter. Your Excellency can imagine but a part the dreadful whole the suffer ers only can feel. Possibly your E x c e l l e n c y will say, you do not k n o w any thing of this business, and that you are not accountable for the acts of others ; but I am encouraged to hope, from your E x c e l l e n c y ' s well known character and friendly disposition towards this country, that you will not turn from the just prayer of the unfortunate and distressed. B e sides, 1 have been informed that the above-named schooner remained in your Excellency's service after the downfall of Christophe, and that t h e Government of Hayti enjoyed all the advantages resulting from h e r capture. I must now make known to your E x c e l l e n c y the reason why this state ment of facts and this request for damages was not made at a much earlier period. T h e only person who could confirm the facts herein set down has been absent from the United States many y e a r s , and has only within a v e r y recent time returned to this country. His declaration tallies e x actly with my own, both as regards the time of seizure, amount confisca ted, and the uses to which both vessel and cargo were applied. T h e affi davit of this gentleman, taken before the mayor of the city of Philadel phia, will testify to every particular enumerated in the foregoing state ment. T h e above facts I humbly submit to your Excellency's kind condescen sion, wishing you every happiness and prosperity, as well personally as politically, and with a very high estimate of your E x c e l l e n c y ' s character, R H O D A A N N M. A R N O L D . H A R R I E T C. H U M E S .
I, the undersigned, do hereby certify, to all whom it may concern, that M r . Samuel Church, late merchant and a native of this city of Philadelphia, fitted out, in the year 1808, a schooner called the “John,” of which h e was the owner, (Captain Cushing, master,) and despatched her to Savan nah to. take in a load of rice for Kingston Jamaica, sending his brother Justice in her as supercargo ; that accounts were subsequently received of the vessel's having taken in her cargo of rice at Savannah, and of h e r having sailed from thence on her intended voyage to Jamaica ; that nothing further was heard of the said vessel until the spring of 1809, when one of the c r e w , by the name of B u n k e r , arrived in this city, with the information that, on their passage downwards, while off the island of H a y t i , she was boarded and taken possession of by a brig of war belong ing to Christophe, then President of that part of the Island subject to h i s authority, and carried into Port-de-Paix, where the vessel and cargo w e r e confiscated by order of said Christophe, without trial, or assigning anv other reason for so doing only that he wanted the rice to feed his troops and the vessel for the service of his naval armament—this o u t r a g e against all law and justice being followed by the imprisonment of the cap tain, supercargo, and crew ; two of the latter having by some means made their escape from thence—the death of the captain and supercargo having.