Now, as Mr. Fullarton, in the course of his inquisition, had obtained possession of all the records of the court from this De Castro, who was the keeper of them; and, as he had, of course, every information which the said De Castro, his creature and dependent, could possibly afford him respecting the trial of the mulatto girl, is it not natural to conclude, that he must have known this fact of the girl's age*, as attested by herself; and if he did know it, what must the world think of him? We leave the world to say, though we believe we could ourselves answer the question with tolerable accuracy. But we will not leave this matter to be decided by presumptive, or inferential evidence, nor even by the oath of this perjured little prostitute; but we will establish the fact by the positive testimony of two persons who knew this girl, when an infant, in 1786. On the 12th of August Mr. Abraham Pinto, and Senor Cayetano Guevaro, were examined by Mr. Attorney General.

"Q. (To Mr. Pinto) Do you know her age? (Louisa's).—A: I supposed that she was of the age of my son, which is 19 years old on the 14th of this month.

"Q. From what do you form that opinion of her age? When did you first see her?-A. În my own dwelling-house. She was at school to a Mrs. Hasleton, who is now Mrs. Salazar. I saw ber every day when she was in her mother's arms, in the year 1786, about the months of September, O&tober, or November, when she was a sucking child: she frequented our house.

Q. Was your son baptized, and when?-A. In the year 1786. "Q. To Senor Guevaro-At what period did you settle in this colony-A. The latter end of the year 1786.

"Q. Did you know Louisa Calderon, the daughter of Maria Calderon ? -A. I knew Louisa, but I do not know that she was called Calderont. She was a little thing when I arrived.

66 Q. Did you know the mother of Louisa ?-A. Yes.

"Q. What was her name?-A. I have heard her called Maria Câriaco. "Q. Was the Louisa, the daughter of Maria Cariaco, the person who was imprisoned on account of the robbery of Pedro Ruez ?-A. I knew Louisa, she that was imprisoned for that robbery, who is now in London, and knew her mother also. It was the same person.

* And yet, after this, Mr. Fullarton can have the assurance to say, "I have imposed on myself the obligation of submitting every assertion which I make, to the test of proof, by authentic vouchers, documents, and indisputable evidence." A Refutation, &c. p. 36. In respect of this assertion of the girl's age, we have seen, that whatever he may have imposed on himself, he has certainly imposed a tale upon the Public, supported, as we have seen, by no other proofs than forged vouchers, and perjured witnesses!

+ In fact, this was the name of her reputed father. The mother it appears went by three names, Nunes, Cariaco, and Calderon.

"Q. When

"Q. When you arrived in this island from Caraccas, in 1786, what was the age of Louisa of whom you speak ?-A. I cannot tell her age; she was a little, little thing when I went to her house to buy tobacco."

On his cross examination, by Mr. Hayes, as to the identity of Louisa's person, he said, "I swear, and swear again and again, that it is the same."

This evidence is conclusive. And never was a more wicked transaction, nor one supported by more wicked means, involving the complicated crimes of perjury, and forgery, than the attempt to which these examinations refer. There must have been a suborner of perjury, an instigator of forgery, in this case. It would exceed the compass of human credulity to believe, for a moment, that the Father Angeles could have committed these enormities, without some potent stimulus, some grand inducement; he must have been paid for it, in some way or other. But who could pay him?" Aye, there's the rub."-Let any man be pointed out who had the inclination to profit by his wickedness, and the means of rewarding him for it, and we will instantly say he is the man.

It is a remarkable fact, in these examinations, that Mr. Fullarton's Counsel laboured exceedingly (we mean by his mode of questioning the evidences), to establish the point that Louisa Calderon was only ten years of age when she was imprisoned. The point was mooted by him; it was the first question which he put to the girl's mother; and he never lost sight of it. No doubt, in this, as in every thing else, he adhered strictly to his instructions.

Well, indeed, might Lieut. Colonel Draper exclain, in the honest indignation of his heart, and in emphatic language, well calculated to convey its dictates to his readers;

"In the base and infamous attempts to aggravate the supposed enor. mity of the crime imputed to Colonel Picton, and to fill up the four accu satory departments of which it had been composed (in the true spirit of the French revolutionists), the foundations of religion and morality are sapped. The Catholic curate of the parish in which Louisa Calderon was born, is prevailed upon to furnish Mr. Smith, alias Vargas, and his worthy associate, Juan Montes, with fabricated certificates of her baptism and age, in order that the tender epithets of enfant and pucelle might be added to that of the interesting Mademoiselle Calderon; and as such she was actually represented, when paraded by the Honourable Mrs. Fullarton, who, on her arrival in Scotland, took her about in her carriage, and introduced her to her female acquaintances. I have frequently asserted that I should produce respectable vouchers for what I assert *. My authority for this is, I believe, unquestionable; it is by a letter from a gentleman who was in Scotland at the time, and who writes as follows: "A few weeks before I last left. Scotland, Mr. Fullarton arrived

* And in no respect has this gentleman falsified this assertion.
F

NO. XCIV, VOL. XXIV,

with

with his family from Trinidad: at that moment I was in Ayrshire, and mixed with several of his friends; and dining one day at the (Lord Provost's) Mayor's house in Ayr, mark my astonishment! when I was told, that along with Colonel Fullarton there had arrived with his lady a Mademoiselle Louisa Calderon,' whom the Colopel and Mrs. F. paraded about with them in their carriage, introducing her wherever they went*, as the blessed innocent' who was the devoted victim of Colonel Pction's tyranny, &c. &c.

(Signed)

"Trinidad, Sept. 8th, 1805."

"JOHN DOWNIE.

"What will my honest countrymen say to this transaction ?”

We have thus completely elucidated the first of the two transac tions to which we before alluded; and we now proceed to investigate the second, which is of a still more extraordinary nature, and which it behoves the government of the country to sift to the very bottom. We have already said, that Mr. Fullarton derived no authority from his instructions, to enter upon a retrospective examination of Brigadier-general Picton's government. Indeed, the very nature of these instructions, which were addressed to the three Commissioners conjointly, preclude the possibility of any such orders; as the association of B. G. Picton in the government with him proves, beyond all doubt, that his Majesty's Ministers were perfectly satisfied with his conduct (for if they were not, they were guilty of a criminal breach of duty, in appointing him Second Commissioner and Captain General of the Forces), and, consequently, that they could not give to Mr. Fullarton any power to investigate his past government, which would have implied a doubt of its propriety. However, it very soon appeared that Mr. Fullarton acted, as if he had received such instructions. He took a very early opportunity of insulting B. G. Picton, by allowing a woman of the name of Duval-whom Governor Picton had banished (in perfect conformity with the instructions received from his Sovereign) for an attempt to excite sedition among the French people of colour; who had, morcover, been ordered to quit Guadaloupe (where her son was executed for rebellion); and banished from the South American coast, whither she had fled for refuge;-to return to Trinidad. We will not argue the point with Mr. Fullarton, but we will assert, that there is no man, who

This introduction of a little abandoned thief and prostitute, in- a country where decency and sobriety of manners, respect for virtue, and abhorrence from vice, prevail, in a greater degree, than in almost any other part of Europe, was such a gross and intolerable insult, as will, no doubt, be properly resented by the respectable persons to whom it was offered, as soon as the facts of the case are made known to them. Such breaches of propriety should never pass without due notice, and timely correction.

has

has the feelings of a gentleman, who would not consider such an act as an insult; and we have, farther, not the smallest hesitation in pronouncing it a gross breach of duty on the part of Mr. Fullarton. Be that as it may, the difference to which this strange proceeding very naturally gave rise, supplied Mr. Fullarton with a pretext for convincing the Council of Trinidad, that he did not mean to confine himself to his public instructions, and to make the future good government and prosperity of the colony his sole end, or even his pri mary object; for we find him, in less than six weeks after his arrival, on the 12th of February 1803, making the following curious motion in the Council:

"From the mode in which the transaction respecting Madame Duval has been conducted on the part of B. G. Picton and Mr. Woodyear*, it becomes essential for the public service, (risum teneatis?) that Colonel Ful larton should now move, that there be produced a certified statement of all the criminal proceedings which have taken place since the commencement of the late government, together with a list, specifying every individual, of whatever country, colour, or condition, who has been imprisoned, banished, fettered, flogged, hanged, burned, or otherwise punished; also specifying the dates of their respective commitments, trials, sentences, periods of confinement, punishments, and of all those who have died in prison!"

When the place in which, the circumstances under which, and the person by whom, this motion was made, be considered, we may safely defy any one to produce its parallel from the annals of human modesty t. It is unique; it is matchless! But we shall possibly have occasion to return to this motion, under another head of our inquiry; it is only introduced here to shew how early Mr. Fullarton acted as if he had received authority to establish an inquisition on the past government of B. G. Picton, though his instructions unquestionably gave him no such power. Now let us see what Lieutenant-colonel Draper says on this subject:

"I myself heard of some curious stories at that time, and of some still more curious information, of a very particular nature, being sent out from this country a little before the Commissioners sailed from England, to take upon them the government of Trinidad. When I was in that island,

* Mr. Fullarton's liberal and manly attacks upon Mr. Woodyear, whom we knew, and knew him to be a man of sense, of integrity, and of honour, but who unhappily is not alive to answer for himself, shall not pass without some appropriate comments.

+ Though Mr. Fullarton had gravely stated that this motion was essential for the public service (which, by the bye, it was calculated to impede in every possible way) he tells us, in a note, that it was only made " in order to check the violence with which the Brigadier seemed determined to overpower him." See his ponderous quarto of literary lumber, p. 44, and note.

F2

a variety

a variety of reports assailed my ears; to these I paid very little attention, and indeed all remembrance of them would have been obliterated in (from) my mind, if a document had not been transmitted to me of such a nature as at once to put my suspicions beyond all doubt, and to prove, from an authority so high, so unspotted, so entirely beyond the reach of contradiction, or disbelief, as most amply and completely warrants me in giving it my own full and unequivocal belief, and in laying the whole of it now before the British public."

Colonel Draper then proceeds to exhibit this document, which is, indeed, a most important, and a most extraordinary one. It is an affidavit sworn by Doctor Lynch, a physician of respectability and character, before Mir. Nihell, the Chief Judge of Trinidad; and the substance of which was first communicated by the Doctor, in a letter to Mr. Gloster, the Attorney-General of the island, a copy of which Colonel Draper also gives. The following is the affidavit in question.

"TRINIDAD.-Frederick J. Lynch, of the Port of Spain, Island of Trinidad, Esq. Doctor of Physic, maketh oath and saith, that in or about the month of November, one thousand eight hundred and two, he was present at the office of his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, and a conversation then took place between this deponent and John Sullivan, Esq. respecting Trinidad, and particularly as to grants of land, about to be made to persons going thither, and on what terms such grants could be obtained; when the said John Sullivan, Esq. in the course of such conversation, inquired whether this deponent had any letters to his Majesty's Commissioners; to which this deponent answered, that he had two to General Picton. Upon which the said John Sullivan, Esq. recommended this deponent to procure some, if possible, to the First Commissioner, Colonel Fullarton, and stated, that the said Colonel Fullarton would have it in his power to be of more service to this deponent than General Picton could be, or words to that effect; and gave this deponents as a reason for such recommendation, that in all probability General Picton would be ordered to return to England before six months, as Colonel Fullarton was instructed to investigate the (then) past conduct of General Picton in Trinidad. And this deponent further maketh oath and saith, that he expressed his surprize, on his arrival in this Colony, in the month of March 1803, that it was not generally known or understood, that the said Colonel Fullarton had such instructions, the said John Sullivan having mentioned the circumstance to this deponent as a stranger, and not in a confidential manner, which induced this deponent to relate the substance of the conversation herein before mentioned, immediately after his arrival in this island, and several times since.

"Sworn at the Port of Spain aforesaid, this fifteenth day of July, 1805, before me, John Nihell, Chief Justice, and Judge of the Consulado."

"FREDERIC J. LYNCH, M. D.

We confess we want words to express our feelings no this oc

casion.