Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/196

196 and their pity for her fate, they devoted themselves in every practicable way to that object. Application was made through colonial authorities; no point was left unexamined, no means of eliciting the requisite information untried. The two letters which, according to Emily Bailey's statement, her mistress, the night before she died, delivered to her for friends in England, might possibly have aided the endeavour to elucidate the mystery. Of those letters, one, it is ascertained, was addressed to her brother, and the other to that friend in whom, next to him, she fully reposed confidence. But neither of these letters ever reached the parties to whom they were addressed. The person (Emily Bailey) to whose care they were entrusted, who had taken leave of her mistress with the view of immediately sailing from Cape Coast, did not arrive in England until more than a twelvemonth afterwards. These two facts are adverted to in the following communication from Mr. Landon. It relates circumstantially the steps that have been taken to make clear all that was mysterious, and to render justice alike to the memory of the dead and the feelings of the living.

"The subjoined statement (says Mr. Landon), may be perhaps acceptable; at least I trust it will show that there has been no slackness on my part in seeking investigation into the cause of my sister's death, and no injustice towards Mr. Maclean.

"Let it be remembered that the first announcement of Mrs. Maclean's death was published in the ‘Watchman,' Dec. 31st, 1838, contained in a letter from Mr. Freeman, the missionary at Cape Coast Castle, and pronounced, by Mr. Maclean's agent, 'to be a disgraceful production, insinuating,