Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/780

656 shut, and in particular their shutting the door of No. 7, which the prisoners usually go in and out at (and which was formerly always the last one closed), and leaving one open in the other end of the prison, which was exposed to a cross-fire from the soldiers on the walls, and which the prisoners had to pass in gaining the prison.

"It appears to us that the foregoing reasons sufficiently warrant the conclusions we have drawn therefrom. We likewise believe, from the depositions of men who were eye-witnesses of a part of Shortland's conduct on the evening of the 6th April, that he was intoxicated with liquor at the time, from his brutality in beating a prisoner, who was then supporting another, severely wounded; from the blackguard and abusive language he made use of; and from his having frequently been seen in the same state: his being drunk was of course the means of inflaming his bitter enmity against the prisoners, and no doubt was the principal cause of the indiscriminate butchery, and of no quarter being shown.

"We here solemnly aver, there was no preconcerted plan to attempt breaking out. There cannot be produced the least shadow of a reason or inducement for that intention, the prisoners daily expecting to be released, and to embark on board cartels for their own native country. And we solemnly assert, likewise, that there was no intention of resisting, in any manner, the authority of the government of this depôt.