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which I am pleased to give) pay him wages in full for it, pay him what you think is right, or pray send some other person to do it as my family cannot do it all.
As for Nicholls charge about abuse, and threats, and striking and starving him, is all as false as craft and villainy can make it, and I deny every part of it, and to throw as much light on the subject as I can, I have collected all the information from the people that I can some of whom have signed & sworn too, others would neither sign nor swear, but have confessed that the statements are true, which I send you with this letter. You know gentlemen that there is a law, for you made it, and it is specified on the articles, and every man that signs them is made acquainted with it, that disobedience of orders, or absence without leave, lays the person so acting liable to forfeiture, of cloths, goods, & chattles and whatever wages may be due him at the time. Nichols has laid himself liable to this penalty; and you well know that there is law here made by Sir James Kempt, and the Honbl Micheal Wallace in 1822, that all persons cast away on the Island, or idle persons on it shall receive from the stores of the establishment, one pound of bread, & one pound of meat per day, or an equivalent, and no more until they can be sent therefrom, Nicholls an idle person has received this and more, if he chose to make use of it, and it was high time that something of this law should be put in force, as through a long period of the practice of kindess, and forebearance, the people had learned from one another that there was nothing to fear, and that they might do as they pleased and laugh at the authorities.
As for His Excellencys not complying with my wishes as to extra ammunition, I of course must bow with humble submission to the declared opinion of the Commander in Chief, although that opinion may have been formed under a wrong impression. And I humbly thank His Excellency that he has given his opinion at all. And my departing from the regular course of passing documents through the hands of the commissioners is in this case only frankly acknowledged and although it was painful to me to do so, I yet think that I had sufficient reasons to justify thte sit, and particularly as the case would not have been bettered by it.
My letter of the 26th of August (not the 29th) containing matter