1811	Little-Belt and President	13

shot was fired from the Little-Belt. The second lieutenant is sure it was; and so swears the junior lieutenant. Both officers of marines and the master depose to the same effect. The chaplain thinks the gun came from the Little-Belt, as he felt no jar in the President. With respect to the second gun, or that admitted to have been fired by the President, the lieutenant of marines swears it went off " in six seconds," and the master " in three or four seconds," after the first, or Little-Belt's gun.

So that the two guns were fired within, taking the lowest estimate, three seconds of each other. Might not the guns have been fired at the same instant ? In short, might there not have been one gun, and one gun only fired ? If so, that must have been the President's gun, because one of her guns is admitted to have gone off by accident ; while the most positive denial exists as to the occurrence of any accident of the kind on board the Little-Belt. Moreover the captain, two lieutenants, master, and surgeon of the latter have solemnly declared, that the first gun was fired from the President. In this they are borne out by two British seamen, who, in company, as they say, with nearly 300 more, were on board the President during the action ; and who, fearing a rupture with their native country, deserted from the frigate soon after she arrived at New-York, and proceeded to Halifax, Nova-Scotia. One of these men, William Barnet, swears that he was stationed at the second division of guns on the main deck ; that, while the commodore was hailing the second time, a gun in his division went off, he thinks by accident ; that he was then looking at the Little-Belt through one of the ports, and is positive that she did not fire. The other man, John Russell, corroborates his shipmate's testimony, and adds, that a man got entangled in the lanyard of the lock and thus occasioned the gun to go off. Barnet swears also, that Lieutenant Belding, who commanded in his division, knew and declared that the President fired the first shot, and, just before dark, saw with his glass, and observed to him, that the Little-Belt's colours were British. Barnet states likewise, that the ship was a small ship. It is therefore easy to conjecture, why Lieutenant Belding was not summoned to give his evidence at the court of inquiry : perhaps the other absent lieutenant might have been equally unfit for a witness in the commodore's cause.

Not a doubt, therefore, remains upon our mind, that the first gun was fired, unintentionally we admit, by the American frigate ; and, had the British sloop immediately opened her fire in return, being satisfied at the time that it was a neutral man of war she was engaging, we should have no hesitation in saying, that Captain Bingham acted with precipitation : that he ought to have repeated his hail, or sent an officer on board, to demand an explanation. As it was, however, both parties appear to have given a simultaneous vent to their fury ; one, as Lieutenant

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