p63 

Extract of a letter from A. C. Hanson, Esquire,
(one of the Editors of the Fed. Repub.)
dated near Baltimore, August 3d, 1812.

"Of my friends and fellow martyrs, when I say they would vie with the picked men of Leonidas, facts will attest the truth of the assertion. Although they had not slept for 36 hours, to the last moment, they were cheerful, conversable and sometimes gay. Not even when the forceing of the jail door was announced by the savage yell of the Mob, nor when they came to the door of the apartment in which we were confined, was there a look, a whisper, or motion of the body, expressive of any thing but cool, collected courage and contempt of death. A different conduct was not to be expected of men, who had embarked in such a cause, with a perfect knowledge of all the consequences, though they never could have anticipated being delivered over to the executioner, through the inhuman treachery of the civil authorities. The Liberty of the Press, the security of property and person, the rights, civil and political, belonging to the meanest citizen, the very principles and privileges, for the assertion and defence of which the War of Independence was declared, we had pledged ourselves to maintain, and at the risk of our lives, and at every extremity not forbidden by the laws. With the Mob and civil authority united against us, the contest was indeed unequal. However, my situation allows me to add but little.

 p64  "All my partners in persecution and suffering whom I have seen or heard from since the massacre, agree in ascribing their injuries to the same men. The names of the Mayor, General Stricker, and John Montgomery, are first on the catalogue of the perfidious, and barbarous monsters; and it will appear, that the advice of the latter, dictated by cowardice, produced the catastrophe.

"My writing to you is more of an experiment than otherwise, and I cannot dictate, as no one will be my amanuensis, the doctors and nurses all uniting in their vows that I shall not write or talk, as I can do neither without danger.

"I have six wounds on the head, either of which, sufficiently severe to induce an inflamation of the brain, without great care. Both collar bones are hurt. The extremity of the spinal bone injured, and excessively painful. — The breast bruised, and now painful. The fore finger of the right hand broken, and the whole hand injured having been twice stabbed, once through, with a pen knife; and the nose broken. — These are the injuries I have received, but they do not give me half the pain that the despondency of my political friends (in Baltimore) inflicts."

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