The Enquirer

THE DARTMOOR TRAGEDY.
We published without comment, the other day, the official papers recently transmitted to our government respecting the murderous business at Dartmoor. We offered no comment, because we desired not to appear unwilling to listen to the vindication of the conduct of the British government. That motive however ought not to stop our mouths altogether--and, right glad as we should certainly be to find that this affair was a mere accident, a concurrence of mischances and fortuitous circumstances, a smooth story cannot entirely offset a very different conviction forced on our minds, a conviction which cannot be resisted, that flows from the numerous statements by an hundred different persons, most of them sealed by the stamp of a solemn oath. If the treatment of our prisoners had been thus humane as represented, if they had acted thus idly as is stated, and drawn on themselves just censure, is it possible, think you, reader, that sober, upright, intelligent American citizens, bystanders and witnesses of the murder of our citizens, could have so mis-stated the facts, as, if the official statement be true, they assuredly have done? What motive can be rationally assigned for such conduct on their part? None that we can imagine. We have no disposition to deny credit to the facts stated by the true commissioners, not doubting in the least but they are truly represented as given in evidence to them. But, to the reasoning, to the inference of motives and probabilities, perhaps objection may be made. Some of our readers will perhaps think our Commissioner Mr. King yielded rather too far his native feeling to that spirit of conciliation, which he appears to have considered necessary to secure the signature of his colleague in the inquisition.
We shall probably publish, for the further information of our readers, one or two of the best authenticated statements by the prisoners, which offer so entirely a different view of the murder as to entitle them at least to republication. If there be any of the witnesses of the massacre, most of whom have returned to the U. States, who concur in the statement which has been last published, we should also be glad to receive and publish their view of the subject. In great sincerity we declare, that our only object is correct information, and that we shall certainly not regret being enabled to correct the impressions we have heretofore expressed of this horrid butchery.