186

180.

At the latter place they have feloniously entered the Government
Magazine stolen a large quantity of gunpowder
and have possessed themselves by like means from
the different depositories with no less a number than
twelve field pieces of ordnance and large quantities
of Arms and Ammunition.

The new president regarding all
such illegal proceedings as dangerous to the
public peace and general welfare has called upon
all magistrates and public officers to use every diligence
in bringing to justice persons engaged in
these illegal transactions. Exhorting all well meaning
but deluded persons, who may have joined
the lodges, immediately to abandon them and
to have nothing more to do with their secret meetings,
or unlawful oaths, and expecting the intelligent
and well disposed members of the community
to frown on all these unlawful combinations and
illegal proceedings, to assist the government in maintaining
the peace of the country against the mischievous
consequences of the acts of these violators
of the law - At the same time he has shown
much firmness and determination by causing
the immediate apprehension of the notorious Sett
at Buffalo, the hotbed of the disaffected and in
the very teeth of the Sympathizers on a charge of
having escaped from the Sheriff while in custody
for the attempt to blow up the British Steam Vessel
Great Britain.

This was one of the first acts of