Whereas there has been a false report propagated concerning a vessel cast away on Chatham-bar, having on board a cargo of wines,1 and it is farther reported that the owner of said vessel gave the necessary orders for the Captain to proceed to the port of Boston, there to unload the said cargo for the use of the ministerial party, the following affidavit, he hopes, will be satisfactory to the public, and clear him of the supposed charge in the eyes of the unprejudiced:
Philadelphia, ss.
On the 25th day of November, 1775, before George Bryan, Esq; one of the Justices of the Peace for the city and county of Philadelphia, came John Boreman of said city, yeoman, and, on his solemn oath on the Holy Gospel, deposeth and saith, That this deponent, in June last, assisted Mr. Thomas Saltar to make out bills of lading for sundry merchandizes by said Thomas shipped on the sloop Monmouth, whereof Perkins Allen was master; and that this deponent also, at the time last aforesaid, by the direction of said Thomas, drew up orders for the direction of said Perkins Allen as master of said sloop, and that the purport of such orders was that said Perkins Allen should proceed directly from Philadelphia for Fyall, one of the Western Islands, from thence to Surinam, on the continent of South-America, and afterwards to the island of St. Eustatia; and from St. Eustatia to return to Philadelphia, with liberty, if it should be thought proper, to go to Curacoa or Jamaica; and that said orders did not contain any instructions, permission or mention of any touching, calling, or sailing in and with said vessel, or of sending, taking, or carrying her cargo, or the proceeds thereof, to any port or place whatsoever in North-America, or in any of the islands thereto adjacent to the northward of Delaware bay.
And this deponent farther saith, That the orders were written out. by this deponent at a late hour of the evening, before the day of the departure of said sloop, from Philadelphia,2 as aforesaid, and farther this deponent saith not.
John Boreman
Taken and sworn before me, at the said City,
Geo. Bryan.
