128 C. O. ERMATINGER
back to Stikine, to be examined with the rest; a'nd, in the meantime, for fear of his deserting, kept him on board the Cadboro, and on a trip to Vancouver Island, where he saw Douglas (I would not see him at this place, nor would I allow him put his foot in the Fort) to whom at once he con- fessed that there had been a plot formed and an agreement sighed, among all the people of the place, to murder the
deceased that this agreement had been drawn out by ,
who acted temporarily as assistant to the deceased that he had never seen him drink and in every material point con- tradicted the depositions taken by Sir George.
"I then determined to send Manson, with a complete new complement of men, to examine all the men, and, if this man's deposition was well founded, to put the men against whom there were charges, in prison and tra'nsfer them to the Russians, who alone can try them criminally and on examination the men say, the agreement to which the man alludes was not to murder my son, but a complaint against my son which they intended to present to Sir George who was momentarily expected. It is proved they never presented this complaint, and they say they destroyed it, because it was too dirty to be presented to Sir George Simpson; but on examining their complaints according to their own state- ment he flogged one man for sleeping on his watch in the night, and which he deserved, for it might have led to the mur- der of the whole establishment one man for righting and not being willing to cease fighting when ordered one man for giving his property to Indian women which disabled him from doing his duty, unless re-equipped and four for steal- ing. And the man who made the declaration to Mr. Douglas, and the murderer, are accused of having proposed repeatedly to the others to murder my son of which I do not know that any informed him, though it seems he knew it, as he is said to have said, "You want to murder me, but if you do, you will murder a man!"; and one of the men confesses that he was told by Ant Kawanasse, an Iroquois, that the murderer told him the deceased was to be murdered that
