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[Page 6]
I have been employed, without an imaginary blemish on my character for upwards of thirty five years, and not with a premeditated view of any personal insult to my Prosecutor, or reducing that rank which he holds, in it, conceiving it an incumbent duty on our relative situations, to render that rank mutual support, which its dignity indispensibly requires, as without such impression, discipline could ensure obedience in Ships of War.
However much I abhor the first charge, I have still a far more painful duty remaining to exonerate myself, that of tyranny and oppression, which are odious in their nature and criminal in effect, and I can safely aver that at no period of my life, whensoever armed with authority have I trampled on those laws which equally guard our liberty, and administer redress to the oppressed, and I hope to produce by evidence such satisfactory proofs of my having practised them in the Warrior for the time of ten months which I have commanded her, and altho [although] unpleasant to become thus the interpreter of my own character and actions, yet I feel it an imperious duty due to myself to satisfy the minds of each individual Member of this Court, that my morality and exemplary conduct during that time would ill accord with the crimes wantonly preferred against me; hoping to be successful in that effort and placing implicit confidence in the impartiality, candor, and disinterestedness of this Tribunal, that what I hold most dear in this life, my honor and public character will be restored to me unsullied, with an ample acquittal of the respective charges, maliciously circulated, in which I humbly imagine the service at this juncture is materially concerned, and