“I must now mention a circumstance I failed to do before. Amongst the persons who took refuge in the fort was an English settler, calling himself John Sinclair; he said he was of good family, from Hampshire, was about eight-and-twenty, tall, rather well-looking, and strong and active. Still, you could not call him a gentleman. He possessed a considerable sum of money when he arrived from England, with which he purchased land and negroes, male and female. For two years he led a wild, irregular life; was said to have committed some very bad acts, in fact, he began to be shunned and feared; but, all of a sudden he sold his land, purchased a house in the new town, kept five or six negroes, and set up a kind of store, and, up to the arrival of Colonel Packenham, lived tolerably quiet. It seems he saw the Colonel’s eldest daughter, and openly declared his admiration of her, and became so marked in his endeavours to intrude himself on Miss Packenham’s presence, that the Colonel got angry, and some harsh words ensued; after this John Sinclair kept quiet. He was in the fort when we arrived, and made himself useful, avoided offending the Colonel, but seemed to take a positive dislike to me, and one day had the impudence to tell me I was half a Frenchman. It was no time to quarrel, therefore I merely replied I would take an opportunity to convince him I was entirely an Englishman. The increasing dangers of the siege so occupied us all that I thought little about John Sinclair. I passed all my spare time in the company of the Colonel’s daughters, and every day increased the feeling of affection I experienced for Cherry Packenham. “When the garrison had resolved that the townspeople and all the females should leave, the Colonel was persuaded to leave also with his daughters, for we were only going to keep up a mock defence of the place, to give the inhabitants time to get some miles up the river, out of all fear of pursuit. I saw my kind friends off, and that the two girls and their two black attendants were in a good rowing boat, and bade them farewell for a couple of days. To my surprise, I observed John Sinclair leave in a fast boat, with his four negroes pulling. I did not dwell long on the circumstance, but in the evening I happened to hear his name mentioned by Captain Stanhope. ‘He left in his boat this morning,’ said I. “‘Yes,’ returned the captain, ‘but he said he should be back to-night; he is a bad fellow; I have my suspicions that some years of his life he has either been a pirate or a slave-dealer; and there’s something mysterious now in his movements.’