The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1868-04-21

!. ,he indictment against me had not
Annnefh enough to stand alone, ana DIED OF its
ewn weakness, yet published the sworn evidence
i OF every person In my employment, showing my
4 ;rculation to have been considerably greater
than sworn to by me. That was the end of the
case. But the wings had accomplished one OBJ
ject, viz they had then an Opportunity to say
had "been indicted and they win probably con
tinue to repeat it as long as live, though they
know was entirely innocent, and proven % %
40 by eight unimpeaehable Witnesses. Inear tool
(Bowie,l after being himself indicted, feared 10
try his case here, and took change OF venue 10
Henry. Afterwards he came to my office with
Mr.. Jere. S. Smith, and begged me, with tears IN
his eyes to have mercy on his family, II not on
him, and not prosecute and send him to the peni-
tertiary. He brought me his sworn affidavit that.
he was perjurer, and that every word he had
sworn to about me was false; and let him go.
That affidavit have now in my possession
That all there is of the great perjury case. But
never supposed "Bob' Smith had anything to
do with it, for he was on our side then. Thus
much for the TribHne's statement"
The third and last item is the false charge
that we were cashiered &C., &c, from the
navy. We were not cashiered ,or dismissed,
or anything OF the sort. 1t is true, however,
as we have often stated in these columns,
that we were tried, not for any act committed
by us, but for the actof a dishonest clerk, and
for whose acts, technically, we were RESPONSE
| BILE. The errors committed were fully corrected
| and voluntarily reported to the commodore
| By us and the clerk was sent out of the ship.
| No fraud was perfected and not one cent
| taken from the United States-not cent
The trial was merely formal, no witnesses
being called or arguments made,-and
President Buchanan, over his own signature,
set the whole thing aside, leaving Us in pro-
cisely the same position as If it had never
taken place. The people who publish
garbled extracts from the record know thu:
fact. but they are careful to suppress it, as
| its publication would explode their lie abou
being cashiered.
Of course the villains who are repeating
: the story that we were dismissed, know theI
are guilty of falsehood when they publish it
and we here repeat the extract from our let
ter which appears in the Uaion viz:
SIT is wholly untrue that was "cashiered" o
| or "disgracefuIly dismissed or dismissed o
discharged in any manner. Any one VINO aesi re
to do so can see in my Office letter from tn
secretary of the navy, honorably accepting m
resignation"
The new editors of the Union, in film
o their columns with the oft-refuted slander
of Bob Smith, Jim Beardsley and Buzzar
Barnes, are, of course, actuated only by q
honest and since devotion to the publ
!. good certainly of course they have n
. other motive in repeating these lies a
! though we must say that their ''skillful di
r play of rhetoric was something quite su
v prizing-and their garbling of the reco'
!. made them guilty of a very mean forgery
= They are welcome to all the glory of the
achievement, while we rest easy under Il
>. | consciousness that neither the United Stat
or any individual was ever, by us, defraude
or wrongfully deprived of dollar or ia
thing.