to have been the writer of this letter.  It was mysterious to them how any one at Belfast could have had knowledge of this affair.  Their conscious guilt prevented due circumspection.  They did not see the bearing of its publication.  They advised their father to carry it to the Committee of Vigilance, and it was so carried.  On the Sunday following, Joseph began to think there might be something in it.  Perhaps, in the mean time, he had seen one of the Crowninshields.  He was apprehensive that they might be suspected; he was anxious to turn attention from their family.  What course did he adopt to effect this?  He addressed one letter, with a false name, to Mr. White, and another to the Committee; and to complete the climax of his folly, he signed the letter addressed to the Committee, “Grant,” the same name as that which was signed to the letter received from Belfast.  It was in the knowledge of the Committee, that no person but the Knapps had seen this letter from Belfast; and that no other person knew its signature.  It therefore must have been irresistibly plain to them that one of the Knapps was the writer of the letter received by the Committee, charging the murder on Mr. White.  Add to this the fact of its having been dated at Lynn, and mailed at Salem four days after it was dated, and who could doubt respecting it?  Have you ever read or known of folly equal to this?  Can you conceive of crime more odious and abominable?  Merely to explain the apparent mysteries of the letter from Palmer, they excite the basest suspicions against a man, whom, if they were innocent, they had no reason to believe guilty; and whom, if they were guilty, they most certainly knew to be innocent.  Could they have adopted a more direct method of exposing their own infamy?  The letter to the Committee has intrinsic marks of a knowledge of this transaction.  It tells the time and the manner in which the murder was committed.  Every line speaks the writer’s condemnation.  In attempting to divert attention from his family, and to charge the guilt upon another, he indelibly fixes it upon himself.

Joseph Knapp requested Allen to put these letters into the post-office, because, said he, “I wish to nip this silly affair in the bud.”  If this were not the order of an overruling Providence, I should say that it was the silliest piece of folly that was ever practised.  Mark the destiny of crime.  It is ever obliged to resort to such subterfuges; it trembles in the broad light; it betrays itself in seeking concealment.  He alone walks safely who walks uprightly.  Who for a moment can read these letters and doubt of Joseph Knapp’s guilt?  The constitution of nature is made to inform against him.  There is no corner dark enough to conceal him.  There is no turnpike-road broad enough or smooth enough for a man so guilty to walk in without stumbling.  Every step proclaims his secret to every passenger.  His own acts come out to fix his guilt.  In attempting to charge another with