Folios 305-306: Joseph Ellison, Rendezvous, Gravesend. Sends a statement from the...

Folios 305-306: Joseph Ellison, Rendezvous, Gravesend. Sends a statement from the Commanding Officer of the East India Company Extra Ship the Cornwallis. The evidence of the Pilot is identical. On questioning, he calls himself Emanuel Symonds, A Jewish slop seller from Rosemary Lane. He is young and healthy. Captain Ellison wishes to know whether he should regulate him and send him to the fleet, or turn him over to the civil law. Captain Ellison understands that he has defrauded French prisoners on a previous occasion. The Transport Board has been informed of his whereabouts.

Folios 307-308: enclosure with folios 305-306. Statement of James Torry, sworn before Andrew Becket, Mayor of Gravesend and Milton, Town Hall, Gravesend, 31 January 1800. James Torry, Commanding Officer of the Cornwallis, an extra ship of the East India Company, swears under oath that on Thursday 30 January, when the ship was in the Lower Hope, two people approached in a Gravesend short ferry boat. The Officers on board attempted to keep them away, in view of a previous incident when alcohol had been brought on board, but one of them, dressed as a gentleman, came on board and asked whether there were any invalids on board. When told there were, he stated that he had an order from his cousin, Lieutenant Norris of Gravesend, to take them from the ship. He went and ordered the invalids to pack their bedding and to go with him. The invalids had been assisting in sailing the ship from Madras, having been invalided from various ships in the Royal Navy in India and had been very useful on the voyage. They left their duties and went below. The man was asked to show his written orders, but merely said that his cousin, Lieutenant Norris, would come on board at Gravesend but was currently indisposed, and that was why the man on board had been employed, for the last 8 days, on this service. The Downs Pilot complained to Mr Torry, as Commanding Officer in the absence of the Captain who had gone on shore, that there were insufficient hands to take the ship in, and requested that the invalids be ordered to return to their duties. Mr Torry made the request that the invalids stay on board until the ship arrived at Gravesend, where she would anchor. Although the men at first refused to return to their duties, they were persuaded. The man said that Lieutenant Norris would not object. The ferry boat departed and the man remained on board. He stated that they (Lieutenant Norris) had received an order in Council a few days before to take all invalids off homeward bound ships as they were capable of serving on gun boats and river barges, and indeed, several of them had been invalided for minor reasons. The River Pilot, Thomas Jackson, had a good deal of conversation with the man, having first suspected him of being a crimp. He continued with the deception until they reached Gravesend Reach, when an impress service boat arrived. It soon became clear that the gentleman was an imposter, and he was handed over to the Impress Officer.