in the neighbourhood of Hopefield,
Clarke had received a letter, signed Thomas Tully, and stamped with the
Natchez postmark. The contents were to the effect that his child was
still living, that the writer of the letter knew where he was, and that,
if Mr Clarke would enclose a fifty-dollar bank-note in his answer, he
should receive further information. On receipt of the said sum, the
writer said he would indicate a place to which Mrs Clarke might repair,
unaccompanied, and there, upon payment of two hundred dollars more, the
child should be delivered up.

Upon receiving this letter, the unfortunate father consulted with his
friends and neighbours; and, by their advice, he wrote immediately to
the postmaster at Natchez, informing him of the circumstances, and
requesting that the person who applied for his answer might be detained.
Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and
enquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The
postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of
others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and
captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the letter, it appeared
that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about
Natchez, and had endeavoured to establish a school there. As he,
however, had been unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, of
where he came from, or what he had been doing up to that time, and as
his manner and appearance were moreover in the highest degree suspicious
and repulsive, he had not succeeded in his plan, and the few parents who
sent their children to him had speedily withdrawn them. He was known at
Natchez by the name of Thomas Tully, nor did he now deny that that was
his name, or that he had sent the letter, which was written in a
practised schoolmasterlike hand. It was further elicited that he was
perfectly acquainted with the paths and roads between Natchez and
Hopefield, and in the neighbourhood of those two places, as well as with
the swamps, creeks, and rivers there adjacent. He was fully committed,
till such time as the father of the stolen child should be made
acquainted with the result of the examination.

In five days Clarke arrived with the negro boy Caesar. The whole town
showed the greatest sympathy with the poor man's misfortune, the lawyers
offered him their services free of charge, and a second examination of
the prisoner took place.