labouring to destroy.  The secret was soon discovered, and I am now prepared to satisfy the public mind that the attacks upon my present relation to society have arisen from something more than an ignorant prejudice.  These hireling editors knew I had the materials to draw their portraits at full length in all their moral hideousness; and they feared society would be thrown into spasms at the sight, and they would be hurled from their stations of trust by an enraged and insulted people.  It has only been necessary in one or two instances to give them a few hints of the information I possessed, and they were hushed up Instanter.

A long time had elapsed since I heard from the mysterious stranger who gave me the box,—­long enough, I had supposed, to free me from obligation of further restraint upon my curiosity.  It had now been in my possession several years, and I felt myself at liberty to examine its contents.  Having consulted with a few friends previously, I then made known, in the fall of 1842, to Rev. John F. Wright—­formerly of the Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati—­that I had such a box, and my intentions.  I likewise gave the same information to Arthur Vance—­formerly of Lawrenceburgh, Indiana—­Mr. John Norton, of Lexington, Kentucky—­Thomas M. Gallay, of Wheeling, Virginia.  I informed each of them how I came by the box, and the unaccountable conduct of the man who placed it in my hands.  Having opened it, I found the same number of parchments I had missed from the package, all blank in appearance.  In these was a note, which read as follows: 

“The parchments, now in the hands of the possessor, contain much sad intelligence, and can be read, provided they are heated. They are exposed by A brother of the band, A doomed man, one the world has known to its sorrow for forty years.  May the owner and holder consider the doomed one A most kind friend for ever!

“New Orleans, May 3d, 1832.”

I soon hastened to ascertain the contents of the parchments, and found the statement made correct.

CHAPTER XI.

The contents of these papers are such as almost stagger belief, even in the most credulous.  They not only go to prove the existence of a league of villany, but also laid open the machinery by which their wickedness was concealed; still, from many incidents of my own life, and from what I have learned by observing events which have transpired around me, as well as from narratives of undoubted truth which I have heard, I am constrained to believe that the band above alluded to does now exist, and that it has flourished for a long time, with astonishing power.