AN ACCOUNT OF THE SAVAGE TREATMENT OF
CAPTAIN WILLIAM MORGAN,
IN FORT
NIAGARA,
Who was subsequently murdered by the masons, and sunk in Lake Ontario,
for publishing the
SECRETS OF MASONRY.
by Edward Giddins,
formerly keeper of the fort and a Royal Arch
Mason.
© 1996 Acacia Press, Incorporated.
MONTAGUE, MASSACHUSETTS.
Originally Published:
1829
BOSTON: ANTI-MASONIC BOOKSTORE
INTRODUCTION.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM MORGAN, of New York, an
intelligent man, and an inflexible republican, convinced of the dangers of
Secret Societies, in a free Government, resolved to use his best
endeavors for their suppression. Being a Royal Arch Mason, he had witnessed the
corruption of the Institution. He saw it was an engine of personal advantage and
political aggrandizement; that it gave to its members unfair advantages and
extra privileges over the unsuspecting community; that its insidious influence
extended to every transaction in society, raising as it were the Masonic
combination unto a PRIVILEGED ORDER, who, under the Royal Names of GRAND KINGS,
Grand Sovereigns, and Grand High Priests, in darkness and secrecy,
ruled and plundered the people. CAPTAIN MORGAN was a soldier and a brave man. He
saw this detestable conspiracy and he dared to risk his life by bursting
its shackles and warning an injured people! He was seized by a gang of Masonic
desperadoes, who came 60 miles after him, in the morning about sunrise,
Sept. 11, 1826, under a pretended process of law, (in the manner Mr.
Jacob Allen was taken by Masons at Reading) and carried 60 miles, and placed for
safe keeping in a county jail, in the care of a Masonic jailer. Thence he
was taken in stillness of the night, crying murder! murder! and
transported one hundred miles further, and placed in a U.S. fortress, also in
the keeping of a Mason. Here Mr. Giddin's account commences. Thus it appears
that our county jails and our national fortresses are all at the
service of the Masons, to carry their bloody schemes of kidnapping and
murder into execution. Will a free and patriotic people submit to these things
in silence! Fellow citizens! Read this pamphlet, and answer the question, ought a secret society to exist amongst us whose members can commit murder
and yet escape punishment? MASONS HAVE done this, and their brethren, as may
be seen by the oaths on our last page, are sworn to protect them.
Fellow citizens, are men bound by such Obligations and possessing
such principals, FIT to be rulers of a FREE PEOPLE.
Read this and lend it to your neighbor.
A Statement of the facts
Relative to the confinement of
WILLIAM
MORGAN
in Fort Niagara,
and such parts of that conspiracy
as fell
within the knowledge of the writer
In presenting the following
statement of facts, I beg leave to observe that I have no other excuse to make
for the part I took in this foul transaction, than that I was a Royal Arch
Mason, and did at that time consider my Masonic obligations binding upon my
conscience; and now, since these obligations are before the public, I am willing
to abide by their decision, how much I was actuated by principles and how much
by fear; one thing, however, is certain, that although nothing could have been
more repugnant to my natural feelings, yet a sense of duty, and the horrid
consequences of refusal, outweighed every other consideration.
In justice to those who took part in this transaction, I would observe, that
as far as I am acquainted with them, I feel warranted in saying, that they were
urged to those excesses by a strong sense of duty, they blindly thought
themselves bound by the most horrid penalties, to perform; and it is to be hoped
that the world will be charitable to them by commiserating their misfortunes and
extenuating their faults, should they renounce this iniquitous combination, and
honestly and fearlessly disclose the parts they acted in this conspiracy, and
the causes which urged them to it; but, should they still persist in their
obstinate silence, they must not expect that lenity which they otherwise might
be entitled to from an indulgent public.
It is to be hoped that an institution whose very principles lead directly to
such horrid outrages, and which is entirely made up of dissimulation and fraud,
will be completely suppressed in this country and throughout the world, and that
a barrier be instituted to prevent it from ever again polluting the earth with
its insidious influence. But the public must not expect to accomplish this
desirable object without unwanted pains and incessant vigilance; their task is
but commencing, and, should they lack in circumspection or perseverance, the
monster will yet flourish with more power and commit greater enormities than
ever.
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