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On the night of the 18th instant, about eleven o' clock, the said William Smith coming past the guard-house, at the corner of the Fly Market, was hailed by the sentry, and gave the countersign rather too loud, on which the sentry took him to the guard-house, where the said Johnson was Captain of the guard, who immediately, without any other provocation, gave orders to have him confined up stairs, in company with two or three vagabonds, in the dark, (saying, if the rascal did not know his duty, he would bring him to a sense of it,) where he, by accident, broke some glass windows that were in the way; from thence he was ordered into close confinement, Johnson not allowing him even to sit down on the stairs, or to write to his wife to inform her where he was; which usage so irritated him that he could not refrain from cursing him, as he readily acknowledges; when Johnson struck him with his fist. In this place he was confined till about nine o' clock the next morning, a negro man standing sentry over him, whom Johnson commanded several times to run the said William Smith through the body with his bayonet, which he can bring a witness to prove. He,
WILLIAM SMITH.
New-York, June 20, 1776.
Complaint of William Smith to the New-York Congress, against Captain Johnson, of Colonel McDougall' s Regiment
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therefore, as a citizen, humbly requests the honourable Provincial Congress to take the above into consideration, and desires, through their means, satisfaction for the same.