1. The first enclosure is a two-page petition, addressed by Hazleton, master of the brig Nancy, to Boston district court judge John Davis, claiming that during the previous summer “certain articles belonging to passengers” were secretly unloaded at night “by persons on board,” when the brig was delayed by fog at Holmes Hole while returning from Havana, Cuba, to Boston. Hazelton suspected a conspiracy between the second mate and a customs officer to defraud the revenue, but he was fined $1,000 and had already tried to recover that penalty on the grounds that he was innocent of any fraud. He complained that he had been “kept from his regular employment ever since September last” and was unable to pay the fine. He requested Davis to make an inquiry into the case and state the findings to the Secretary of the Treasury. Davis set a hearing for 17 Feb. 1816, and five days later he sent Dallas a two-page report explaining the basis for his decision. Filed with this report is a 14 Mar. 1816 letter from Hazleton (1 p.), evidently intended for JM, in which he states that he had already written to the president on 14 Dec. 1815 about his case (letter not found) and had received no reply. Hazelton pointed out that he had been detained for seven months, was unable to pay the fine, and could not support his wife and “two Small Children.” He requested that he be liberated from confinement in order to support his family (cover docketed by JM: “Capt. John Hazelton.”).