I ascribe the fact that, whilst never doubting Mr. Johnson's general accuracy, some discrepancies, I found subsequently in certain points, between Mr. Johnson's version of what I said to him and my own recollections of it.
36. The principal discrepancy is connected with Mr. Johnson's statement that I had said the Governor described the book as the Catalogue of the Secret Museum at Naples. My own recollection is that I said to Mr. Johnson, that the Governor, though he had formerly described the book as the Catalogue of the Secret Museum at Naples, had, within a few days of his departure, described it, and told me to describe it, not as such but simply as a book containing decidedly indecent pictures.
37. When Mr. Hayllar took out the writ against me, I called on Mr. Johnson and reminded him that when he spoke to me I made a distinction between the official act of showing him the documents in the case and the explanations which I had been instructed to give him, and which he ought to consider private. Mr. Johnson replied that he must be at liberty to make what use he deemed fit of the information he elicited from me and that he had advised Mr. Hayllar to take proceedings in Court in order to get at the real truth in the whole matter. I suggested a Committee of Honour to investigate the whole affair privately,