Moulin's for a considerable time. Du Moulin now found himself universally shunned; and hearing what Harris had reported from all parts, he brought his action for defamatory words, and Harris, irritated to the highest degree, stood upon his defence; and, in the mean time, having procured a meeting of several persons, who had suffered the same way in their dealings with Du Moulin, they procured a warrant against him, and he was apprehended upon suspicion of counterfeiting the coin. Upon searching his drawers, a great number of pieces of counterfeit gold were found in a drawer by themselves, and several others were picked from other money, that was found in different parcels in his scrutoire; upon further search a flask, several files, a pair of moulds, some powdered chalk, a small quantity of aqua regia, and several other implements were discovered. No doubt could now be made of his guilt, which was extremely aggravated by the methods he had taken to dispose of the money he made, the insolence with which he had insisted upon its being paid him by others, and the perjury by which he had supported his claim; his action against Harris for defamation was also considered as greatly increasing his guilt, and every body was impatient to see him punished. In these circumstances he was brought to his trial, and his many attempts to put off bad money, the quantity found by itself in his scrutoire, and above all, the instruments of coining, which, upon a comparison, exactly answered the money in his possession, being proved, he was upon this evidence convicted, and received sentence of death. It happened that a few days before he was to have been executed, one Williams, who had been bred a seal engraver, but had left his business, was killed by a fall from his horse; his wife, who was then big with child, and near her time, immediately fell into fits and miscarried: she was soon sensible that she could not live, and, therefore, sending for the wife of Du Moulin, she desired to be left alone, and 'then gave her the following account :— That her husband was one of four, whom she named, that had for many years subsisted by counterfeiting gold coin, which she had been frequently employed to put off, and was, therefore, entrusted with the whole secret; that another of these persons had hired himself to Du Moulin as a kind of footman and porter, and being provided by the gang with false keys, had disposed of a very considerable sum of bad money, by opening his master's scrutoire and leaving it there in the stead of an equal number of good pieces, which he took out: that by this iniquitous practice VOL. III. Du Moulin had been defrauded of his business, his credit, and bis liberty, to which in a short tinie his life would be added, if application was not immediately made to save him; by this account, which she gave in great agony of mind, she was much exhausted, and having given directions where to find the persons whom she impeached, she fell into convulsions, and soon after expired. The woman immediately applied to a magistrate, and having related the story she had heard, procured a warrant against the three men, who were taken the same day, and separately examined. Du Moulin's servant steadily denied the whole charge, and so did one of the other two; but while the last was finder examination, a messenger, who had been sent to search their lodgings, arrived with a great quantity of bad money, and many instruments for coining. This threw him into confasion, and the magistrate improving the opportunity, by offering him his life, if he would become an evidence for the king, he confessed that he had been long associated with the other prisoners and the man that was dead, and he directed where other tools and money might be found, but he could say nothing as to the manner in which Du Moulin's servant was employed to put it off. Upon this discovery Du Moulin's execution was suspended, and the king's witness swearing positively that his servant and the other prisoner had frequently coined in his presence, and giving a particular account of the process, and the part which each of them usually performed, they were convicted and condemned to die. Both of them, however, still denied the fact, and the public were still in doubt about Du Moulin. In his defence he had declared that the bad money which was found together, was such as he could not trace to the persons of whom he had received it, that the parcels with which bad money was found mixed, he kept separate, that he might know to whom to apply if it should appear to be bad, but the finding of the moulds and other instruments in his custody was a particular not yet accounted for; as he only alleged in general terms, that he knew not how they came there, and it was doubted whether the impeachment of others had not been managed with a view to save him who was equally guilty, there being no evidence of his servant's treachery, but that of a woman who was dead, reported at second hand by the wife of Du Moulin, who was manifestly an interested party. He was not, however, charged by either of the convicts as an accomplice, a particular which was strongly urged by his friends in his behalf; but it happened that while the public opinion was thus held in suspense, a private drawer was discovered in a chest that belonged to his servant, and in it a bunch of keys, and the impression of one in wax. The impression was compared with the keys, and that which it corresponded with, was found to open Du Moulin's scrutoire, in which the bad money and implements had been found; when this particular, so strong and unexpected, was urged, and the key produced, he burst into tears, and confessed all that had been alleged against him; he was then asked how the tools came in his master's scrutoire, and he answered, that when the officers of justice came to seize his master, he was terrified for himself, knowing that he had in his chest these instruments, which the private drawer would not contain, and fearing that he might be included in the warrant, his consciousness of guilt kept him in continual dread and suspicion; that for this reason, before the officers went up stairs, he opened the scrutoire with his false key, and having fetched his tools from his box in the garret, he deposited them there, and had just locked it when he heard them at the door. In this case, even the positive evidence of Du Moulin, that the money he brought back to Harris was the same he had received of him, was not true, though Du Moulin was not guilty of perjury, either wilfully, or by neglect, inattention, or forgetfulness. And the circumstantial evidence against him, however strong, would only have heaped one injury upon another, and have taken away the life of an unhappy wretch, from whom a perfidious servant had taken away every thing else. The other case, I think, happened still longer ago, and, to the best of my remembrance, it is this: A gentleman died possessed of a very considerable fortune, which he left to his only child, a daughter, and appointed his brother to be her guardian, and executor of his will. The young lady was then about eighteen; and if she happened to die unmarried, or, if married, without children, her fortune was left to her guardian and to his heirs. As the interest of the uncle was now incompatible with the life of the niece, several other relations hinted, that it would not be proper for them to live together. Whether they were willing to prevent any occasion of slander against the uncle, in case of the young lady's death; whether they had any apprehension of her being in danger; or whether they were only discontented with the father's disposition of his fortune, and, therefore, propagated rumours to the prejudice of those who possessed it, cannot be known; the uncle, however, took his niece to his house near Epping Forest, and soon afterwards she disappeared. Great inquiry was made after her, and it appearing, that the day she was missing, she went out with her uncle into the forest, and that he returned without her, he was taken into custody. A few days afterwards he went through a long examination, in which he acknowledged, that he went out with her, and pretended that she found means to loiter behind him as they were returning home; that he sought her in the forest as soon as he missed her; and that he knew not where she was, or what was become of her. This account was thought improbable, and his apparent interest in the death of his ward, and perhaps the petulant zeal of other relations, concurred to raise and strengthen suspicions against him, and he was detained in custody. Some new circumstances were every day rising against him. It was found, that the young lady had been addressed by a neighbouring gentleman, who had, a few days before she was missing, set out on a journey to the north and that she had declared she would marry him when he returned: that her uncle had frequently expressed his disapprobation of the match in very strong terms: that she had often wept and reproached him with unkindness and an abuse of his power. A woman was also produced, who swore, that on the day the young lady was missing, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, she was coming through the forest, and heard a woman's voice expostulating with great eagerness; upon which she drew nearer the place, and, before she saw any person, heard the same voice say, Don't kill me, uncle, don't, kill me; upon which she was greatly terrified, and immediately hearing the report of a gun very near, she made all the haste she could from the spot, but could not rest in her mind till she had told what had happened. Such was the general impatience to punish a man, who had murdered his niece, to inherit her fortune, that upon this evidence he was condemned and executed. About ten days after the execution the young lady came home. It appeared, however, that what all the witnesses had sworn was true, and the fact was found to be thus circumstanced:- The young lady declared, that having previously agreed to go off with the gentleman that courted her, he had given out that he was going a journey to the north; but that he waited concealed at a little house near the skirts of the forest, till the time appointed, which was the day she disappeared. That he had horses ready for himself and her, and was attended by two servants also on horseback. That as she was walking with her uncle he reproached her with persisting in her resolution to marry a man, of whom he disapproved; and after much altercation, she said with some heat, I have set my heart upon it, if I do not marry him it will be my death; and don't kill me, uncle, don't kill me; that just as she had pronounced these words, she heard a gun discharged very near her, at which she started, and inmediately afterwards saw a man come forward from among the trees, with a wood-pigeon in his hand, that he had just shot. That coming near the place appointed for their rendezvous, she formed a pretence to let her uncle go on before her, and her suitor being waiting for her with a horse, she mounted, and immediately rode off. That instead of going into the north, they retired to a house, in which he had taken lodgings, near Windsor, where they were married the same day, and in about a week, went a journey of pleasure to France, from whence when they returned, they first heard of the misfortune which they had inadvertently brought upon their uncle. So uncertain is human testimony, even when the witnesses are sincere; and so necessary is a cool and dispassionate inquiry and determination, with respect to crimes that are enormous in the highest degree, and committed with every possible aggravation. 1754, Sept. VIII. Account of Jedediah Buxton. THE accounts of Jedediah Buxton, which have already been published in the Magazine, were so extraordinary, that many have questioned if they were true; and several letters have been sent to the editor by his friends, to know whether they were fictions written merely for amusement, or whether they were intended as satires upon the pretensions or performances of any adept in arithmetical calculations? To the assurances which were then given of the certainty of the facts, upon the known integrity of the gentlemen by whom they were communicated to the press, much stronger testimony may now be added. His grandfather, John Buxton, was vicar of Elmeton, in Derbyshire, and his father, Wm. Buxton, was schoolmaster of the same parish; but Jedediah, notwithstanding the profession of his father, is extremely illiterate, having, by whatever accident, been so much neglected in his youth as never to have been taught to write. How he came first to know |