His appointed time was come, and those eternal decrees, by which all men are ordained once to die, had stinted the farther progress. of his life to this fatal minute. In that punctilio of time, wherein the bullets struck him, e're giving warning by a dying groan, or being tortured by those almost inseparable concomitants of death, convulsive motions, he is in an instant disanimated, the swiftness of the action not giving warning to his clerk, though then in the room, to assist his murdered master, till, perceiving him lean his head on the desk, and knowing him not apt to fall asleep as he wrote, conceiving that some more than ordinary distemper was the cause of it, he draws near to assist him; but, being suddenly terrified with the unexpected sight of blood, such an amazing horror seizes him, that, for the present, he is, in a dreadful extasy, lost to action: but, speedily recollecting himself, he, with an hasty summons, calls up some of the houshold, by whose assistance he discovers what sad disaster had bereaved him of his master. They speedily make down into the street, but found there nothing that might light them with the least beam of information; all, as if directed by those evil angels that favour such black designs, appearing, as they conceived, more silent and still than is usual in this populous city, at that time of night. Officers are raised, and Mr. Fussel's son acquainted with the sad news; who, e're he could spare time to mourn his father's unexpected death, must, with more active passion (as near as those dark suspicions, which only directed them, could give leave), prosecute his revenge. Several places are troubled with a fruitless search; the first, that was apprehended, being a barber, whose lodging being in the same house with Mr. Fussel's, and he that night absent, gave them very pregnant causes of suspicion, all being aggravated by the wild humour of his wife, and she exasperated by the extravagancy of her husband, as if she had done it purposely to foment their suspicion: besides, that constant torrent of her passion, which ran with the usual current of ordinary scolds, had some collateral streams of expressions; so that, had not the sudden providence of the Almighty, Protector of innocence, by as much of miracle as this latter age hath heard of, discovered the author of the murder, it had, without doubt, wafted her husband to a gibbet: but, presuming that, for what she did then, in the hot intemperance of a jealous rage, she hath long since made a calm recantation, I will here give no farther occasion of continuing a difference betwixt them, but go on in the prosecution of my story, which proceeded thus:

Having yet apprehended none, that they had, on former differences, any important reasons to suspect, young Mr. Fussel, calling to mind these irreconcileable quarrels, which had of long time been between his father and his uncle Strangeways; and knowing him to be a man, whose impetuous rage had formerly been so often allayed in blood, that, though the then motive to it being a legitimate war, made the action not only honest, but honourable, yet, being so well versed in that killing trade, he might still retain enough of the sharp humour to sharpen his anger into

so vindictive a guilt, that he might be prompted to act what weaker spirits would tremble to think.

Upon which considerations, he propounds to the officers the apprehending of him; which motion, finding a general approbation, is suddenly prosecuted, and he apprehended between two and three in the morning, being then in bed at his lodging in the Strand, over against Ivy bridge, at one Mr. Pim's, a tailor, a door on this side the Black Bull. He, being now in the officers' custody, is had before Justice Blake, by whom, although with an undaunted confidence denying the act, he is committed to Newgate, where remaining till the next morning, he is then by a guard conveyed to the place where Mr. Fussel's body lay, where, before the coroner's jury, he is commanded to take his dead brother-inlaw by the hand, and to touch his wounds; a way of discovery, which the defenders of sympathy highly applaud (on what grounds, here is no place to dispute). But here the magnetism fails; and those effluviums, which, according to their opinion, being part of the anima media, tenaciously adhere to the body, till separated by its corruption, being the same that, by united atoms becoming visible, compose those spectrums that wander about the cœnotaphs and dormitories of the dead; and do, when hurried from the actions of vitality by a violent death, as endeavouring to revenge its wrongs, fly in the face of the murderer, and, though in such minute parts as are too subtile for the observations of sense, keep still hovering about him; and, when he is brought to touch the murdered body, which was its former habitation, by the motion of sympathy, calls from those sally-ports of life some of those parts of her life, which yet remain within it; who, that they may flow forth to meet it, are conveyed in the vehiculum of the blood. They illustrate this by dogs, and other animals, which, with a violent impetuosity, assail those that make a custom of murdering things of the same species.

There having been nothing discoverable by this experiment, he is returned back to the prison, and the jury, though but with little hopes of satisfaction, continue their inquest; when now, to the amazing wonder of future ages, and the farther confirmation of those continued miracles, by which the all-discerning power of the eternal and ever-living God pleases often to manifest itself in the discovery of black and secret murders, which, though acted in the silent region of the night, and plotted with all the deep obscurity that hell and the black spirits of eternal darkness can lend to the assistance of such dismal and horrid designs, yet are disveloped by ways so unthought of, even by those which torture their wits for discovery, that man, though adorned with all the knowledge the world's first transgressors ravished from the forbidden tree, instead of an angel-illuminated paradise, finds his fancy clouded in a chaos of confusion, black and obscure as that which, e're penetrated by heaven's segregating breath, spread its gloomy curtains over the first unformed matter.

Several questions are propounded amongst all, by the foreman

of the jury; one of which, though not to the disparagement of the gentleman, succeeding ages will count more fortunate than wise. It was this: that all the gunsmiths' shops in London, and the adjacent places, should be examined what guns they had either sold or lent that day. This being a question, in the apprehension of most of the jury, so near approaching to an impossibility, as not, without much difficulty, to be done; one Mr. Holloway, a gunsmith, living in the Strand, then one of the jury, makes answer, It was a task, in his opinion, who knew how numerous men of that profession were, in and about the city, not to be done; withal replying, that, for his own part, he lent one, and made no question but several others had done the like. This answer of his being, by the apprehensive foreman, speedily took notice of, he is demanded, for the satisfaction of the rest of the jury, to declare to whom he lent the gun. He, after some small recollection, answers, to one Mr. Thomson, living in Long-Acre, formerly a major in the king's army, and now married to a daughter of Sir James Aston. Upon this, a speedy search is made after Major Thomson, who, being abroad, as some say fled, though most moderate men conceive, about his ordinary occasions, it being unlikely any man would discover a guilt by flight, which, if culpable of, though by all charitable people the contrary is generally hoped, he might rationally expect more security in a confident stay, than in a betraying absence; besides, being of no former acquaintance with Mr. Fussel, there was no probable cause to render him suspected.

But, with our charitable prayers for his freedom, referring our censures, either of his innocence or guilt, to his further trial at the next sessions, we will return to our relation.

Major Thomson not being found, his wife is taken in hold, who, though clearing herself from the knowledge of any such thing as borrowing of the gun, yet is continued a prisoner till her husband shall be produced; who, being then about some urgent occasions in the country, on the first news of her confinement, suddenly hastens to London, where, being examined before a justice of peace, he confesses he borrowed a carbine that day of Mr. Holloway, and that he borrowed it at the desire of Mr. George Strangeways, who acquainted him with no farther use he intended to make of it, than for the killing of a deer: for which use, he charged it with a lease of bullets, and, as some say, a slug, which, I believe not, there being but two orifices, where they entered his head, and one bullet sticking in the window.

If any object two bullets may enter at one orifice, though it be something unlikely, we will not stand to dispute it; the number not being so uncertain, as their fatal errand was certainly performed.

Being thus charged and primed, between the hours of seven and eight at night, he meets Mr. Strangeways in St. Clement's Churchyard, to whom he delivers the gun. Where he spent that interval of time, between the reception of it and the execution of the mur

ther, is uncertain, he having left in that kind no satisfying relation. It is, most like, traversing the streets near the place, that so he might take advantage of the fairest opportunity which now unluckily offers itself.

Mr. Fussel, in the manner as is declared before, was retired into his chamber; he that shot the gun, as some report, stood on a bulk belonging to a pewterer, living over-right Mr. Fussel's lodging; but it is something unlikely, the bulk being of such a shelving form, as not to admit a firm standing place, unless he stood on that end of it next to Temple-Bar, which, if so, the situation of the window would have forced him to shoot much sloping; wherefore I rather conceive, which hath been to some confirmed by Major Strangeways's own confession, that he which shot stood on the ground, which hath the most probable appearance of truth, the window not being so high as to impede his aim, nor the distance so great for the shot to lose its force, though the carlip is but short, wanting some inches of a yard in the barrel, as is affirmed by young Mr. Fussel, in whose hands it now is.

To give you a certain relation who fired the gun, is that which I believe no man living can do, except there be, which I hope not, some such unhappy person yet alive, Mr. Strangeways carrying that great secret with him to his grave, denying to reveal it at the sessions here, as reserving it for the general assize hereafter; but, joining with the common opinion of most men, I think it to be himself, knowing him to be a person that, through the whole course of his life, in those actions that deserved the name of discreet, shewed too great a want of that in this, where a wicked subtlety was as requisite as ever, in his former actions, a noble policy had been, to commit his life, which lay exposed to the danger of every engager's discovery, into the hands of many, in the per forming an act which might, with more facility, be done by one. When he had fired it, the streets were so empty, that he passed unnoted by any. Between the hours of ten and eleven, he brought back the gun to Major Thomson's house, where leaving it, he retires to his lodging, where, in his absence, he had left one to personate him. That piece of policy being thus performed, he comes, according to his usual custom, into his lodging, about seven in the evening, and, going up into his chamber, made some small stay there; from whence, taking the advantage of a time, in which he found the employments of the houshold such, as not to have the leisure to take much notice of his actions, he secretly conveys himself down the stairs, and, having a private way of opening the door, conveys himself out, and his disguised friend in; who, by those of the family, being oft heard walking about the chamber, occasions that mistaken deposition of theirs, concerning his being in the house.

Having now concluded that act of darkness he went about, he is once more returned to his lodging, and secretly discharges his disguised friend; hastening to bed, he lay there, though, in all probability, with no very quiet night's rest, till three in the morning, at which time the officers, sent to apprehend him, enter the

house, and, hastening to his chamber, make known their dreadful errand; an act enough to have frighted a timerous soul to a present confession; but he, with a resolved constancy, slights those terrors of the law, and, without any such reluctancy, as argued the least depression of spirit, goes with them before Justice Blake, by whom, though carefully examined, there was nothing discoverable that could render him any ways suspected, more than the former enmity betwixt them. However, he is on suspicion committed to Newgate; where, remaining with a countenance that appeared no ways clouded with guilt, he continued constant in the denial of the fact. In the interval between the time he was first committed, and his confession, he fell violently ill of a sharp and dangerous pleurisy ; in which acute distemper, though summoned by the approaches of death, he continued in a resolute denial of the fact. But God, whose judgments here in this appeared but the road to his mercies hereafter, freed him from that less ignominious death, that, dying by the formalities of law, the burthening of his body might in confession disburthen his soul. This was the time in, which some of the church of Rome, and those of the more learned sort of the clergy, gave him frequent visits, and, as they have caused it to be reported, converted him to their church. What of truth there is in this, with what the opinion generally received is, you shall hear toward the conclusion of our story.

On the Monday following the time of his being apprehended, being the one-and-twentieth of February, Major Thomson, to hasten the enlargement of his imprisoned wife, being returned to London, makes a full discovery before an officer, on what occasion he borrowed the gun, and in what manner, and at what time, he delivered it to Mr. Strangeways, in St. Clement's church-yard; who, on this happy discovery, is brought before Justice La Wright, he that took the examination of Mr. Thomson. Here it being demanded of him, on what occasion he caused the gun to be borrowed, and brought to him charged at that time of the night, with such other questions as most immediately concerned the business in hand; and withal, seeing Major Thomson there, whose discovery he had so little cause to doubt; that now seeing it performed, and not being able to apprehend the manner how, he, in an amazed terror, after some minutes of a deep and considerate silence, in a most pathetical manner, acknowledging the immediate hand of God to be in this wonderful detection, no longer veils his guilt with confident denials, but, in an humble and submissive lowliness of spirit, such as rather strove with the tears of a penitential Magdalen, to expunge the rubrick characters of his guilt, than with the brazen impudence of a despairing Cain, by a sullen and surly denial, to fly the mercies of that God, whose vengeance will pursue him he hath now confessed the fact-he stands now a contrite penitent, with the excellent Seneca, acknowledging that,

Maxima peccantium pœna est peccâsse.

Epist. 97.

Yet, though a convicted murtherer, he is the compassionated object of all the beholders, whose heads he now makes foun