examined, but their evidence was not very material. Two of them deposed to having met Bolam a few minutes before seven o'clock on the evening in question, walking in a hurried manner between the Sand-hills and the Lide, in the direction of the bank. A woman, who lived next door to Bolam, heard a pane of glass break in a window at the back of his house about five o'clock, and the backdoor of the yard open and shut several times between seven o'clock and ten.

The evidence for the prosecution occupied the whole of one day, and, on the next, Mr. Dundas addressed to the jury an elaborate speech on behalf of the prisoner. He dwelt on the improbability of Bolam, a man who had borne the highest character for years for kindness and humanity, and who had acted in the most friendly and considerate manner towards the deceased up to the moment of the murder, being guilty of so foul a crime; a crime, too, without any assignable motive, since, according to the cashier, who had the inspection of the books and accounts, there had been neither abstraction nor deficiency in the money at the bank. He urged the fact of the appearance and condition of the prisoner's clothes, as a proof that he could not have been the person who had handled and laid out the body of the deceased in the way that had been described. He referred to the evidence of Mr. Glenton, as proving that the insensibility of the prisoner could not have been assumed. As to the anonymous letters, if Bolam's statement, that he had received three letters of that description, all of which he subsequently stated he had burned, had been an un

truth, nothing in the world could have been more easy than for him to have written these letters in a disguised hand, and left them in his desk.

On behalf of the prisoner, no less than seventeen witnesses, all persons of great respectability, were called as to character. They uniformly described the prisoner as of a most humane inoffensive disposition, and of unexceptionable conduct.

Mr. Baron Maule charged the jury, summing up the evidence, and commenting upon it, as he went along. "The prosecutor's case," he observed, "was, that about half-past seven o'clock the prisoner deliberately murdered Millie, and then went back to his house and broke a pane of glass to get in; that he made the cuts in the back of the coat, without corresponding cuts on the person; that he cut holes in his coat, with no cuts in the flesh to correspond with them; that he cut his throat, letting out half a pint of blood, and giving himself a knock on the temple to conceal the murder. There are great difficulties, remarked the learned judge, in the case for the prosecution, but there are also difficulties in that of the defence. It is a great question whether the fire was lighted to consume the body that it should not be discovered. There is no doubt that the prisoner was found in such a state that if he had remained a few minutes longer he would not have been here. It might be that a person having committed such a crime would be inclined to commit suicide, but that does not agree with so slight a cut in the throat. There are two other ways of treating the case. The prisoner may be guilty of the death of Millie under other circumstances.

Some difference or altercation may have taken place between them. The evidence goes to show that there was no ill-will or malice; but among a thousand causes some spark of anger may have been kindled and blown up; a scuffle may have ensued, and the man at the bar may, in a state of excitement, have been the death of the deceased; and if he were so, and blows passed between them in conflict, he would have been guilty of manslaughter, and that would furnish motives enough for a state. ment which would, in his opinion, screen him from banishment from his native country and his friends. The holes in the coat might have

been made in a scuffle. This view furnishes motives quite sufficient for the fire as well as for the other facts. Again, you may hold, looking at all the inferences on both sides, that the facts are insufficient to show that the prisoner is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. The prisoner had received a good character, which shows that he was an unlikely person to do it at all; and whether you think the case is involved in so much mystery as to leave you to doubt or not, you will give him the benefit of that character."

After an absence of about three hours, the jury returned a verdict of "Manslaughter."

MONMOUTH SPECIAL COMMISSION, JAN. 1.

soner had not had

list of witnesses delivered to him, pursuant to the statute of the 7th Anne, cap.

TREASON,

Soon after 7 o'clock, a. m., the judges (sir N. Tindal, Chief Justice, Mr. Baron Parke, and Mr. Justice Williams) entered the court, and the prisoner was placed at the bar. The indictment preferred against him, consisted of four counts, in two of which he was charged with levying war against her majesty, in her realm; in the third, he was charged with compassing to depose the queen from her throne; and in the fourth, with levying war against the queen, with the intent to compel her to change her measures.

Before the commencement of the trial, much time was occupied in the consideration of an objection alleged by the prisoner's counsel to be in the way of its being farther proceeded with, viz., that the pri

witnesses should be delivered to the prisoner, at the same time with the copy of the indictment. In the present case, the list of witnesses, was proved to have been delivered to the prisoner five days subsequent to the date on which the copy of the indictment had been given him. After hearing the arguments of counsel on both sides, in reference to the objection raised on the grounds aforesaid, the judges eventually decided to allow the trial to proceed, and take the opinion of her majesty's judges on the validity of the point, provided that such proceedings should become necessary.

The Attorney-general then rose and laid the case for the prosecution before the court and jury. He explained at length the law of high treason; and called attention

particularly to those interpretations of the law by eminent judges which brought riotous assemblages, for public, not private objects, within its scope. He then proceeded to describe the geographical character of the country in which the insurrection had taken place. It was, he said, in a great degree, wild and mountainous, and abounded, in every part, with mines of coal and of iron, which have been, of-late years, worked to a very considerable extent, so that in a district where, fifty years since, there were scarcely any inhabitants, save the scattered huts of a few shepherds and mountaineers, there was now a dense population, amounting, according to the nearest possible computation, to upwards of forty thousand, almost all of whom were engaged in the mining and coal districts. He was afraid, that the disposition of this population was not peaceable; and, as their ignorance was very great, they were easily subject to be misled and practised upon by evil and designing men, who had, by means of certain societies, so organized the population, that a command might be readily circulated among them, and as speedily obeyed. This, he believed, was an accurate view of the state of this population, on whom, it appeared, that the prisoner, John Frost, had obtained an influence,

at which the lodge was held. There was one of these meetings held at Blackwood, a most important one, upon the Friday preceding the day of the insurrection; at which meeting various deputies attended, and a return of the numbers of the armed force which could be mustered, was made, and there the plan was laid for the scheme which was afterwards to be carried into effect. It was then arranged, that they should all assemble on the night of Sunday, the 3rd of November (being the evening next preceding the day of the insurrection) in three principal divisions. The first division, under the command of the prisoner, John Frost, himself, was to assemble at Blackwood. Another division was to be under the command of a man named Zephaniah Williams, who lived much higher up the country, and who kept a beer-shop, at a place called Coalbrook-vale, and who was to lead the men from Nant-yGlo and that neighbourhood; while the third division was placed under the control of a person who is named William Jones, and who is, I believe, a watchmaker, residing at Pontypool, and who was to collect all the men from the neighbourhood of Pontypool and from the north and the west; and they were to meet the others at Risca or the Cefn about midnight on the Sunday; and having there all assembled together, they were to march upon the town of Newport, at which it was intended they should arrive about two o'clock on the morning of Monday the 4th-a time when it was supposed, that no suspicions would be aroused, no preparations for defence made-at the dead hour of the night, when the peaceful inhabitants, buried in sleep, would

be unprepared to offer the slightest opposition to their treasonable designs. Arriving there, they were to attack the troops, break down the bridge which, as is known to you, gentlemen, crosses that splendid river, the Usk; and thus stopping her majesty's mail, signalrockets were to be thrown up upon the hills; and the stopping of the mail was to be a signal (by its nonarrival for an hour and a half after its usual time at Birmingham), to those who, it was said, were there connected with these treasonable designs for a rising at Birmingham, and a general rising throughout the north of England; and the law of the charter was to be proclaimed at once throughout the land. The attorney general then proceeded to describe the part which Frost took at this stage of the insurrection. The jury, he said, would find, that the division under the command and control of Mr. Frost assembled much earlier than the other divisions. This division being so assembled, the prisoner gave them the word of command; and he marched with them down by the way of Risca to the Welch Oak, where the junction was to take place; but from the difficulties which the weather threw in the way of the march of the men from the upper districts, they did not arrive for a very long time after the hour at which it was arranged that they should be there. Zephaniah Williams dil not arrive with his men from Nant-y-Glo until daylight, and William Jones of Pontypool, with his men, did not arrive at all. A party which he sent forward under the command of a man named Britton, did arrive, but the main body of the men from the Pontypool district, under Jones, did not arrive; and

the prisoner, John Frost, remained with the body under his command until daylight, waiting the arrival of the other bodies. As, however, they had not then arrived, he thought it necessary to muster the forces which he then had there under his command, and march on with them upon Newport. There were then, with him, according to the best calculations which could be made, at least five thousand men; the most of whom were armed, some with guns, others with swords, a large number with pikes, and some with mandrils-a sort of instrument with which they cut coal-a kind of pickaxe; and others were armed with scythes fixed on sticks, and those who could not get arms of this kind, were armed with sticks and bludgeons of various kinds. The prisoner John Frost took the command, gave the order to march, and they did so; they marched in military array, five abreast. They proceeded, in the first instance, through Tredegar Park, the seat of sir Charles Morgan, where they halted for a time. They then marched on till they came to Crosshands, about half a mile from Newport. Inquiries were then made by Frost, with respect to the state of affairs in Newport.

The preparations for the defence of Newport were then described by the attorney-general, and the principal circumstances of the attack. The insurgents having arrived before the Westgate InnFrost being with the men at the time-the word to fire was given; but Frost was not seen among them after the time when the firing first began—

Zephaniah Williams was about ten minutes too late. He did arrive at last with his Nant-y-Glo