Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 1De Quincey, Thomas
General
Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
not viewed as such by anybody, until they came to be combined with
another and final ground. Then the presumptions seemed conclusive.
But, by that time, X himself had been executed for a robbery; had
been manufactured into a skeleton by the famous surgeon, Cruickshank,
assisted by Mr. White and other pupils. All interest in the case
had subsided in Knutsford, that could now have cleared up the case
satisfactorily; and thus it happened that to this day the riddle, which
was read pretty decisively in a northern county, still remains a riddle
in the south. When I saw the College Green house in 1809-10, it was
apparently empty, and, as I was told, had always been empty since the
murder: forty years had not cicatrized the bloody remembrance; and, to
this day, perhaps, it remains amongst the gloomy traditions of Bristol.
But whether the Bristol house has or has not shaken off that odor of
blood which offended the nostrils of tenants, it is, I believe, certain
that the city annals have not shaken off the mystery: which yet to
certain people in Knutsford, as I have said, and to us the spectators of
the skeleton, immediately upon hearing one damning fact from the lips
of Mr. White, seemed to melt away and evaporate as convincingly as if we
had heard the explanation issuing in the terms of a confession from the
mouth of the skeleton itself. What, then, _was_ the fact? With pain, and
reluctantly, we felt its force, as we looked at the royal skeleton,
and reflected on the many evidences which he had given of courage, and
perhaps of other noble qualities. The ugly fact was this: In a few weeks
after the College Green tragedy, Knutsford, and the whole neighborhood
as far as Warrington (the half-way town between Liverpool and
Manchester), were deluged with gold and silver coins, moidores, and
dollars, from the Spanish mint of Mexico, etc. These, during the
frequent scarcities of English silver currency, were notoriously current
in England. Now, it is an unhappy fact, and subsequently became known
to the Bristol and London police, that a considerable part of poor
Mrs. Rusborough's treasure lay in such coins, gold and silver, from the
Spanish colonial mints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account