[Illustration: THE CONVICT PRISON AT GIBRALTAR (MARKED BY A *).] A NARROW ESCAPE. An innocent man narrowly escaped death through an artful plot which led to a mistake of identity, but which fortunately, at the eleventh hour, was brought home to its criminal contrivers. A certain Mr. Henderson, a respectable merchant of Edinburgh, was in 1726 charged with the forgery of an acceptance, signed by the Duchess of Gordon, although, as a matter of fact, he was ignorant of the whole affair. In the year mentioned it was discovered that a man named Petrie, who filled the post of town officer or constable in Leith, held a bill for £58 which purported on the face of it to have been drawn by George Henderson on the Duchess of Gordon, accepted by her, and paid over by Henderson to a Mrs. Macleod. This Mrs. Macleod owed a sum of money to Petrie, and she begged him for a further advance, which he made, to the amount of £6, Mrs. Macleod lodging with him as security the acceptance which she had received from Henderson. Petrie took no action on the bill in the way of demanding payment from the Duchess of Gordon; this was at the instance of Mrs. Macleod, who assured him that her Grace was at that time engaged in special devotional exercises, and that the Duchess's agent was absent from Edinburgh. Petrie was put off with other excuses. Mrs. Macleod continued to beg him to hold over the bill, and brought him a letter to the same effect purporting to come from Henderson. Petrie, although suspicious as to the genuineness of the bill, took no steps, and the matter came out otherwise; whereupon the Edinburgh magistrates issued a warrant for the arrest of the three parties--Petrie, Henderson, and Mrs. Macleod. Petrie was almost immediately exonerated, but Mrs. Macleod gave such evidence against Henderson that he was held to be fully incriminated, and was put back for trial. Mrs. Macleod asserted positively that the bill had been given her by Henderson. In due course Henderson was arraigned. Several witnesses swore positively that they had seen Henderson sign documents, especially an acknowledgment of a debt to Mrs. Macleod. One, a man named Gibson, declared that the signature had been given in his own house by Henderson, and in his presence and that of other witnesses. He appears to have identified Henderson in the dock, asserting that he had often previously seen him and been in his company. Gibson further declared that Henderson wore a suit of dark-coloured clothes, and a black wig such as he now appeared in.