“At this moment, whilst Mr. Williams and Mr. Tucker were still standing, they heard a horse gallop to the door of the House, and immediately after, Mr. Michael Williams of Trevince (son of Mr. Williams of Scorrier), entered the room and said that he had galloped out from Truro (from which Scorrier House is distant seven miles), having seen a gentleman there, who had come by that evening’s mail from London, who said that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons, on the evening of the 11th, when a man called Bellingham had shot Mr. Perceval, and that, as it might occasion some great ministerial changes, and might affect Mr. Tucker’s political friends, he had come out as fast as he could to make him acquainted with it, having heard at Truro that he had passed through that place in the afternoon on his way to Scorrier. “After the astonishment which this intelligence had created had a little subsided, Mr. Williams described most particularly the appearance and dress of the man whom he had seen in his dream fire the pistol, as he had before done of Mr. Perceval. “About six weeks after, Mr. Williams, having business in town, went accompanied by a friend to the House of Commons, where (as has been already observed) he had never before been. Immediately that he came to the steps at the entrance of the lobby, he said: ‘This place is as distinctly within my recollection in my dream, as any room in my house,’ and he made the same observation when he entered the lobby. “He then pointed out the exact spot where Bellingham stood when he fired, and where Mr. Perceval had reached when he was struck by the ball, and where and how he fell. The dress, both of Mr. Perceval and Bellingham, agreed with the descriptions given by Mr. Williams, even to the most minute particular.”[121] The number of records in which it is believed that dreams have been the means by which murder has been discovered are so considerable; and some are so well authenticated, that it is impossible, as it certainly would be presumptuous, to endeavour to set them aside. The murder of Maria Marten of Polstead in Suffolk, by William Corder, a farmer, in May of the year 1827, is a remarkable example:-- This unfortunate woman was induced to leave her home, and having accompanied the man who, under the promise of marriage, had betrayed her, to a certain barn, was there cruelly murdered and buried under the floor. For nearly twelve months the murder was undiscovered; for Corder, who remained away, but still communicated with her parents, maintained that she had married him; that circumstances prevented his bringing her back to his father’s home: but that in due course they would both come, though it was implied that they were both on the Continent.