The which day compeared, in presence of the Sheriff of Edinburgh, George
Smith, formerly examined on Saturday, the 8th current, after having sent
notice to the Sheriff that he wished to speak with him. Came to the
office and told the Sheriff that he wished to have an opportunity of
making a clean breast, and telling the truth, upon which the Sheriff
informed him that, as he, the Sheriff, knew he stood in a very ticklish
situation, it was his duty to let him know that whatever he told or
discovered was not to be accepted of under any condition or promise
whatever, or that his doing so would operate anything in his favour, and
that therefore he was at perfect freedom, either to speak or hold his
tongue, as he judged best. And that the said George Smith having
declared that he wished to tell the truth, and communicate all the
guilty scenes in which he had been concerned for some time past, since
he came to the town of Edinburgh, he was desired to proceed.
Declares that, in the end of October, or beginning of November last, the
declarant, in company with Andrew Ainslie and John Brown, whose real
name is Humphry Moore, went to the College of Edinburgh about one
o’clock in the morning. Having got access at the under gate, they opened
the under door leading to the Library with a false key, which broke in
the lock, and thereafter they broke open the door of the Library with an
iron crow, and carried away the College mace.
Declares that the declarant has, almost since his first arrival in
Edinburgh, been acquainted with Deacon William Brodie, and he saw him
first at Michael Henderson’s, where he was introduced to the declarant
by one Graham at the time the declarant was confined in that house; that
Brodie, in the course of conversation, suggested to the declarant that
several things could be done in this place, if prudently managed, to
great advantage, and proposed to the declarant that they should lay
their heads together for that purpose.
That, in consequence of this concert, the declarant and Brodie were in
use to go about together, in order to find out the proper places where
business could be done with success; that Brodie, in their walks,
carried the declarant to the College Library, where, having observed the
mace standing, Brodie said that they must have it; that Andrew Ainslie
was afterwards sent by the declarant and Brodie to look at the Library,
under pretence of calling for somebody, in order to see if the mace was
always in the same place, as they suspected it might be one day in the
Library and another somewhere else, which would have rendered an attempt
upon the Library precarious; that Ainslie reported that the mace was in
the same place that the declarant and Brodie had seen it, and, upon
getting this report, the theft of the mace was committed as before
mentioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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