WITNESS--There was a practice, previous to the time when the Excise
Office was broke into, of locking the door betwixt eight and nine
o’clock at night, and lodging the key in my house, and of putting a
watch upon it at ten o’clock. I remember that upon Wednesday, the 5th of
March last, the door was locked at the usual hour, and the key left by
John Duncan at my house. A little before ten o’clock that night, William
Mackay, the porter employed to watch the office, came to my house and
gave information that the office had been broke open. I immediately went
to the office, and found the outer door, the passage door, and the door
of the cashier’s room, all open. This last-mentioned door seemed to have
been forced with some instrument. Within the room I found the coulter of
a plough and two iron wedges, all of which I now observe upon the table.
Every drawer in the room, except the money drawers, seemed to have been
forced open. I immediately sent for Mr. Thomson, the accountant, and Mr.
Pearson, the secretary, and both of them immediately came to the office.
Mr. Thomson told me that he had about £17 in his desk, which he supposed
was all gone, but he hoped that the money drawers were safe. The key of
the money drawers was found amongst others lying in the desk.
Cross-examined by Mr. JOHN CLERK, for George Smith--Mr. Dundas, was the
Excise Office, when in Chessel’s Buildings, kept in one house or in two
houses?
WITNESS--Principally in one house, but there was likewise another small
house in which Mr. Broughton’s office, Mr. Dick’s office, and the
Register of Seizures were kept; both houses were inclosed with an iron
rail.
[Sidenote: Janet Baxter]
13. JANET BAXTER, servant to Adam Pearson, assistant secretary of the
Excise, called in and sworn.
WITNESS--I was out upon a message about eight o’clock at night on
Wednesday, the 5th of March last, and, returning homewards, I met with
an acquaintance, with whom I conversed for a little in the entry to
Chessels’s Buildings, in which my master lived. I then went down the
close, and on my way down I saw a man, dressed in a whitish great-coat
and slouch hat, leaning over the rails at the entry to the court, and,
judging him to be a light or suspicious person, I was afraid of him, and
ran into my master’s house.
[Sidenote: James Bonar]
14. JAMES BONAR, deputy-solicitor of Excise, Edinburgh, called in and
sworn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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