Richard Mills the elder, Richard Mills the younger, William Jackson, and William Carter, were guilty, as accessaries before the fact.
Chichester, January 18th, 1748–9.
The Judges being in court, the prisoners who were convicted yesterday were all put to the bar; but Cobby, Hammond, Tapner, and the Mills’s were set aside, and Jackson and Carter set forward in order to be tried for the murder of William Galley.
Then the Clerk of the Arraigns bid William Jackson and William Carter to hold up their hands, which they did, and he then read over to them the indictment on which they had been arraigned the day before, as principals in the murder of William Galley, and to which they had pleaded Not Guilty.
Mr. Steele opened the indictment to the jury, and Mr. Bankes, the King’s Counsel, spoke to much the same purport as he had done the day before.
Mr. Smythe, another of the King’s Counsel, spoke as follows, viz.: “I shall only add a word or two, to explain why these two men, who were convicted yesterday as accessaries before the fact to the murder of Chater, and thereby liable to suffer death, should be tried a second time as principals for the murder of Galley:
“The reasons for it are, in the first place it will be necessary to convict them as principals for the murder of Galley, otherwise the accessaries to that murder, either before or after the fact, cannot be convicted.
“Another reason is, as the intention of all prosecutions, as well as punishments, is not so much to revenge and punish what is past, as to deter others from committing the like crimes, it may be of service to the public to have every circumstance of this cruel transaction disclosed, to shew how dangerous to their neighbours, and to the country in general, those persons are who are concerned in smuggling, and how much it concerns every man to use his utmost endeavours to suppress, and bring them to justice. And it may have another good effect in preventing persons from engaging in that lawless practice when they see it consequently engages them in crimes, which at first they might never intend; for I believe, if these unhappy men had been told when they first began smuggling, that the time would come when they would coolly bathe their hands in the blood of two innocent men, bad as they now are, they would then have been shocked and startled at the imagination of it; yet the men are so naturally led from one vice to another, that having once transgressed the laws of their country, they have insensibly arrived at such a height of wickedness, as to commit this heinous crime without the least hesitation or remorse.”
After which the following witnesses were called for the Crown, viz.:—