A man named John Morris, a lazy, worthless character, who had been already in custody upon other charges, was apprehended on suspicion of being concerned in the affair; but he effectually put an end to all hopes of eliciting any information from him by throwing himself into a coal-pit, in spite of the efforts of the constables, in whose care he was, to restrain him, where his mangled remains were afterwards found. At length suspicion fell on Morgan Philips, and he, finding the general belief to be that he was guilty of this most horrible crime, at length confessed that he and Morris had been its perpetrators; that they had broken into the house of the farmer, and having murdered the family, from whom they met with considerable resistance, they had carried off all the valuable property which they could find, and had then set fire to the farm to prevent discovery.
The prisoner being put upon his trial at Haverfordwest, his confession was read to him, and assented to as being true; and its leading points being corroborated by other witnesses, he was found guilty, and suffered death at the same place on 5th April, 1779.
JAMES MATHISON.
EXECUTED FOR FORGERY.
THIS offender was tried on Thursday, the 20th of May, 1779. There perhaps never appeared in any court of justice so ingenious a man in his style as this person. His practice for some time past had been to go to the Bank, and take out a note; this he counterfeited, passed the copy, and, after some time, returned the original. His frequent applications at length exciting suspicions, which were increased by his appearance in life, and other circumstances, he was taken up. When brought before Justice Fielding, he was there known to be the person charged with forgeries upon the bank at Darlington. The particular forgery now charged on him was for making and uttering a note for payment of twenty pounds, with intent to defraud Mr. Mann, of Coventry, and the Bank of England. The note was produced in court, and the witnesses were brought to prove its having been negotiated by him.
This fact being established, the next circumstance in consideration was to prove that the note was absolutely a counterfeit one. This his prosecutors were totally unable to do by any testimony they could adduce, so minutely and so dexterously had he feigned all the different marks. The note itself was not only so made as to render it altogether impossible for any human eyes to perceive a difference; but the very hands of the cashier and the entering clerk were also so counterfeited as entirely to preclude a positive discrimination even by those persons themselves. The water mark in the paper, too, namely, “Bank of England,” which the bankers had considered as an infallible criterion of fair notes, a mark which could not be resembled by any possible means, was also hit off by this man, so as to put it out of the power of the most exact observer to perceive a difference. Several paper-makers were of opinion that this mark must have been put on in the making of the paper; but Mathison declared that he put it on afterwards by a peculiar method, known only to himself. The extreme similitude of the fair and false notes had such an effect upon the judge and jury that the prisoner would certainly have been discharged, for want of evidence to prove the counterfeit, if his own information, taken at Fielding’s, had not been produced against him, which immediately turned the scale, and he was found guilty.