BENJAMIN TAPNER, JOHN COBBY, JOHN HAMMOND, RICHARD MILLS, RICHARD MILLS THE YOUNGER, AND OTHERS.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
WE do not recollect ever to have heard of a case exhibiting greater brutality on the part of the murderers towards their victim than this. The offenders were all smugglers, and the unfortunate objects of their crime were a custom-house officer, and a shoemaker, named respectively William Galley and Daniel Chater. It would appear that a daring and very extensive robbery having been committed at the custom-house at Poole, Galley and Chater were sent to Stanstead in Sussex, to give some information to Major Battine, a magistrate, in reference to the circumstance. They did not, however, return to their homes, and on inquiry, it turned out that they had been brutally murdered, the body of Galley being traced, by means of bloodhounds, to be buried, while that of Chater was discovered at a distance of six miles, in a well in Harris’ Wood, near Leigh, in Lady Holt’s Park, covered up with a quantity of stones, wooden railings, and earth.
At a special commission held at Chichester, on the 16th of January 1749, the prisoners Benjamin Tapner, John Cobby, John Hammond, William Carter, Richard Mills the elder, and Richard Mills the younger, were indicted for the murder of Daniel Chater; the three first as principals, and the others as accessories before the fact; and William Jackson and William Carter were indicted for the murder of William Galley.
From the evidence adduced, the circumstances of this most horrid murder were proved, and it appeared that the two deceased persons having passed Havant on their road to Stanstead, went to the New Inn at Leigh, where they met one Austin, and his brother and brother-in-law, of whom they asked the road, and they conducted them to Rowland’s Castle, where, they said, they might obtain better information. They went into the White Hart, and Mrs. Payne, the landlady, suspecting the object of their mission, sent for the prisoners Jackson and Carter, and they were soon after joined by some others of the gang. After they had been all sitting together, Carter called Chater out, and demanded to know where Diamond, one of those suspected of the robbery, was? Chater replied that he was in custody, and that he was going against his will to give evidence against him. Galley, following them into the yard, was knocked down by Carter, on his calling Chater away, and they then returned in-doors. The smugglers now pretended to be sorry for what had occurred, and desired Galley to drink some rum, and they persisted in plying him and Chater with liquor until they were both intoxicated. They were then persuaded to lie down and sleep, and a letter to Major Battine, of which they were the bearers, was taken from them, read, and destroyed.
One John Royce, a smuggler, now came in, and Jackson and Carter told him the contents of the letter, and said that they had got the old rogue, the shoemaker of Fording-bridge, who was going to inform against John Diamond, the shepherd, then in custody at Chichester. Here William Steele proposed to take them both to a well about two hundred yards from the house, and to murder and throw them in; but this was rejected, and after several propositions had been made as to the mode in which they should be disposed of, the scene of cruelty was commenced by Jackson, who, putting on his spurs, jumped upon the bed where they lay, and spurred their foreheads, and then whipped them; so that they both got up bleeding. The smugglers then took them out of the house, and Mills swore he would shoot any one who followed or said anything of what had occurred.
Meanwhile, the rest put Galley and Chater on one horse, tied their legs under the horse’s belly, and then tied the legs of both together. They now set forward, with the exception of Royce, who had no horse; and they had not gone above two hundred yards, before Jackson called out “Whip ’em, cut ’em, slash ’em, d—n ’em!” upon which, all began to whip except Steele, who led the horse, the roads being very bad. They whipped them for half a mile, till they came to Woodash, where they fell off, with their heads under the horse’s belly; and their legs, which were tied, appeared over the horse’s back. Their tormentors soon set them upright again, and continued whipping them over the head, face, shoulders, &c., till they came to Dean, upwards of half a mile farther; and here they both fell again as before, with their heads under the horse’s belly, which were struck at every step by the horse’s hoofs.
