Allen’s evidence was as follows:—“I live at Wilson’s Cottage, Pocock’s Fields, Islington. I know the cottage in which the deceased lived. I have known the prisoner about twelve months; he has lodged at my house several times, and he came to lodge there seven nights before this occurrence took place. I remember the 16th of March; and at that time, from circumstances that occurred, I am confident that he had no money. On that day the prisoner went out between eight and nine o’clock without having any breakfast. He had on a pair of shoes which I sold him, and they had nails in them. The prisoner wore them constantly. He returned home about three o’clock in the morning, and he immediately went into his room. My wife said to him, ‘Richard, is it early, or late?’ and he replied, ‘It is early.’ The prisoner got up between eight and nine o’clock the next morning, and came into my sitting-room, and passed through into the wash-house, which leads to the privy. He staid out from five-and-twenty minutes to half-an-hour, when he returned into the house and went out at the front door. I did not observe anything unusual in his appearance. The prisoner returned home about seven o’clock in the evening, and in the mean time I had heard of the murder of Mr. Templeman, and I told him of it. The prisoner said it was a shocking thing, and he asked me if I considered Mr. Templeman could have done it himself. I said, ‘Richard, how can a man bind his own hands and eyes?’ The prisoner then appeared agitated, and said his inside was out of order, and he went into the yard, and remained for a few minutes. My attention had been attracted to the prisoner having a new pair of shoes on, and I had a suspicion. I asked him about them, and he said that his cousin had given them to him. He then asked me to get him some bacon and beer for his supper, and I fetched it for him. He gave me a shilling to pay for it. I asked him where he had been so late on the night before. He said he had been at the Rainbow, and had stopped there until twelve o’clock at night, and when he came out he met some friends, who detained him. Before this time I had a piece of wood in my possession, which was about a foot and a half long. The prisoner went to bed about nine o’clock, and I bolted him in and gave information to the police. He accounted to me for the possession of the money by saying that it had been given to him by his relations.
Mrs. Allen’s evidence was to the same effect; but she proved in addition, that a stocking in which the money was found concealed belonged to the prisoner.
The evidence otherwise was of a very general description, and although many expressions of a very suspicious character were attributed to the prisoner by the witnesses, none of them amounted to an admission by him of his guilt. The jury, after having received the customary charge from the learned Judge, returned a verdict of acquittal.
During the whole of the time occupied by this investigation, the avenues of the court, as well as the court itself, were crowded to excess by persons anxious to obtain early information as to its result. The verdict of the jury appeared to excite considerable dissatisfaction in the minds of many persons; and so great was the anger exhibited by a great portion of the populace, that the prisoner deemed it prudent to accept an offer of protection which was made to him by the sheriffs, and to remain in the Compter prison until the popular clamour should have in some degree subsided.
While there, a very great degree of commiseration appears to have been unjustly excited in his behalf. Mr. Alderman Pirie, a gentleman for whose humane feelings and intentions every one must give him the highest praise, offered to Gould that he should quit this country, and that he should proceed in a vessel of his own, on the point of sailing to Sydney, to that colony; and the wretched culprit, conscious of his guilt and of the dangerous position in which he stood, at once accepted the offer which was so liberally held out to him. A few days sufficed to show how far the humanity of the worthy alderman was misapplied. A man was committed to the Compter from the Mansion-house, upon a charge of stealing from his employers a quantity of tea, entrusted to him for delivery. His answer to the allegations made against him was unsatisfactory; and in the Compter he was imprisoned in the same ward in which Gould was suffered to remain. Upon his second examination he started a line of defence, which it was thought would afford him a moderate chance of escape. He imputed to two men, that they had met him in the street, and having given him a shilling to go on an errand for them, had run off with his tea. The men whom he pointed out were eventually taken into custody, and they proved to be two of the persons who had given evidence upon Gould’s trial, and whose false impeachment this fellow had basely procured for the purpose of revenging himself upon them for their having stated that which was undoubtedly true. The two men were fortunately able satisfactorily to prove that they were elsewhere at the time of the supposed robbery; and the other prisoner was conveyed to Newgate to await his trial.
In the mean time, Gould, exulting in what he then supposed to be the success of his scheme, had been removed on board the Elizabeth, the vessel in which he was to be conveyed to Sydney, and which lay at Gravesend. She was on the point of sailing, when the government, hitherto supine in its exertions to secure the discovery of the perpetrators of this most diabolical murder offered a reward of 200l. for their apprehension. An idea was entertained that for the reward Gould would disclose all he knew upon the subject, for that he knew something was obvious, and Otway, a police serjeant, was despatched to communicate with him upon the subject. A long conversation took place, in the course of which the reward was hinted at, and Gould expressed his willingness to open a communication, provided some portion of the booty sufficient to satisfy him for the loss of his passage were guaranteed to him; but on the next day, he was surprised at finding that he had again got into the custody of the police, a warrant having been executed upon him, in which he was charged with being a party to the robbery which had been committed in the house of Mr. Templeman, on the night of the murder.
He was carried to London loudly complaining of the breach of good faith on the part of serjeant Otway, and on being conveyed to Bow-street, he repeatedly expressed his willingness to disclose all he knew upon his being liberated. This condition, however, was refused to be acceded to, and in the hope of obtaining the reward, on the 11th of May he made a statement to the following effect.
He said, that “the robbery of Mr. Templeman’s house had been talked over for some time, by himself, Jarvis, and his wife, but it was not finally agreed upon until the morning before that on which it took place. He was then at Jarvis’ house but he did no remain long, as Jarvis expected his brother, but before he went away, Jarvis went into the garden and got a piece of wood used as a dibber, and bored a hole in the handle and passed a piece of string through it so as to hang it on his arm. He then went to the Rainbow public-house and got drunk and went to bed at his lodgings. He was to have gone to Jarvis’ on the next morning, but he lay in bed so late that Mrs. Jarvis came to fetch him. Jarvis had given her a message how it was to be done, and he (Gould) was not to go near the place until after the public-houses were closed. Mrs. Jarvis told him that she had prepared breakfast and that there was no fear of being noticed, but he went again to the Rainbow, and remained there until twelve o’clock at night. At that hour he went to Jarvis’ house, and in a few minutes they went to Mr. Templeman’s together, Mrs. Jarvis standing at the door of her own cottage to give an alarm in case of necessity. He (Gould) removed a piece of paper which was pasted over the window, and introducing his hand opened the door, and then he and Jarvis went in. He broke open a box which was in the sitting-room, and found some silver, and Jarvis went into the bed-room. Jarvis now suggested, that as the notes had not been found they must be under the old man’s head, and that they might quiet him and fasten him. They had brought a cord with them, and Jarvis directly struck the old man with the dibber. He jumped out of bed as if to resist their attack, but the blows being repeated he was overpowered and his hands tied. They then continued their search for the notes, and they were found in the drawer in the box from which they had taken the silver, but upon their looking at them they found that they were useless, for they were barbers’ notes upon ‘the bank of fashion.’ The deceased by this time had in some degree recovered, and exclaimed ‘I know you,’ upon which Jarvis declared, that he had rather finish him than be found out, and went into the bed-room. He (Gould) ran out of the house and was presently followed by Jarvis, and they went together to the house of the latter. Mrs. Jarvis was still standing on the look-out. He wanted to divide the money, but Jarvis said ‘No, you had better plant (conceal) it, for the cottages here will all be frisked (searched).’ He then took the dibber away and threw it into the New River, and he also threw the dark lantern which they had used into a pond in Pocock’s Fields. Before he went away he agreed to meet Mrs. Jarvis the next morning at the Three Goats’ Heads, Wandsworth-road, and when he quitted them he said that he would then show himself as quickly as he could. He went accordingly to a coffee-shop near the Angel, at Islington, and remained there for an hour and half, and when he returned home it was two o’clock. He went to bed, and on the next morning he placed all the money with the exception of 9s. in an old stocking, and put it where it had been found. He then proceeded to the Three Goats’ Heads, and soon after he was joined by Mrs. Jarvis, who had her child with her. They went to Lambeth together, and he bought a pair of boots for 7s. 6d., and he sold his old ones in the New Cut. They subsequently went towards home, Mrs. Jarvis on quitting him desiring him not to go near her cottage that night, as there was a rare ‘stink’ about it.”
The villany and falsehood of this declaration, except as regarded his own guilt, was soon clearly proved, for on the very same day on which it was made it was contradicted by the prisoner, but while as regarded Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis it was distinctly shown to be false, the prisoner had told so much of the truth as to enable the police to trace out so many new proofs as to leave the most conclusive evidence against him.
He had already been acquitted of the murder, and it was impossible that he should be tried upon any fresh indictment upon that charge; but it still remained open to the friends of the deceased to prefer against him a charge of burglary, subjecting him to a penalty of transportation for life. The statement of facts with regard to the dark lantern, and the purchase of the pair of shoes made by the prisoner, was plainly corroborated by investigation; and while he had unsuccessfully endeavoured to procure the new implication of Jarvis in the murder, he had unwittingly afforded evidence that he had himself committed the burglary with which he now stood accused.