“‘No; it was the pen did for me, not the sword.’
“We suggested that he was an author who had failed or been maligned.
“‘I did not fail. I was not slandered. Too much for me after—the pen was too much for me after my wound.’
“Asked to repeat, it wrote: ‘I was wounded in the Peninsula. It will be forty-four years next Christmas Day since I killed myself—I killed myself. John Gurwood.’”
Leaving Mrs. R.’s diary, the following is the account Mr. Wedgwood wrote of the séance at the time:—
“June 26, 1889.—Had a sitting at Planchette with Mrs. R. this morning. Planchette said there was a spirit there who thought it could draw if we wished it. We said we should be glad if he would try. Accordingly Planchette made a rude attempt at a hand and arm proceeding from an embattled wall and holding a sword. A second attempt made the subject clearer. Planchette said it was meant for a test. The spirit signed it ‘J. G.’ No connection of ours, he said. We gradually elicited that his name was John Gurwood, who was wounded in the Peninsula in 1810, and killed himself on Christmas Day, 1845. It was not the wound but the pen that did it.
“July 5, 1889.—I made the foregoing memorandum the same day, having very little expectation that there would be any verification.
“H. Wedgwood.”
Quoting again from Mrs. R.’s journal: “Friday, Sept. 27.—Mr. Wedgwood came, and we had two sittings—in the afternoon and evening. I think the same spirit wrote throughout, beginning without signature, but when asked the name, writing John Gurwood. The effort, at first incoherent, developed afterward into the following sentences: ‘Sword—when I broke in, on the table with plan of fortress—belonged to my prisoner—I will tell you his name to-night. It was on the table when I broke in. He did not expect me. I took him unawares. He was in his room, looking at a plan, and the sword was on the table. Will try and let you know how I took the sword to-night.’