William Mackay
10. William Mackay, porter in the Canongate of Edinburgh, called in and sworn.
Witness—I was employed as a watch to guard the Excise Office when it was kept in Chessels’s Buildings, and upon Wednesday, the 5th day of March last, I went to the office at the usual hour, which was a little before ten o’clock at night. I found one of the leaves of the outer door open, and the passage door and the door of the cashier’s room also open; and upon making this discovery I went to Mr. Dundas, the housekeeper’s, and inquired of the maid who had been last at the office, as the doors were open. The maid answered John Duncan, the last witness, had left it about a quarter after eight o’clock. Mr. Dundas’s son, hearing me make this inquiry, asked what was the matter. When I told him that the door was broke open, he said, “Then, something worse is done.” Immediately Mr. and Mrs. Dundas and the whole family went into the office with me and examined the cashier’s room; we found all the desks and presses broke open, and the coulter of a plough, and two iron wedges, lying in the room; and we likewise found a spur in the hall, with part of the leather of it torn. Mr. Dundas immediately sent me for Mr. Alexander Thomson, the accountant. I found Mr. Thomson, and he returned with me to the Excise Office. [Here the witness was shown the coulter of the plough, the two iron wedges, and the spur.] These are the same articles which I saw in the Excise Office. [The counsel for the pannels here repeated the objection against adducing the coulter and two wedges, as mentioned in the general objection and interlocutor before taken down.]
Alexander Thomson
11. Alexander Thomson, accountant of Excise, called in and sworn.
Witness—I remember that the Excise Office was broke into on Wednesday, the 5th of March last. When I left the office at the usual hour that night, about eight o’clock, I locked the door of the cashier’s room before I left, and carried the key away with me. I saw John Duncan, the door-keeper, in the hall as I came out. I left in two concealed drawers below the desk about £600 sterling, and in the desk itself £15 16s. 3½d., being two-thirds of the proceeds of a seizure sent from Greenock, to be divided amongst three people. About ten o’clock the same evening the office porter, or watchman, came to me and informed me that the Excise Office had been broken into. I immediately repaired to the office, and found Mr. Dundas, the housekeeper, and Mr. Pearson, the secretary, there; and, along with them, I examined the premises. The outer door and the passage door appeared to have been opened without violence, but the door of the cashier’s room seemed to have been forced with a lever or other instrument; the door of a small press in the room appeared likewise to have been forced open, and a few shillings, and some stamps for receipts that were in it, carried off. The key of my desk, which I usually kept in this place, had likewise been taken out, and the desk opened with it. The £15 odds, which I had left in the desk, were gone, and also a receipt for £7 18s. 2d., but the concealed drawers, in which the £600 was contained, were untouched. These drawers cannot be opened without first opening the desk, and the keyhole is concealed by a slip of wood, which might escape a slight observer. Accordingly it had remained untouched, although the key of it lay in the desk. Behind the door there was left the coulter of a plough and two iron wedges—[Here these articles were shown to the witness]—the same as these now on the table.
Cross-examined by Mr. John Clerk for George Smith—Pray, Mr. Thomson, was the Excise Office, when in the Canongate, kept in one house or in two houses?
Witness—It was kept in three houses, or in one large house, consisting of a front and two wings, and, besides this principal house, there was a small one fronting, and nearly adjoining to it, in which Mr. Broughton’s office, Mr. Dick’s office, and the Register of Seizures were kept.
Laurence Dundas
12. Laurence Dundas, housekeeper of the Excise Office, called in and sworn.