by the witness to permit it. The events corresponded with the testivessel having been brought to mony of Mr. Dobson. The Spanish anchor off Old Point Comfort, passengers told him they had Tardy announced his intention of seventeen thousand dollars on going on shore, and promised the board, were going to New York to witness a good mess of eggs and purchase a vessel, and intended to fresh meat. He had seen one or go to the coast of Africa. He slept more bundles of iron tied up, and on deck the night of the 1st of had previously ascertained from June, and about two or thee o'clock Tardy, that they were in readiness he was roused by a noise on deck. to sink the cook when they killed He found Tardy at the helm near him. The three Spaniards and the which he lay. He saw two men cook were sent aloft to reef the struggling two or three yards from sails, and he proposed to Tardy to him; one of them fell. Very soon assist in getting the boat ready, and he saw a man despatching some to bring it alongside for him. His one with an axe, and recognized proposition was consented to with the voice of Pepe. He saw a man some reluctance, and he got into coming up from the cabin, and one the boat to take out the plug to let of the Spaniards stabbed him, and the water that was in her escape, he fell back into the cabin. At and desired that the French pas- day-break the witness saw Robinsenger should take one rope and son and the sailor in the water, and Tardy the other, and let the boat confirmed all that Dobson had said down. This they did. As soon respecting them. Three or four as she touched the water, instead days afterwards, he heard the of bringing her alongside, he made Spaniards say, that the mate and for the shore with all his strength. cook were only fattening to be He knew there were no loaded killed. Tardy assumed the comarms on board, and that he was mand, and Felix was to keep the safe. Tardy asked him as he was books ; he also had some little going off, if he would betray him ? knowledge of steering. As soon as He answered, no ; and hastened to Dobson made off in the boat, Tardy the shore, where he related the appeared to be greatly alarmed. story to the officers in command, An American vessel had anchored and entreated them to go on board not far off, and Tardy obtained immediately, that they might save from it the use of their long boat the lives of the Frenchman and the to send to the shore for his own, cook. and two hands to row it. In this Mr. Ferdinand Ginoulhiac, the boat the three Spaniards embarked : next witness examined, was after getting some distance, they native of the province of Languedoc returned, saying they could not in France, and had resided as a get the boat ; but Tardy ordered merchant in Matanzas for seven them to proceed, and they did so ; years. He knew nothing of the but the Spaniards not going where brig Crawford, until he took his the boat was, Tardy became more passage on board of her. Besides alarmed, expressed his apprehenhimself, there were six passengers sions of the consequences, and and the supercargo, Tardy, the announced his determination to three Spaniards, and two men who cut his throat. [It was conjectured spoke English. His detail of the that the Spaniards were sent off to a secure or despatch Dobson, but preferring their own safety, attempted to make their escape]. In a few moments he understood from the negro (the cook) that Tardy had cut his throat. The prisoners were condemned and executed. OLD BAILEY, FRIDAY, SEPT. 14. Murder. Mary Wittenback, aged 41, stood indicted for the wilful murder of her husband, Frederick Wittenback, on the 21st of July, by administering arsenic to him in a pudding. Amelia Davis.-I am the wife of James Davis. The deceased and the prisoner lived together in my house; they were husband and wife; they had three daughterstwo were married, and one worked out of the house. On Saturday, the 21st of July, the deceased came home to dinner at ten minutes past twelve; he appeared then in perfect good health: at about half past twelve, the prisoner came to me and brought a piece of pudding on her plate; she said Wittenback was very ill; she thought he was poisoned; she asked me, if I thought there was any thing in it. I then went down stairs, and when I came up again, I entreated her to go down to her husband. The prisoner said, she could not, for she was as bad as he was. I said, "I thought you said you did not eat of it;" she said she had eaten of it while I had been down stairs. I said, "What! eat it, when you said your husband was poisoned?" She then said, I was a liar. She said, she had never said she had poisoned him at all. I asked her to go down stairs: she went, and then she came up again. I saw the deceased at this time coming up stairs. He appeared to be very bad indeed: he could scarcely crawl up stairs. The prisoner was present, and could hear very plainly what passed. I said, "Oh! Mr. Wittenback, what's the matter?" The husband was nearest to me, though the prisoner was present; the house is very small. The prisoner was sitting on a chair near to the door in her own room, and that door was close to me. She was about two yards from me. I was on the landing, and he was coming up the stairs; there are but very few steps. He said, "Oh! Mrs. Davis, I am very bad, I think I am poisoned." This was all that passed then. I saw the prisoner several times after that. I saw her, when he was put into bed. When he came up stairs, he went to bed. I saw the prisoner first after this still sitting on a chair near her room-the room in which the prisoner was in bed. She said they were very bad, that they were both poisoned, and she lay down in bed. I saw him afterwards trying to get out of bed, to go down stairs. My husband went for Mr. Jackson, and I believe an assistant of Mr. Jackson's came with my husband, and administered an emetic. My hus band asked Mr. Wittenback if he should go for a doctor, when he was down stairs vomiting, and he said he did not care if he did. I saw the deceased again at about a quarter before four o'clock. He requested me to rub his legs, which were in very great pain. Mrs. Saunders and his youngest daughter were present then. Charlotte, the daughter, went for Mr. Dil lon. I had proposed fetching Mr. Walford, but the prisoner objected to that, because of his charges being high. I said I had no doubt but her husband would pay him if he got better. He was not sent for. Charlotte went, and brought two gentlemen. I was not in the room again till about seven o'clock in the evening. He was then taking some pills. I believe the deceased and the prisoner did not live on very good terms. Charles William Wright, housesurgeon to St. Pancras workhouse, saw the deceased on the Saturday evening; found him complaining of great pain, and a twisting about the navel. "It appeared to me," continued the witness, "that he had taken poison. I saw him again on the same evening, when I applied the stomach pump, but without any good effect. I saw him on the next morning dead. I examined him, but could not say what sort of poison he had taken; from the symptoms generally, I considered he died from the effects of poison." By the Bench. I could not find any trace of arsenic, or of any sort of poison, in the stomach. I endeavoured to obtain a part of that which had been voided from the stomach of the deceased, but could not. There could be no doubt but that if death was occasioned by arsenic, the poison must have been detected in that which was voided from the stomach. The stomach had been so completely emptied before I examined it, that I could not detect poison there; and it is possible this might have happened though arsenic had been taken on Saturday at noon. Paralysis in the legs and blindness would result from taking poison. Finding no trace of poison in the stomach, VOL LXIX. I cannot swear that he died from taking poison. From all I saw on my examination, I believe he did die of poison. Mr. Dillon, out-door surgeon of St. Pancras workhouse.Between one and two o'clock on Sunday morning, I was called to attend the prisoner and her husband. At that time the man was in a dying state; he was vomiting, the pupils of his eyes were dilated, and his extremities were very cold. I remained with him till about halfpast two o'clock. From his appearance then, my opinion was, that he was dying from the effects of mineral poison. I examined the woman, and found it necessary to remove her on the Sunday afternoon to the infirmary; the symptoms under which she la boured were similar to what the I deceased was labouring under twelve hours before. She did not tell me how she had become ill. I considered her life in imminent danger. I informed her of my opinion of her state; she said she would rather die than recover. begged her to tell me if she had taken any poison, as it would facilitate the means of cure. She denied that she had taken any." My opinion is, that she would have died if powerful means had not been used to save her. Verdict-Guilty. She was exe" upon Dr. Dodson, junior counsel mitted to the Secretary of State in the cause, the task of reading for the Colonies, and by him, or his judgment, which he had writ- his officers, I presume, submitted ten out. It was as follows: to the House of Commons. That This case commences with an is not the way in which the Suinformation against a woman nam- preme Court usually collects ined Grace, who attended her mis- formation of what passes in the tress, as a domestic servant, to inferior courts. But they come England, and returned with her in a form, to which I may, I to Antigua; and consists, in the think, without impropriety, adfirst place, of various counts, charg- vert, as containing the probable ing omission of regulations im- grounds of opposition in the cause, posed upon the importation and and on which the judge decided exportation of slaves to and from in a way consistent with his view the West-India colonies; and, in of the question. The case begins consequence thereof, condemnation, with an information, or charge, or forfeiture to his majesty, is consisting of five counts; the two contended for. I have to discharge first of which may be immediately debt of obligation to the counsel dismissed, being not at all applicable who have argued this cause on to the real state of the parties, both sides, and have taken great and only urged by the advocatea pains in elucidating questions that general, as he expresses it, ex arise upon it. I have likewise to abundanti cautela, without any discharge a duty which I owe to expectation of their influencing the judge below, who has ex- the judgment. What sort of abunamined the case with very meri- dant caution could arise from the torious and diligent acuteness, and introduction of matter which, I thrown very considerable_lights understand to have been admitted upon the general subject. I could by the advocate-general, could not have wished that, in a case so have the slightest influence on the novel in this court, it had been cause, I am not informed, and find furnished with more, both of ar- some difficulty in discovering it ; gument and evidence, than I have but, from the papers transmitted, met with in the process which has I collect that this cautela abundans. been transmitted from the inferior is founded upon a supposition of court. What the arguments were the advocate-general, that, if a on either side of the question in slave was returned from England, the court below--what opposition upon any pretence whatever, he was given to the doctrine main- was returned as a free person, and tained by the Court, and by what was so to be considered in that evidence that opposition was sup- colony-an assertion which brings ported, or by what arguments re- that great question directly before sisted, these papers do not inform the Court. Having disposed of me. In a case, very important, the two first counts, I proceed to and unprecedented in this Court, the third and fourth. The third I am left to conjecture what these count pleads, that this woman, were, from other public papers, Grace, after the 1st of January, supplied by the advocate-general, 1820, was exported as a slave who argued the cause in the Court from the island of Antigua, a below, which papers were transa colony under the dominion of his majesty, and carried to Great Britain, a territory to his majesty belonging, without production of certificate of registration, and without such certificate having been endorsed by the collector, and annexed to the clearance, or permit, given for the exportation of the said Grace. The fourth count pleads, that, after the 1st of the said month of January, 1820, Grace was unlawfully brought into, and landed, in the island of Antigua, a colony to his majesty belonging, from Great Britain, a territory to his majesty belonging, as a domestic slave, in attendance upon the person of her mistress, without any extract and certificate of registration being on board the ship in which the said Grace was imported, and, together with her, on her arrival, produced to the collector of the customs, contrary to the form of the statute; and it has been contended, that, under the statute, the 59th of George 3rd, c. 120, it was necessary, that this person should have had these credentials, as well on the voyage from the colony to the mother country, as also on the return voyage to Antigua. It appears to me, on a consideration of the act referred to, that it never was intended to put any restraint on a domestic slave accompanying his master to Great Britain, or on his being taken back from Great Britain to the colonies. The regulations were made as well for the purpose of preventing slaves being transferred from any one of our ówn colonies to other settlements, as also to prevent the introduction of new slaves into any of our own colonies; but it has no reference whatever to the transit of slaves to and from this country. Upon reference to the act of parliament, I find these words, "With intent that such slave shall be removed to some other colony." Nothing whatever is intimated as to Great Britain; nor is there any direction that such certificate of registration or endorsement, on the clearance of vessels coming to this country, is necessary; nor are any such credentials demanded, or considered as demandable, of vessels coming to this country, by the Customhouse here, as far as, upon inquiry, I know and believe. I cannot help observing here a little upon the careless manner in which the custom-house officer at Antigua appears to have discharged his duty, if there is any duty of this kind imposed upon him. He had come in the ship all the way from England with the slave and her mistress, and he suffers her to go on shore with her mistress, without any papers, if papers were at all demandable; and it is not till after two years that he finds that he had mistaken his own duty, and omitted to demand what he now contends were the necessary documents. I might observe upon the lapse of time between the commission of the offence and institution of the suit, but I think it unnecessary, under the observations already made. The fifth count is liable to peculiar objections. It states, that "she, being a free subject of his majesty, was unlawfully imported as a slave from Great Britain into Antigua, and there illegally held and detained in slavery, contrary to the form of the statute in such cases made and provided." This is liable to many fatal objections. Surely a free subject of our lord the king cannot be bound to take |