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The deponent having gone accordingly, and spoken to the said persons, George Robertson desired to get their horses ready, and Hall and the deponent to go before and they would overtake them; that about six o'clock at night they came to Anstruther-Easter, and set up their horses in James Wilson's house, where he found Andrew Wilson before him; and after they put up their horses they went to Andrew Johnston's there, where they found Robertson and Wilson drinking punch.
And they, Andrew Wilson, and George Robertson, having met some short time afterwards in the house of said James Wilson in Anstruther-Easter, where they were informed that the house was beset, conscious of their own guilt, they, one or other of them, did deliver to said James Wilson the seal, the penknife, the pair of buckles, some money, and other things robbed, telling that if they were found in their possession they would be hanged or undone, or words to that purpose, expressing an apprehension of the utmost danger; and immediately thereafter got into bed, as if they had lain all night asleep, where both were apprehended, and upon the top of which bed were found the bank notes robbed from Collector Stark, and his pocket-book above another bed in another room of the house, &c.
And in order to keep them still amused with his false suggestion of danger by entering the house, having gone along with them into the house of John Hyslop in Pittenweem, he detained them there for some time, until he judged that his associates might have made their escape with their spoil; and soon afterwards William Hall was seized in the street of Anstruther-Easter, between twelve and one next morning, being Saturday the 10th January, having several of the goods and a purse of gold so robbed in his possession, which he dropped and endeavoured to conceal.
The deponent then went east to Anstruther in search of the rest of the robbers, and having surrounded the house of James Wilson there, he found three men in a room there, viz., Andrew Wilson and George Robertson, panels, and one John Friar, and having shown them to the above Thomas Durkie, he declared that they were two of the persons who had robbed the collector; upon which the deponent having applied to Bailies Robert Brown and Philip Millar, both in Anstruther-Easter, he got the accused committed to prison; and further depones that as the panels were being carried prisoners to Edinburgh, and while they were halting at Kirkcaldy, the deponent asked George Robertson, panel, what was become of the collector's purse of gold, George answered that Andrew Wilson, the other panel, told him that William Hall got the purse; upon which the deponent inquired at Hall about it, and added that unless he confessed and discovered where the purse was, he could not expect that the promises made would be kept to him; when after some entreaty Hall told deponent that he had dropped it upon being seized in a wet furr near a dung-hill, and accordingly the deponent went back to Pittenweem, and upon application to Bailie Andrew Fowler, of Pittenweem, and in his presence the purse was found near to a dung-hill between Anstruther-Wester and Pittenweem, in the spot described by Hall, with fifty-two guineas and a-half in it, which purse and gold was given to the deponent, and the purse exhibited in court being shown to him, he thinks it is the very same purse.
Depones that Andrew Wilson and the deponent went out of Wilson's house, and threw one of the pistols and some linens which they had brought from Pittenweem in among some straw in a barn-yard; thereafter the deponent, Bailie Thomas Brown, Anstruther-Easter, and some soldiers, went to the place where the cloak-bag was left, and to the barn-yard where the pistols and linen were thrown, where they were all found.
He went to bed about ten o'clock, and about an hour and a-half thereafter, he was waked out of sleep by a noise and some chapping at the door of the room where he lay which door he had secured before he went to bed by screwing down the sneck of the door which noise the deponent at first imagined was occasioned by some drunken people in the house; but afterwards, upon the strokes on the door being repeated with violence, the deponent jumped out of his bed, and heard the under part of the door of the bed-room giving way, upon which the deponent laid hold upon two bags of money, which, with the deponent's breeches, in which were about L.100 in gold, and bank notes and silver, the deponent had put below his head when he went to bed; and the deponent did then, in the confusion in which he was, put the table and some chairs to the back of the door to stap the gap, and thereafter opened the window, and returning to find the bags of money and his breeches, he could only find one of the bags of money, and being in fear of his life, he jumped out at the window with one of the bags of money, and fell at the foot of the stair, the said window being just above the entry to the house, and recovering himself a little, he went towards the corn-yard, and hearing a person call out "Hold him," the deponent apprehending the voice to be before him, he returned a few paces, and then perceiving a man standing or walking at the foot of the stair, the deponent returned again to the yard, where he hid the bag of money, and thereafter coming back towards the house to hear what was a-doing, the deponent heard a knocking in the room where he had been lodged, and thereupon retired to the yard again lay covered with some straw till about four in the morning and then returning to the house saw the panel, William Hall, in custody of some soldiers; and the deponent having said to him that he had given him a cold bath that night, William Hall answered that he was not to blame, being only hired, and had no hand in it, but that Andrew Wilson and George Robertson had come there of a design to rob the deponent that night, and that this design had been formed several months before by Andrew Wilson, and particularly at the preceding collection at Elie; and further depones that soon after the deponent got out of the window as aforesaid, he heard the clock strike twelve; that when the deponent was first awakened out of his sleep as aforesaid, he heard Mrs Fowler, the landlady, call to the persons who were breaking open the deponent's bed-room, "What are ye doing?" or "Why do ye this?" and the deponent heard them at the same time cursing and swearing and making a great noise; and the deponent having only carried one bag of money along with him as aforesaid, he left in said bed-room the money and goods following, viz., the deponent's breeches, in which was a purse with fifty-two and a-half guineas, betwixt six and seven pounds in silver, and a pocket-book with one and forty pounds in bank notes, which purse and pocket-book the deponent exhibits in court; that besides the bank notes, there were several bills and other papers in the pocket-book, and that there was likewise in the deponent's breeches, a seal, a pair of silver shoe-buckles, and a penknife, which the deponent likewise exhibits; the deponent likewise left in his room a cloak-bag with some linens in it, which cloak-bag the deponent likewise exhibits in court; as also a bible, a pair of pistols, which the deponent likewise exhibits; that upon the deponent returning to his room as aforesaid, he found the door of the room broken up, and saw a press in the room which had been broken up, and found his breeches empty and all the several particulars above enumerated amissing; and thereafter, about seven o'clock in the morning, the deponent having gone to Anstruther-Easter, he soon thereafter saw the three panels in custody; and the deponent did then see in the hands of the magistrates of Anstruther, the seal, the buckles, and penknife above mentioned; depones that upon Monday following, being the 12th of January last, William Hall, panel, told the deponent that he had informed Alexander Clerk, supervisor of excise, where the purse of gold was to be found, whereupon the deponent desired the supervisor to go in quest of it, which he did, and having found it, he restored it to the deponent with the whole gold in it; and that the bible was returned to the deponent by one of the soldiers who apprehended Hall; that on Saturday night the 10th of January, the deponent got back his pocket-book and bank notes, with the other papers in the said pocket-book, from Bailie Robert Brown in Anstruther-Easter.
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