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An old man who kept a public house and whose family had on
some account or other left him at home alone for a few hours or a night was found at
their return murdered. Upon enquiries being made, the Neighbours
had seen a man come out of the house by himself sometime
after all other company were gone. This man by the description
which they gave of him was taken up. His cloaths were found
bloody and I believe things found upon him which had belonged
to the old man, or in short so many circumstances
seemed to prove him the author of the murder that the
Judges though not without a great deal of deliberation
found him guilty, and of course as he was not disposed
to confess, the torture was applied. He immediately upon
the application of the torture not only confessed th himself
guilty but pointed out a private place in which he
had secreted the money he took away with him, and
which was his motive for committing the Murder.
He gave an account of the number of each species of mCoin
which was just the agreed with what the old man had
been known to have. He also told them the place from
which he had taken it and confessed many other circumstances which
could not were of such a nature as could not have been
known but by his confession. By this means such
of the Judges as had been diffident with respect to the
Justice of the sentence were perfectly satisfied. The
man was of course executed. This May told me
as an example of the use that torture is of now
and then. The use only use was the satisfaction
of such of the Judges who were not satisfied before for the man was before condemned
and was at any rate to submit to the torture and
perpetual imprisonment if he had not confessed or even if
he had really not been guilty.
I told you in a former letter that May's opinion was that
the whole of the police wa is much better conducted regulated in
Amsterdam than in England. He told me of his having been
present at several trials at the Old Bailey when he was last
in England and among others at one on a man for Sodomy
He was with an Alderman of London. who when the witnesses
were heard to prove the crime which they did in a very
particular manner, the man the subject patient I believe swore
to the perfect commission and others were gave testimony of
circumstances confirming it, This companion of his asked
him if it was not as clear as could be saying at the same
time Oh the fellow must be hanged there is no doubt of it. However
when the man came to call his witnesses he proved by thise
testimony that of 5 persons that he was somewhere else
I have forgot to whom I was to take Abbé Fontana's Books
Troestwyth's Experiments
at the time. May asked his companion what he
thought of the matter now. Oh says he these are nothing
but false witnesses". This and the air of indifference
with which it was pronounced quite astonished May, but
however the some how or other the man was found guilty
and hanged but no notice taken of the false evidence.
May lifts up his hands & eyes with astonishment & concern
at the thoughts of such instances as these which he saw
of the seeming indifference with which all the criminal
procedings were conducted in his native country.
I believe I have not as yet written to you anything
about a Mr Troestwych a young man a Merchant
in Amsterdam in a good way of business. I went
to his house by invitation with Cuthbertson the Instrument
maker, to see his apparatus for air experiments.
His apparatus is the by far the compleatest of any
I have seen or heard of, not except the Abbé Fontana's.
And I think his genius for invention and accuracy
in the conducting of Experiments also equals at least the
Abbè's. He has made some very important discoveries
with respect to Aphlogic, Phlogisti, and
Nitrous airs: as also respecting the effect of Vegetation
& respiration on Airs. It is with this same apparatus
that Dr Dismon makes his experiments and it belongs
to them in conjunction. They make their experiments
in conjunction and they share in the expence. It is a large
room in Troestwych's house that is fitted up for the
purpose; he seems to be the chief experimenter and
Dr Dismon the writer. I have I believe mentioned
Dr Dismon to you before as the man who attained
a premium for his discovery relating to Airs.
It has long been a matter of enquiry what was the
cause of the diminution of air when mixed with Nitrous
air, so much of it indeed as could arise from the
decomposition of the Nitrous air itself appears to have
been very satisfactorily accounted for by Priestly and
agreed to by other experimenters but the reason of why the
the compound becomes less than the common or Aphlogistic
air only had not that I ever heard of been
accounted for by any hypothesis proved by experiments.
Troestwych has proved by numberless experiments that it
is owing to a great quantity of fixed air which the
very best aphlogistic air that had ever been made
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Identifier: | JB/538/394/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 538.
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1779-10-15 |
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538 |
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394 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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