me one in court whispered to them to do, for
the crime was covered by the Act of Pardon and Oblivion passed by
Charles II. at his happy Restoration. If they were innocent of the
robbery, as probably they were, they acted foolishly in pleading
guilty. We hear of no evidence against them for the robbery, except
John's confession, which was evidence perhaps against John, but was
none against _them_. They thus damaged their case, for if they were
really guilty of the robbery from Harrison's house, they were the most
likely people in the neighbourhood to have robbed him again and
murdered him. Very probably they tied the rope round their own necks
by taking advantage of the good King's indemnity. They later withdrew
their confession, and probably were innocent of the theft in 1659.
[Transcriber's Note: original has 1559.]

On the charge of murder they were not tried in September. Sir
Christopher Turner would not proceed 'because the body of Harrison was
not found.' There was no _corpus delicti_, no evidence that Harrison
was really dead. Meanwhile John Perry, as if to demonstrate his
lunacy, declared that his mother and brother had tried to poison him
in prison! At the Spring Assizes in 1661, Sir B. Hyde, less legal than
Sir Christopher Turner, did try the Perrys on the charge of murder.
How he could do this does not appear, for the account of the trial is
not in the Record House, and I am unable at present to trace it. In
the _Arminian Magazine_, John Wesley publishes a story of a man who
was hanged for murdering another man, whom he afterwards met in one of
the Spanish colonies of South America. I shall not here interrupt the
tale of the Perrys by explaining how a hanged man met a murdered man,
but the anecdote proves that to inflict capital punishment for murder
without proof that murder has been committed is not only an illegal
but an injudicious proceeding. Probably it was assumed that Harrison,
if alive, would have given signs of life in the course of nine or ten
months.

At the trial in spring all three Perrys pleaded 'not guilty.' John's
confession being proved against him, 'he told them he was then mad and
knew not what he said.' There must have been _some_ evidence against
Richard. He declared that his brother had accused others besides him.
Being asked to prove this, he answered 'that most of those that had
given evidence against him knew it,' but named none. So evidence had
been given (perhaps to the effect tha