e been secreted by Courvoisier, consequently, that
by him the murder was committed; but there is as yet no evidence
to convict him of the actual commission of the deed, and though I
believe him to be guilty, I could not, on such a case as there is
as yet, find him so if placed on a jury. I am very sceptical
about evidence, and know how strangely circumstances sometimes
combine to produce appearances of guilt where there may be none.
There is a curious case of this mentioned in Romilly's Memoirs,
of a man hanged for mutiny upon the evidence of a witness who
swore to his person, and upon his own confession after
conviction, and yet it was satisfactorily proved afterwards that
he had been mistaken for another man, and was really innocent. He
had been induced to confess at the instigation of a fellow-
prisoner, who told him it was his best chance of escaping.

[Page Head: NARROW ESCAPE OF A CULPRIT.]

Lord Ashburton, when we were talking of this, told me an anecdote
of General Maitland (Sir Thomas), which happened at some place in
the West Indies or South America. He had taken some town, and the
soldiers were restrained from committing violence on the
inhabitants, when a shot was fired from a window, and one of his
men killed. They entered the house, went to the room from the
window of which the shot had been fired, and found a number of
men playing at billiards. They insisted on the culprit being
given up, when a man was pointed out as the one who had fired the
shot. They all agreed as to the culprit, and he was carried off.
Sir Thomas considering that a severe example was necessary,
ordered the man to be tied to the mouth of a cannon, and shot
away. He was present, but turned his head away when the signal
was given for blowing this wretch's body to atoms. The explosion
took place, when to his amazement the man appeared alive, but
with his hair literally standing 'like quills upon the fretful
porcupine,' with terror. In the agony of the moment he had
contrived to squeeze himself through the ropes, which were
loosely tied, and get on one side of the cannon's mouth, so that
the ball missed him. He approached Maitland and said, 'You see,
General, that it was the will of Heaven my life should be spared;
and I solemnly assure you that I am innocent.' Maitland would not
allow him to be executed after this miraculous escape, and it
turned out, upon further enquiry, that he _was_ innocent, and it
was some other man who had fir