y-council, nor the lords of the
admiralty, nor other officers who interrogated him, could elicit
anything from him that would tend to his crimination. What authority,
however, failed to perform, that craft brought about. On the suggestion
of Earl Temple, another painter, who had been also in America, was put
into the same ward with John, in order to circumvent and entrap him.
Fellow-feeling caused the taciturn prisoner to open his mouth. His
brother painter pretended to sympathise in his misfortunes, descanted
largely on his travels in America, and professed principles similar to
his own. The travelled painter did all this with such address, that he
finally gathered from John that his real name was Aitken; that he had
entered into many regiments from which he had deserted so soon as he had
received the bounty-money; that he had traversed England through nearly
all its parts, sometimes robbing on the highway, and sometimes filching
and stealing in towns while he worked at his trade: that he went to
America, where he commenced politician and reformer of abuses, and where
he conceived the notion of serving the cause of liberty by burning our
shipping and our principal trading cities and towns; that he then left
America for France, where he had several interviews with Silas Deane,
the agent of congress; that Silas Deane encouraged his project, by
giving him money and promising him rewards commensurate with the service
he should render the American cause; that he then procured a French
passport and came over to Canterbury; and that on leaving Canterbury
he proceeded to Portsmouth, where he began to compound and prepare
his combustibles, after which he went into the dock-yard and made the
attempt of which he was suspected. The manner in which this evidence
was derived was certainly contrary to the spirit of the English law, and
repugnant to the feeling and practice of the present day, but on
this evidence vouched by the travelled painter, John the Painter was
condemned and executed. There was no doubt left on any mind either as
to the culprit's guilt, or to his connexion with Silas Deane; but before
his death he is said to have confessed to some naval officers, that most
of what his accuser had testified against him, was true--that he had,
indeed, applied to Deane, who had promised him a reward of great price
when his work should be done. Nothing transpired which would inculpate
Choiseul the French minister, but as he was still