It likewise affords us an instance of the mysterious providence of God. Two innocent men are charged with a crime; and the consequence of imprisonment, and pos

sibly of grief, ends in the death of one of them. We may presume that he was too good for this wicked world; and that the Almighty chose this method of calling him to a better!

THOMAS PACKER was a native of London, his father being a shoemaker in Butcherhall Lane, Newgate Street. He was bound apprentice to the master of the Ship Tavern at Greenwich; but, not being content in his situation, he was turned over to a vintner, who kept the Rummer Tavern, near Red Lion Square; and, having served the rest of his time, he lived as a waiter in different places.

He had not been long out of his time before he married; but the expenses of his new connexion, added to those arising from the extravagance of his disposition, soon reduced him to circumstances of dis

tress.

Joseph Picken was likewise a native of London, being the son of a tailor in Clerkenwell; but his father dying while he was an infant, he was educated by his mother, who placed him with a vintner near Billingsgate, with whom he served an apprenticeship, after which he married, and kept the tap of the Mermaid Inn at Windsor: but his wife being a bad manager, and his business much neglected, he was soon reduced to the utmost extremity of poverty.

Being obliged even to sell his bed and sleep on the floor, his wife advised him to go on the highway, to supply their necessities. Fatally for him, he listened to her advice, and repaired to London, where, on the following day, he fell into company with Packer, who had been an old acquaintance.

The poverty of these unhappy men tempted them to make a speedy resolution of committing depredations on the public; in consequence of which they hired horses as to go to Windsor; but, instead thereof, they rode towards Finchley; and, in a road between Highgate and Hornsey, they robbed two farmers, whom they compelled to dismount, and turned their horses loose.

Hastening to London with their ill-gotten booty, they went to a public house in Monmouth Street, where one of them, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, accidentally drew out his pistol with it, which being remarked by a person in company, he procured a peace-officer, who took them into custody on suspicion.

Having been lodged in the Round House for that night, they were taken before a magistrate on the following day; and, being separately examined, disagreed much in their tale; and the parties who had been robbed attending, and swearing to their persons, they were committed for trial.

When they were brought to the bar, they endeavoured to prove that they were absent from the spot at the time the robbery was committed; but, failing in this, a verdiet of guilty was given against them, and they received sentence of death.

After conviction they behaved with every sign of contrition. Packer was in a very bad state of health almost the whole time he lay under

husband called upon her about a fortnight before the perpetration of the murder, and told her he would bring her something to relieve her and the next day he gave her a medicine that had the appearance of conserve of roses, which threw her into such severe convulsion fits, that her life was despaired of for some hours; but at length she recovered.

This scheme failing, Houssart determined to murder her; to effect which, and conceal the crime, he took the following method:

Having directed his second wife to meet him at the Turk's Head, in Bishopsgate Street, she went thither and waited for him. In the mean time he dressed himself in a white great coat, and walked out with a cane in his hand, and a sword by his side. Going to the end of Swan Alley, Shoreditch, he gave a boy a penny to go into the lodgings of his first wife and her mother, Mrs. Rondeau, and tell the old woman that a gentleman wanted to speak with her at the Black Dog, in Bishopsgate Street.

Mrs. Rondeau saying she would wait on the gentleman, Houssart hid himself in the alley, till the boy told him she was gone out, and then went to his wife's room, and cut her throat with a razor, and, thus murdered, she was found by her mother, on her return from the Black Dog, after inquiring in vain for the gentleman who was said to be waiting for her.

In the interim Houssart went to his other wife at the Turk's Head, where he appeared much dejected, and had some sudden starts of pas. sion. The landlady of the house, who was at supper with his wife, expressing some surprise at his be haviour, he became more calm, and said he was only uneasy lest her

husband should return, and find him so meanly dressed; and, soon after this, Houssart and his wife went home.

Mrs. Rondeau, having found her daughter murdered, as above mentioned, went to her son, to whom she communicated the affair: and he, having heard that Houssart lodged in Lothbury, took a constable, went thither, and said he was come to apprehend him on suspicion of having murdered his wife; on which he laughed loudly, and asked if any thing in his looks indicated that he could be guilty of such a crime.

Being committed to Newgate, he was tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, but acquitted for want of the evidence of the boy, who was not found till a considerable time afterwards: but the Court ordered the prisoner to remain in Newgate, to take his trial for bigamy.

In consequence hereof he was indicted at the next sessions, when full proof was brought of both his marriages; but an objection was made by his counsel, on a point of law,

Whether he could be guilty of bigamy, as the first marriage was performed by a French minister, and he was only once married according to the form of the Church of England.' On this the jury brought in a special verdict, subject to the determination of the twelve judges.

While Houssart lay in Newgate, waiting this solemn award, the boy whom he had employed to go into the house of Mrs. Rondeau, and who had hitherto kept secret the whole transaction, being in conversation with his mother, asked her what would become of the boy if he should be apprehended. The mother told him he would be only sworn to tell the truth. Why,'

said he, I thought they would hang him' but the mother satisfying him that there was no danger of any such consequence, and talking further with him on the subject, he confessed that he was the boy who went with the message.

Hereupon he was taken to Solomon Rondeau, brother of the deceased, who went with him to a justice of peace, and the latter ordered a constable to attend him to Newgate, where he fixed on Houssart as the person who had employed him in the manner above mentioned.

In consequence hereof Solomon Rondeau lodged an appeal against the prisoner; but it appearing that there was some bad Latin in it, no proceedings could be had thereon; and, therefore, another appeal was lodged the next sessions, when the prisoner urging that he was not prepared for his trial, he was yet indulged till a subsequent sessions.

The appeal was brought in the name of Solomon Rondeau, as heir to the deceased; and the names of John Doe and Richard Roe were entered in the common form, as pledges to prosecute.

When the trial came on, the counsel for the prisoner stated the following pleas, in bar to, and abatement of, the proceedings:

I. That besides the appeal, to which he now pleaded, there was another yet depending, and unidetermined.

II. A misnomer, because his name was not Lewis, but Louis.

III. That the addition of labourer was wrong, for he was not a labourer, but a barber-surgeon.

IV. That there were no such persons as John Doe and Richard Roe, who were mentioned as pledges in the appeal.

V. That Henry Rondeau was the brother and heir to the de

ceased; that Solomon Rondeau was not her brother and heir, and, therefore, was not the proper appellant; and,

VI. That the defendant was not guilty of the facts charged in the appeal.

The counsel for the appellant replied to these several pleas in substance as follows:

To the first, that the former appeal was already quashed, and therefore could not be depending and undetermined.

To the second, that it appeared that the prisoner had owned to the name of Lewis, by pleading to it on two indictments, the one for bigamy, and the other for murder; and his handwriting was produced, in which he had spelt his name Lewis; and it was likewise proved that he had usually answered to that

name.

To the third, it was urged that, on the two former indictments, he had pleaded to the addition of labourer; and a person swore that the prisoner worked as a journeyman or servant, and did not carry on his business as a master.

To the fourth, it was urged that there were two such persons in Middlesex as John Doe and Richard Roe; the one a weaver, and the other a soldier; and this fact was sworn to.

In answer to the fifth, Ann Rondeau, the mother of the deceased, swore that she had no children except the murdered party, and Solomon Rondeau, the appellant; that Solomon was brother and heir to the deceased, which Henry Rondeau was not, being only the son of her husband by a former wife.

With regard to the last article, respecting his being not guilty, that was left to be determined by the opinion of the jury.

Hereupon the trial was brought

His behaviour after conviction was very improper for one in his melancholy situation; and, as the day of execution drew nearer, he became still more thoughtless and more hardened, and frequently declared that he would cut his throat, as the jury had found him guilty of cutting that of his wife.

His behaviour at the place of execution was equally hardened. He refused to pray with the Ordinary of Newgate, and another clergy man, who kindly attended to assist him in his devotions.

He suffered on the 7th of December, 1724, opposite the end of Swan Alley, in Shoreditch.

every

'Since laws were made for degree,' we suppose the villain must have his advocate as well as the injured and the innocent. At the same time, it must be acknow. ledged, by every dispassionate and reasonable being, that it is a sad perversion of justice when able law. yers will come forth and use such frivolous arguments to shield a guilty man as those produced on the trial of Houssart: not but that in our opinion, so far from rendering him any assistance, they only tended more clearly to prove his guilt; for no man, with a consciousness of his own innocence, would have consented to so slender and unjust a method of screening himself from the punishment he so richly merited

and received.

This must not be, else where is the security for the righteous and the just? A person accused of any criminal act ought not be allowed to evade the sentence of the law by a flaw in the indictment, a mere mispelling of a name, a wrong residence, a wrong profession, or some such paltry subterfuge; he ought not to slip the noose, into which his neck has got entangled, deed was one of the worst in the by so undue a course. Houssart's black catalogue of crime. Murder, in any instance, is an offence of the most heinous nature; but, in the present case, words can scarce be found of sufficient force to paint the enormity of so base an act as the depriving that woman of exist ence whom he had sworn to cherish and protect.

Murder itself is past all expiation,
The greatest crime that Nature doth abhor:
And when we be, make others not to be,
Not being, is abominable to her;
'Tis worse than bestial; and we did not so
When only we by Nature's aid did live,
A het'rogeneous kind, as semi-beasts;
When reason challeng'd scarce a part in us :
But now doth Manhood and Civility
Stand at the bar of Justice, and there plead
How much they're wronged, and how much

defac'd,

When man doth dye his hands in blood of

man.

Judgment itself would scarce a law enact Against the murd’rer, thinking it a fact That man 'gainst man would never dare commit,

Since the worst things of Nature do not it.

THIS was one of the most notorious and daring thieves in the days

GoFFE.