Tuesday, August 15, 2006

10_3

Epilogue.



January 12th 1806.
Chatham.
Dear Sir Joseph Blaine.
Admiralty House, London.

It has befallen me as directed by his lordship the newly appointed high Judge of Chatham Sir Kenneth Appleby, the duty to write to you this summary of the events directly preceding and following the recent successful apprehension of Mister Willem Maes on the charge of smuggling contraband gold into the United Kingdom.

The events to which I refer, concern the murders of seven people. Miss Mary Coleman, Miss Sarah Tyler, Master Nicholas Sedgwick, Mister Jack Kirby and Mister Samuel Harrow all of Saint Albans Island. Mister Joseph Arkwright of the Chatham magistrate’s office and Mister Christopher Dunston Stokes of London.

The tribunal has taken the testimony of the witnesses and officers of the Kings law, who were present on the island and has found that these seven people died at the hands of a dangerous lunatic, whose identity has yet to be established.

However, during the course of the proceedings of the tribunal, Mister Morgan d’Hogue who represented the Admiralty in the matter of the gold smuggling case, put forward a very different proposition to explain the tragic deaths of these seven people.

Most unfortunately his contribution to the proceedings were ruled as inadmissible by the judges since their lordships felt Mister d’Hogue was labouring under some form of instability of the mind.

The Crown’s prosecution under Mister Archibald Hyde QC has since put forward the charge of murder against Mister Morgan d’Hogue and he has been detained until further notice until his sanity can be verified by the eminent doctor, Sir Michael Graves of the Royal College of Medicine.

Your servant.
M.B. Waterhouse.
Secretary to the office of Sir Kenneth Appleby.

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