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96 SUSSEX SMUGGLERS. |
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Eichard Mills the younger was there on that day, and upon hearing from Jackson and Carter that they had passed by a precipice thirty feet deep when they had Chater with them, lie said, " If I had been there I would have called a council of war on the spot, and he (Chater) should have gone no further," or to that effect.
That two or three days afterwards the company met at Scardefield's again, to consult what to do with Chater; that the prisoners John Eace, Carter and Jackson, the prisoner Eichard Mills the younger (a son of the prisoner Eiehard Mills the elder), Thomas Willis, John Mills (another son of old Mills), the prisoners Tapner, Cobby, Hammond, and Thomas Stringer, Edmund Eichards, and Daniel Perryer, and he (the witness) were consulting what to do with Chater, and John Mills* proposed to take him out, and load a gun, and tie a string to the trigger, and place him (Chater) against the gun, and that they should all of them pull the string, to involve every one of them in the same degree of guilt; but this proposal was not agreed to. Then Jackson and Carter proposed to carry him back to the well near Lady Holt Park, and to murder him there, which was agreed to by all the company ; but Eichard Mills the younger and John Mills said they could not go with them to the well, because they had no horses : and as it was in their (the other persons') way home, they might do it as well without them ; and so it was concluded to murder Chater, and then throw him into the well.
As soon as it was agreed amongst them to murder Chater and fling him down the well, they went away |
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* The witness was not certain whether it was John Mills, or his brother Richard Mills, that made the proposal. |
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