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144 SUSSEX SMUGGLERS.
never proposed by any of them to hurt either Galley or Chater, but to keep them privately to prevent their giving the designed information, till the women, Carter's and Jackson's wives, proposed hanging them ; and then it was talked of carrying them to the well just by, and to hang them and fling them down it, but it was not agreed to ; neither did any of the men in his presence or hearing shew or intimate any inclination towards their so doing.
He said further, that they all drank pretty freely to make Galley and Chater drunk, and when they came to the resolution of carrying them both away, and concealing them till they knew what would be the fate of the shepherd Dimer, they were all more than half drunk; that he verily believed none of them had any design of murdering them while they were at Eowland's Castle; but Jackson, who was the drunkest of the company, called out to whip them, which was soon after they set out from Mrs. Payne's house, when Edmund Richards, who is not yet taken, began to lash them with his long whip ; and then they all did the same except Steel, who wras leading the horse the two men rode on.
He said that the design of tying their legs under the horse's belly was for no other reason than to prevent their jumping off and running away, and making their escape, as it w^as night time ; which, if either of them should do, they would be all inevitably ruined.
The liquor they had drank, and giving way to their passion, urged them on to the cruelties they exercised on Chater; but when they found Galley was dead, it sobered them all very much, and they were all in a great consternation and surprise, and could not tell what to do, when they concluded to bury the body of Galley, and to take care of Chater. |
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