WEYMOTJTH AND THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 227 



her husband and herself ; that he had with him 300 in a 

 canvas bag, viz : 52 in silver and the rest in gold ; that 

 about midnight her husband asked her to agree to the murder 

 of the trader ; that she replied that she feared to do so, lest 

 she should be hanged, to which Chiles answered that " it 

 was noe matter for killinge of a man now t'was a tyme of 

 warre ; " that her husband then got up, took a hammer, 

 and struck Courtney twice on the forehead, while asleep ; 

 that he " thereupon spraled, but spoke not at all ; " that 

 having cut away his " shorte coate " and part of his other 

 clothes, she and her husband dragged the corpse down the 

 stairs (her husband going before and she after), and carried 

 it into an outhouse ; that her husband then looked into the 

 street and, not seeing anyone, they together carried the 

 corpse to some earthworks which had been constructed on 

 the north side of the Blockhouse, and thence, apparently, 

 along the shore, to the end of the old jetty or pier (near where 

 the Custom House on the Quay now stands), and there threw 

 it into the sea. There was, certainly, an appearance of 

 truth about all this, because the jetty was the easternmost 

 part of the quay in those days, and Chiles and his wife would 

 naturally think that the body would be carried out into the 

 bay. On their returning home the same way, they were 

 challenged by the sentry at the Blockhouse, but met with no 

 other hindrance. This gruesome business occupied an hour 

 and a half in that dark winter night. When Chiles reached 

 his home, he, to quote the words of his wife, " strooke fire 

 and lighted a candle, and told the money in their low room, 

 on ye bare table which stands by ye window next ye streete, 

 and laide ye gould by itselfe, and the white mony by itselfe, 

 and then putt it up agayne into the said bagge," and then 

 they both went to bed, her husband saying " that that mony 

 would make them both." 



Apparently, Chiles' wife must have been actuated by 

 extraordinary malice in bringing this accusation against her 

 husband, so long after the event, especially as by so doing 

 she, as an accomplice, might have risked her own neck. 



