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A LEGEND OF SALISBURY PLAIN, 1786. 

 i^Pj^N Friday, 16th June 1786, a sailor, by name Gervase Mat- 

 f£ ff| c ^ iam ' ^tended by a companion, went before James Easton 

 Esq. the Mayor of Salisbury, for the purpose of making a voluntary 

 declaration that he had committed a murder in Huntingdonshire 

 about seven years previously. But his story was so confused and 

 his conduct so strange, that the Mayor entertained doubts of his 

 sanity ; and accordingly gave him into safe custody until an answer 

 might be obtained from the Town-clerk of Huntingdon, with whom 

 Mr. Turner the Salisbury Town- clerk was thereupon directed to 

 put himself in communication. 



On the following Tuesday morning a letter arrived from the 

 Town-clerk of Huntingdon, declaring tbat it was quite true that a 

 murder had been committed near that town, at the period stated; 

 and adding, that diligent search had been made for the perpetrator 

 thereof at the time, but to no effect. This information, though 

 scanty, was sufficient to create a strong suspicion against the pri- 

 soner, who was accordingly had up the next day before a full 

 bench of Justices, in whose presence he made the following confes- 

 sion. "In the early part of his life he had been engaged in various 

 employments by sea and land, particularly in the services of Cap- 

 tain O'Kelly, and Mr. Dymock of Oxford Street, London, as a 

 jockey. About seven years since he enlisted into a regiment then 

 lying at Huntingdon, (the name or number he could not remember) ; 

 that after he had been in the corps about three weeks, he was 

 travelling upon the turnpike road, about four miles from Hunting- 

 don in company with a drummer, about 17 years of age, the son of 

 a sergeant in the regiment [name, Jones], when words arising 

 about the poor lad's refusing to return and drink at a public house 

 they had passed, Matcham knocked him down, and then, as he 

 declares, first conceived the idea of murdering him, which, after 



