Volume II
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Persode, Esq., St James's Street, Westminster, in October, 1707 house in the Old Bailey, 16th of October, 1707, for burn- ing and consuming the mansion-house of Peter Persode, Esq., in St James's Street, Westminster. He was likewise indicted a second time for breaking open the said house about three o'clock on the day above mentioned and taking from thence a gold tweezer case and chain, value fifty pounds, a gold watch, seventeen guineas, and valuables. Mr Persode deposed that the prisoner had been his servant for the space of two months, and was discharged from his service the Monday before the fact was committed, and that the Wednesday following, about ten o'clock at night, he left all his doors and windows fast. Mrs Persode deposed that when she went to bed she locked up her tweezer case, watch and other articles ; and that about three o'clock in the morning she awoke and smelt a strong smell of smoke. Getting up, she went out of her chamber and found a lighted flambeau in the passage, which had burned the boards ; that she then opened the door of a parlour, which was full of smoke, and immediately the room was all on fire, which rushed out of the stairs and raged with such fury that the house was consumed in a quarter of an hour, they not being able to save any of their goods. Mr Stevenson and Mr Acton, goldsmiths, deposed that the prisoner offered to sell the tweezer case to them, and asked eight pounds for it, which gave them reason to suspect he had stolen it, and thereupon they stopped it, but the prisoner went away; and upon inquiry they found it to be Mr Persode's property; that afterwards, he coming again to demand the goods, they seized him, and on searching him found two pistols and a dagger about him, with which they were informed he designed to shoot or stab them if they refused to return the tweezer case. The prisoner denied the fact, and said he bought the goods of a strange man, but could give no proof of it, nor where he was the night the fact was committed; whereupon the jury found him guilty of both indictments. All the time he was under condemnation at Newgate he seemed only to meditate on making his escape. He was executed in St James's Street, near St James's House, Westminster; and hanged in chains at Acton Gravel Pits, 24th of October, 1707. 1 |