This is something like a decision of the great Frederick of Prussia. One of his soldiers, a Catholic, pretended peculiar sanctity, and an especial devotion to a particular image of the Virgin Mary, which, richly decorated with ornaments by the zeal of her worshippers, was placed in a chapel in one of the churches of the city where her votary was quartered. The soldier acquired such familiarity with the object of his devotion, and was so much confided in by the priests, that he watched for and found an opportunity of possessing himself of a valuable diamond necklace belonging to the Madonna. Although the defendant was taken in the manner, he had the impudence, knowing the case was to be heard by the King, to say that the Madonna herself had voluntarily presented him with her necklace, observing that, as her good and faithful votary, he had better apply it to his necessities, than that it should remain useless in her custody.
The King, happy of the opportunity of tormenting the priests, demanded of them, whether there was a possibility that the soldier's defence might be true. Their faith obliged them to grant that the story was possible, while they exhausted themselves on the improbabilities which attended it. "Nevertheless," said the King, "since it is possible, we must, in absence of proof, receive it as true, in the first instance. All I can do to check an imprudent generosity of the saints in future, is to publish an edict, or public order, that all soldiers in my service, who shall accept any gift from the Virgin, or any saint whatever, shall, eo ipso, incur the penalty of death."
Amongst English trials, there is only mention of a ghost in a very incidental manner, in that of John Cole, fourth year of William and Mary, State Trials, vol. xii. The case is a species of supplement to that of the well-known trial of Henry Harrison, which precedes it in the same collection, of which the following is the summary.
A respectable doctor of medicine, Clenche, had the misfortune to offend a haughty, violent, and imperious woman of indifferent character, named Vanwinckle, to whom he had lent money, and who he wished to repay it. A hackney-coach, with two men in it, took up the physician by night, as they pretended, to carry him to visit a patient. But on the road they strangled him with a handkerchief, having a coal, or some such hard substance, placed against their victim's windpipe, and escaped from the coach. One Henry Harrison, a man of loose life, connected with this Mrs Vanwinckle, the borrower of the money, was tried, convicted, and executed, on pretty clear evidence, yet he died denying the crime charged. The case being of a shocking nature, of course interested the feelings of the common people, and another person was accused as an accessory, the principal evidence against whom was founded on this story.
A woman, called Millward, pretended that she had seen the ghost of her deceased husband, who told her that one John Cole had assisted him, the ghost, in the murder of Dr Clenche. Cole was brought to trial accordingly; but the charge was totally despised, both by judge and jury, and produced no effect whatever in obtaining conviction.
Such being the general case with respect to apparitions, really alluded to or quoted in formal evidence in courts of justice, an evidence of that kind gravely given and received in the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, has some title to be considered as a curiosity.
The Editor's connexion with it is of an old standing, since, shortly after he was called to the bar in 1792, it was pointed out to him by Robert M'Intosh, Esq., one of the counsel in the case, then and long after remarkable for the interest which he took, and the management which he possessed, in the prolix and complicated affairs of the York Building Company.
The cause of the trial, bloody and sad enough in its own nature, was one of the acts of violence which were the natural consequences of the Civil War in 1745.
It was about three years after the battle of Culloden that this poor man, Sergeant Davis, was quartered, with a small military party, in an uncommonly wild part of the Highlands, near the country of the Farquharsons, as it is called, and adjacent to that which is now the property of the Earl of Fife. A more waste tract of mountain and bog, rocks and ravines, extending from Dubrach to Glenshee, without habitations of any kind until you reach Glenclunie, is scarce to be met with in Scotland. A more fit locality, therefore, for a deed of murder, could hardly be pointed out, nor one which could tend more to agitate superstitious feelings. The hill of Christie, on which the murder was actually committed, is a local name, which is probably known in the country, though the Editor has been unable to discover it more specially, but it certainly forms part of the ridge to which the general description applies. Davis was attached to the country where he had his residence, by the great plenty of sport which it afforded, and, when dispatched upon duty across these mountains, he usually went at some distance from his men, and followed his game without regarding the hints thrown out about danger from the country people. To this he was exposed, not only from his being intrusted with the odious office of depriving the people of their arms and national dress, but still more from his usually carrying about with him a stock of money and valuables, considerable for the time and period, and enough of itself to be a temptation to his murder.
On the 28th day of September, the Sergeant set forth, along with a party, which was to communicate with a separate party of English soldiers at Glenshee; but when Davis's men came to the place of rendezvous, their commander was not with them, and the privates could only say that they had heard the report of his gun after he had parted from them on his solitary sport. In short, Sergeant Arthur Davis was seen no more in this life, and his remains were long sought for in vain. At length a native of the country, named M'Pherson, made it known to more than one person that the spirit of the unfortunate huntsman had appeared to him, and told him he had been murdered by two Highlanders, natives of the country, named Duncan Terig alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald. Proofs accumulated, and a person was even found to bear witness, that lying in concealment upon the hill of Christie, the spot where poor Davis was killed, he and another man, now dead, saw the crime committed with their own eyes. A girl whom Clerk afterwards married, was, nearly at the same time, seen in possession of two valuable rings which the Sergeant used to have about his person. Lastly, the counsel and agent of the prisoners were convinced of their guilt. Yet, notwithstanding all these suspicious circumstances, the panels were ultimately acquitted by the jury.
This was chiefly owing to the ridicule thrown upon the story by the incident of the ghost, which was enhanced seemingly, if not in reality, by the ghost-seer stating the spirit to have spoken as good Gaelic as he had ever heard in Lochaber.—"Pretty well," answered Mr M'Intosh, "for the ghost of an English sergeant!" This was indeed no sound jest, for there was nothing more ridiculous, in a ghost speaking a language which he did not understand when in the body, than there was in his appearing at all. But still the counsel had a right to seize upon whatever could benefit his clients, and there is no doubt that this observation rendered the evidence of the spectre yet more ridiculous. In short, it is probable that the ghost of Sergeant Davis, had he actually been to devise how to prevent these two men from being executed for his own murder, could hardly have contrived a better mode than by the apparition in the manner which was sworn to.