Alexander Thomson, accountant of Excise, called in and sworn.

Alexander Thomson — I remember that the Excise Office was broke into on Wednesday, the 5th of March last. When I left the office at the usual hour that night, about eight o’clock, I locked the door of the cashier’s room before I left, and carried the key away with me. I saw John Duncan, the door-keeper, in the hall as I came out. I left in two concealed drawers below the desk about £600 sterling, and in the desk itself £15 16s. 3½d., being two-thirds of the proceeds of a seizure sent from Greenock, to be divided amongst three people. About ten o’clock the same evening the office porter, or watchman, came to me and informed me that the Excise Office had been broken into. I immediately repaired to the office, and found Mr. Dundas, the housekeeper, and Mr. Pearson, the secretary, there; and, along with them, I examined the premises. The outer door and the passage door appeared to have been opened without violence, but the door of the cashier’s room seemed to have been forced with a lever or other instrument; the door of a small press in the room appeared likewise to have been forced open, and a few shillings, and some stamps for receipts that were in it, carried off. The key of my desk, which I usually kept in this place, had likewise been taken out, and the desk opened with it. The £15 odds, which I had left in the desk, were gone, and also a receipt for £7 18s. 2d., but the concealed drawers, in which the £600 was contained, were untouched. These drawers cannot be opened without first opening the desk, and the keyhole is concealed by a slip of wood, which might escape a slight observer. Accordingly it had remained untouched, although the key of it lay in the desk. Behind the door there was left the coulter of a plough and two iron wedges—[Here these articles were shown to the witness]—the same as these now on the table.

Cross-examined by Mr. John Clerk for George Smith—Pray, Mr. Thomson, was the Excise Office, when in the Canongate, kept in one house or in two houses?

Alexander Thomson — It was kept in three houses, or in one large house, consisting of a front and two wings, and, besides this principal house, there was a small one fronting, and nearly adjoining to it, in which Mr. Broughton’s office, Mr. Dick’s office, and the Register of Seizures were kept.