John Kinnear, servant to the Earl of Abercorn at Duddingston, called in and sworn.

John Kinnear — I recollect that the coulter of a plough with which I had been at work and two iron wedges were stolen from a field some time last spring, but whether in February or March I cannot say, only I recollect that there was then snow upon the ground. I loosed from work between two and three o’clock on the day on which the articles were stolen, and went to Edinburgh, and on my way thither, about four o’clock, I observed two men in blackish clothes standing upon the ploughed land by the plough to which the coulter belonged, and there was a black dog at some distance from them. When I came to work next morning I found the coulter of the plough and the wedges had been taken away. [Here the coulter and the wedges referred to in the indictment were shown to the witness.] These are the coulter and wedges that were stolen from my plough.

Cross-examined by Mr. John Clerk, for George Smith—How do you come to know that?

John Kinnear — I know this to be the same coulter, my attention being called to it from this circumstance particularly, that a short time before it was stolen it was sent to a smith, with instructions to sharpen it the whole length, that it might be fit for cutting the turf which was to be ploughed up. He did not observe these instructions, but returned it in the situation it is now in.