The Literary echo, and Pawcatuck advertiser. [volume] (Westerly, R.I.) 1851-1854, 1853-08-04
WESTERLY, r. l., THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 1853.

likely never to get. Guards, seize
your prisoner !" This was soon done,
with man who had not, even the use
of his tongue left, wherewith to defend
himself from violence and the untor-
tunate tile ma ker was instantly pinioned.
" Madam" continued the hatcr of long
stories, "your husband has confessed
his name-you have not denied you are
his wife--and these children, too, are
no doubt yours-I am commanded to
arrest the whole-gcns d'armes, conduct
them to the street !" In an hour the
house had been abandoned to the plum
der of a riotous soldiery, and the pom
derous door of the dungeons of Pont de
Vaux had closed upon Jean Cape and
his family.
The second day, being the Doth of
August, he was brought out heavily
ironed and placed in the criminal box of
the Court Of Pont dc Vaux. Antoine
De Lorme, discharged or deserted
soldier of the regiment of La Sarrc,
lately returned from Brcst, presented
himself as the accuser; charging Cape
with the murder of John Sevos
M. Ravet, the Judge, directed the
proceedings to commence.
The 10Th of February, DeLorme said
he was in the kiln or oven-room of Jean
Cape, when the deceased stopped there
as he was passing. In reply to some
bantering from Cape, on the success of
his expedition, he exposed handful of
half crowns boasting that his pockets
were so stuffed as to incommode him,
and congratulating the other upon his
better fortune in being able to travel
without such an incumbrance. He
added something the witness heard in
distinctly, but understood the purport
of it to be, that the hardest way to coin
money was to broil it out of a mans
face. 1t might be that the taunt about
coming money contained some significant
illusions, comprehended only by the
prisoner and the deceased or it night
be, that the sudden and excessive dis
pleasure of the former was caused by
the ostentatious display of wealth, and
his invidious comparisons; for there
was something inexplicable to the wit
ness, in the rage with which Cape in
stantly turned upon the deceased, and
bade him carry his unreasonable jeers
and unnecessary company somewhere
else. He went off laughing compli-
mcnting the prisoner upon his amiable
temper and winning manners, which he
protested were perfectly irresistible
Cape, after moment, followed him, and
at corner of the road witness lost sight
of them both.
This" he said touching the hedge
billy 81 once borrowed of the prisoner.
| know it by a particular mark;' (and
he pointed to small cross cut in the
handle, so filled up with dirt as to be
hardly perceptible } That night he
enlisted in the Regiment of LaSarrc !;
and left the country early next morning
Six days since, he returned and unable
from all he had heard, to divest himself
of the belief that the unhappy Sevos had
been the victim Of sorry jest, he had
been at some pains to unravel the mys-
terry, of which, he said, he then held in
his hand the thread. He concluded by
desiring that Claude Maurice and Pierre
Vaudon might be put upon the stand.
The latter, the forester Of NJ. Va
radon, testified that the evening of the
alledged murder, he observed man
approaching hastily in direction from
the street where Sevos had disappeared,
towards Cape's House. He seemed per-
turbed; his dress was disordered, and
his whole appearance indicated great
anxiety. He had very much the manner
of a man eluding pursuit, for he was
looking back every instant. As they
met, the prisoner, for it was him, started
and asked some confused question, with
out any attention to the answer, passed
on abruptly. The forester thought
his conduct strange, but, as some people
we're full of whims, he made it rule
never to fatigue his brains with trying
to account for them. His suspicious, he
Acknowledged, became excited the next