William Lees, convicted of theft and assault, as mentioned before, received sentence of transportation for seven years, and David Kemp, convicted of theft, was sentenced to eighteen months confinement and hard labour in Bridewell.
William Strath, cattle dealer in Boghead, parish of Fyvie, accused of theft and assault, pleaded Guilty to the indictment, and was sentenced to a year's hard labour in Bridewell, and ordained to find caution to keep the peace for two years thereafter, under a penalty of 600 merks Scots.
William Forbes was indicted for the murder of John Allan, apprentice ship carpenter, on 16th March last, by stabbing him in the side with a pen-knife, on the road leading from Aberdeen along the Spittal to Old Aberdeen. A number of witnesses were examined for the Crown, and several in exculpation of the pannel. The Jury found, by a plurality of voices, the libel not proven; whereupon the pannel, after a suitable admonition from Lord Pitmilly, was dismissed from the bar.
William Hay, accused of theft, was upon his own petition, consented to by the Depute Advocate, banished from Scotland for life, under the usual certification.
The last trial before the Court was that of John Garden, alias Shockey de Garden, accused of three several acts of theft, and of being habit and repute a thief. After the evidence had been gone through on the part of the Crown, the Advocate Depute restricted the libel to an arbitrary punishment, and admitted that the charge of habit and repute had not been proven. The Jury, after deliberating for a few minutes, returned a verdict, finding the first charge not sufficiently proven, and the Pannel Guilty of the two last; whereupon he was sentenced to be transported beyond seas for seven years.
Published in the Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday 24th April 1816.
