HARDSHIPS FROM AN ERRONEOUS CHARGE ()F MURDER.—The Ayr Advertiser
of Thursday, after quoting the account ol the examination of the person charged at Bow-street with the murder of Mr. Dow, which took place at Ayr in 1824, says--" This statement appeared in the papers of Saturday, which reached Ayr on Monday night ; and flora that time till time arrival of the mid-day coach yesterday, when the man alluded to in the narrative was brought here, the feelings of she people of this place were excited greatly, and those feelings strongly manifested by the crowds surrounding the coach every succeeding arrival. Just as the excitement rose to the highest the coach arrived, and it was allayed in an in
stant. A man of colour, certainly, was on the coach, chained by the arm to an officer of justice, with another in escort, and having all the symbols of a man laying under a heavy charge ; but the coach was surrounded by people intimately acquainted with the person and features of Johnstone, and with one voice they declared he was not the man. The Sheriff, Magistrates, Jailor, and Constables were in attendance; and the man, with the officer to whom lie was coupled, were taken into the King's Arms ; but without a moment's delay the testimony of a number of gentlemen, having thievery best means of knowing intimately and accurately the person and features of Johnston, was taken, pros-hug that there is no identity between him and the man in custody, and in an hour after his arrival he was released from bondage, and was walking at large in the/streets. John Johnston, the murderer, was horn at Crosshill, in this county. He is the offspring of a White woman and a Mulatto, and, in the language applied to that gradation, is called a Quadroon. He served an apprenticeship on board the hark Hopewell, and was ultimately a sailor on board the bark Avon, both of this port. He xv;11 now be about thirty-two years of age. On the other hand, the man taken for hint is called Thomas Stevens or Stephens ; he was born at Granada, and is about twenty-seven years of age. His father, according to his account—and there is no reason to doubt his statement—was a Manxinan, of the name of Thomas Stevens, who went to Trinidad and married his mother, a creole, having a plantation iii the island, and he was their only child. Ho, therefore, in contradistinction to Johnston, is a Mulatto. When about six years of age, be was brought to the Isle of Man ; where he lived with a relative of his father, a parson, called Vicar General Stevens, and was apprenticed to a hatter in the parish of Ballaugh, near Ballykane. In the year 1826, be sailed for Trinidad, leaving his wife and children in the Isle of Man. On returning from a journey into the interior, in September last, he met four or five soldiers, and one of them of the name of Armstrong, whom he had previously seen, all at once exclaimed, Your name is not Stevens ; it is Johnston ;' and accused him of murdering a man at Ayr. He, with smile warmth, maintained has name was Stevens, and protested his ignorance of Ayr, and his innocence of the crime, and left the company ; but, in four days after, on an order from the judge-marshal, he was taken up, examined, cast into prison, and afterwards held to bail. The soldier, Armstrong, was examined, and, as he understands, swore to his identity with Johnston, while another soldier swore he was like him. Two gentlemen in Trinidad, belonging originally to the Isle of Man, came forward and made oath to the chief circumstances just related, and especially that he resided there, and wrought as a hatter for many years up to 1826, and, consequently, in 1824, when the murder was committed ; but the authorities of Trinidad found it proper to proceed on the testimony of the soldiers, and, after being for some time in prison, he was transferred front Trinidad to Barbadoes, where he suflbred a further imprisonment, and latterly he was conveyed to England, and from thence hither, in the manner already described."
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