At a farm-house, near Amersham, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, the family were alarmed by a noise in the yard, which they imagined was occasioned by some persons endeavouring to break into the house. The master went up stairs with a loaded blunderbuss, and looking out of a back-window saw a man in the yard, at whom he immediately fired, and lodged the contents of the piece in his body. The neighbours, hearing the report, instantly assembled, and on examining the body, it proved to be the master's own son.
The unfortunate young man had been in London, and was not expected home till the succeeding day, but returning at the above time, and having the key of a garden-gate, let himself in, which occasioned this melancholy catastrophe.
This lamentable accident may be of use in its example, and prove a restraint upon others, from a rash and hasty use of deadly weapons.
The deplorable feelings of the unhappy father, will prove too fatal a memento of the regards due to humanity; and that however we may be covered by the law, we should not indulge our natural cruelty, by wantonly sporting with the lives of our fellow-creatures.
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