The criminal recorder has too often to detail the atrocity of ambition, the malignity of revenge, and the desperation of jealousy; but the perpetrators are generally confined to the abandoned and irreligious - the illiterate and intemperate. Their follies or former crimes account in some measure for their delinquency, and we lament their want of virtue and education; but, when we meet in the criminal catalogue with a culprit like the present - a man of education and a minister of the Gospel - guilty of a premeditated murder! - the murder of his own pupils, the sons of his benefactor! - the soul recoils with horror, and we shudder at the want of religious principle evinced in the deed; for this criminal subsequently avowed himself an Atheist.
The Rev. Thomas Hunter was born in the county of Fife, in Scotland, and was the son of a rich farmer, who sent him to the University of St. Andrew for education. When he had acquired a sufficient share of classical learning he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts, and began to prosecute his studies in divinity with no small degree of success. Several of the younger clergymen act as tutors to wealthy and distinguished families till a proper period arrives for their entering into orders, which they never do till they obtain a benefice. While in this rank of life they bear the name of chaplains; and in this station Hunter lived about two years in the house of Mr. Gordon, a very eminent merchant, and one of the bailies of Edinburgh, which is a rank equal to that of alderman of London.
Mr. Gordon's family consisted of himself, his lady, two sons, and a daughter, and a young woman who attended Mrs. Gordon and her daughter; the malefactor in question, some clerks, and menial servants. To the care of Hunter was committed the education of the two sons; and, for a considerable time, he discharged his duty in a manner highly satisfactory to the parents, who considered him as a youth of superior genius and great goodness of heart. Unfortunately, a connexion took place between Hunter and the young woman, which soon increased to a criminal degree, and was maintained, for a considerable time, without the knowledge of the family. One day, however, when Mr. and Mrs. Gordon were on a visit, Hunter and this girl met in their chamber, as usual; but, having been so incautious as not to make their door fast, the children went into the room, and found them in such a situation as could not admit of any doubt of the nature of their intercourse. No suspicion was entertained that these children would mention to their parents what had happened, the eldest boy being not quite ten years of age; but, when the children were at supper with their parents, they disclosed so much as left no room to doubt of what had passed. Hereupon the female servant was directed to quit the house on the following day; but Hunter was continued in the family, after making a proper apology for the crime of which he had been guilty, attributing it to the thoughtlessness of youth, and promising never to offend in the same way again.
From this period he entertained the most inveterate hatred to all the children, on whom he determined, in his own mind, to wreak the most diabolical vengeance. Nothing less than murder was his intention; but it was a considerable time after he had formed this horrid plan before he had an opportunity of carrying it into execution. Whenever it was a fine day he was accustomed to walk in the fields, with his pupils, for an hour before dinner; and, in these excursions, the young lady generally attended her brothers. At the period immediately preceding the commission of the fatal act, Mr, Gordon and his family were at their country retreat, very near Edinburgh; and, having received an invitation to dine in that city, he and his lady proposed to go thither about the time that Hunter usually took his noontide walk with the children. Mrs. Gordon was very anxious for all the children to accompany them on this visit; but this was strenuously opposed by her husband, who would consent that only the little girl should attend them.
By this circumstance Hunter's intention of murdering all the three children was frustrated; but he held the resolution of destroying the boys, while they were yet in his power. With this view he took them into the fields, and sat down, as if to repose himself on the grass, and was preparing his knife to put a period to the lives of the children at the very moment they were busied in catching butterflies, and gathering wild flowers. Having sharpened his knife, he called the lads to him; and, when he had reprimanded them for acquainting their father and mother with the scene to which they had been witnesses, said that he would immediately put them to death. Terrified by this threat, the children ran from him; but he immediately followed, and brought them back. He then placed his knee on the body of the one, while he cut the throat of the other with his penknife; and then treated the second in the same inhuman manner.
These horrid murders were committed in August, 1700, within half a mile of the castle of Edinburgh; and, as the deed was perpetrated in the middle of the day, and in the open fields, it would have been very wonderful indeed if the murderer had not been immediately taken into custody. At the very time a gentleman was walking on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, who had a tolerably perfect view of what passed. Alarmed by the incident, he called some people, who ran with him to the place where the children were lying dead. Hunter now advanced towards a river, with a view to drown himself. Those who pursued came up with him just as he reached the brink of the river; and, his person being immediately known to them, a messenger was instantly dispatched to Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, who were at that moment going to dinner with their friend, to inform them of the horrid murder of their sons. Language is too weak to describe the effects resulting from the communication of this dreadful news; the astonishment of the afflicted father, the agony of the frantic mother, may possibly be conceived, though it cannot be described.
According to an old Scottish law, it was decreed that 'if a murderer should be taken with the blood of the murdered person on his clothes, he should be prosecuted in the sheriff's court, and executed within three days after the commission of the fact.' It was not common to execute this sentence with rigour; but this offender's crime was of so aggravated a nature, that it was not thought proper to remit any thing of the utmost severity of the law. The prisoner was, therefore, committed to gaol, and chained down to the floor all night; and, on the following day, the sheriff issued his precept for the jury to meet and, in consequence of their verdict. Hunter was brought to his trial, when he pleaded guilty, and added to the offence he had already committed the horrid crime of declaring that he lamented only the not having murdered Mr. Gordon's daughter as well as his sons.
The sheriff now passed sentence on the convict, which was to the following purpose : that, 'on the succeeding day, he should be executed on a gibbet, erected for that purpose, on the spot where he had committed the murders; but that, previous to his execution, his right hand should be cut off near the wrist; that then he should be drawn up to the gibbet by a rope; and, when he was dead, hung in chains between Edinburgh and Leith: the knife with which he committed the murders being stuck thro' his hand, which should be advanced over his head, and fixed therewith to the top of the gibbet. Mr. Hunter was executed, in strict conformity to the above sentence, on the 22d of August, 1700: but Mr. Gordon soon afterwards petitioned the sheriff that the body might be removed to a more distant spot, as its hanging on the side of the highway, through which he frequently passed, tended to re-excite his grief for the occasion that had first given rise to it. This requisition was immediately complied with, and, in a few days, the body was removed to the skirts of a small village, near Edinburgh, named Broughton.
It is equally true, and horrid to relate, that, at the place of execution. Hunter closed his life with the following shocking declaration:- 'There is no God - I do not believe there is any; or, if there is, I hold him in defiance,' Yet this infidel had been regarded as a minister of the Gospel!
A few serious and important reflections will naturally occur to the mind on perusing this melancholy narrative. Mr. Hunter was educated in a manner greatly superior to the vulgar; and he was of a profession that ought to have set an example of virtue, instead of a pattern of vice: yet neither his education nor profession could actuate as preventive remedies against a crime the most abhorrent to all the feelings of humanity.
His first offence, great as it was, could be considered as no other than a prologue to the dismal tragedy that ensued; a tragedy that was attended with almost every possible circumstance of aggravation; for Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had done nothing to him that could tempt him to any thoughts of revenge; and the children were too young to have offended him, even in intention: they simply mentioned to their parents a circumstance that to them appeared somewhat extraordinary; and which, Mr. Hunter's character and situation considered, was indeed of a very extraordinary nature: yet in revenge of this supposed affront did he resolve to imbrue his hands in the blood of the unoffending innocents.
If we reflect on the conduct of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon in discharging the young woman who was guilty of a violation of the laws of decency, and retaining in their family the principal offender, we must own that their partiality was ill founded: this, however, must be ascribed to the veneration in which clergymen are universally held, and the particular regard that was shown towards them in Scotland at the commencement of the last century. Still, however, it is an aggravation of Hunter's crime, who ought to have been grateful in proportion as he was favoured.
It is a shocking part of Hunter's story that he was one of a society of abandoned young fellows, who occasionally assembled to ridicule the scriptures, and make a mockery of the being and attributes of God! Is it then to be wondered that this wretch fell an example of the exemplary justice of Divine Providence? Perhaps a fate no less dreadful attended many of his companions: but, their histories have not reached our hands.
There is something so indescribably shocking in denying the existence of that God 'in whom we live, love, and have our being,' that it is amazing any man who feels that he did not create himself can be an Atheist.
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