Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

From the Richmond Enquirer of Nov. 5.

THE TREASURY.

It is far from our wishes to enter fully into the case which has excited so much interest among us. We shall merely touch upon so much of it, as will serve to elucidate the discovery of the money and the sentence of the court—nor should we even mention the name of the accused, if it were not so generally known, that it would be ridiculous to attempt its concealment.

On Saturday last John McCaul, of Hanover, was put to the bar of the Examining Court of this city, charged with breaking into the Treasury. His counsel were, John Wickham and Gurdon H. Bacchus—the counsel on the other side, the Attorney General, the State's Attorney for this city, and Benjamin Botts.

A great deal of circumstantial testimony was brought in, to prove the knowledge which the accused had acquired and wished to acquire of the rooms and stairs of the Capitol, the state of his finances before the robbery, and the sums and sorts of money which he disbursed after it. Twenty-seven witnesses spoke to these and other subordinate points; but no clue to the money was so far disclosed; nor was it in proof that any more of it, (charged with being a part of the public funds,) had been traced, except the $150 originally found in the pocket-book of the accused.—Ja's. Gray was then called. He stated, that in compliance with the directions of a note which had been put into his hands on Sunday the 27th ult. (the morning after the commitment of McC) he had presented a token (a pair of sleeve-buttons, enclosed in said note,) to Martia Overton, a free girl of color, who was led to confess that a packet had been put into her hands, but was not then in her possession, yet she would recover and put into his custody; that in the course of that day, she did so; that on Friday last Francis Taylor had sought an interview with him respecting this packet; and that in the course of that day, they had made an arrangement by which Gray was to receive it that night from M. O.—and Taylor was immediately after to come in, reclaim it from M. O. and restore it to the Treasurer.—

Francis Taylor (of whose honorable conduct throughout this transaction, it is not easy to speak in terms of adequate praise,) succeeded Gray; and stated the means which he had taken to prevail on M. O. to inform him of the disposition of the packet, his conversations and his final arrangement with Gray.—He then stated, that he had received and opened the packet in the presence of 2 friends; that it contained only $650; that he had then sought to prevail on M. O. to restore the balance; and that next morning in the presence of the same friends he had received from her $2055 more, which she said she had taken from a hole in her garden. Another witness followed Taylor, who amongst other things, stated that he had extracted the confession from M. O. that the person, into whose hands she had put the packet before she gave it to Gray, was a Polly McDowell, a white woman of this city. A search warrant was immediately taken out against the house of the said McD. which ended in the discovery of 32 fifty dollar notes, nicely deposited between the truce and a false bottom of a small paper box—She has been committed to jail, as an accessory after the fact.

When this and other testimony had been gone through, Mr. Wickham made an enquiry of the court, which ended in this decision; that they, as a called court, would not require the same degree of proof as would be requisite on a trial in chief.—Mr. W. then applied for time for his client to collect testimony to rebut that of Gray, on the ground of surprise; the court decided that this was not "good cause," and refused a continuance. The counsel of the accused then waived the introduction of any evidence on their side; and, finally, the court unanimously decided that John McCaul should be sent on for trial to the circuit court (in April.)

Besides the sums mentioned in the above sketches, there have been found $200 folded up in a letter in the pocket-book of the accused, which had been originally overlooked— $800 more found in the house of Polly McDowell; and $350 found in another house near her own.