The Virginia Gazette

LEEDS. March 25.

By a letter from Whitehall, dated the 20th instant, we have received the following account of a barbarous murder, committed on the first instant, on the bodies of the wife and two children of one John M'Lain, an honest industrious farmer in that neighbourhood; who having saved a sum of 200l. applied to an innkeeper there to lend him another 100l. in order to purchase a small estate that was upon sale.

The innkeeper told him he could not let him have the money that night; but if he would stay at his house until next morning, he would then serve him. The innocent farmer little suspecting his host's intentions, was easily persuaded to stay, and accordingly went to bed, with a soldier that was quartered in the house; but about midnight jumping out of bed again in a fright, he told his bed-fellow he could not rest, for he was sure all was not right at home, and persuaded the soldier to get up, take his gun, and accompany him thither.

They went forward accordingly, and on their arrival at the farmer's house, perceiving a great light, and finding the door locked, they forced it open, and seeing two men, concluded they were come with some villainous intent; the soldier therefore, without asking any questions, complimented one with the contents of his musket, which he had loaded on the way, and the other with the point of his bayonet, which laid them both dead at his feet; but it is no less difficult to express the surprise of the soldier, than the agony of the unhappy farmer, when upon going up stairs they found the very landlord of the house they came from, who (with the two beforementioned assassins, who proved to be his own sons) had barbarously murdered the farmer's wife and two children, and was busy in ransacking the house.

He was however immediately secured, and is committed to Appleby gaol.