And in order that the investigation might be conducted with
greater rigour he sent into the country for the lord chief
justice, who was dreaded by all for his unflinching severity.
The lord chancellor, in his account of these transactions,
assures us many of the witnesses who gave evidence against those
indicted with firing the capital "were produced as if their
testimony would remove all doubts, but made such senseless
relations of what they had been told, without knowing the
condition of the persons who told them, or where to find them,
that it was a hard matter to forbear smiling at their
declarations." Amongst those examined was one Roger Hubert, who
accused himself of having deliberately set the city on fire.
This man, then in his twenty-fifth year, was son of a watchmaker
residing in Rouen. Hubert had practised the same trade both in
that town and in London, and was believed by his fellow workmen
to be demented. When brought before the chief justice and privy
council, Hubert with great coolness stated he had set the first
house on fire: for which act he had been paid a year previously
in Paris. When asked who had hired him to accomplish this evil
deed, he replied he did not know, for he had never seen the man
before: and when further questioned regarding the sum he had
received, he declared it was but one pistole, but he had been
promised five pistoles more when he should have done his work.
These ridiculous answers, together with some contradictory
statements he made, inclined many persons, amongst whom was the
chief justice, to doubt his confession.
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