Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 101

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WHEN Lord Thurlow was chancellor of England some villains broke into his house, in Great Ormond-street, and stole the great seal of England, which was never recovered, nor were the thieves known. We have heard also of a valuable diamond being stolen from the late Duke of Cumberland, when pressing into the theatre in the Haymarket to see the bubble of the bottle conjurer. It is also a fact that the Duke of Beaufort was robbed of his diamond order of St. George as he went to Court on a royal birthday; but we have yet to tell that a museum was robbed of its curious medals.

Peter Le Maitre, the thief, was a French teacher at Oxford, and being supposed to be a man of industry and good morals, he was indulged with free admission to the Ashmolean Museum. Thither he frequently went, and appeared very studious over the rare books, and other valuable articles there deposited. He was frequently left alone to his researches. At one of such times he stole two medals, and at another he secreted himself until the doors were locked for the night. When all had retired he came from his lurking-place, and broke open the cabinet where the medals were locked up, and possessed himself of its contents; he then wrenched a bar from the window, and, unsuspected, made his escape.

The college was thrown into the utmost consternation on finding their Museum thus plundered. Some were suspected, but least of all Le Maitre, until it was discovered that he had privately left the city in a post-chaise and four, and that he had pledged two of the stolen medals to pay the post-boys. This left little doubt that he was the ungrateful thief. He was advertised and described, and by this means apprehended in Ireland.

He was conveyed back to Oxford, in order to take his trial; and it appeared that two of the stolen medals were found in a bureau in his lodgings, of which he had the use; and two more were traced to the persons to whom he had sold them.

He had little to offer in extenuation of his crime, and on the clearest evidence he was found guilty on the 7th March, 1777; and he paid the penalty of his offence by enduring five years’ hard labour at ballast-heaving on the river Thames.

Whether the ungrateful depredation of Le Maitre stimulated others to the commission of similar crimes we know not, but it is certain that soon afterwards Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, was broken open by two thieves, who stole from the altar a pair of large silver candlesticks and a silver dish, with which they escaped undetected.