Daniel Seyers

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D Wong on 25th September 2016

Seems his surname was Sears - later mentions of him in New Norfolk are under Sears. Old Bailey: DANIEL SEARS, DANIEL MARTIN, Theft > animal theft, 18th September 1816. Offence: Theft > animal theft Verdict: Guilty; Guilty Punishment: Death; Death DANIEL SEARS, and DANIEL MARTIN, were indicated for feloniously stealing, on the 25th of August , a weather sheep, value 3l. the property of George Keiley. GEORGE KEILEY. I am a butcher at Harrow. I had twenty-five sheep on the 25th of August; I saw them on Saturday morning, the 24th of August, they were in my field, at the bottom of Harrow Town. On the Sunday morning one was gone; it was a fat sheep; I had paid three pounds for it. From ten until one o'clock, I looked all about the fields, and at last I went into a little field adjoining that of mine, there I saw a hole in the hedge, where one had been driven there, and I saw the blood where one had been killed, and I traced the dropping of the blood across another field about and hundred yards; there I traced it up a lane about a quarter of a mile, by the blood into a field where it was stripped; then I traced it by the blood from stile to stile, where it had been rested, to within a hundred yards of the prisoner Martin's house. I went to his house, he was up stairs, I said, Martin come down, I went to speak to you; he did come down, and I asked him if he had any mutton in the house, and he said, no master, I have not, and then I told the beadle to come forward with his warrant, and search, and he looked into a cupboard, and brought out a pan of fat, Martin was then going to go away; but I told him to stay where he was. Then the constable proceeded with a search, and found the heart, the liver, and the lights, and then he went up stairs and brought down a hinder quarter of mutton, a shoulder, and a whole neck, and part of a breast. Then I said to Martin, well Daniel, have you not been robbing me now? he said, master, I did not know it was your sheep, if I did, I would not have touched it on any account; and I said, Daniel, you must have had some confederate with you beside yourself, or else you never could have done it? he said, he had none. The wife said, Daniel, if you won't split, I will; the wife said, Sears was his partner. Then she said, Daniel, when you come home with the mutton, I told you you would be found out, and she fell in a fit. Then Martin said, if you go to Sears's, you will find the remainder of your sheep there. Then James Martin, the beadle, went to Sears's. We met Sears going into his door, and the beadle told him, we came to search his house, and we suspected he had got some mutton; and Daniel Sears saw me; and I said, Sears, I expect you have been robbing me? and he said, he had not; and I said, it was no use for him deny it, as Daniel Martin had confessed every thing. Then he said, d-n Daniel Martin. Then we went into his house with a warrant, and the constable searched, and he found a little pan of fat, mutton fat, and part of a sheep's tongue, and a little trifling bit of mutton; he stopped willingly. Then he said, master, this is a bad job, but I must go through it, now I am in it; and then he said, come along with me, and then I will give you the mutton; he took us up stairs, and took us into the bed-room; he unlocked a door on the left hand side of his bed-room, and Martin, the beadle, went into the room, and took out a leg, loin, breast, and shoulder of mutton; that is just half the sheep. I said, Daniel, how came you to do so. I then took that mutton to Martin's, the prisoner, and then I compared that found at Sears's to that at Martin's, and I found that they both belonged to the same carcase; it was slaughtered pretly fair. I examined the fat; the trotters were not left on the carcase. One man could not have caught that sheep, and so slaughtered, and carried it that distance; it was impossible, for I am sure it weighed better than twelve stone. These men lived within two hundred yards of each other. JAMES MARTIN . I am headborough. I accompanied the last witness. I found Martin at home. I have heard the account of what passed at Martin's; he has represented fairly and truly; and also all that happened at Sears's, every thing. Martin's Defence. We found it. Sears's Defence. We found it on the Sunday morning, as we were going to gether a few mushrooms. SEARS, GUILTY - DEATH , aged 36. MARTIN, GUILTY - DEATH , aged 36. First Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Baron Graham. Daniel was sent to VDL per 'Pilot' by 1820 he had a Ticket of Leave - most records are listed as 'Sayers' Daniel was 37 years old on arrival, 5'4 1/4" tall, Red brown hair, dark grey eyes. 7/7/1830: CP 6/7/1838: Free Pardon 2/7/1840: Absolute Pardon. 29/6/1854: Daniel died aged 77 at New Norfolk, Tasmania, of Natural decay - listed as a farmer. (Death listed as Sears)

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Jacqueline Lepoittevin on 25th September 2016

New South Wales and Tasmania Australia Convict Musters 1806-1849