“January, 1840.  HORRIBLE MURDER!—­Yesterday, at the plantation of William Reynolds, was committed one of those acts which revolt human nature.  Henry Golpin, the overseer, a Creole, and strongly suspected of being a quadroone, had for some time acted improperly towards Mrs. Reynolds and daughters.  A few days ago, a letter from W.R. was received from St. Louis, stating that he would return home at the latter end of the week; and Golpin, fearing that the ladies would complain of his conduct and have him turned out, poisoned them with the juice of some berries poured into their coffee.  Death was almost instantaneous.  A pretty mulatto girl of sixteen, an attendant and protegee of the young ladies, entering the room where the corpses were already stiff, found the miscreant busy in taking off their jewels and breaking up some recesses, where he knew that there were a few thousand dollars, In specie and paper, the produce of a recent sale of negroes.  At first, he tried to coax the girl, offering to run away and marry her, but she repulsed him with indignation, and, forcing herself off his hold, she ran away to call for help.  Snatching suddenly a rifle, he opened a window, and as the honest girl ran across the square towards the negroes’ huts, she fell quite dead, with a ball passing across her temples.  The Governor and police of the first and second municipalities offer one thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of the miserable assassin, who, of course, has absconded.”

This is the “harmless and inoffensive man of delicate constitution, a citizen of the United States,” which Mr. Kendal would give us as a martyr of Mexican barbarism.  During the trip across the prairie, every man, except two or three, had shunned him, so well did every one know his character:  and now I will describe the events which caused him to be shot in the way above related.

Two journeys after they had left Santa Fe they passed the night in a little village, four men being billeted in every house under the charge of one soldier.  Golpin and another of his stamp were, however, left without any guard in the house of a small retailer of aguardiente, who, being now absent, had left his old wife alone in the house.  She was a good hospitable soul, and thought it a Christian duty to administer to the poor prisoners all the relief she could afford.  She gave them some of her husband’s linen, bathed their feet with warm water mixed with whisky, and served up to them a plentiful supper.

Before they retired to rest, she made them punch, and gave them a small bottle of liquor, which they could conceal about them and use on the road.  The next morning the sounds of the drums called the prisoners in the square to get ready for their departure.  Golpin went to the old woman’s room, insisting that she should give them more of the liquor.  Now the poor thing had already done much.  Liquor in these far inland countries, where there are no