murder was to be committed.  Knapp asked him if he meant to do it that night; Crowninshield said he thought not, he did not feel like it; Knapp then went to Wenham.  Knapp ascertained on Sunday, the 4th of April, that Mr. White had gone to take tea with a relative in Chestnut Street.  Crowninshield intended to dirk him on his way home in the evening, but Mr. White returned before dark.  It was next arranged for the night of the 6th, and Knapp was on some pretext to prevail on Mrs. Beckford to visit her daughters at Wenham, and to spend the night there.  He said that, all preparations being thus complete, Crowninshield and Frank met about ten o’clock in the evening of the 6th, in Brown Street, which passes the rear of the garden of Mr. White, and stood some time in a spot from which they could observe the movements in the house, and perceive when Mr. White and his two servants retired to bed.  Crowninshield requested Frank to go home; he did so, but soon returned to the same spot.  Crowninshield, in the mean time, had started and passed round through Newbury Street and Essex Street to the front of the house, entered the postern gate, passed to the rear of the house, placed a plank against the house, climbed to the window, opened it, entered the house alone, passed up the staircase, opened the door of the sleeping-chamber, approached the bedside, gave Mr. White a heavy and mortal blow on the head with a bludgeon, and then with a dirk gave him many stabs in his body.  Crowninshield said, that, after he had “done for the old man,” he put his fingers on his pulse to make certain he was dead.  He then retired from the house, hurried back through Brown Street, where he met Frank, waiting to learn the event.  Crowninshield ran down Howard Street, a solitary place, and hid the club under the steps of a meeting-house.  He then went home to Danvers.

Joseph confessed further that the account of the Wenham robbery, on the 27th of April, was a sheer fabrication.  After the murder Crowninshield went to Wenham in company with Frank to call for the one thousand dollars.  He was not able to pay the whole, but gave him one hundred five-franc pieces.  Crowninshield related to him the particulars of the murder, told him where the club was hid, and said he was sorry Joseph had not got the right will, for if he had known there was another, he would have got it.  Joseph sent Frank afterwards to find and destroy the club, but he said he could not find it.  When Joseph made the confession, he told the place where the club was concealed, and it was there found; it was heavy, made of hickory, twenty-two and a half inches long, of a smooth surface and large oval head, loaded with lead, and of a form adapted to give a mortal blow on the skull without breaking the skin; the handle was suited for a firm grasp.  Crowninshield said he turned it in a lathe.  Joseph admitted he wrote the two anonymous letters.

Crowninshield had hitherto maintained a stoical composure of feeling; but when he was informed of Knapp’s arrest, his knees smote beneath him, the sweat started out on his stern and pallid face, and he subsided upon his bunk.