The entire contents of this letter relate the particulars of a murder, with little, if any, sympathy for the victim.

    "Dear Sir,

         I had the pleasure of yours respecting the unfortunate affair that happened here on the 8^th ... when Willm Brown Jun shoemaker was killd. G. Shiels seems to have been a Stranger here, at least known only to a very few, he had been employed in Lamermoor at some roads making, & wanting a Dick Shaft had come to Dunse on the Wednesday as the nearest place where such articles could be bought, or ready made, it was the market Day. He had bought the shaft, & having occasion for a refreshment had gone into a publick house & had I and some other people in drinking some porter; from one house they had gone to another. Brown appears to have met with him about 11 o'clock at night & after having spent some time together both being in some measure intoxicated when they met & having drunk more, Brown who was of a most quarrelsome disposition insisted that Shiels should fight him which he altogether declined, & not withstanding of the most abusive treatment, & gross provocation, even to Bs throwing a Mugg of porter in his face, Shiels still remained placed, & repeatedly insisted, Drunk as he was, that he would let him go, as he did not incline to fight or quarrel with any person. Brown becoming more & more intoxicated, & in proportion as he was the more heated with Liquor, he became the more outrageous, insomuch that the people present, some of whom had joined them only a short time before, pushed them out of the house to the Street. It was then 4 o'clock in the morning, they were no sooner out, some of the company following them, than Brown continued his Insults & by a sharp Blow given upward on the underpart of his Chin made Shiels's Mouth bleed, he no sooner felt the blow, & saw the Blood running from his mouth than he instantly drew the Dick shaft ... & gave him such a blow on the side of his head as fractured his Scull from opposite to the lower part of his ear to the Crown, which instantly brought him to the ground & has been declared, by Dr. Hall Phys. & Messrs. Murray, & mith Surgeons, to be the blow which occasioned his Death; for tho' he most unfortunately gave him a blow, or two, after he was down, yet that blow which made such a fracture as to occasion his Death, could not have been given but when B was standing.

              Shiels seems to have been so much intoxicated, as to be altogether insensible of what had happened, he twice took his departure from the place where the fatal deed ... happened, in order to go to Lamermoor where he had been working and as but went to the way opposite opposite point of the Compass & as often returned to the place, after repeatedly asking the people he saw which was the way to Lamermoor. Brown was brought home between 5 & 6 oclock at which time the Physical people having been called I was sent for by them & he was then living but while they were preparing the Instruments for trepanning the Scull, he died. He was one of the most worthless Characters in this place idle & profligate in the extreme, & so given to be quarrelsome that some of the Publicans here uniformly refused to admit any company into their houses if he was one of them. Every person here feel much for the disagreeable situation which S is brought, but we have no apprehension that any thing distressing further can happen to him both from the apparent peaceableness of his own behavior, and also from the uniform quarrelsome disposition of Brown, & the Insults, & provocation he gave to S ..."