Elizabeth Canning sworn. Canning. E. Canning that has given her evidence is my daughter; after she was missing from New-year's day, I advertised her three times; she came back on the day before king Charles's Martyrdom, about a quarter after ten o'clock at night; she had nothing but this ragged bed-gown and a cap; 1 fell into a fit directly; my daughter is subject to fits; there was a garret-cieling fell in upon her head, which first occasioned them; and at times, when any body speaks hastily to her, or at any surprize, she is very liable to fall in one; she has sometimes continued in one seven or eight hours, sometimes three or four; she is not sensible during the time she is in one, no more than a new-born babe; when I came to myself, my daughter was talking to Mrs. Woodward and Mr. Wintlebury; they asked her where she had been? she said on the Hertfordshire road, which she knew by seeing a coach going by; she gave the same account she has here. When she came into her warm bed, she was very sick, and had no free passage through her for stool or urine, till she was supplied with glysters, for seven days after she came home, but what was forced by half a cupfull at a time.

John Wintlebury sworn.

Wintlebury. I saw Elizabeth Canning the night she came home; she appeared in a very bad condition, and had this dirty bed-gown and cap on. Hearing she was come home, I went to her mother's house, and said, Bet, how do you do? She said, I am very bad. Said I, Where have you been? She said, I have been somewhere on the Hertfordshire road, because I have seen the Hertfordshire coach go backwards and forwards.

Q. Have you heard the evidence she has given bere in court?-Wintlebury. I have; she gave the same account that night, but not quite so fully that night, as she did before the sitting alderman on the Wednesday after; but all agrees with what she has said here. I found her in a great flurry, so did not ask her many questions that night.

Joseph Adamson sworn.

Adamson. I have known Elizabeth Canning the younger some years. I never saw her after she came home, till the day we went down to take the people up. I, and several neighbours of us, agreed to go to the place, some on horseback, and some in the coach with E. Canning. I was down about an hour, or an hour and half, before the coach came, and had secured all the people we found there. I seeing the room before she was brought in, thought she was capable of giving some account of it: I returned to meet her and asked her about it; she described the room with some hay in it, a chimney-place in the corner of it, an odd sort of an empty room. I went with her to the house, and carried her out of the chaise into

the kitchen, and set her on the dresser, and ordered all the people to be brought to her, to see if she knew any of them; she was then very weak. I took her in my arms like a child. Upon seeing Mary Squires, she said, That is the woman that cut my stays off, and threatened to cut my throat if I made a noise.

Q. Did any of the people seem unwilling to be inspected?-Adamson. Yes, they were very unwilling to be stopped, when we went down in the morning, particularly Mary Squires; after the girl bad said this of Squires, Squires said to her, She hoped she would not swear her life away, for she never saw her before. E. Canning pointed to Virtue Hall, and said, That young woman was in the kitchen when I was brought in: she pointed also to another young woman, and said, she was there at the time. Then we carried her up to examine the house; she said, none of the rooms she had seen, was the room in which she was confined. Then I asked if there were any other rooms; they said, Yes, out of the kitchen (1 had before been in it, but did not say so then, because I had a mind to see if she knew it). We had her up into it: she said, This is the same room in which I was, but here is more hay in it than there was then: I laid my hand upon it, and said, It has lately been shook up, it lay hollow. She was then pretty near a casement; said 1, If you have been so long in this room, doubtless you are able to say what is to be seen out here. She described a hill at a distance, which is Chinkford-hill: I believe she could not see it at the time she spoke about it, for I was between her and the casement, with my back towards the casement. She also said, there were some houses on the other side the lane; then I opened the casement, we looked, and it was as she had described. I asked where was the window she broke out of? she shewed it us (there were some boards nailed up against it), and said, That is the window I used to see the coach go by at: then we pulled down the board; it was big enough for me to have got out of it; it appeared to me to be the same window, before she came to the house, for I saw some of the plaister broke off on the outside; that window was one story high.

Edward Lyon sworn.

Lyon. The young woman lived servant with me till she was missing. I live in Aldermanbury. I was one of the persons that went down to Wells's house. I went after the rest of the gentlemen on the 1st of February; we were there some time before she came, and had taken the people up; when she came, she was carried into the kitchen, and set on a dresser, and the people set all around her: I said to her, Bet, don't be frightened or uneasy, you see your friends about you, and on the other hand don't be too sure, without you really can swear to what you say, therefore be very careful. She pitched upon Mary Squires to be the person that cut her stays off; she pitched upon a young woman that was said to be daughter

to Mary Squires, and said, she was in the kitchen at the time, and likewise Virtue Hall, but said they did nothing to her. This black jug was brought down, a bason, and the tobacco-mould she said, they were both in the room where she was confined; she had described this jug before, and said it was broken at the mouth, as it now appears to be.

Robert Scarrat sworn.

Scarrat. 1 went down to Enfield-Wash; there were six of us in all: her mother and two women were with her in the chaise; she described the fields, and likewise a bridge, that night she came home, near the house; I asked her, if she perceived a tanner's house near? she said, she believed there was.

Q. Have you heard the other evidences that went down give their evidence?-Scarrat. I have, and what they have said is the truth, which I heard also; I also heard E. Canning examined before the sitting alderman, she gave the same account she has done here.

Was John Squires in the room at the time she pitched upon his mother and the rest?He was; she said she could not swear to him; he had his great coat on at our first going there, but he had pulled it off; she said, he looked like the person, but she could not swear to him; they made him put his great coat on before the justice; then she said, he looked more like one of the two men that brought her there.

Edward Rossiter sworn.

Rossiter. I went down with the rest on the Thursday. I heard E. Canning examined before Mr. Tashmaker the justice; she gave the same account then as now; she said, John Squires was much like one of the men, when he had got his great coat on; she said she did not see Wells in the house, but she once saw her out at a window, but did not know she was the woman that belonged to the house.

Sutherton Backler sworn.

Backler. I am an apothecary; I saw E. Canning the day after she came home, on the 30th of January about noon; she was extremely low and weak; I could scarcely hear her speak, her voice was so low, and her pulse scarcely to be felt, with cold sweats; she told me she had no passage during the whole time of her confinement; she was then in such a condition, she had a glyster administered the same day; she had many glysters given her, which after some time relieved her.

Q. Whether a person that is extremely costive cannot subsist longer without food, or with less food, than a person that is not so?-Buckler. I cannot answer to that,

Each of the persons that said they went down to take the prisoners, were asked where they went to? and answered, to Enfield-Wash, the house of the prisoner Wells.

Mary Squires said nothing in her defence, but called the following witnesses.

John Gibbons sworn.

Gibbons. I live at Abbotsbury, six miles from Dorchester; I am master of the house called The Old Ship; on the 1st of January 1753, the prisoner Squires came into the house; there was George her son, and Lucy her daughter with her, as she called them; she came with handkerchiefs, lawns, muslins, and checks, to sell about town; she stayed there from the 1st to the 9th day of the month, and lay at my house.

Q. How long have you kept that house?Gibbons. I have kept it two years, come LadyDay.

Look at the woman, are you sure that is she?-[He looks at Squires, and says, I am sure it is.]

[Cross-examination.]

How long have you known her?—I have known her three years, and have seen her there three years ago.

How long have you lived there ?-I was born at that town: I am a married man, have a wife and one child; I was bred in the farming way at Fisherton.

By what do you recollect the day?—There came an exciseman to officiate there for one John Ward that was sick, and I put the day of the month down when he came; the exciseoffice is kept at my house; the man that came was Andrew Wicks, or Wick.

Did you see the prisoner sell any of these goods you mentioned ?---No, I did not; they offered them to sell to me, and others; my wife bought two check aprons.

William Clarke sworn.

Clarke. I live at Abbotsbury, and have for seven years; I remember seeing the gypsey there; the last time I saw her was on the 10th of January last; I met with them on the road; we went some way together; we parted at Crudeway-foot, four miles from Abbotsbury, and three from Dorchester.

Q. Where were they going ?---Clarke. 1 cannot tell that.

Had you ever seen her before ?---I saw her, and her son and daughter, three years ago come March, at Abbotsbury; they came with handkerchiefs, lawns, and muslins to sell: I saw the landlord's wife at the Ship buy some aprons of them the last time they were there.

Thomas Greville sworn.

Greville. I live at Coombe, three miles from Salisbury; I keep a public-house there, the sign of the Lamb; I saw Mary Squires at my house on the 14th of January.

Fdid not; I always saw her by herself. I saw a young man in blue-grey when she was taken up, and two young women, all taken in the house of Wells.

fence, said, As to her character, it was but an Wells being called upon to make her dehusband, who was hanged; and added, she indifferent one; that she had an unfortunate never saw the young woman (meaning E. Canning) till they came to take us up; and as and a day before they were taken to Squires, she never saw her above a week up.

Squires Guilty, Death. Wells Guilty.

Squires, the last day of the sessions, being asked what she had to say before she received I lay at Coombe at the widow Greville's house; sentence, answered, "That on New-year's day the next day I was at Stoptage; there were along with me to a little house on the top of the some people who were cast away, and they came daughter with me. moor, and drank there; there were my son and lane, there were some people raking up dung. Coming along PophamI drank at the second ale-house in Basingstoke on the Thursday in the New-year week. On the house on the heath. On the Saturday I lay at Friday I lay at Bagshot-heath, at a little tiney Old Brentford at Mrs. Edwards's, who sells greens and sinall beer. I could have told this before, but one pulled me, and another pulled

Who was with her there?-There was her sister and her brother, as she said; they sold handkerchiefs, lawns, and such things. How long did she stay at Coombe ?-They stopped there but one night.

[Cross-examination.]

What January do you mean?—I mean last January, five weeks ago last Sunday.

How came you to take such particular notice of it ?-There was a carpenter at my house; he had spent the biggest part of his money; it being Sunday night, I would have him go about his business, and put him out of the house two or three times, and after that he went over the way to another house, and pawned bis axe.

[These three witnesses shewed their subpœnas, as the cause of their coming to give their evidence.]

John Iniser sworn, for the Crown. Iniser. I sell fish and oysters about Waltham-Cross and Theobalds. I know the prisoner Squires very well by sight; the last time I saw her before now, was at the time she was taken at Susannah Wells's house; before that I had seen her several times every day up and down, before she was taken.

Q. Are you very certain of that?-Iniser. I am, that I saw her three weeks before; that she walked into people's houses, pretending to tell fortunes. She told me mine once. Did you see any goods she had to sell?-No, VOL, XIX.

Edwards's on the Sunday and Monday; and on the Tuesday or Wednesday after, I came from thence to Mrs. Wells's house at Enfield."

The time drawing near for the Report of the convicts, sir Crisp Gascoyne laid before his Majesty, not only the whole Evidence given at Certificates he had received since her convicthe Trial; but also the several Informations and tion, accompanied by the following Memorial: To the KING'S Most Excellent MAJESTY.

May it please your majesty to permit your dutiful subject, the lord mayor of your faithfu! city of London, with the most profound humility and respect to represent to your majesty, that before the Trial of Mary Squires, for the robbery of Elizabeth Canning, and of Susannah Wells, as accessary, many unfair representations were printed and dispersed, which could not fail to excite public prejudice against them.

"The fatal consequence whereof, in depriv ing those unhappy wretches of a material part of their evidence, engaged me, from the high station I have the honour to bear, to express my duty to your majesty, and the public, by making this inquiry.

"In which the utmost caution has been observed.-All the witnesses have been strictly, separately, and publicly examined, and their credit well certified.

"Many other informations, to the same effect, have been offered; but I declined troubling your majesty with further evidence, as humbly apprehending it totally unnecessary,

T