DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0414
370 A full And authentic account of
Mother Wells the gipsy, her son and daughter, Vertue
Hall and Judith Natus, were under the care of an officer,
who had apprehended them early in the morning. As
soon as she was brought into the room, the girl pitched
upon the gipsy as’ the person who had cut her stays off,
and said that Lucy Squires and Vertue Hall stood by ; as
to Mother Wells, she said that she did not know she had
ever seen her before, and she could not sky any thing as td
George Squires ; however, they were all put in a cart
together, and carried before Justice Tyshemaker. Before
they came hither, George Squires, the gipsy’s son, having
got his great coat on, the girl, as soon as she saw him be-
fore the Justice, said he then looked much more like one of
the men who had robbed her in Moorfields ; hfiwever, she
would not swear against him, so that the justice discharged
him and the rest, except the gipsy and Mother Wells, one
of whom he committed to prison, as being swore against
by the girl for robbing her of her stays, and the other for
keeping a disorderly house.
But before the sessions came on, that they Were to take
their trial at, the friends of Canning thought they should
be able to go more to the bottom of the affair, by appre-
hending Vertue Hall, who was a servant in Mother Wells’s
house; they therefore applied to Justice Fielding, who,
upon Canning’s making an information upon oath before
him, granted a wartant for apprehending Vertue Hall.
It will be seen that there was some disagreement between
this information of Canning’s, sworn before Justice Field-
ing, with that made before the alderman, and likewise
with what she deposed on the trial of the gipsy, which was
one of the main foundations of the indictment brought
against her for wilful and corrupt perjury.
Vertue Hall, who first became a witness in her favour,1
and afterwards washed to recant, also deposed before Jus-
tice Fielding, that on Tuesday the 2d day of January last
past,
Mother Wells the gipsy, her son and daughter, Vertue
Hall and Judith Natus, were under the care of an officer,
who had apprehended them early in the morning. As
soon as she was brought into the room, the girl pitched
upon the gipsy as’ the person who had cut her stays off,
and said that Lucy Squires and Vertue Hall stood by ; as
to Mother Wells, she said that she did not know she had
ever seen her before, and she could not sky any thing as td
George Squires ; however, they were all put in a cart
together, and carried before Justice Tyshemaker. Before
they came hither, George Squires, the gipsy’s son, having
got his great coat on, the girl, as soon as she saw him be-
fore the Justice, said he then looked much more like one of
the men who had robbed her in Moorfields ; hfiwever, she
would not swear against him, so that the justice discharged
him and the rest, except the gipsy and Mother Wells, one
of whom he committed to prison, as being swore against
by the girl for robbing her of her stays, and the other for
keeping a disorderly house.
But before the sessions came on, that they Were to take
their trial at, the friends of Canning thought they should
be able to go more to the bottom of the affair, by appre-
hending Vertue Hall, who was a servant in Mother Wells’s
house; they therefore applied to Justice Fielding, who,
upon Canning’s making an information upon oath before
him, granted a wartant for apprehending Vertue Hall.
It will be seen that there was some disagreement between
this information of Canning’s, sworn before Justice Field-
ing, with that made before the alderman, and likewise
with what she deposed on the trial of the gipsy, which was
one of the main foundations of the indictment brought
against her for wilful and corrupt perjury.
Vertue Hall, who first became a witness in her favour,1
and afterwards washed to recant, also deposed before Jus-
tice Fielding, that on Tuesday the 2d day of January last
past,