John Hill

“ Every Magistrate who has enquired into the Story has a Right to Praise from the World for that Enquiry: he has a Right to this, and in Proportion, not to the Success, for that was not in his [43] Hands, but to the Pains which he has taken, and the Impartiality by which he has been governed, in the Endeavour.
Those who set on foot the Contribution, engaged in it beyond a Doubt as an Act of Justice and of Virtue; it is most certain that they have had no other Motive: that they have been imposed on is as certain; but for that others must be answerable. ”

“ The Enquiry has answered all his Lordship's Expectations; the Evidence is clear, and the Proof is full. But for this his impartial Enquiry, made for the sake of Justice only, he is attacked by Calumny and private Prejudice: The envious Hint he must be interested in it; while others, whose Honour is as far beneath his, as their Abilities are inferior, wish the Convict guilty, that he may sink into an Equality. ”

“ No one will call it a Bad Action, that I have endeavoured to obtain the Truth, in a Case, where Humanity must have engaged any, who had the least Suspicion of Falshood, to wish the Secret known; it would have been a very imprudent one for him, who had no Authority to have taken that Confession which discovered it; and it has appeared to those who are better Judges, that it was most right, when the Preparation was made for that Confession, to apply to the supreme Magistrate of the Court, in which the Cause had been tried, to receive it. ”

“ Honesty, Humanity, and Love of Justice: These, I hope, I shall always, although it be at the Expence of some Scandal, prefer to that cold Principle; inasmuch as I think it a greater Character to be an honest, than to be a wise Man. ”

“ Here was the Evidence of [40] a Person of honest Character, and quite disinterested, against that of Virtue Hall, confessed of bad Character, and deeply interested. This Oath, Sir, you will find was Truth: It will be seen: It will be proved that it was so, by Evidence the most incontestible. In the mean time, let me, in the Name of Virtue and Impartiality, ask the whole World whether this free Oath of an unconcerned Person, or the hardly-obtained Information of one who was interested, and had the Alternative only of that Information or a Prison, deserves the most Respect? ”

“ The Account of the Transaction, with respect to the Robbery, you argue must be true, because Canning and Hall relate it both alike. But all Men see how weak an Argument that is. I will not suppose Mr. Fielding can be guilty of designing to impose upon the World in this or any Part of the Case which he has published; and therefore I will call it only a weak Argument. Let us consider the Circumstances under which these Accounts were procured, and we shall see they could not be otherwise than perfectly alike, even tho' they both were false. ”

“ Perjury strong against herself: She saw a Prison the immediate Consequence: She supposed the Oaths that prevailed against her Liberty, though innocent, might also prevail against her Life, though innocent; and, to save herself from the Effects of this Perjury, she submitted to support the Charge it made against others: Against those whom she supposed condemned without her Crime, and whom she thought too certain of Destruction to be injured by any thing she added. ”

“ I know how improper, nay, how dishonest, it is in many Cases to prepossess the Public against those whom their Country has not yet found guilty of any Crime: No History can produce a greater Instance of it than is before us in the present Story ”

“ Falsities innumerable have been, indeed, devised by the Interested, received by the Credulous, and propagated by the Malicious; but who is there to be found, that will himself attest any the least Circumstance that they pretend?
There are Men, are there not, Mr. Fielding? who cannot bear the Glory this will soon bring, and ought to bring, to the great Magistrate who has discovered the Conspiracy. And these will swallow greedily all that they hear against it; and they will propagate that which they don't [49] believe. There are Men, who have been deceived: Who now know they have been deceived ”

“ We are to state the Case, the World is to determine.
'Tis hard for him who has engag'd, be it no more than his Opinion on one Part, to be disinterested with respect to the other; nay, if he were unbiass'd, such an one is still but a single Person; and he has little Candour, [10] and less Modesty, if he supposes every Individual of the Publick is not as able as himself to judge upon that which he allows to be, or which he affects to call, clear Evidence. ”

“ Credit of your Understanding, I hope you were: That Weight is taken off: that Evidence, it is confess'd, was Perjury. The Story now, therefore, stands on the Footing of its own Credibility; and those who are the most violent in its Favour, have, in Effect, if not in Words, given it up as false: I hope they will do this in every Sense. Humanity, tho' mistaken in its Object, was a Plea sufficient in her Favour when they first countenanc'd her; but Humanity now changes Sides, and the Wretch, who pines under the Sentence, claims its Offices. ”

“ Canning's Story appeared improbable; all rested upon the Evidence of Hall: And there was given to you, against that Evidence, the Oath of Judith Natus, one not belonging to the Gipsies, and whom you have not any Reason to apprehend belonging to them; an honest Woman, Wife of an honest Labourer, who, with her Husband, lay in the very Room, in which the Girl pretended to have been confined, during the whole time of that alledged Confinement. ”

“ It can be no Reflection on a Court, in which the Determination is made from Evidence, to plead the Cause of that Innocency, which is proved by the after-discover'd Falsity of such Evidence: Shame on the Folly or Malice that pretends it can, even though you, Fielding, have pretended it: nor has any thing been yet publish'd, more than what passed publickly; for the Examinations before the Lord-Mayor have not been made in Corners.
This is a Digression, but the Insinuations of bad Men have made it necessary. ”

“ Being disinterested, I may expect Credit; but there is yet a Reason why I shall speak less freely. 'Tis an unfortunate Circumstance, that with the Innocence of this Person, there is connected the Crime of another; if not the intentional, at least the effectual Crime: The Evidence that absolves the one accuses the other; and it is one of those Incidents, under which Humanity is wounded by the Means, while it glories in the End. ”

“ Though not conscious that I deserve to have one Enemy in the World, I am not ignorant that I have several; and some of these are of that idle Kind who live in the meaner Coffeehouses, and spread Reports among the successive Companies. These are a Sort of Men, who have not, on any other Occasion, appeared considerable enough to me to justify the slightest Notice; but if their Violence and officious Malice can take any Thing from the Opinion, which the World had entertained of the Credibility of what I have published, designing to be known the Author of it, on this Occasion ”

“ One, who being a Stranger to the Accuser, and a Friend of the Persons accused, declared she saw the Robbery. This was an Evidence which must have been allowed by any Jury of judicious and unbiass'd Men. Now that we are convinced of the Innocence of the Persons who were condemned upon the Credit paid to this Evidence, we must acknowledge, that human Wisdom could not, at that Time, have discovered, nay scarce could have suspected it was false ”

“ To one or other of these Sets of Persons; all of them mean, wicked, or interested, have been owing the various Reports the World has heard within these few Days upon this Occasion: And not knowing from what Source they have sprung, Men have not known with what Contempt to treat them. The same short Answer serves for all I have heard; and I desire no other than to stand accountable to all who shall dispute that Answer.
I have been told, that the Lord Mayor had given up the Cause, finding all Perjury that had been brought before him: There is no Truth in any Part of this. ”

“ In the mean time, it is not necessary that others should be blamed. Those who are of the contrary Opinion maintain it, because they are ignorant what are the Proofs on which the Innocence of the Convict is supported. ”

“ I love to hear Men talk in Character: no one knows better how much Wit is necessary to the writing of such Books; and, to do Justice to your last Performance, no Man has proved more fully, with how small a Share of it, they may be written. ”

“ Acts of Cruelty have been practis'd by Ruffians: I grant you so much, mighty Reasoner! but there has been a Motive, the worst of them have never done it otherwise: Their own Safety is the Common Cause, and Cowards are to a Proverb cruel. But here Men endanger'd, and not secur'd their Safety, by the doing it ”

“ But here the Life of a Person, certainly innocent, is concern'd on the one Part; and not so much as the Life, even should the worst be proved, and the Laws put in their fullest Execution, of one, as certainly a Cause of the greatest Distress, and almost of Death to that Innocent, on the other. As this is the Case in the present Enquiry, the Particularity of the Circumstance may dispense with what would be faulty on a different Occasion. ”

“ Till that shall be fully effected, the same Principle which influenc'd me, as unconcerned as any Man could be in the whole Matter, and of all Men the least inclined to enter into Disputes and Quarrels, to undertake the Protection, so far as it lay in my scanty Power, of the Innocent, pleads with me, so far as my Opportunities may permit, and so far as may be consistent with that Character which every Man ought to hold sacred, to prevent farther Error. ”

“ Who is there lives, so abandoned, that he can say he never felt a Pang of Conscience? The Ideot, the Atheist would in vain attempt to persuade Men of it. Suppose what she had thus sworn to be false, as there are now a Multiplicity of Proofs that it all was false, what are we to imagine must be the Consequences? ”

“ There could be [34] in Nature no Motive to her doing it; and the most irrational do not act without some Impulse.
But let us ask the Question on the other Part! We shall then find it answered easily. Let us suppose we see, for 'tis most certain we do see such a one, a Person who had been awed by her Ignorance, and Fears, into swearing a Falshood ”

“ Covering for herself, and in a Place where every thing spoke Beggary: Unnatural, ridiculous, and absurd!
There can be no Cause assigned, why Men should drag her many Miles, or why Women lock her up to perish, without the least Advantage, or the least Prospect of Advantage. ”

“ Thus much it may have been necessary, though very unpleasing, to say, with Respect to those Motives which induced an unconcerned Person at all to meddle in this intricate Discovery; since those whose own Hearts do not acknowledge any Thought that has not Self for its Centre, may not (uninformed of the Difference) suppose it possible any others should have Place in the Breast of a Stranger. ”

“ The Cant of the Subscription was her Virtue, but there must have been a Face to stamp the Price on That: without it the [22] Commodity's not marketable: Naked Virtue is of no Value unto the Sort of People these have been represented. Besides, had there been even this Temptation, the Gipsey, who is charged with the Crime, could not have any Intent to answer in the obtaining of the Sacrifice. ”

“ Let them ask themselves, and their own Reason, if a Creature, in such a State, could have walked Home; they will find it as absurd as the rest of the wild Story: and there is as much Moral Certainty that it is false; invented by bad Men to serve Purposes ”

“ Let those who would know this examine the printed Tryal. They will, in that, find Canning swearing that no body came into the Room all the time she was there, and that she found the Pitcher there: And they will find Hall swearing that the Pitcher was put into the Room three Hours afterward by the Gipsy. They will find tho' both agree in the Fact, yet a Difference in the Circumstances even of the Robbery: Canning swears the two Men took her Stays and went out, while she was yet below ”

“ These things, and things like these, I doubt not influenced that worthy Magistrate first to suspect the Truth, who has now proved the Falsity of both their Evidences. These things were not hidden, Sir, from you: How was it that you overlooked them when you wrote this Pamphlet? All I have urged you know; and knew before. You will find it will convince the World, why did it not take that Effect on you? Are you convinced now that you see it here? Speak freely ”

“ Out at these also, I suppose, the might have seen this Coachman, so that she needed not to peep through Cracks. There was no Grate in the Chimney: so that no body could have been guilty of this most housewifely Trick of putting a Gown in one: Nor were there any Pictures over it. Of the latter there was no Probability to be any, because the House had no Profusion of Furniture, and this was a Room of Lumber: And it is palpable there could have been no Grate in the Chimney of a long Time ”

“ These will add to the Numbers that are busy in spreading every Breath of Falsehood: and I am sorry to add, there may be some who even on my Account will be as violent to blast the Credit of all that has been doing. ”