Contemporary newspapers show that the Beauty of Buttermere became the heroine of the hour--she was the theme of ballads in the streets; her sad story was upon every lip; never was there so much sympathy for one of her humble birth. Early in the new year, Hadfield, who received as much notice from the journals as Madame Récamier’s wonderful new bed, was committed to Newgate. With cool effrontery he dictated a letter to the press, asking the public to reserve judgment until his case was heard, and, as a wanton Tory newspaper declared, like Mr Fox and Mr Windham, he complained bitterly of misrepresentation. A long interval elapsed before he was sent north to stand his trial, and he did not reach Carlisle Gaol until the 25th of May, whither he was conveyed by an officer from Bow Street, who bore the appropriate name of Rivett. At the next assizes, on the 15th of August, he was arraigned before Sir Alexander Thomson, nicknamed the ‘Staymaker’ owing to his habit of checking voluble witnesses--a figure to be held in dread by law-breakers of the northern counties, as the Luddite riots in a few years were to show. Hadfield was not lucky in his judge, for the man who, at a later date, could be harsh enough to consign to the hangman the poor little cripple boy Abraham Charlson, was not likely to extend mercy to a forger. The prisoner stood charged upon three indictments:-- (_a_) With having drawn a bill of exchange upon John Gregory Crump for the sum of £20, under the false and fictitious name of the Hon. Alexander Augustus Hope. (_b_) With having forged a bill of exchange for £30, drawn upon John Gregory Crump, and payable to Colonel Nathaniel Montgomery Moore. (_c_) With having defrauded the Post Office by franking letters as a member of Parliament. Only the first two were capital offences.