I then asked why they had behaved with such impropriety, impudence and clamour upon their trial; to which it replied, “that they had been somewhat elevated with liquor, privately conveyed to them, and that by effrontery and a seemingly undaunted behaviour they hoped to intimidate the WOMAN, throw her into confusion, perplex her depositions, thereby rendering the evidence precarious and inconclusive, or at least give the court some favourable presumptions of their innocence.” I next inquired whether they knew the name of the person murdered, whence he came, and what reasons they had for committing so horrid a barbarity. To which the phantasm answered, “that the man was a perfect stranger to them all, that the murder was committed more out of wantonness and the force of long-contracted habits of wickedness than necessity, as they were at that time in no want of money; that they first found occasion to quarrel with the pedlar through a strange propensity to mischief for which it could not account but from God’s withdrawing His grace, and leaving them to all the extravagance and irregularities of a corrupted heart, long hardened in the ways of sin; that the man, being stout and undaunted, resented their ill-usage, and in his own defence proceeded to blows; that two only--Deacon and Croxford--were at first concerned, but finding him resolute, they had called up Seamark and Butlin, who were at a distance behind the hedge; that they then all seized the pedlar, notwithstanding which he struggled with great violence to the very last against their united efforts; nor did they think it safe to trifle any longer with a man who gave such proofs of uncommon strength; that with much difficulty they dragged him down to Seamark’s yard and there committed the murder as represented in court.” I next asked if there was any licence in his bags or pockets, that they might discover his name or place of abode. It replied, “No! that the paper left behind in its (Croxford’s) writing was of a piece with the rest of their conduct in this affair, a hardened untruth, abounding with reflections as false, as scandalous and wicked, suggested by the Father of Lies, who had gradually brought them from one step of iniquity to another, beginning first in the violation of morality, to the place of purgatory in which they now were.”