'My lord, I open my defence shortly, referring the particulars to the witnesses themselves, in calling those who will fully refute the suppositions and inferences made by the prosecutor, whom first, my lord, I shall begin with, to show there is no evidence of any murder at all committed; and this I say again, ought to be indisputably made manifest and proved, before any man can be so much as suspected for it. HATSELL, BARON--Do not flourish too much, Mr. Cowper; if you have opened all your evidence, call your witnesses, and when they have ended, then make your observations. MR. COWPER--Then, my lord, I will take up no more of your time in opening this matter. Call Robert Dew. (Who appeared.) When Mrs. Sarah Stout drowned herself, was not you a parish officer? DEW--I was. I was next house to the Coach and Horses; and about six o'clock came a little boy (Thomas Parker's boy), and said there was a woman fallen into the river. I considered it was not my business, but the coroner's, and I sent the boy to the coroner, to acquaint him with it, and the coroner sent word by the boy, and desired she might be taken out; so I went to the river, and saw her taken out: she lay in the river (as near as I could guess) half a foot in the water; she was covered with water; she had a striped petticoat on, but nothing could be seen of it above water. I heaved her up, and several sticks were underneath her, and flags; and when they took her out, she frothed at the nose and mouth. COWPER--How was she? Was she driven between the stakes? DEW--She lay on the right side, her head leaning rather downwards: and as they pulled her up, I cried, 'Hold, hold, hold, you hurt her arm'; and so they kneeled down and took her arm from the stakes. COWPER--Did you see any spot upon her arm? DEW--Yes, sir. COWPER--What sort of spot was it? DEW--It was reddish; I believe the stakes did it; for her arm hit upon the stake where she lay. COWPER--Pray, how do these stakes stand about the bridge of the mill? DEW--I suppose they stand about a foot asunder; they stand slanting, leaning down the stream a little. COWPER--Could you discern her feet? DEW--No, nothing like it, nor the striped petticoat she had on. COWPER--Might not her knees and legs be upon the ground, for what you could see? DEW--Truly, if I were put upon my oath whether they were so, or not, I durst not swear it; sometimes the water there is four feet, sometimes three and a-half; I believe her feet were very near the bottom. COWPER--Are not the stakes nailed with their head against the bridge? DEW--They are nailed to the side of the bridge. COWPER--Pray, describe the manner in which they took her up. DEW--They stooped down, and took her up.