Strange Pages from Family PapersThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Strange Pages from Family Papers
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Legends; Superstition
But the Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, who had presided at the trial
_ex-officio_, was not satisfied with the verdict, and caused further
and searching inquiries to be made. The verdict, on the weight of
fresh evidence obtained, was upset, and Squires was granted a free
pardon. On 29th April, 1754, Elizabeth Canning was summoned again to
the Old Bailey, but this time to take her trial for wilful and corrupt
perjury. The trial lasted eight days, and, being found guilty, she was
transported in August, "at the request of her friends, to New
England." According to the "Annual Register," she returned to this
country at the expiration of her sentence to receive a legacy of L500,
left to her three years before by an old lady of Newington Green;
whereas, later accounts affirm that she never came back, but died 22nd
July, 1773, at Weathersfield, in Connecticut, it being further stated
that she married abroad a Quaker of the name of Treat, "and for some
time followed the occupation of a schoolmistress."
The mystery of her life--her disappearance from Jan. 1st to the 29th
of that month, and what transpired in that interval--is a secret that
has never been to this day divulged. Indeed, as it has been observed,
"notwithstanding the many strange circumstances of her story, none is
so strange as that it should not be discovered in so many years where
she had concealed herself during the time she had invariably declared
she was at the house of Mother Wells."[48]
Another curious disappearance is recorded by Sir John Coleridge,
forming a strange story of romance. It seems there lived in Cornwall,
a highly respectable family, named Robinson, consisting of two
sons--William and Nicholas--and two daughters. The property was
settled on the two sons and their male issue, and in case of death on
the two daughters. Nicholas was placed with an eminent attorney of St.
Austen as his clerk, with a prospect of being one day admitted into
partnership. But his legal studies were somewhat interrupted by his
falling in love with a milliner's apprentice; the result being that he
was sent to London to qualify himself as an attorney. But he had no
sooner been admitted an attorney of the Queen's Bench and Common
Pleas than he disappeared, and thenceforward he was never seen by any
member of his family or former friends, all search for him proving
fruitless.
In course of time the father died, and William, the elder son,
succeeded to the property, dying unmarried in May, 1802. As nothing
was heard of Nicholas, the two sisters became entitled to the
property, of which they held possession for twenty years, no claim
being made to disturb their possession of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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