This is the first case on record, in which any person appears to have been executed for counterfeiting the coin of the realm. The punishment for this offence, at first, of necessity, severe, to check the alarming prevalence of the crime, has long since been materially mitigated; and although the evil still exists to a great degree, it has been diminished very considerably in consequence of the judicious steps taken by the officers of the Mint. In the month of May, 1721, Barbara Spencer, with two other women, named Alice Hall, and Elizabeth Bray, were indicted for high treason, in counterfeiting the king's current coin of the realm. The evidence went to prove the two latter prisoners to be agents only, and they were acquitted; while Spencer appeared to be the principal, and she was found guilty, and sentenced to be burned. It turned out that the prisoner had before been guilty of similar offences, and the sentence was carried into execution, although not in its direct terms. The law which then existed was, indeed, that women, convicted of high or petit treason, should be burned; but the wisdom and humanity of the authorities provided a more easy death, in directing that the malefactor should be strangled, while tied to the stake, and that the body should afterwards be consumed by fire. While under sentence of death, the prisoner behaved in the most indecent and turbulent manner; nor could she be convinced that she had been guilty of any crime in making a few shillings. She was for some time very impatient under the idea of her approaching dissolution, and was particularly shocked at the thought of being burned; but at the place of execution, she seemed willing to exercise herself in devotion, but was much interrupted by the mob throwing stones and dirt at her. She was strangled and burned at Tyburn on the 5th of July, 1721. WILLIAM SPIGGOT, AND THOMAS PHILLIPS. EXECUTED FOR HIGHWAY ROBBERY. This case is rendered worthy of notice, by the fact that, the prisoners refusing to plead, they were placed under the torture. They were indicted for a robbery upon the king's highway; but refused to plead until some of their property, which had been taken from them, was returned. This was denied them by the Court, under the provisions of the statute of the 4th & 5th William and Mary; and as, in spite of all entreaties, they persisted in their refusal, to deny or confess the charge against them, the Court ordered that the judgment ordained by law should be read to them. This was,