On the same day, in the parlour of the Captain’s house, Catherine Bankes came to me, and went down on her knees, in great distress, and begged and prayed of me not to say anything, as she feared the Captain had done a bad job, and that they would all come to be hanged if I spoke. I promised her I never would say anything.” [Bankes was a farm bailiff; Taylor died about 1816, having lived some time in infamous notoriety at Droitwich. Barnett, at the time of the murder, was only bailiff for his mother, but had since become an opulent farmer. Clewes himself failed three or four years after the murder, and had since been engaged as a labourer or woodman.] A great many witnesses were examined at the inquest, who spoke to expressions of hatred and malice used by Captain Evans, Barnett, Bankes, and Clewes, with regard to Mr. Parker, and many trifling circumstances which tended to implicate them in the disappearance of Hemming, and corroborate Clewes’s confession. The jury, after five days of most elaborate investigation, returned a verdict of wilful murder against Thomas Clewes and George Bankes; and further found that John Barnett, late of the parish of Oddingley, farmer, was an accessary to such murder before the fact. These three persons were accordingly put upon their trial at the ensuing March Assizes, before Mr. Justice Littledale. A true bill was found against Clewes as principal in the second degree, and against Barnett and Bankes as accessaries before the fact to the murder of the Rev. George Parker, by Richard Hemming. Mr. Curwood was the leading counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Sergeant Ludlow for Clewes, Mr. Campbell, K.C., for Bankes, and Mr. Taunton, K.C., for Barnett. An objection was taken to the prisoners pleading as accessaries to a murder, the principal in which had not been found guilty; and this objection being allowed, Clewes and Bankes were arraigned as principals, and Barnett as accessary before the fact to the murder of Richard Hemming. Clewes was first put upon his trial alone. The evidence of the finding of the body of Hemming having been given, and its identification completed, many witnesses were examined to speak to expressions of the prisoner, tending to show that he had been anxious to procure the death of Mr. Parker; and expressions used by Hemming, showing that he had been employed to do some foul deed at Oddingley. It was proved, too, that Clewes and Hemming had been frequently in one another’s company prior to the murder. Last of all, after a sharp struggle on the part of the prisoner’s counsel to prevent it, Clewes’s confession was put in and read. Sergeant Ludlow briefly addressed the learned judge, urging that Clewes was entitled to his acquittal, as his confession stood uncontradicted, and that did not prove him to have been a principal in the crime. The court decided that the matter must be left to the jury, and to them the prisoner declined saying