and went away. She says, that when it was day-light, upon her looking round to see in what dismal place she was confined, she discovered a large black jug, with the neck much broken, filled with water, and several pieces of bread, amounting to about the quantity of a quartern loaf, scattered on the floor, where was likewise a small parcel of hay. In this room, she says, she continued from that time till about half an hour after four of the clock in the afternoon of Monday, the 29th day of the same month of January, being in all twenty-seven days and upwards, without any other sustenance than the aforesaid bread and water, except one small mince-pie which she had in her pocket, which she was carrying home as a present to her little brother. She likewise says, that she had some part of this provision remaining on the Friday before she made her escape, which she did by breaking out at a window of the room or loft in which she was confined, and whence having escaped, she got back to her friends in London in about six hours, in a most weak and miserable condition, being almost starved to death, and without ever once stopping at any house or place by the way. She likewise says, that during her whole confinement no person ever came near her to ask her any question whatever, nor did she see any belonging to the house more than once, when one of the women peeped through a hole in the door, and that she herself was afraid to call or speak to anyone. All this she hath solemnly sworn before a magistrate and in a court of justice.

Such is the narrative of Elizabeth Canning, and a very extraordinary narrative it is, consisting of many strange particulars resembling rather a wild dream than a real fact. First, it doth not well appear with what motive these men carried this poor girl such a length of way, or indeed that they had any motive at all for so doing.

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Secondly, that they should be able to do it is not easy to believe; I do not mean that it is not within the strength of two men to carry a little girl (for so she is) ten miles, but that they could do this without being met, opposed, or examined by any persons in the much frequented roads near this town, is extremely strange and surprising. Thirdly, the Gipsy woman doth not seem to have had any sufficient motive to her proceedings. If her design was to make a prostitute, or a Gipsy, or both, of this poor girl, she would, in all probability, have applied to her during her confinement, to try what effect that confinement had produced. If her design was murder, she had many easier and better ways than by starving, or if she had chosen this method of destroying the girl, it seems impossible to account for the conveying to her that bread and water, which would serve for no other purpose but to lengthen out the misery of a wretch against whom the Gipsy woman had, as appears, no foundation whatever of anger or revenge, and might have increased the danger of discovering the whole villainy. Fourthly, that Elizabeth Canning herself should have survived this usage, and all the terrors it must have occasioned, and should have been kept alive with no other sustenance than she declares she had, are facts

very astonishing and almost incredible. Fifthly, that she should so well have husbanded her small pittance as to retain some of it till within two days of her escape, is another surprising circumstance. Sixthly, that she should undergo all this hardship and fasting without attempting sooner to make her escape, or without perceiving the possibility of making it in the manner in which she at last says she did effect it, seems to be no less shocking to reason and common sense, Lastly, that, at the time when she dates this escape, she

should have strength sufficient left, not only to break her prison in the manner she declares, but to walk eleven or twelve miles to her own home, is another fact which may very well stagger our belief, and is a proper close to this strange, unaccountable, and scarce credible story.

Thus have I set the several particulars of this narrative in as strong a light against the relator, and in one as disadvantageous to the credibility of her relation, as I think they can fairly be placed. Certain it is, that the facts seem at first to amount to the very highest degree of improbability, but I think that they do not amount to an impossibility; for, as to those objections which arise from the want of a sufficient motive in the transactors of this cruel scene, no great stress I think can be laid on these. I might ask what possible motive could induce two ruffians, who were executed last winter for murder, after they had robbed a poor wretch who made no resistance, to return and batter his skull with their clubs, till they fractured it in almost twenty different places. How many cruelties, indeed, do we daily hear of, to which it seems not easy to assign any other motive than barbarity itself? In serious and sorrowful truth, doth not history, as well as our own experience, afford us too great reasons to suspect, that there is in some minds a sensation directly opposite to that of benevolence, and which delights and feeds itself with acts of cruelty and inhumanity? And if such a passion can be allowed any existence, where can we imagine it more likely to exist than among such people as these.

Besides, though to a humane and truly sensible mind such actions appear to want an adequate motive, yet to wretches very little removed, either in their sensations or understandings, from wild beasts, there may possibly

appear a very sufficient motive to all that they did; such might be a desire of increasing the train of Gipsies, or of whores in the family of the mother Wells. One of these appear to have been the design of the Gipsy woman from the declaration of Elizabeth Canning, who, if she had said nothing more improbable, would certainly have been entitled to our belief in this, though this design seems afterwards not to have been pursued. In short she might very possibly have left the alternative, with some indifference, to the girl's own option; if she was starved out of her virtue, the family might easily apprehend she would give them notice; if out of her life, it would be then time enough to convey her dead body to some ditch or dunghill, where, when it was found, it would tell no tales: possibly, however, the indifference of the Gipsy woman was not so absolute, but that she might prefer the girl's going her way, and this will recount for her conveying to her that bread and water, which might give the poor girl a longer time to deliberate, and consequently the love of life might have a better chance to prevail over the love of virtue.

So much for the first and third objection arising from the want of motive, from which, as I observed above, no very powerful arguments can be drawn in the case of such wretches: as to the second objection, though I mentioned it as I would omit none, the reader, I presume, will lay so little weight upon it, that it would be wasting time to give it much answer. In reality, the darkness of the night at that season of the year, and when it was within two days of the new moon, with the indifference of most people to what doth not concern themselves, and the terror with which all honest persons pass by night through the roads near this town, will very sufficiently account for

the want of all interruption to these men in their conveyance of the poor girl.

With regard to the fourth objection-how she could survive this usage, &c? I leave the degree of probability to be ascertained by the physicians. Possible, I think it is, and I contend for no more. I shall only observe here, that she barely did survive it, and that she, who left her mother in a plump condition, returned so like a spectre, that her mother fainted away when she saw her; her limbs were all emaciated, and the colour of her skin turned black, so as to resemble a state of mortification; her recovery from which state since, is a proof of that firm and sound constitution, which supported her, if she says true, under all her misery.

As to the fifth objection, she answers, that the cruel usage she had met with, and the condition she saw herself in, so affected both her mind and body, that she ate scarce anything during the first days of her confinement, and afterwards had so little appetite, that she could scarce swallow the hard morsels which were allotted her.

The sixth objection hath, in my opinion, so little in it that had I not heard it insisted on by others, I should not myself have advanced it; common experience every day teaches us, that we endure many inconveniences of life, while we overlook those ways of extricating ourselves, which, when they are discovered, appear to have been, from the first, extremely easy and obvious. The inference, which may be drawn from this observation, a moderate degree of candour will oblige us to extend very far in the case of a poor simple child, under all the circumstances of weakness of body and depression and confusion of spirits, till despair, which is a quality that is ever increasing as its object increases, grew to the highest pitch, and