likewise said that he had lost twen. ty-seven lambs, which were taken out of those ewes; and he deposed that both the prisoners confessed the crime before Sir Thomas Devil on the Tuesday following; and that Bourke acknowledged they had sold the fat to a tallow-chandler for forty-one shillings and twopence halfpenny.

Richard Twyford proved the finding the sheep ripped open, and the fat taken out; and that the lambs were dragging by the sides of them and swore that the prisoners had owned the taking the gates from the farm to pen the sheep up. Joseph Agnew, a constable, swore that Ellis came to him; and after having told him of a quarrel between him and Bourke, who had given him two black eyes, he acknow.

ledged that he had been concerned with him in the commission of the crime before mentioned. Hereupon the constable took with him three watchmen, and, going to Bourke's lodgings, seized him in bed, and found a clasp-knife lying on the ground near the feet of the bed, on which was some fat, which likewise remained when the knife was produced in Court on the trial.

Bourke, in his defence, said that he was kept drunk by the constable, in order to induce him to make a confession; but this not being credited by the jury, and there being other proofs of the fact having been acknowledged, they were capitally convicted, and, receiving sentence of death, were executed at Tyburn, on the 20th of February, 1745.

THIS offender was the son of honest parents, and born at North Berwick, in Scotland, where he was educated in the liberal manner customary in that country.

Sir Hugh Dalrymple being a member of the British parliament, he took Henderson into his service, when fourteen years of age, and brought him to London. Before he was nineteen years old he married one of his master's maids; but Sir Hugh, who had a great regard for him, did not dismiss him, though he was greatly chagrined at this cir

cumstance.

Some few days before the commission of the murder, Sir Hugh, having occasion to go out of town for a month, summoned Henderson to assist in dressing him; and, while he was thus employed, Sir Hugh's lady going into the room, the servant casually trod on her toe. She said not a word on the occasion, but

looked at him with a degree of rage that made him extremely uneasy.

When Sir Hugh had taken his leave she demanded of Henderson why he had trodden on her toe; in answer to which he made many apologies, ascribing the circumstance to mere accident; but she gave him a blow on the ear, and declared that she would dismiss him from her service.

Henderson said it would be unnecessary to turn him away, for he would go without compulsion; but, reflecting that her passion would soon subside, he continued in his place, and was used with as much kindness as if the accident had not taken place.

Offended, however, by the insult that had been offered him, Henderson began to consider how he should be revenged; and at length came to the fatal resolutiou of murdering his mistress.

The day before his execution he made a confession in Newgate, which was taken in writing by the Ordinary, and from which the following particulars of this barbarous deed are taken :

He first expresses a lively and suitable sense of his condition, and calls God to witness that this account contains the truth, the whole of the truth, and nothing but the truth.

He says he was born in the town of North Berwick, in Scotland, and turned of nineteen years of age: his father was still living, and accounted a very honest industrious man; his education was the best his father could afford, and his character, before this fact, blameless: his mother had been dead several years, which he mentions with satisfaction; because, as she loved him tenderly, he believed this affair would certainly have broken her heart.

He had lived with his master five years, (about three years in Scotland, and two in London,) and declares no servant could be better used than he was, and that he never had the least dislike to the deceased, for that she was a lady of great humanity, and greatly respected by all her servants; and his master a most worthy gentleman.

On March 25, 1746, about eleven at night, Mary Platt, the maid-servant, told him she would go and see her husband; and he said she might do as she pleased: she went, and took the key to let herself in again; he shut the door after her, and went and cleaned some plate in the kitchen. From thence he went up into the back parlour, where he used to lie, and let down his bed in order to go to sleep. He pulled off his shoes, and tied up his hair with his garter, and that moment the thought came into his head to kill his lady. He went down stairs into

the kitchen, and took a small iron cleaver, and, returning into his bedchamber, sat down about twenty minutes, considering whether he should commit the murder. His heart relented, and he thought he could not do it; however, he con cluded to perpetrate the deed, as there was none in the house but the deceased and himself.

He went up to the first landingplace on the stairs, and, after tarrying a minute or two, came down, shocked at the crime he was about to commit. He sat down on his bed for a little while, and then went up as far as the dining-room, but was again so shocked he could not proceed, and, coming down, sat on his bed some minutes, and had almost determined with himself not to commit the murder; but, he says, the devil was very busy with him, and that he was in such agonies as cannot be expressed. He went up again as far as the first window, and the watchman was going

'Past twelve o'clock.'

After the watchman had passed the door, and all was silent, he came down two or three steps, but presently went up again as far as his lady's room-door, having the cleaver all the time in his hand, and opened it, it not being locked: he went into the room, but could not kill her: he was in great fear and terror, and went out of the room as far as the stair-head, about three yards from her chamber-door, but immediately returned, with a full resolution to murder her.

He entered the room a second time, went to the bed-side, undrew the curtains, and found she was fast asleep. He went twice from the bed to the door in great perplexity of mind, the deceased being still asleep. He had no candle, and believes, if there had been a light, he could not have committed the mur

der. He continued in great agonies, but at length, feeling where she lay, made twelve or fourteen motions with the cleaver before he struck at her.

The first blow he missed, but the second he struck her on the head, and she endeavored to get out of bed on that side next the door, and, when he struck her again, she moved to the other side of the bed, and spoke several words which he can't remember. He repeated his blows, and in struggling she fell out of bed next the window, and then he thought it was time to put her out of her inisery, and struck her with all his might as she lay on the floor she bled very much, and he cut the curtains in several places when he missed his blows.

All the words she said, when he struck her the third or fourth blow, were, O Lord, what is this?' She rattled in her throat very much, and he was so frightened that he ran down stairs, and threw the chopping-kuife into the privy.

He then went into his bed-chamber again, and sat down on his bed for about ten minutes, when it came into his head to rob the house, which he solemnly declares he had no intention to do before he committed the murder. He directly struck a light, went into the deceased's bed-chamber, and took her pockets, a gold watch, and two diamond rings out of the drawers, with several other things: she was not dead then, but rattled very much in the throat, and he was so surprised that he scarcely knew what he did, and would have given ten thousand worlds could he have recalled what he had done.

When he had taken what he thought proper, he went into Holboru, where his wife lodged, and all the way he went he thought his murdered lady followed him. The

watchman was crying Past one o'clock' as he was going along Holborn, so that he was nearly a full hour in committing this most horrid deed.

He put what things he had taken into a box at his wife's lodgings, who asked him what he did there at that time of night, and several other questions; to all which he answered it was no business of hers: he solemnly declares his wife and every other person entirely innocent and ignorant of the fact.

a

He did not stay here more than quarter of an hour, and then returned to his master's; but, by endeavoring to break the string with which he had fastened the door, he shut himself out, so that he was obliged to wait till the maid came home, which was about six o'clock: he told her he had been to get some shirts that were mending, and had locked himself out.

The maid, on opening the win. dows, discovered that there had been a robbery, and, by some blood on the stairs, suspected her lady was killed. On which he desired she would go into her lady's room, and see if it was really so : she consented, and he went to the door with her. She returned presently, crying out, It is so! It is so!' He then went and acquainted a gen. tleman, who was nephew to his master, that somebody had broke into the house. This gentleman, suspecting the maid, who had been out all night, took her before the justice, who thought proper, on hearing her examination, to send for Henderson. He was very ready to go, and declares he had no thought of escaping, though he had great opportunity so to do.

He at first denied the facts, and accused two innocent persons; but, being very much confounded by the cross questions then put to him, he

THIS Woman was a native of Bristol, and descended from poor parents, who educated her in the best manner in their power. Get ting a place in the service of a merchant when she was sixteen years of age, she lived with him three years, and then came to London.

Having procured a place in a house where lodgings were let to single gentlemen, and being a girl of an elegant appearance, and fond

VOL. I.

of dress, she was liable to a variety of temptations.

Her vanity being even more than equal to her beauty, she at length conceived that she had made a conquest of one of the gentlemenlodgers, and was foolish enough to think he would marry her.

With a view of keeping alive the passion she thought she had inspired, she sought every pretence of going into his chamber; and he, having 30

some designs against her virtue, purchased her some new clothes, in which she went to church on the following Sunday, where she was observed by her mistress.

On their return from church, the mistress strictly inquired how she came to be possessed of such fine clothes; and, having learnt the real state of the case, she was discharged from her service on the Monday morning.

As she still thought the gentleman intended marriage, she wrote to him, desiring he would meet her at a public house; and, on his attending, she wept incessantly, and complained of the treatment she had met with from her mistress, which she attributed to the presents she had received from him.

The seducer advised her to calm her spirits, and go into lodgings, which he would immediately provide for her, and where he could securely visit her till the marriage should take place.

Deluded by this artifice, she went that day to lodge at a house in the Strand, which he said was kept by a lady who was related to him. In this place he visited her on the following, and several successive days; attending her to public places, and making her presents of elegant clothes, which effectually flattered her vanity, and lulled asleep the small remains of her virtue.

It is needless to say that her ruin followed. After a connexion of a few months, she found him less frequent in his visits; and, informing him she was with child, demanded that he would make good his promise of marriage: on which he declared that he had never intended to marry her, and that he would not maintain her any longer; and hinted that she should seek another lodging.

On the following day the mis

tress of the house told her she must not remain there any longer, unless she would pay for her lodgings in advance, which being unable to do, or, perhaps, unwilling to remain in a house where she had been so unworthily treated, she packed up her effects, and removed to another lodging.

When she was brought to bed, the father took away the infant, and left the wretched mother in a very distressed situation. Having subsisted for some time by pawning her clothes, she was at length so reduced as to listen to the advice of a woman of the town, who persuaded her to procure a subsistence by the casual wages of prostitution.

Having embarked in this horrid course of life, she soon became a common street-walker, and experienced all those calamities incident to so deplorable a situation. Being sometimes tempted to pick pockets for a subsistence, she became an occasional visitor at Bridewell, where her mind grew only the more corrupt by the conversation of the abandoned wretches confined in that place.

We now come to speak of the fact, the commission of which forfeited her life to the violated laws of her country.

At the sessions held at the Old Bailey, in the month of January, 1745, she was indicted for robbing William Humphreys of a guinea on the king's highway.

The fact was, that being passing, at midnight, near Northumberland House, in the Strand, she accosted Mr. Humphreys, who declining to hold any correspondence with her, two fellows with whom she was connected came up, and one of them knocking him down, they both ran away; when she robbed him of a guinea, which she concealed in her