262 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



accordingly resisted every incentive 

 to an investigation of the circum- 

 stances, until the imperative argu- 

 ment was urged of his own seven 

 infant children being, through his 

 supineness, likely to be shut out 

 from their rightful inheritance. 



A considerable period elapsed 

 before any clue could be obtained 

 for the removal or establishment 

 of these doubts, and Mr. Rickard 

 Deasy was on the point of sus- 

 pending all further inquiry, when, 

 as a dernier resort, he was induced 

 to call upon Mr. D. of Park-street, 

 Bristol, the medical attendant of 

 liis brother's family, about June 

 1812, with the desire of obtaining 

 a categorical answer to the ques- 

 tion, as a man of honour, if Mr. 

 D. had ever assisted Mrs. Timothy 

 Deasy in the delivery of a child ? 

 But the anxiety evinced by Mr. D. 

 to get the inquirer out of the house, 

 and his peremptory refusal to com- 

 municate with him upon that or 

 any other subject, confirmed the 

 suspicion that all was not right. In 

 the course of inquiries elsewhere, 

 the house where Mrs. T. Deasy was 

 said to have lain in ( No. 2,' Cla- 

 rence-place, Kingsdown) was as- 

 certained, and this led to a further 

 disclosure, through nurses and 

 other servants, of the following 

 facts : 



The unfortunate plaintifF was 

 compelled to quit a respectable 

 jitate of servitude, in consequence 

 of having been seduced by a fel- 

 low-servant ; which being followed 

 by pregnancy, she took a lodging 

 in Lower Berkeley- place, where it 

 appears she was first discovered by 

 the medical gentleman alluded to, 

 and by him introduced to the wife 

 of the defendant. Here, acted 

 upon by the " all-powerful in- 



fluence of a rich man's purse," 

 the plaintiff was prevailed upon to 

 forego the claims of nature, to part 

 from her expected ofiFspring, should 

 it prove a male child. On the 9th 

 of September, 1809, this part of 

 the compact was favoured by her 

 delivery of a boy, with the pro- 

 fessional assistance of a gentleman 

 resident at Clifton, then a part- 

 ner with the gentleman of Park- 

 street ; who, in person, within 

 a few I)ours afterwards visited the 

 plaintiff, and reminded her of 

 her agreement with Mrs. Deasy. 

 On the following morning (Sun- 

 day, the 10th of September), about 

 ten o'clock, this agent again visited 

 the plaintiff, and within a few mi- 

 nutes her child was taken to his 

 house in Park-street ; from whence 

 it was further removed, by a nurse 

 already in waiting, to a retired 

 spot about three miles on the 

 Gloucestershire side of this city, 

 called Crew's Hole, where it 

 was permitted to remain about a : 

 fortnight. From the care of this 

 nurse (with the assistance of a Mrs. 

 Arberry, of West-street), the child 

 was transferred, at the Swan Inn, 

 St. Maryport-street, to that of 

 another nurse, who, without see- 

 ing the former nurse, received it 

 in a hackney coach. To relieve 

 the reader from a most intricate 

 labyrinth through which this de- 

 voted infant was conveyed (not a 

 single link of the clue to which 

 has been left undiscovered), it may 

 suffice that he was finally deli- 

 vered into the hands of Mrs. 

 Deasy, at the door of her then 

 residence in Clarence-place. 



Witliin a few days afterwards 

 (about the 28th of Sept.^ the farce 

 of baptizing the said child, by the 

 name of Edward Garret Deasyt 



