332 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



rank but of moderate circum- 

 stances. One of the noviciates, in 

 love with an officer who had joined 

 in the conspiracy, worked the 

 badge of liberty upon his sleeve. 

 The peasantry were armed with 

 scythes and other destructive in- 

 struments, and the eve of the 

 breaking out of the revolution had 

 approached within two days. A 

 traitor to his country and its free- 

 dom disclosed the plot, and many 

 of the officers concerned in it 

 were seized and executed, among 

 whom was the lover of the young 

 lady. French cruelty did not end 

 here. The beautiful girl herself 

 was dragged forth and publicly de- 

 capitated. The abbess of the con- 

 vent and her nuns, who had fur- 

 nished the conspirators with money, 

 were thrown into the common 

 bridewell of the city, and compelled 

 to spin for a scanty subsistence." 



27. Thursday, James Hewit, an 

 old man nearly sixty years of age, 

 was indicted for a misdemeanor, in 

 having, in the month of May last, 

 contrary to an act passed in the 

 reign of Geo. II, seduced an arti- 

 ficer of this country to leave this 

 kingdom. From the testimony of 

 the witness examined, it appeared 

 that the prisoner, although re- 

 cently from America, is an Eng- 

 lishman and had lately frequented 

 a public-house called the York 

 Minster, immediately in the vi- 

 cinity of the cotton manufactory 

 of Messrs. Hughes and Lewis, 

 Bunhill-row, to which the men 

 employed in the service of Messrs. 

 Hughes and Lewis resorted ; and 

 amongst others a man named 

 Hutchinson, who had been for- 

 merly apprenticed from the parish 

 of St. Martin, to a cotton manu- 

 factory near Manchester, where 

 he remained till he arrived at the 



age of 21. He then came to 

 London, and was employed in the 

 service of Messrs. Hughes and 

 Co. in the wool-dyeing business, 

 and was in fact returned a fair 

 workman. This man the prisoner 

 frequently met, and, by glowing 

 representations of the advantages 

 and great wages he was likely to 

 obtain by going to America, in- 

 duced him to agree to emigrate, 

 for the purpose of being employed 

 in a cotton manufactory at a place 

 called Cooper's town, within two 

 miles of New-York, and a short 

 distance from the residence of the 

 prisoner. Messrs. Hughes and 

 Lewis having heard of this nego- 

 tiation, sent for the prisoner and 

 remonstrated with him on the ille- 

 gality of the steps he was pursuing, 

 forewarning him at the same time, 

 that if he persisted in his delin- 

 quency they would punish him 

 with the rigor of the law. The 

 prisoner then declared his igno- 

 rance of any criminality attaching 

 to his conduct, and promised most 

 faithfully that he would relinquish 

 his intentions. In a few days, 

 however, Mr. Hughes discovered 

 that Hutchinson was making pre- 

 parations for his departure, and 

 that his passage had actually been 

 taken on board an American ship. 

 The prisoner was then apprehend- 

 ed ; and on being brought before 

 a magistrate produced a receipt 

 for 121 dollars, paid by him to 

 the mate of an American ship for 

 Hutchinson's passage, and also a 

 promissory note of Hutchinson's 

 for that sum, and for other moneys 

 which had been advanced to him 

 by the prisoner, to be paid out of 

 the produce of his labours in Ame- 

 rica. The prisoner's defence was, 

 that Hutchinson came a second 

 time to him, and said he had his 



master's 



