Inquisition on Ruth Pierce. 



257 



summ'd up the Dividends it wanted Three pence of the price 

 agreed for which by evidence it appeared to be Ruth Peirce's right 



r to pay. She the said Ruth was accused with it she declared she 

 had paid it and called upon the Almighty for Wittness and wished 

 she might drop down Dead that Minute if she had not paid it the 



: Raish Wish was repeated a second Time and immediately From 

 the Visitation of the Great and Almighty God was struck Dead 

 upon the Same and as no marks of Violence appeared upon View 



I of her Body the aforesaid Jurors do present that the aforesaid 

 Ruth Peirce died as aforesaid and not otherwise. 



In Witness Whereof as well I the aforesaid Coroner as the 



: Jurors aforesaid interchangably set our Hands to this Inquisition 

 the Day Year and Place first above written. 



John Clare Coroner" 



In a sermon preached on the subject, by Dr. H. Stebbing, Arch- 

 deacon of Wilts, and published in 1760, we find a full account of 

 this striking dispensation. "A memorial of this extraordinary 

 event," says he, "now (1756) stands written upon a painted board 

 fixed up at the Market Cross, where the thing happened ; and I 

 submit it to the common sense of mankind, whether this and such 

 like instances, many of which occur in all history, are not a very 

 strong presumptive evidence from fact, for the truth of a directing 

 Providence." 



When the present Market Cross was erected, in 1814, the cir- 

 cumstances as related in the inquisition were engraved on the east 

 side, headed by the following sentence : — " The Mayor and Cor- 

 poration of Devizes avail themselves of the stability of this 

 building, to transmit to future times the record of an awful event, 

 which occurred in this Market-place in the year 1753 ; hoping 

 that such record may serve as a salutary warning against the 

 danger of impiously invoking Divine vengeance, or of calling on 

 the holy name of God to conceal the devices of falsehood and 

 fraud." 



