4

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap, mess tables of our more refined generation. Some wild

XXV.

'liiaa.'~words, susceptible of a double meaning, were usedabout the way in which she had jilted one lover, and theway in which another lover would punish her for hercoquetry. On no better grounds than these her rela-tions imagined that Spencer Cowper had, with the as-sistance of these three retainers of the law, strangled her,and thrown her corpse into the water. There was ab-solutely no evidence of the crime. There was no evidencethat any one of the accused had any motive to commitsuch a crime; there was no evidence that SpencerCowper had any connection with the persons who weresaid to be his accomplices. One of those persons, in-deed, he had never seen. But no story is too absurdto be imposed on minds blinded by religious and politicalfanaticism. The Quakers and the Tories joined to raisea formidable clamour. The Quakers had, in those days,no scruples about capital punishments. They would, in-deed, as Spencer Cowper said bitterly, but too truly,rather send four innocent men to the gallows than let itbe believed that one who had their light within her hadcommitted suicide. The Tories exulted in the prospectof winning two seats from the Whigs. The whole king-dom was divided between Stouts and Cowpers. At thesummer assizes Hertford was crowded with anxious facesfrom London and from parts of England more distantthan London. The prosecution was conducted with amalignity and unfairness which to us seem almost in-