The Devil and Parson Church; or, Birds of a feather

OR, BIRDS OF A FEATHER.
A WHIMSICAL AND SATIRICAL POETIC EFFUSION, Illustrative of a DARK TRANSACTION , Lately brought to Light ; IN WHICH, A WELL KNOWN POPULAR PREACHER WAS A Principal Performer , WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
“We’ll have thee— Painted upon a pole, and under written, Here you may see the Monster.” Altered from Shakspeare.
London : Printed by T. Kaygill, 36, Frith-Street, Soho; And Published by Kaygill , 12, Benjamin-Street , Clerkenwell . May be had of all Booksellers.
Price 2d.
THE hero of the subjoined poem, has for many years been suspected of being guilty of the most abominable and atrocious practices; his intimacy with the Vere Street nest of miscreants is too well known to be again repeated, as are also his detestable letters, sent to men, to entice them to participate in his guilt. At the Middlesex Sessions, July 12, 1813, he was tried for an attempt on William Webster, but acquitted; from which time, he has been considered innocent by his misled followers. But on the 26th of September, 1816, he made an assault on Adam Foreman, (apprentice to Mr. Patrick, potter, Vauxhall,) with an intent to commit a vile act; for which attempt, by the laudable exertions of the lad’s father, and Mr. Patrick, he was indicted at the Surrey Assizes, Croydon, on Saturday, Aug. 16th, 1817, and found guilty; he will be brought up the first day of next Term to receive judgement, in The Court of King’s Bench. Mr. Gurney undertook his cause with reluctance.
While the prosecution of Church was pending, one of the parish officers of St. George’s, Southwark, was applied to by Mrs. Church for the relief of a man who was in distress at Mr. Church’s house. The officer waited on the man, and on interrogating him, in the presence of Mrs. Church, and a daughter of Church’s, by his first wife, (an interesting female, about seventeen years of age;) he confessed he had been confined in Newgate one year and a day, for an assault of an abominable nature, and was partly supported there by Mr. Church; upon hearing which, Mrs. Church was so much affected, that she was with difficulty prevented from throwing herself out of the window of the room. As soon, however as she had somewhat recovered from this farther proof of the brutal propensity of her husband, she expressed a wish that the circumstance should not be made known; to which the officer acquiesced, on condition, that if a verdict of guilty was found, he should then be at liberty to give it full publicity.