"At four o'clock the party sat to tea; this being over, two violins struck up, accompanied by a flute, and the company proceeded to exercise their limbs. In the merry dance, the cuts, and entrechats, of the Monster were much admired, and his adroitness in that amusement must be interesting, from the school in which he acquired this branch of his accomplishments.
"About eight o'clock the company partook of a cold supper, and a variety of wines, such as would not discredit the most sumptuous gala, and about nine o'clock departed, that being the usual hour for locking the doors of the prison."
Williams gradually faded away from public notice until early in November, when eleven of the judges met in Serjeants' Inn Hall, and consulted on his case, which had been reserved. The questions were: First, whether his having an intention to cut the person of Miss Porter, and, in carrying that intention into execution, cutting the garments of that lady, is an offence within the statute of 6th Geo. I. c. 23, s. 11, on which he was convicted; the jury having, in their verdict, found that in cutting her person he had thereby an intention to cut her garments? Secondly, whether the statute being in the conjunctive, "that if any person shall assault with an intent to cut the garment of such person, then the offender shall be guilty of felony," and the indictment, in stating the intention, not having connected it with the act by inserting the words that he "then and there" did cut her garment, could be supported in point of form?
Nine out of the eleven judges were of opinion that the offence, notwithstanding the finding of the jury, was not within the statute, and that the indictment was bad in point of law.
This decision reduced the Monster's crime to a misdemeanour.
On Monday, December 13th, he was brought to trial at the Sessions House, Clerkenwell Green, and, as a proof of the interest it created, even the names of the jury are recorded. The trial began at ten, A.M., and was inaugurated by the prisoner reading a paper declaring his innocence. He was indicted for assaulting Miss Porter, with intent to kill, and murder her: there was a second count which stated, that he, "holding a knife in his right hand, did wilfully give the said Ann Porter a dreadful wound, of great length and depth on the right thigh and hip; to wit, of the length of nine inches, and the depth of four." A third count charged him with a common assault. The evidence was similar to that in the former trial, and, after a trial, lasting thirteen hours, he was found guilty.
He was afterwards found guilty of other assaults, and was finally sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Newgate, for each assault on Miss Porter, Elizabeth Davis, and Miss E. Baughan, and at the end of the six years, he was to find bail for good behaviour for seven years, himself in the sum of two hundred pounds, and two sureties in one hundred pounds each.
What finally became of him is not known. Mr. Angerstein offered the reward to Miss Porter, as it was by her instrumentality that the Monster was captured, but she refused it.
The recollection of the Monster, did not quickly fade away, for we read in the Times, 20 Dec. 1799, "Another new Monster on Wednesday, made his appearance in town. His passion is for biting the Ladies' toes and finger ends. They say his name is Frost."
Food riots, the natural outcome of an almost starving and ignorant population were rife; but, in the following paragraph, there is a curious allusion, that the grain was intended to be shipped to France, with which nation we were then at war.