in ever so small a Degree, in saving the Life of an innocent Person, the Remembrance will make me enjoy the Outrages of all his little Followers.
But with the same Warmth, under which I shall feel this Pleasure, I must be sensible of the Pain which will attend the Consciousness, that what I say, may be so construed as to hurt the other. I beg to be believed that I have no Intent, for most assuredly I have none, to injure her: Perhaps I look upon what she has done, with less Severity than others. She may be able to prove that she was somewhere confined, though she was not at this Place: I hope she will prove it: But as many other Accounts may be given how a Person, less innocent, might have been employed, I must have leave to name some of these: I must have leave, till such a Fact is proved, to doubt the Truth of all; and to build the Testimony of the Convict's Innocence, in part, upon the Improbability of what at this Time appears her Story.
Whatsoever I shall advance on this Head, is alledg'd only as what might have happen'd, and I desire it may be understood as
meaning no otherwise. I have no particular Knowledge of the Truth with Respect to Canning; and therefore can be positive only with Regard to those Proofs that appear of the Convict's Innocence. As this is the true Case, I beg that whatsoever I conjecture, may be received only as Conjecture, and may not hurt her in the Eye of the World.
When Truth is to be decided, Sophistry is impertinent; and when the Proofs are at hand, and are such that all may judge by them, they use a Freedom to which they have little Right, who attempt to guide and to direct Mankind in their Determination. Whatsoever lies within our Knowledge more than others have had Opportunities of acquainting themselves withal, it becomes a Duty to impart; but when that is done, by what Claim is it that we dictate? these or these Sirs! must be the Conclusions: We are to state the Case, the World is to determine.
'Tis hard for him who has engag'd, be it no more than his Opinion on one Part, to be disinterested with respect to the other; nay, if he were unbiass'd, such an one is still but a single Person; and he has little Candour,
and less Modesty, if he supposes every Individual of the Publick is not as able as himself to judge upon that which he allows to be, or which he affects to call, clear Evidence.
As many things have come to my Knowledge in this strange Affair, with which the Public cannot have been acquainted; it may be indulged me to speak of them, without the Censure of Officiousness; and as I have already delivered something concerning an Enquiry into the Truth, which, as it appeared the Concern, so it has been the Study of some Persons to invalidate, it may be esteem'd a Duty in me to support that which has already so appeared; and to do this the more fully, I shall add to it what farther the Time, the Nature of the Proceedings, and the Respect to those under whose Cognizance the Whole now remains, may warrant me in disclosing.
I have ordered my Name to be put to this Pamphlet, that I may not be supposed the Writer of those many other Pieces, which Ingenuity, or its Parent Hunger, may hereafter obtrude upon the World; or of some Things that have
already offer'd themselves to its Notice; the Motives to which, seem rather to lie in personal Resentment, than an Attachment to Justice. As the Original Papers will hereafter appear, what I shall now propose may stand as an Introduction to them: and it will answer also another Purpose; in that it will, I hope, prevent the imbibing of unjust Prejudices, and false Opinions, whether from the Deluded or the Designing, the Interested or the Ignorant.