Mrs. Mince—She hath said, that her mistress did not love to keep company with Quakers; and that she paid for her own board and her maid's; and that, when she entertained any body, it was at her own charge. And she hath said, that Mrs. Stout used to ask, who is with you, child? and she would not tell her; and that she did entertain her friends in the summer house now and then with a bottle of wine; and when her mother asked who was there? her mistress would say, bring it in here, I suppose there is none but friends; and after the company was gone, she used to make her mother believe that she went to bed: but she used to go out and take the key with her, and sometimes she would go out at the window, and she said particularly, one time she went out at the garden window, when the garden door was locked, and that she bid her not sit up for her, for she would not come in at any time.
Hatsell, Baron—Did ever Sarah Walker tell you that Mrs. Stout staid out all night?
Mrs. Mince—She hath said, she could not tell what time she came in, for she went to bed.
Cowper offered to prove that Gurrey, at whose house the other prisoners had stayed, had said that if he had gone to visit Mrs. Stout, meaning apparently, if he had gone to visit the mother after the daughter's death, the prosecution would not have taken place. To this he would answer that he never had gone to see her in his life.
Now, for a man officiously to make a new visit in the time of the assizes, one engaged in business as I was, and especially upon so melancholy an occasion; I say for me to go officiously to see a woman I never had the least knowledge of, would have been thought more strange (and justly might have been so) than the omission of that ceremony. For my part, I cannot conceive what Mr. Gurrey could mean, this being the case, by saying, that if I had visited Mrs. Stout, nothing of this could have happened.
Hatsell, Baron—Mr. Cowper, he is not the prosecutor, I think it is no matter what he said.
Sir W. Ashurst, Sir T. Lane, and Mr. Thompson were then called to Cowper's character, and described him as a humane, upright, and capable man.
This concluded the case against Cowper, and the case of Marson was next considered. In reply to a question from the judge, he explained that Stephens was the clerk of the paper in the King's Bench; that Rogers was steward of the King's Bench; and that it was their duty to wait upon the Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench out of town. On Monday they all went to the Lord Chief-Justice's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, according to their custom, and all set out from there. Marson, being only an attorney in the borough court, could not go further with the others than Kingsland, and returned from there to his business in Southwark, where he attended the Court, as was his duty, and set out again at past four in the afternoon. On arriving at Waltham he met one Mr. Hanks, a clergyman, who was returning from attending the Lord Chief-Justice to Hertford, whom he persuaded to return with him to Hertford, on the plea that he did not know the way. They galloped all the way, and did not arrive at Hertford till eight. There they found the marshal, Stephens, Rogers, Rutkin, and others of the marshal's acquaintance at the coffee-house, from which they went to the Glove and Dolphin, and stayed there till eleven o'clock. Rogers and the witness had a dispute about which of them should lie with Stephens at Gurrey's house, and they all went to Gurrey's to see what could be arranged, and to drink a glass of wine. Eventually Stephens, Rogers, and Marson, all stayed at Gurrey's; while Hanks and Rutkin went back to the marshal's. The party at Gurrey's drank three bottles of wine,
and afterwards, in jocular conversation, I believe Mr. Stephens might ask Mr. Gurrey if he knew of one Mrs. Sarah Stout? And the reason why he asked that question our witness will explain. I believe he might likewise ask what sort of woman she was? and possibly I might say the words, My friend may be in with her, though I remember not I did say anything like it; but I say there is a possibility I might, because I had heard she had denied Marshall's suit, and that might induce me to say, My friend may be in with her, for all that I remember. I confess Mr. Rogers asked me what money I had got that day, meaning at the Borough Court? I answered fifty shillings; saith he, we have been here a-spending our money, I think you ought to treat us, or to that purpose. As to the bundle mentioned I had no such, except a pair of sleeves and a neck-cloth. As to the evidence which goes to words spoken, the witnesses have fruitful inventions; and as they have wrested and improved the instances I have been particular in, so they have the rest, or otherwise forged them out of their own heads.