The important results of an elaborate investigation into the mysterious case of Elizabeth Fenning: being a detail of extraordinary facts discovered since her execution, including the official report of her singular trial, now first published, and copious notes thereon. Also ... strictures on a late pamphlet of the prosecutor's apothecary [J. Marshall] ... With ... letters, written by the unfortunate girl while in prison / ... By John Watkins.

Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The important results of an elaborate investigation into the mysterious case of Elizabeth Fenning: being a detail of extraordinary facts discovered since her execution, including the official report of her singular trial, now first published, and copious notes thereon. Also ... strictures on a late pamphlet of the prosecutor's apothecary [J. Marshall] ... With ... letters, written by the unfortunate girl while in prison / ... By John Watkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ]fc. The affidavit was sworn avid distributed on the 25th, and the writer in the Observe?' was obliged to confess, that i this (the lurnkey s affidavit) had some trifling weight with the minds of those who would'take the trouble to think; that is, with thinking people the affidavit had a trifling effect in shaking their opinion of Eliza Fenning’s innocence. Very trifling indeed : but, for my own part, I must con¬ fess it had a very sufficient weight in confirming my former opinion of her innocence. The affidavit of William Fenning soon followed, and its predecessor lost all ground.” 11 The Newgate Turnkey has publicly avowed that he was requested bv Mr. Turner to swear aad publish that affidavit; but, setting the ille¬ gality of such a request out of the present question, can any person believe that so respectable and prudent a man as Mr. Turner, with a choice between the Turnkey of Newgate and the Rev. Ordinary, would prefer the testimony of the former to that of the latter ? As Mr. Turner unfortunately entertained an opinion that an extra-judicial affi¬ davit, in addition to the judicial evidence upon the Trial of Eliza Fenning, was necessary to allay the public feeling, he certainly would have chosen the strongest extra-judicial testimony for his purpose. The Ilev. Mr. Cotton is deservedly ranked among Mr. Turner’s private Friends; and two things may be presumed, without any great shock to probability:— that Mr. Turner had no reason to expect the Rev. Gen¬ tleman’s refusal of any fair and just request, a compliance with which was necessary to calm a public ferment: —and that the Rev. Gentle¬ man did not agree with the allegations in the TurnkeyAffidavit, or he would have voluntarily given his public testimony as a paramount duty, without waiting to have bis name indecently dragged forward with a gross insinuation implied against him in that affidavit. The Turnkey swore that William Fenning repeatedly, at different interviews, in words and substance, suborned his daughter to die with a false declara¬ tion of innocence, and thereby to hazard the perdition of her eternal soul. If the affidavit did not mean this, it had no meaning; its sole purport was to impress a public belief that Elizabeth Fenning's dying declaration of her innocence was not true, for that it had been repeat- tedly put into her mouth in the presence and hearing of two witnesses, by her father. The affidavit in substance alleged, that William Fen¬ ning was not only, at different interviews, most wickedly guilty of these repeated acts of subornation, hut that he most foolishly, (where he might have whispered or written his wishes to his daughter,) chose to defeat his own purpose, by uttering his guilty wishes aloud, and repeating his subornations, in the presence of two 'witnesses ! The affi¬ davit also, to the great scandal of the sacerdotal character, and the