Letter of Joseph Mawbey to Lord Sydney on receipt of 1 collective petition (prisoner,...

Letter of Joseph Mawbey to Lord Sydney on receipt of 1 collective petition (prisoner, keeper and Chaplin of the New Gaol, Southwark) on behalf of John Wood. The prisoner was not tried by Mawbey at the Surrey Quarter Sessions, but by Henry Gould at the Surrey Summer Assizes at Guildford in 1782. The prisoner was initially convicted with another man for a highway robbery. The prisoner claims in his petition that he was induced in to a state of intoxication by a villain he had met in a public house and later was prompted to commit the alleged crime in that state. Wood gave evidence against other accomplices and during the trial he falsified his statement to such extreme that the accomplices were acquitted and he then was tried for 'wilful, and corrupt Perjury' at the same assizes. Grounds for clemency: youth, (18 years at time of the crime), has been in the New Gaol at Southwark for nearly 2 years pending transportation, his first offence, previously of respectable industrious character, health had suffered considerably in confinement and from want of proper necessities of life, had behaved in a prudent, decent manner while in prison. Initial sentence: 7 years transportation to Africa. Recommendation: none made.

Folios 181-184.