Report of John William Rose, Recorder of London, on 1 individual petition (prisoner)...

Report of John William Rose, Recorder of London, on 1 individual petition (prisoner) and 1 collective petition (23 people, from Shoreditch in Middlesex, West Smithfield in London and Bermondsey and Southwark in Surrey including an ex-employer, a minister, a parish clerk; many occupations given) on behalf of Mary Flipwell, servant to Mary Tindell/Tindall alias Mrs Elizabeth Tyndale, tried (with Benjamin Colborne; acquitted) at the Old Bailey in October 1790, for stealing 2 silver sauceboats and other articles, value £4, property of Mary Tindell/Tindall, on or about 7 August. Prisoner was found guilty of stealing only a pair of gloves, value 1/-. Dates/value of goods differ in the trial and petition accounts of the crime. Colborne was said to have been a friend of the prosecutrix. Evidences supplied by Mary Tindell/Tindall and ----- Grant, Bow Street Patrol Officer. Grounds for clemency: previous good character (provided by respectable persons), had worked for some very respectable families, she had been out to Sadlers Wells with a young man (only later determined to be of poor character) at the time of the crime, there was no evidence against the prisoner of her taking part in any crime, the time spent in prison prior to trial had left her in a poor state of health (suffered from 'Gaol Distemper') and poverty thus unable to procure counsel for her defence or to be in a fit state to defend herself (the prosecutrix employing a prosecuting counsel) and it is suggested that the prosecutrix acted from feelings of anger and revenge against the prisoner's lack of responsibility towards the employer rather than the her criminal guilt. Initial sentence: 7 years transportation. Recommendation: no mercy.

Folios 331-333.