+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

All the Bowditch witnesses were like
this. They all proved familiarity between
Miss Glenn and James Bowditch. One
man, a labourer, who had worked at Holway
Farm, proved even more, if he could
be believed. Miss Glenn had laughingly
shown him a ring with which she said she
was going to be married to James Bowditch;
and one day coming back from St.
Mary Magdalene, when he asked her if
the knot was tied, she replied, "Ay, and
so tied, that, thank God, it cannot be
untied." He had also seen Miss Glenn
insist on putting her arm round James
Bowditch's neck.

Then came a person of education, the
Reverend George Templer, a clergyman
and a magistrate, a relation of the Pauls,
who remembered Miss Glenn dining with
the Pauls, and being as cheerful and sociable
as the rest; and Edmund Jones, a
servant of his, swore to having seen Miss
Glenn sitting on James Bowditch's knee
playing at dominoes.

Susan Bowditch swore that Miss Glenn
always spent her evenings at Holway in
the kitchen with her brother and the servants,
and that she had frequently seen
her behave with gross impropriety to her
brother, treading on his toes, throwing her
handkerchief at him, &c. When Miss
Glenn arrived at Holway, after the so-called
abduction, she was lively, full of spirits, and
in no distress at all. She (the witness) had
not told Mrs. Tuckett of the young lady's
conduct because she was about to leave.
A Mrs. Owen, a relative of the Bowditches,
then got into the witness-box, and deposed
that when Miss Glenn returned to Holway
she reproved her for taking so imprudent a
step.

Miss Glenn was recalled, and in the same
modest way as before, denied the Bowditch
evidence point blank. It was entirely
untrue. She had never said that if Mrs.
Mulraine would not go with her she would
go by herself. She had not got into the
gig first, and then helped up James Bowditch.
She had never been to a christening
with the Bowditches.

The Dorsetshire jury was deeply roused
by Mr. Tuckett's wrongs. The counsel for
the defence even waived the right of reply.
Mr. Serjeant Pell (for the prosecution) was
about to address the jury, when the foreman
stopped him, and said that the jury
had made up their minds against the defendants,
with the exception of Elizabeth
Snell. Mr. Justice Park then remarked
that all the evidence given on the part of
the defendants was merely a confirmation
of a nefarious conspiracy, and sentenced
the prisoners to various terms of imprisonment,
the longest reaching a period of two
years.

But the Bowditches' friends would not
let the matter rest here. They obtained
fresh evidence to prove that Miss Glenn,
instead of being modest, was on the contrary
bold, and that from the first week of
her lodging at Holway she had tried in the
coarsest way to allure the young farmer.
They also obtained affidavits from the most
unimpeachable persons of Taunton, proving
that she had repeatedly been seen walking
in the fields with young Bowditch, especially
shortly before the elopement. Sympathy,
indeed, went so far, that nearly four
hundred pounds were raised in Taunton to
succour the Bowditches.

The Court of King's Bench was at once
moved to grant a new trial. The Chief
Justice was cautious; but Mr. Justice Best
spoke violently against the defendants. He
was fully persuaded that Miss Glenn had
been taken away by force; she was of
a peculiarly gentle and timid nature, and
had been influenced by fear; and he, moreover,
expressed astonishment that two inspectors
of franks had been found to pronounce
the two letters Mr. Oxenham produced
to be in Miss Glenn's writing. The
new trial was refused.

The Bowditch party, like true Englishmen,
growing only more determined at
the rebuff, procured additional affidavits,
and preferred an indictment for perjury
against Miss Glenn and Mary Whitby, the
servant. The case came on before the
Lord Chief Justice and a special jury, at
the Court of King's Bench, October 2,
1820. Mr. Scarlett, Mr. Gurney, Mr.
Adolphus, and Mr. Jeremy for the prosecution;
Mr. Serjeant Pell, Mr. Gaselee,
and Mr. Moore for the defence.

It went badly against Miss Glenn from
the first. A sequence of deliberate perjury
was never more clearly proved. It
was shown, by Mary Priest, a joiner's wife,
that Miss Glenn did attend the christening
of Mrs. Mulraine's child, being there in a
peach-coloured spencer, a white frock borrowed
from Mrs. Mulraine, and a straw
hat. Several witnesses deposed to seeing
her going and returning, and to a friend she
boasted that she " had tricked her uncle,"
by wearing borrowed clothes. William
Turle, a music-master at Taunton, deposed
to having been at the christening party.
There was music and dancing. William