nding the ghastliness of the apparition, it seems it made
so little impression on Lofthouse's mind that he thought no more of it,
neither did he speak to anybody concerning it until the same night, as
he was at family duty of prayers, when that apparition returned again to
his thoughts, and discomposed his devotion; so that after he had made an
end of his prayers, he told the whole story of what he had seen to his
wife, who laying circumstances together, immediately inferred that her
sister was either drowned or otherwise murdered, and desired her husband
to look after her the next day, which was the Wednesday in Easter week.
Upon this, Lofthouse, recollecting what Barwick had told him of his
carrying his wife to his uncle at Selby, repaired to Harrison
before-mentioned, but found all that Barwick had said to be false, for
Harrison had neither heard of Barwick nor his wife, neither did he know
anything of them. Which notable circumstance, together with that other
of the apparition, increased his suspicion to that degree that now
concluding his wife's sister was murdered, he went to the Lord Mayor of
York. And having obtained his warrant, he got Barwick apprehended; who
was no sooner brought before the Lord Mayor, but his own conscience then
accusing him, he acknowledged the whole matter, as it has been already
related, and as it appears by the examination and confession herewith
printed.

On Wednesday, the 16th of September, 1690, the criminal, William
Barwick, was brought to his trial before the Honourable Sir John Powel,
Knight, one of the judges of the Northern Circuit, at the assizes held
at York, where the prisoner pleaded not guilty to his indictment. But
upon the evidence of Thomas Lofthouse and his wife, and a third person,
that the woman was found buried in her clothes, close by the pond side,
agreeable to the prisoner's confession, and that she had several
bruises on her head, occasioned by the blows the murderer had given her
to keep her under water, and upon reading the prisoner's confession
before the Lord Mayor of York, attested by the clerk who wrote the
confession, and who swore the prisoner's owning and signing it for
truth, he was found guilty and sentenced to death, and afterwards
ordered to be hanged in chains.

All the defence that the prisoner made was only this, that he was
threatened into the confession that he had made, and was in such a
consternation that he did not know what he said or did; b