not know how nearly he was related to her
himself; at other times she said she would never disown him while she
lived, and showed a greater tenderness for him than for herself, and
sent every day to the condemned hold where he lay, to enquire after his
health. But two or three days before her death, she became as the
ordinary tells us a little more sincere in this respect, affirming that
he was not only her child, but Mr. Hayes's also, though put out to
another person, with whom he was bred up in the country and called him
father.

There are generally a set of people about most prisons, and especially
about Newgate, who get their living by imposing on unhappy criminals,
and persuading them that guilt may be covered, and Justice evaded by
certain artful contrivances in which they profess themselves masters.
Some of these had got access to this unhappy woman, and had instilled
into her a notion that the confession of Wood and Billings could no way
affect her life. This made her vainly imagine that there was no positive
proof against her, and that circumstantials only would not convict her.
For this reason she resolved to put herself upon her trial (contrary to
her first intentions; for having been asked what she would do, she had
replied she would hold up her hand at the bar and plead guilty, for the
whole world could not save her). Accordingly, being arraigned, she
pleaded not guilty, and put herself upon her trial. Wood and Billings
both pleaded guilty, and desired to make atonement for the same by the
loss of their blood, only praying the Court would be graciously pleased
to favour them so much (as they had made an ingenuous confession) as to
dispense with their being hanged in chains. Mrs. Hayes having thus put
herself upon her trial, the King's Counsel opened the indictment,
setting forth the heinousness of the fact, the premeditated intentions,
and inhuman method of acting it; that his Majesty for the more effectual
prosecution of such vile offenders, and out of a tender regard to the
peace and welfare of all his subjects, and that the actors and
perpetrators of such unheard of barbarities might be brought to condign
punishment, had given them directions to prosecute the prisoners. Then
Richard Bromage, Robert Wilkins, Leonard Myring, Joseph Mercer, John
Blakesby, Mary Springate, and Richard Bows, were called into Court; the
substance of whose evidence against the prisoner was that the prisoner
being interrogated a