They were indicted at the ensuing assizes held in March, 1752, and after a long investigation, were found guilty and sentenced to death; but Boyd, in whose case some mitigating circumstances were proved, was respited, and his punishment eventually commuted to transportation for life.
On the night before the execution, Stanley slipped his irons, and got clear off from the jail, not without some suspicion that his escape was connived at by the keeper.
On the 25th May, 1752, M'Canelly and Morgan were brought out of prison in order to be hanged. Their behaviour was as decent as could be expected from persons of their station. They both declared that Stanley, who escaped, was the sole contriver of the robbery. They died in the Catholic faith, and were attended by a priest of that persuasion.
The case of these offenders is one of the greatest atrocity. It appears that the female was the niece of a gentleman of respectability residing at Walthamstow, who, having acquired an ample fortune, and having no children, adopted his brother's daughter, and made a will in her favour, bequeathing to her nearly his whole estate. The girl, however, returned her uncle's kindness with ingratitude, and having heard him declare that he would alter his will on account of her bad behaviour, she determined to
[Illustration: _Duel between Lord Mahon and the Duke_]
prevent his carrying his design to her detriment into execution by murdering him. She soon discovered her inability to complete this project single-handed, and she gained the assistance of her accomplice in the crime, John Swan, who was in the employment of her uncle, and with whom there is good reason to believe she was on terms of intimacy. They endeavoured to suborn a simple fellow named Matthews to assist them, but although the promise of a large reward at first staggered him, his terrors eventually steeled him against the temptations held out to him. The night of the 3rd July, 1751, was fixed upon for the completion of this villany; and at the trial, which took place at Chelmsford, before Mr. Justice Wright, on the 11th March, 1752, the following facts were proved:
Matthews having travelled from Yorkshire was accidentally met in Epping Forest by Mr. Jeffries, who gave him employment as an assistant to Swan, who was his gardener. After he had been at work only four days, he was sent up stairs by Miss Jeffries to wipe a chest of drawers, and she followed him, and asked him if he was willing to earn one hundred pounds? He answered that he was, "in an honest way;" on which she desired him to go to Swan. He accordingly joined him in the garden, and he offered him seven hundred pounds to murder their master. He acquiesced; and on his being dismissed two days afterwards, Swan gave him half a guinea to buy a brace of pistols; but having spent the money given to him, he was ordered to meet Miss Jeffries and Swan at Walthamstow on the Tuesday following, at ten o'clock at night, the object being then to carry out their intentions with respect to the murder.