The Virginia Gazette

From the BRISTOL JOURNAL.

To the PRINTER.

HAVING lately read in one of the papers some account of the barbarous treatment of two poor children who were placed under the care of a painter and his wife, in Fleur de Lys court, Fetter lane, the circumstances appeared to me so extraordinary that I imagined the relation must have been exaggerated, as is frequently the case. In order therefore to satisfy myself more fully concerning it, I have inquired, and been informed (by persons who were eye and ear witnesses, and who live upon the spot) of some of the following shocking particulars, from the mouth of the younger child; for they were exposed a considerable time in the court, that every one might behold these objects of savage cruelty, and bear witness to the horrid tale, which was as follows: That they had been confined for three years, for the most part in the cellar, where hogs were kept, and employed there in grinding colours for their master; their only food was a piece of bread a day, without even water to drink, supplying that want from the hogs trough. They had not lain in a bed during the whole time. That their mistress used frequently, and without any cause, to tie them up by their hands, stretched out, to a staple fixed in the ceiling, after stripping them stark naked, whip them until her strength was exhausted, and they were covered with wounds; after which she fastened their leather bodice upon them, which cleaving to their lacerated flesh eat into their bodies, until the inhuman tigress renewed her cruelties, which we may suppose were every time more intolerable than the preceding. The eldest, who is 17 years of age, she scourged no less than six times the Friday before the discovery, whereby, and by her former usage, she was one continued sore, covered with gashes from head to foot, her flesh seemed putrified, and appeared rather as if cut with knives than whips, her head was swelled to an enormous size, her eyes imperceptible, and her speech gone. An iron collar, that was put about her neck, had tore that and her shoulders in a most terrible manner. The youngest, 13 years old, is likewise a miserable spectacle. She declared to an acquaintance of the writer of this that sometimes after they had been whipped the blood which streamed from the wounds formed puddles underneath them where they sat in the cellar. When the mistress went into the country she caused them to be chained up in that filthy place until her return, which they dreaded more than death, which would have put a period to their sufferings. Still longer would this diabolical tragedy have been acted had not these two poor wretches been providentially discovered by the servant maid of a baker in the said court, who looking from a window perceived something like human appearances, very bloody, at a trap door (whither they had crawled for fresh air) which was supposed to be opened to give vent to the stench of the hogs-sty.