The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

FROM A LONDON PAPER.

[Particulars of the life of Mary Brown, a young woman distinguished for personal beauty and early depravity: and who was executed in Wales for being concerned with others in a burglary. The account appears to be written by herself, and is in substance as follows:]

She was the only daughter of a reputable shopkeeper in Staffordshire, whose affection for her induced him to spare no expense in giving her an accomplished education. From her earliest youth she was strongly addicted to pleasure, and her beauty exposing her to the grossest flattery, her pride increased with her years, and she soon formed the most ambitious views. At sixteen years of age she left her father's house at night, and came upon the outside of a stage to London, where she determined to embrace the first offer of any man of opulence, who should solicit her to live with him as a mistress. In a short time she attracted the notice of a Baronet, with whom she consented to live; for some months she liked him very well, but by degrees began to hate him. Having had a few words together she was determined to be revenged; and accordingly one night she placed three fellows in one of the apartments, who stripped the house of all its valuables, and the next day she enjoyed the sorrows of a man she hated and despised. After leaving this gentleman she took a large house at the west end of the town, and commenced a fashionable courtezan; but having contracted several large debts, with different tradesmen, she married a common soldier who was going abroad, and who upon being paid two guineas, was contented never to see her any more. This gave her an opportunity to laugh at her creditors when they threatened to sue her for payment. She was once addressed by a foreigner in the street, who followed her home, conceiving her to be a needy creature of the town; but upon entering her house, and viewing the elegance of her furniture, his sentiments were changed into admiration. Although he affected to be a man of property, she had penetration enough to discover he was not accustomed to opulence; all his actions betrayed the meanness of his education. She soon began to perceive that interest operated with him more powerfully than love, which was soon made manifest by her receiving intelligence that he was preparing to rob her house, and fly off with the booty to his native country. She was, however, quicker in her revenge than he was in his injury. The day before his intended flight, she invited him to her bed, and the next morning he was found dead upon the stairs, and no suspicion entertained of her having strangled him. Some months after this she was dazzled with the apparent opulence of a man who offered her his protection, and she became his mistress, but he turned out to be a professed gambler. With him she lived for some time in splendour, but a sudden change of fortune plunging them into distress, she advised him to invite one of his acquaintance to supper, to intoxicate and then rob him: this was agreed upon, and the person came agreeable to invitation, but they could not prevail upon him to drink much. Finding however, he had got a considerable sum about him, they were resolved not to lose so great a prize; she went behind him with a silk sash, and throwing it round his neck soon dispatched him: they then seized upon his money, leaving him a few guineas and his watch, and then calling upon the servant in an affected fright, ascribing his death to a fit of the apoplexy. Besides these atrocious acts, she confessed her having murdered her keeper a short time afterwards, and swore the fact to his own son, in revenge for his having refused to meet her advances; and he was tried upon her evidence for the murder and acquitted. Being compelled by the commission of numberless crimes to leave England, she went into Wales, where she was concerned in several robberies, and suffered an ignominious death in the 21st year of her age.