The Enquirer

OLD BAILEY.

Yesterday James Hewitt, an old man nearly 60 years of age, was indicted for a misdemeanor in having in the month of August last, contrary to an act passed in the reign of George II seduced an artificer of this country to leave the kingdom.

From the testimony of the witnesses examined, it appeared that the prisoner, although recently from America, is an Englishman, and had recently frequented a public house called the York Minster, immediately in the vicinity of the cotton manufactory of Messrs. Hughes & Lewis, Bunhill row; to which the men employed in the service of Messieurs Hughes & Lewis resorted; and amongst others a man named Hutchinson, who had formerly been apprenticed from the Parish of St Martin's, to a cotton manufactory, near Manchester, where he remained till he arrived at the age of 21. He then came to London, and was employed in the service of Messrs Hughes & Co. in the wool dying business, and was in fact returned a fair workman. This man the prisoner frequently met, and by glowing representations of the advantages and great wages he was likely to obtain by going to America, induced him to agree to emigrate, for the purpose of being employed in a cotton manufactory, at a place called Cooper's Town, within two miles of New York, [Philadelphia] and a short distance from the residence of the prisoner.

Messrs. Hughes & Lewis having heard of this negociation, sent for the prisoner and remonstrated with him on the illegality of the steps he was pursuing, forewarning him at the same time that if he persisted in his delinquency, they would punish him with the rigor of the law. The prisoner then declared his ignorance of any criminality attaching to his conduct, and promised most faithfully that he would relinquish his intentions—In a few days however, Mr. Hughes discovered that Hutchinson was making preparations for his departure, and that his passage had been actually taken on board an American ship. The prisoner was then apprehended, and on being brought before a magistrate, produced a receipt of $121 paid by him to the mate of an American ship, for Hutchinson's passage and also a promissory note of Hutchinson's for that sum, and for other monies before paid to him by the prisoner to be paid out of the produce of his labors in America. The prisoner's defence was—that Hutchinson came a second time to him, and said he had his master's permission to leave the country, & that from his solicitations he was induced to pay his passage out.

The Common Serjeant, who tried the case, in summing up the evidence, dwelt with peculiar force on the mischievous tendency of the crime with which the prisoner stood charged, which, he said, was most materially connected with the manufacturing interests of this country; and was deservedly punished by law in a most exemplary manner; the legislature having decreed, that prisoners guilty of such an offence should be subject to 12 months imprisonment, and a penalty of 500l.

The Jury, without a moment's hesitation returned a verdict of Guilty.

Hutchinson, the artificer, seduced, was then tried under an act passed in the 5th of George the First, which enacts, That any artificer, particularly in the manufactures of cotton, wool, silk, mohair, &c. who should be convicted of, or detected in, preparing to leave the kingdom, for the purpose of devoting his knowledge for the benefit and advantage of foreign countries, not within the British dominions, "should be bound to enter into a recognizance himself and two sureties for remaining in the country."

The evidence on the former case was again gone through, & the prisoner was found Guilty.