The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1806-06-30 00:00:00

sennld see the Defendant again. She had since met

bins, but never had any cukseeseen
that time. 1
On her cross-examination it appeared, that the
Defendant had nut used any force or stratagem to.
gain her affections ; hot after a little persuasion he
prevailed on her. 'I hey had frequent meetings in
the fields, at her father s, and elsewhere, during
these LE; months: when she returned to her father's,
she again saw the Defendant twice by appointment
in the fields, and was to have met him ones: at the cot-
tage of one Bet. Powell, but he thought her father
might know it, and they did not meet there. No. J
thing improper occurred on these occasions.
It further appeared, that upwards of a year had I
elapsed after this, when one Griffiths, a neighbour,
brought an anion against her father fur defas
nation, and the Defendant was examined as a wit-
ness for the Plaintiff, and on his cross-examination
was questioned as to her sedation. In a fortnight
after that trial, the present action was brought. It
also appeared, that the girl, with other witnesses, '
was waiting in Oliver's Coffee house, on Thursday
last, when the Defendant came in, asked her how
she did? and talked to the neighbours familiarly,
Ike. but when a young man, who was with them, re-
monstrated with him for speaking to the witnesses.
he replied, that he had a right to speak is women CI
the town, he had a child by that girl (poieting to
the witness), and had kept her.
It also appeared, that before and since the ahtere
transaftion, the gran cheraSer had been perfally
corner, and her morals unimpeached, but in this
affair. •
The Learned Counsel, who condaled the de-
ferrite, contended, that notlsing like seduction had
been proved, and that a father could lose but few
einnforls from a daughter, whose enure was of so
slender a fabric, that it would yield to the tirst ini-
pioper overtures ct a Man, In a way, and in a place,
such as had been described—a fan which, he be-
lieved, it would be almost impossible to establish
against. those unfortunate women who nightly In-
fest the streets of the metropolis. As to the De-
fendant's tecent conduit at the Coffee-house, it did
not make part of the case, it might be said jocosely,
alter the parties had travelled up from Monmouth,
and met together as described. But the motive
of tie Plaintiff for bringing the anima, was not
the loss of comforts in his daughter, but in conse-
quence of the Defendant's having given evidence
against him for calumhiatir g one of his neighbours.
'Die anion was not.etanugrit till after that trial,
and was sixteen menthe after he had lost the services
of his daughter.
Lord EL L L74IOIOt:CH. after exptrifning the law
upon the ease, said, the present tsanniClion was
stripped of many of those aggravating circum-
stances which generally attended a systematic se-
dunion. It did not appear, that the Defendant had
been very urgent in his professions, or that he had
any great degree of moral restraint to overcome.
He met the young woman in a public highway, and
proposed to accompany her into a lane. She as-
sented, came back in a querte7 of an hour, ancle•e-
turned home. The father, however, was uncon-
scious of his daughter's yielding virtue, and had
been deprived of her services, to his great iejury
and distress of mind. The Defendant too had dis-
graced the girl, by obliging her to make oath of the
affiliation, before he would consent to pay the mi.
seeable pittance he had agreed to furnish her with,
to pay the eapences of her lying-in. He had also
strove to irritate the feelings of the parent he had
wronged, by publishing his daughter's disgrace in
a coffee-room. He should have recollefted, that
he it was who seduced her incautious virtue, and
made her what she was. Upon the whole, though
no stratagems or urgent professions had been made
to overcome the girl's virtue, yet the comforts of
the Plaintiff had been invaded, his happiness broke
in upon, and the hopes he entertained in his daugh-
ter, ruined and destroyed for ever. The Jury,
therefore, under all these circumstances, wouid ex-
ert proper moral feelings upon the case, and give
such reasonable damages to the father, as they
should consider a sufficient compensation for the
injury he had sustained.
file Jury consulted a few minutes, and returned
a verdiet for the Plaintiff—Damages THKEE
HUNDRED POUNDS! !I