The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-10-17 00:00:00

SIR JAMEg CR.IIIFURD.
We are authorised to say, that the late statements
respecting Sir James Cratifurd. in tl•e Freeeli hews- i
pryers, are extremely erroneous. We have hen at- ;
ready authorised to say, that it is impossible at pre- I
sent to lay befere the public the circumstances of ;
, this gentleman's departure from France, as well as s
of his case isr general, which will appear as bard and i
as extraordinary a one as can well he conceived.
Sir James Craufurd cannot be suspected of having t
come away from any interested motive. He remained s
i eighteen ;maths absurdly faithful to an engagement, f
1 which, however, he could prove to the satisfanien of i
all maekint, never to have bee, , Nailing. Ile remained i
1 till a considerable oiflce, which had been nobly and
ly reserved for him duri,t2,- a whole year, 1 generously
hsthe unexampled benevolence of his Royal I
i Master, and the most uncommon goodness of the 1
• late Noble Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1
had been otherwise disposed of, and this, whilst ma- r
1 ny respedable gentlemen, amongst them several 1
Members of Parliament, were coming away every
; day, whose conduct, as far as he heard, was never
I I censured ; but hay ire,. head that the best, the most i
• I amiable, and most valuable of wives, was in the ut- ,
most danger; considering, in all the complicated
• distresses of his unprecedented captivity, the situa-
tion
of this tender mother to a numerous and infant
offspring ; having fruitlessly importuned the French
Government for even a r.yo dot' nerinissian, to take,
1 perhaps, even a last farewell of her. A call like
•; this would, perhaps, extenuate a deviation from the
11
most validparole ; but we are authorised nantirely to
repeal, that when he *teed France, Sir Janie, Cram-
furl was hound 64 110 fie whatever in 'Twin min,
r Should the slightest unpleasant consequence have
ensued to any of his countrymen, Sir James Craufurd
~ audidd deplore it tram 'be veep hottani of his son!. The
• I only thing to be added on that subjea is this, that
'I, having seen what happened whets the gentlemen, to
• whom we have already alluded, came away, he had
sot the rmadest reams to think that this would be the
use.
4 1 hose who know Sir James Craufurd will not sus-
-4: pee him ot Any violation of honour: as to those to
whom he is not known, there cannot ne any :tepee-
henrion that this liberal and enlightened nation will
• condemn an English gentleman of uablemisned cha.
reeler on the authority of a French newspaper.
i CORONER'S INQUEST.
--on,
On Setnrday evening, a young woman, decently
dressed, requested a watchman in the. City-mad to
i escort her up the toad toward Islington, as it was then
. dark. She took him to the sign of the Blue Coat Boy,
. e where she gave him a dram for his trouble. and had
' . 1 a glass herself. She did not pay for the liquor, but
il ~ left her pattens in the bar. She said that she had to
11, call somewhere else, but loitered about the hottse for
r: tmwer.ls of two hours of erwerds. At last she was
asked if she did not think that she was staying too
i late (it was then near 10 o'clock); she enswered, "No;
f I have not far to go to;" and soon after that left the
hetee. Her conduct was thought to be very strange;
I but the people of the house supposed that she might
s be in trouble,and that she was waiting for somebody.
Hewever, no more was known about her until be-
tween five and six on Sunday morning, when Mr.
Smith, a bookseller, of Clare-court, Drury-lane. was
going towards Lea Bridge, to fish, in comeeny with
his son and another young man ; they saw the
body of a woman floating in the middle of the New
. River, opposite Duecan Terrace, City-road.
Monday a Coroner's Inquest was held upon the
body, at J. Berkeley's, the Queeti'e-lieed, Lower-
street, Islington, before G. Honosoe, Esq. one of the
i • , Coroners for the county.
t I William Bingl-y, a watchman, deposed, that he
saw the deceased walking along the road, at eleven
" o'elock on Saturday night, as he was going his
..• rounds. He saw nothing particular in her conduit.
and therefore did not say any thing to her. At half
after flee, on Sunday morning, some gentlemen. who
E,
were going fishing, gave the alarm of a woman
I. having been drowned in the New River. He went,
and saw the same woman pulled out by meens of
the fishing eels. She was then apparently lifeless.
r
'. t She was taken to the watch-house in Islington, and
• Mr. Matthews, the surgeon, sent for, who examined
! the body, and declAr,d that she was pest all reco-
I. very. Seven pawnbrokers' duplicates and some other
trifling article, were found in her pocket ; some of
. , the things, it appeered, had beers pawned on Satur-
I day last. If she had gone on the side of the river,
where the regular path-way leads up to Colebrook-
row, it was hardly possible that she could have
fallen in by accident; but it the had chanced to
walk upon the opposite si,ie, which is not so gene.
ylly used is a toot path, it Was very probable that
• • she miOrt h rye slipped io, es there was no fence on
I that sites. She had all her cl nhes on complete, the
i. same as he SAY, her with at night.
Robert Barker, Cooper, of No. fl, Compton-
. street, Clerkenwell, swore that the name of the de-
I ceased was Ann Barker. She was, to the best of
his Irelicf, about S 3 years of age, had been married
to him about 11 years, and they had three children
now living, the eldest About ten years ot.age. She
i had separated from him about IS nr 20 months, and
, he had not seen her for the last i''2 months. She
, was very much add: Red to drinking, and was apt to
; be something thetas, when she drank any thing to
signify.
The Coroner observed to the Jury, that, as there
was not any evidence before them to prove that the
deceased bad thrown herself into the water, and as
1 . the watchman hal sworn that there was a probe-
' r bility of a per son who was a stranger to the place
going the wrong way, and slipping mby accident,
Sc should, for his own part, be induced to lean on
, the side of mercy, and find a verdi& accordingly.
i He left to the Jury to decide whatever way ap-
t peered to them to be the most probable that she
had come to that premature death. From the evi-
dence of the husband, and frs-m the duplicates that
were found upon her, it was pl sin that she had not led
• a good and moral life. But in cases of self-desouCtion,
I in general a bonnet, a het, a pair of shoes, a cloak,
i or some other article, were left upon the shore, by
which it was known that the person had had a pre-
mediteted design te:on his or her own life. In the
' present case, there was nothing mentioned in evi-
dence, and Ie left the Jury to term their opinion up-
on what they had heard sworn before them. Vet-
dia --the the dote ssed, Ann Az, key, had easaally,
,' freidassally, wad by thilfwrittae, come by her death.
s . a