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Old Bailey
In Chronicle Dec.r 12.91
Fourth Day.
John Wade was tried on an indictment for a misdemeanour, in extorting money by false pretences from Mary Austace, viz. by pretending he could procure a pardon for her husband, Joseph Austace, a convicted felon, whereby he obtained about 81. There were four counts in this indictment; the first stated the money to be the property of Joseph Austice, but as doubt might arise whether it could strictly be called his property, he having been convicted of felony, the second count stated it to be the property of his wife - the two other counts were the common ones in indictments of this nature.
Mary Austace deposed that her husband had been tried and convicted of receiving stolen goods; that he was in consequence sentenced to transportation for fourteen years to Botany Bay. Some time before his quitting this country, she met with the prisoner, who said, that from the interest he had, he was sure he could procure her husband a pardon. He told her that he would get a petition drawn up and presented to the Secretary of State, and asked if she could get any friends to sign it - adding, that it did not matter, for that he had friends enough who, would; that the expence of the petition would be two guineas. Two days after he called on her again; she had raised the sum he required, by parting with some of her clothes. He took her out with him, and went round with her to several of her friends to get their signatures to the petition, some of whom refused to put their names to it; she then went with him to some of his friends who all, without hesitation, signed it; among these he told her were two Members of Parliament. He then took her to an office, which he said was the Secretary of State's, where he delivered the Petition to a man, and told her it was now all right. She was asked to describe the situation of this office, but she said that she was at the time so unacquainted with London, that she did not know in what part of the town it was. He added, that he should call on her every day, and inform her of what success was likely to attend his endeavours. After this it was a considerable time before she saw him again, and not until her husband was removed from Newgate on board a tender that was to convey him to the ship, in which he was to be transported to Botany Bay; she at last met the prisoner by chance in a court adjoining to Fleet Street, when she told him that her husband was on board Ship. Wade replied, "they dare not send him, there is a pardon lying in the office for him, but one of the convicts who was to have gone has stabb'd himself, and your husband is only sent to make up the number that were to be shipped. It will be easy to bring him back again, and indeed it will be better for him to be brought from on board ship, as by that means Akerman's fees will be saved." At night he called on her and said, that he had been to see after her husband, that the ship was got as low as Gravesend, but that they would not suffer him to go on board, but that he had left a shilling for her husband : he said that he could not get the pardon out of the office until two respectable persons should give security for her husband's good behaviour for three years : that he had procured two persons who would be bound for two guineas, and that then nothing would remain to be done but to fetch her husband from on board of Ship: she procured that sum against the next day by pawning the bed from under her, and the clothes off her back, which the prisoner knew, and that she had six small children who were perishing for want; one of which, while she was out with him on this business, had fallen down an area, and was for a very considerable time laid up. In a day or two after he called on her, saying he had taken as much pains to serve her as was she his own sister, and that he had procured the pardon, but that it was a condition that her husband should go for an East India soldier, adding, "we have been doing nothing, the money is all thrown away;" he said, there were still means of getting him off, but that he knew how much she was distressed, and he feared she could not raise the money that was necessary. She begged him to name the sum necessary, and she would endeavour, by every means in her power, to raise it. He said, "he must have four pounds." To get this sum, she sold all the property she had before pledged; and having nothing of her own left, disposed of her children's wearing apparel, but could raise no more than 3l. 17s. which she gave the prisoner.
W. Pollock, Esq., chief clerk in the Secretary of State's office for the Home Department, said that all the pardons granted to criminals passed through his hands; that they never were granted until reference had been made to the Judge before whom the felon had been tried; that an entry of this reference was always made in a book very regularly kept by him for that purpose. From that book he was enabled to swear, that no pardon, conditional or otherwise, had been granted to Joseph Austace, and that had such a pardon been obtained, no fees whatever would have been taken for it.
The Prisoner put many questions to the Prosecutor, which, as well as his defence, tended rather to injure, than serve him.
He was found Guilty.
The Recorder said, his offence was of so heinous a nature, that the Court would take time to consider of his punishment.