FOOTNOTES: 

  [107] A local term for a strip of furrowed land.

  [108] A kind of broad linen tape.

  [109] Passed at the Restoration, in 1660, granting “free
        general pardon, indemnity, and oblivion for all treasons and
        state offences” committed between 1 Jan., 1637, and 24 June,
        1660.  The regicides and certain Irish priests were excepted.

  [110] That is, the silver-gilt one his master had given him.

A Relation of the Surprising Discovery of the Murder of MARY BARWICK, committed by WILLIAM BARWICK, her husband, on the 14th of April, 1690, upon which he was convicted, at the Lent Assizes at York, before the Honourable Sir John Powell, Knight, then one of the Judges of Assize

In the following relation, I have kept strictly up to the motives which I have mentioned in the beginning of this Appendix, and I hope that will atone for the inserting of this story, which I confess can be of no other use than to gratify the curiosity of the reader.

As murder is one of the greatest crimes that man can be guilty of, so it is no less strangely and providentially discovered when secretly committed.  The foul criminal believes himself secure, because there was no witness of the fact.  Not considering that the all-seeing eye of Heaven beholds his iniquity, and by some means or other bringing it to light, never permits it to go unpunished.  Indeed, so certainly does the revenge of God pursue the abominated murderer, that when witnesses are wanting of the fact, the very ghosts of the murdered parties cannot rest quiet in their graves until they have made the detection themselves.  Of this we are now to give the reader two remarkable examples that lately happened in Yorkshire, and no less signal for the truth of both tragedies, as being confirmed by the trial of the offenders at the last assizes held for that county.

The first of these murders was committed by William Barwick, upon the body of Mary Barwick his wife, at the same time big with child.  What were the motives that induced the man to do this horrid fact does not appear by the examination of the evidence, or the confession of the party; only it appeared upon his trial that he had got her with child before he married her, that being then constrained to marry her, he grew weary of her, which was the reason he was so willing to be rid of her, though he ventured body and soul to accomplish his design.

The murder was committed on Palm Monday, being then the fourteenth of April, about two o’clock in the afternoon, at which time the said Barwick drilled his wife along until he came to a certain close, within sight of Cawood Castle, where he found the conveniency of a pond.  He threw her by force into the water, and when she was drowned and drawn forth again by himself upon the bank of the pond, he had the cruelty to behold the motion of the infant, yet warm in her