When between fifteen and sixteen years old, she came up to London to her aunt, as she asserted, much against the will of her relations.  At that time she was not ugly, and therefore a young man in the neighbourhood began to be very assiduous in his courtship to her, hoping also that the persons she talked of, as her father and brothers in the country, would give him a sum of money to set up his trade.  Miss Jenny was a forward lass, and the fellow being a spruce young spark, soon prevailed over her affections, and they were accordingly privately married, though it proved not much to her advantage.  For her husband finding no money come, began to use her indifferently, upon which she fell into that sort of business which goes under the name of a Holland’s Trader, and gave the best opportunities of vending goods that are ill come by, at a tolerable price, and with little danger.

Whether in the life-time of this husband or afterwards, I cannot say, but she fell into the acquaintance of the famous Jonathan Wild, and possibly received some of his instructions in managing her affairs in the disposal of stolen goods; but as Jonathan’s friendships were mostly fatal, so in about a year’s time afterwards she was apprehended upon that score, and shortly after was tried and convicted, and thereupon ordered for transportation.  She continued abroad for two years or somewhat more; and then, under pretence of love to her children, ventured over to England again, where it was not long before she got acquainted with her old crew, who, if they were to be believed upon their oaths, were inferior to her in the art or mystery of shoplifting.  However it were, whether by selling stolen goods, or by stealing them, certain it is that she ran into so much money that an Irish sharper thought fit, about Christmas before her death, to marry her in order to possess himself of her effects; which without ceremony he did upon her being last apprehended, disposing of every thing she had, and taking away particularly a large purse of old gold, which by her industry she had collected against a rainy day.

The woman who became an evidence against her swore so positively on the several indictments, and what she said was corroborated with so many circumstances, that the jury found her guilty on the four following indictments, viz.:  for stealing 20 yards of straw-ground brocaded silk, value L10, the goods of John Moon and Richard Stone, on the 1st of June, 1726; of stealing, in the shop of Mr. Mathew Herbert, 40 yards of pink-coloured mantua silk, value L10, on the 1st of May, in the same year; of stealing, in company with Mary Robinson, a silver cup of the value of L5, the goods of Elizabeth Dobbinson, on the 7th January; of stealing, in the company of Mary Robinson aforesaid, 80 yards of cherry-coloured mantua silk value L5, the goods of Joseph Bourn and Mary Harper, on the 24th December.