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296 before the judge that she was in the family way. "If I must dye, let my child live."

Thereupon the judge ordered a jury of matrons to be empanelled, but they found that the plea of Gary was false.

As Plymouth had been the scene of the murder, the judge had little difficulty in consenting to the petition of the relatives of Mrs. Weeks that the execution should take place there. "Provided that the magistrates of the towne, or Mr. Weeks, whose wife was by the malefactors above named poysoned, shall defray the extraordinary charges thereof, and shall undertake for the same before Easter Day, being Sunday next. The day of execution is to bee on Thursday in Easter weeke, but if you, the magistrate of the said towne, or Mr. Weeks, shall fail to undertake before Easter Day to defray the extraordinary charges thereof, then the execution on these malefactors is to be done at the common-place of execution for this Countie," i.e. at Exeter.

The local authorities gladly undertook the arrangements for carrying out Lord Chief Justice North's sentence, and for affording to the citizens of Plymouth an exciting scene, and for the domestic servants of that borough a moral warning.

Every endeavour was made to persuade Cary to confess, but she laid the crime upon the girl. Of all the ministers who strove to turn her to repentance, John Quicke, the Nonconformist, was the most importunate. He warned her that "she had sworn a bargain with the Devil for secrecy to her own destruction, that all would come out at last, as cunningly and closely as she did carry it before men and angels; and, said I, you are one of the most bloody women that ever came into gaol; you are guilty of two murders, one of your