MAIDSTONE ASSIZES, Friday, August 6.

Summary

Action of Eliza Robertson (the Plaintiff, currently in "Fleet Prison") against Mr. Oakley and others over "household furniture" to a value of "3000 l." Robertson has been known in pamphlets and the press (at least two articles in the Times in 1801) as the "female Swindler of Blackheath." Here, her counsel states her case while dealing with the numerous preconceived opinions the jury might have on his client, following the publications from 1801: "He had no apprehensions the Plaintiff would suffer from any impression the Jury might entertain, but he was convinced they would try the cause as if they had never heard of Miss Robertson. If they had heard or read of her as the famous Swindler, the Lady who went about the country in various disguises, sometimes in man's cloaths, sometimes assuming one mode of concealment, sometimes another, he trusted they would dismiss such rubbish from their memory, and attend to her complaint with minds as pure and unprejudiced as if they had never heard her name before." ". . . she had for some time been engaged in partnership with a Miss Sharp, in keeping a Boarding-school for young Ladies at Cro[o]m's hill, which they had conducted with reputation and credit. . . . She had reason to think she should form an honourable connection in marriage." "Miss Sharpe" is deposed: Did not know of Robertson that "her father had been Porter to an Oilman, or her mother a Washerwoman." "Was she [Robertson] never, during that period, dressed in man's cloaths? O Lord, Sir! O dear! (shrinking back, as if alarmed at so revolting an idea.) Answer the question, said the Judge. Never, Sir!--O dear! in man's cloaths! Never! never! Was you never dressed in man's cloaths? Me! (apparently fainting)--Me!--Never from the hour of my birth!" After hearing evidence in defence, "The Plaintiff was immediately nonsuited." The judge, Sir Archibald MacDonald, "really believed that Miss Sharpe and Miss Robertson, were a couple of as arrant Swindlers as ever lived."

Full Title

9 Aug 1802. MAIDSTONE ASSIZES, Friday, August 6. Times p. 3,4 c. A-D,A.

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