WILLIAM HEWITT
Fined Five Hundred Pounds, and imprisoned, at the Old Bailey Sessions, in October, 1809, for enticing an English Artificer to leave his Country and emigrate to the United States of North America
WILLIAM HEWITT was indicted at the Old Bailey sessions, in October, 1809, for enticing an artificer, of the name of John Hutchinson, to leave the country and emigrate to the United States of America.
Mr Hughes, a dyer, in Bunhill Row, stated that Hutchinson was in his service, under contract, as a working mechanic, skilled in the dyeing of cotton, and that on the 30th of August the prisoner, by promises of future reward, and the advance immediately of a sum of money, amounting to about twenty-two pounds, engaged him to leave his country and accompany him to America, there to be employed in the cotton manufactory. His evidence was corroborated by several other witnesses, and the prisoner called some in his defence, but they rather confirmed than disproved the case on the part of the prosecution.
He was convicted, and the Court sentenced him, under the Act of Parliament, to pay a fine of five hundred pounds, and to suffer three months' imprisonment.
Hutchinson, the servant, was likewise convicted under the same Act, for engaging to leave the country, and was ordered to find bail to remain in it.