2. JOHN SOMMERS proceedingsdefend was indicted for that he, on the 13th of June, in the thirteenth year of his Majesty's reign, at the parish of St. Margaret, next Rochester, in the county of Kent, was married to Ann Chandler proceedingsvictim , Spinster; and that afterwards, on the 20th of September, in the thirty-seventh year of his Majesty's reign , at the parish of St. George, Hanover-square , feloniously did marry and take to wife Phoebe Darwell proceedingsvictim , spinster, his former wife being then alive .(The case was opened by Mr. Knapp.)

THOMAS LOMAS < no role > sworn. - I live at Chatham.

Q. Do you know the prisoner at the bar? - A. < no role > Perfectly well; though I have not seen him for some years; I was present when he was married to Ann Chandler, at St. Margaret's, next Rochester.

Q. Have you seen her lately? - A. At the time the prisoner was committed, by order of the Justices, I brought her up to London.

Court. Q. Did you know him before he was married? - A. Yes; he was a sawyer in the Dock-yard, at Chatham.

THOMAS MOSS < no role > sworn. - Examined by Mr. Knapp.I live at Chatham: I was present at the marriage between Ann Chandler and the prisoner, I knew them both before; I was father, and gave the girl away.

Q. Had she any fortune? - A. I cannot say; her father belonged to the Yard, at Chatham.

PHOEBE DARWELL < no role > sworn. - Examined by Mr. Knapp. I was married to the prisoner on the 20th of September, 1797, at St. George's Hanover-square.

Q. Have the prisoner and you lived together since? - A. He claimed the privilege of a husband over me, and I could not help living with him, but I ran away from him six times; he threatened my life several times, and I put him in prison three times.

Q. Did you bring him any fortune? - A. I had respectability, and some money, when I married him; but he has blasted my character, and he has done me every public and private injury; he has put a knife to my throat, and threatened to murder me.

Court. Q. At the time he married you, what did he pretend to be? - A. He came to me as a person having a place under government, and going to receive a large sum of money; he told me, and I believe he had, just left a place called the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house, which he had kept, and then lived in a private lodging.

- GREVILLE sworn. - Examined by Mr. Knapp. I am parish clerk of St. George's Hanover-square: (produces the Register-book); I wrote the entry of the marriage of Phoebe Darwell with the prisoner; I witnessed it, this is my hand-writing.

Q. < no role > (To Mrs. Darwell.) Is that your hand-writing in the Register-book? - A. It is.

Court. I am very glad to observe that it is kept on parchment.

Prisoner's defence. When I was first acquainted with that woman, I kept the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house; she did not live farther from me than it is a-cross this Court, she kept a little tobacco and snuff-shop; I told her repeatedly that I had a wife, that my wife and I had parted about sixteen years, and I did not know whether she was dead or alive; she knew I had been arrested in her apartments; she said, she was lawyer enough to know that sixteen years was long enough to wait; I told her I wished to have Counsel's opinion upon it; she said there was no occasion, for she had been a lawyer's wife, or something of that sort; she asked me to go and look at a house in Oxford-road; she did not like that, and we went about looking at different houses; and when we had got so far as the bottom of Holborn, she said we might as well go on to Doctors'-Commons; I said, for what; why, says she, for a licence; I said I have no more than one shilling and sixpence in the world; and she pulled out two guineas and gave me, and we went for the licence; she insisted upon my coming to breakfast with her the next morning, but I would not promise; when I went the next morning, she was putting on a clean pair of white stockings; I said, what, are you going out, madam; she said, why, we are going to be married to be sure; I said, I do not know any thing about it, I have got no money; says she, then I will pay for the wedding, and we were married.

For the Prisoner.

LUCY EVERSETCH < no role > sworn. - Q. Do you know Phoebe Darwell < no role > ? - A. Yes; I knew her very well when she lived in High-street, Mary-le-bonne, she kept a snuff-shop about fourteen or fifteen months ago; before she was married, I went to her, and asked for some snuff for Mr. Sommers's housekeeper at the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house; she said, it was black rappee then, she believed; says she, do you know any thing of Mr. Sommers; I told her, yes; she asked me if he was a married man; I told her, yes, he had a wife, but he had not lived with her for fifteen or sixteen years; she said, what, is that his housekeeper that you are fetching the snuff for; I said, yes, ma'am, but that is not his wife, she has been his housekeeper eleven years; she said, she believed he was nobody's foe but his own; I told her, no, I knew him to be an honest man for years, though he had failed in business.

Cross-examined by Mr. Knapp. Q. What are you now? - A. A working woman, I go out washing and ironing.

Q. Where do you live? - A. No. 22, York-court, East-street, Mary-le-bonne.

Q. How long ago is it since you were applied to to come here? - A. Mr. Sommers desired me to come here.

Q. How long is it since you saw him? - A. When she took him up before.

Q. You have seen him, perhaps, since he has been in jail? - A. Not till since the trials have began.

Q. Not before Wednesday? - A. No.

Q. This conversation was near two years ago? - A. Yes.

Q. And you know very little of Phoebe Darwell? - A. Yes.

Q. And you, merely coming to buy snuff, she held this conversation with you? - A. Yes; because she was inquisitive about his character.

Q. You said he failed? - A. Yes.

Q. Had he failed then? - A. Yes; he had left his house; I cannot say particularly; I had lived servant with him.

Q. < no role > Having lived servant with him, tell us, if you can recollect the time, when he failed? - A. No, I cannot; I had been out harvesting with myhusband, and when I came back at the end of the summer, I had this conversation.

Q. Have you known Phoebe Darwell since? - A. Yes.

Q. You have never kept up any acquaintance with her since that time? - A. No.

Q. < no role > And I dare say this is the only time you had any Conversation with Phoebe Darwell? - A. I never spoke to her before nor since, to my knowledge.

Court Q. How often have you been to him in Newgate? - A. Twice, Yesterday and to-day.

Q. Upon your oath, have you not been more than twice in Newgate? - A. < no role > Yesterday, I went in and out two or three times, and the same to-day.

Q. < no role > Upon your oath, have you never been to him in Newgate, except Yesterday and the day before? - A. No.

Q. Had you ever seen Phoebe Darwell < no role > before that conversation? - A. Yes.

- CHAPMAN fworn. - The first time I knew she prisoner was six years ago; he has lived since at the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house; I lived there three years, and this Phoebe Darwell < no role > lived in the neighbourhood and kept a shop, to the best of my knowledge; I cannot positively swear that I know the person.

Court. Then that won't do.

MARY BEAN < no role > sworn. - I lived as housekeeper with the prisoner eleven years, and he never had any body come to interrupt him in any shape whatever, or to make any demand of him.

Q. Where have you lived with him? - A. At the Mary-le-honne coffee-house.

Q. All the eleven years? - A. yes. (The last witness corrected her, and then she said, no).

Q. < no role > Where was it he lived, when you first came to live with him? - A. I have forgot the house.

Q. Whereabout was it? - A. I have forgot, indeed. (After hesitating some time, she said), the George, in Greek-street, Soho.

Q. What year was it in? - A. I do not know.

Q. How long did you live with him there? - A. three or four years.

Q. < no role > Where did he live then? - A. He then went to the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house, in High-street.

Q. Then it was about the year 1790? - A. It may be foe any thing I recollect.

Q. When did you leave him? - A. About two years ago.

Q. Where did he live when you left him? - A. I believe, in lodgings.

Q. Then, during allthe time you have lived with him, he always lilved either at the George, in Greek-street,or the Mary-le-bonne Coffee-house? - A. Yes.

Cross examined by Mr. Knapp.. Q. Where do you live now? - A. < no role > In East-street, Mary-le-bonne.

Q. You have not lived for these two years with the prisoner? - A. No.

Q. Have you never been acquainted with him since? - A. I may have seen him.

Q. Upon your oath, have you not seen him in jail, between this and last Wednesday? - A. Yes.

Q. < no role > Where did you see him? - A. I came down to ask him how he did.

Q. How many times have you been in Newgate? - A. < no role > Three or four.

Q. Upon your oath, have you not been in Newgate before the session began? - A. Yes.

Q. How many times previous to that? - A. < no role > Five or six.

Q. How long has he been in custody? - A. I cannot say.

Q. How came you to go backwards and forwards five or six different times to Newgate before the sessions began? - A. To ask him how he did.

Q. Who subpoeaned you here, did you come under any subpoena? - A. No.

Q. YOu settled it with the prisoner in Newgate; he told you, you were to appear here? - A. NO, he did not.

Q. Then who told you to appear here, to become a witness for the prisoner? - A. At my own accord.

Q. Do you mean gto state now, that you did not come at the desire of the prisoner? - A. I did.

Q. How often have you seen the prisoner this morning? - A. Once.

Q. Only once, upon your oath? - A. No.

Q. Have you had any conversation with him since he has been at the bar? - A. No; I was looking up, and was checked for looking up.

Q. Upon your oath, did you not speak to him? - A. I did not.

Q. < no role > Did you know of his being married before? - A. Yes.

Q. Do you know of his being married more than once? - A. No.

Q. < no role > Upon your oath, you never heard that he was married more than once? - A. Not when I first went to live with him.

Q. Did you know that he was married more than once at any time after you lived with him? - A. No.

Q. Did you ever hear that he was married to any body else? - A. < no role > Never, till he married this lady.

Q. You never were married to him? - A. No.

Court. (To Mrs. Darwell). Q. YOu have heard what these people have said,is any of it true? - A. Hardly a syllable of it is true.

Q. YOu heard Mrs. Everfetch give her evidence? - Yes.

Q. < no role > Tell me, whether or no such a conversation took place when she came to buy some rappee snuff? - A. No such conversation ever passed.

Q. < no role > Did he tell you, at the time he paid his addresses to you, that he had a place under Government? - A. He did, and that he was going to receive a large sum of money.

Q. Have you heard what he has said, by way of defence? - A. I did; there is hardly one word of it true.

Q. He told us, when he was going for the licence, that he told you, he had but one shilling and six-pence in his pocket, and that you gave him two guineas to buy a licence - is that true? - A. No; the week that I had him, I gave him change for a 10l. note, and going down Holborn, he said, I have spent so much money, that I have searce any left, will you lend me two guineas, I will pay you to-morrow.

Q. Did he tell you, that he had but one shilling and six-pence in the world? - A. Quite the contrary; these two women that have been produced he cohabited with, they are both sisters, one of them he cohabited with eleven years.

Q. How do you know he cohabited with them? - A. He has always told me so.

Q. Before you were married? - A. No, since; he told me that he had spent a great deal of this last woman's property, that she was poor, and for the value of a few shillings, or a glass of liquor, he would bring them both to swear any thing. He solemnly swore to me, that he had been a widower sixteen years. The second day, he took an inventory of my things, and put a pen-knife to my throat.

Court. That is not material upon this trial.

GUILTY (Aged 45.)

Transported for seven years .

Tried by the first Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Justice GROSE.