On a night in January 1790, Anne Porter was struck upon the hip while returning from a ball near her family’s residence in St James’s Street. The wound was severe. The testimony of her sisters and two successive trials would place Renwick Williams at the heart of a case wherein juries returned contradictory verdicts: guilty under a specific statute, then acquitted at common law.
Anne and Sarah had attended the Saint James’s assembly in the company of a friend. Their father had arranged to meet them at midnight, yet the rooms closed at eleven; the young women resolved to return home on foot. Sarah testified that she perceived a man at the lower end of St James’s Street. He uttered an exclamation and struck her violently upon the head. She urged Anne to hasten, telling her to look upon the man who followed them. Near the house, he passed between the two sisters and tore Sarah’s gown.
Anne declared that as she turned near the rails, she received a blow to the right side of her hip. She turned and saw the man stooping. He did not immediately take flight; she stated she had leisure to observe his countenance. She was already acquainted with his person, for he had followed her on several occasions and addressed obscene language to her. Her garments were slashed and her skin wounded. Sarah likewise affirmed that she had seen the man four or five times. Both sisters identified the prisoner as Williams.
On the 13th of June, Anne saw him once more in St James’s Park, where she was walking with her mother, her two sisters, and Mr. Coleman. Her agitation alerted her companions. Coleman pursued Williams as far as South Molton Street, and followed him further when he entered a house. Williams at first refused to give his address, before naming No. 52 Jermyn Street. Coleman compelled him to accompany him to the Porters’ dwelling. Upon beholding him, the two sisters swooned and designated him as their assailant. He inquired whether they took him for “the Monster advertised in the papers.” He was conveyed before a magistrate and committed to prison.
The court did not press Anne to repeat the obscene expressions she alleged she had heard during these pursuits. Anne’s wound was described in detail at the trial: the cut began superficially, reached, according to the surgeon, three to four inches in its middle part, and then became shallower. It measured between nine and ten inches from the hip downward. Her clothes were likewise lacerated. Prior to his apprehension, a widely circulated rumor attributed numerous wounds to an assailant who had eluded capture. Some recounted that he presented a nosegay with a blade concealed amidst the blossoms; others located the gashes upon the thigh, the back, or private parts. These accounts nourished public terror; they are not all connected to Williams in the present entry.
On the 8th of July, 1790, at the Old Bailey sessions, Williams was tried for the assault upon Anne Porter. The indictment contained two counts: assault and wounding, and the felonious tearing and spoiling of the cloak, gown, petticoat, and shift. The prosecution brought forward the testimony of the two sisters, of Coleman, and the medical evidence concerning the wound. Williams requested permission to read a prepared paper, fearing lest his memory should fail him. He asserted his innocence, appealed to the jury’s impartiality, and represented himself as a friend to the female sex. For his alibi, his employer, Mr. Mitchell, described a late working day at his artificial-flower manufactory: Williams, he claimed, arrived at nine o’clock, departed at one, returned about half past two, and remained until midnight before taking supper and returning home about half past twelve. Mitchell explained that the workroom was pressed with business and cited an urgent order of a dress for the actress Mrs. Abington. Under cross-examination, the recollection of the hours and of this order proved less distinct; certain witnesses acknowledged that they had recalled the hour of departure only after the prisoner’s arrest. The alibi was thus supported by the manufactory, yet its precise chronology remained contested.
The investigation furnished no weapon for the prosecution. Constable Macmanus reported that in searching the lodgings rented by Williams at the George in Bury Street, he had found garments and boots, but no cutting instrument. The witnesses inferred the presence of a blade from the length of the wound and of the rents. The search, upon this head, yielded nothing.
Mr. Justice Buller laid open the legal difficulty. The statute invoked required, in his view, that the prosecution prove not only an intention to wound the body, but likewise the intent to tear and spoil the garments. The cutting and the tearing were established; it remained to be decided whether Williams had intended both. The learned judge observed that this prosecution was unprecedented and indicated his desire to reserve the point for the consideration of the twelve judges. The jury nonetheless returned a verdict of guilty. Judgment was not immediately pronounced: Buller respited judgment and adjourned the decision as to the validity of the indictment.
In December, the judges determined that the indictment was irregular and that the statute of George I did not encompass the facts in such a manner. This did not signify that the assault was excused. Williams was remanded to another jurisdiction to be tried at common law—the unwritten law arising from judicial decisions—and not under the special enactment concerning the spoiling of apparel. On the 13th of December, at Hicks’s Hall, he stood his trial for an assault upon Anne Porter. The proceedings endured sixteen hours. The indictment contained three counts: assault with intent to kill, wounding, and common assault.
The selfsame witnesses gave evidence. The defense called Miss Amet and Mr. Mitchell to maintain the alibi. Their testimony stood uncontradicted. The jury was left to weigh this account against the identifications offered by the sisters. On this occasion, the jury acquitted Williams. Pelham observes that the evidence on both sides appeared to them of equal weight.
On the following morning, Williams was brought once more to the bar upon the remaining indictments. He was convicted upon three of them. The court sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment in Newgate for each offense, and further bound him to his good behavior: he was required to enter into recognizances for two hundred pounds, with two sureties of one hundred pounds each. His acquittal upon the indictment regarding Anne Porter did not, therefore, void the convictions pronounced on the morrow; nor did those convictions convert into established truth every rumor of injury that had preceded his arrest. The security was made a condition of his enlargement following the completion of his sentence.