He conveyed her to a mad-house

Mrs. Mills appeared before Sir John Fielding, and made oath, that on Tuesday in the preceding week, one Gunston came up to her room, and told her that her husband was in trouble. As he had been arrested that day, she immediately determined to go to his relief, and accordingly accompanied Gunston to a hackney-coach, in which he conveyed her to a mad-house, at Bethnal-green. As soon as she alighted, she declared her surmize of his having decoyed her; when Gunston pushed her into the fore-court, threw her down, and dragged her up the stone steps to the door by her leg, and when he had got her into the house, he hand-cuffed her, and fastened her hands behind her back with a short chain; the mistress of the house, being present, accosted her with the modest title of mad b—ch, declared she should soon have her hair cut off, and her head shaved and blistered. Enquiring by whose authority they detained her, she was told, by that of her husband; and at night she was conducted up stairs into a little apartment, the stench of which was intolerable, and the appearance beyond description wretched: here she continued till morning, when a bason of something which appeared like tea, was brought her by a woman, who, commiserating her situation, told her, she had herself been confined there for a considerable time, by the artifices of her husband, and advised her to make herself as easy as possible.

On the Thursday her husband came to her, when she asked him, why he could suffer her to be sent to such a house, and to be so cruelly treated? He declared his sorrow, and took her home with him. A day or two after she came home, she thought of attempting to relieve the poor wretch she left in the mad-house, and for that purpose applied to Sir John Fielding for a warrant against Gunston, and at the same time applied to Justice Wilmot to send for the unhappy woman described above. The people at the house refused to send the poor wretch; on which the justice went himself, and insisted on seeing her in the apartment which then contained her; he went up, but declared he would not again have done so for 5000l. the place was so intolerably nasty, and the stench so abominable; he found her apparently sane, and in a truly pitious situation, having a hole quite through her hand, which, it is more than probable, was occasioned by some violence from her inhuman keepers.

Upon farther enquiry, it appeared that her name was Ewbank, that she had been under confinement one year and three quarters, had been taken out of her dwelling-house, her hands tied behind her, and forcibly dragged to the mad-house, by threatening to rip her belly open if she made the least noise, or any way resisted. The persons concerned are ordered to be prosecuted.