1-624-732 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'A True Draught of Eliza Canning. The Gypsey conversing with ye Inspector General of Great Britain,' c1753. In 1753, a young woman called Elizabeth Canning claimed to have been kidnapped and held against her will at a house in Enfield. She also said that her kidnappers tried to force her to become a prostitute. She supposedly escaped from the house, and on her evidence people were arrested, tried and convicted. The Gypsey, Mary Squires, was accused of imprisoning her. Later, doubts began to be expressed about her story. The prisoners were released and Elizabeth Canning was charged with perjury, convicted and sentenced to transportation to New England for seven years. Illustration from Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century ... With over two hundred illustrations by George Paston [pseudonym of Emily Morse Symonds], (London, 1905).