Mary Squires the fortune teller foretells the future to Sir John Hill: she indicates that she has support from the Lord Mayor of London. Etching, 1753.

Squires was famous as 'the old gypsy'. She was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged in 1753 for the alleged abduction of Elizabeth Canning and theft of her stays. Her notoriety is confirmed by her presence in prints of the day. Sir John Hill published a pamphlet in support of Squires against the testimony of Canning. On the left is a view of the Mansion House, the new residence of the Lord Mayor of London, at the junction of Cheapside and Poultry in the City of London: the building had been completed in 1752. In front of it is a carriage marked with the initials JC, but those are not the initials of a Lord Mayor of London 1752-1754. The Mansion House is the "Justice Hall" and the "great house in Cheapside" mentioned in the lettering: it used to contain a law court. The Lord Mayor Sir Crisp Gascoyne was the presiding judge in the trial of Mary Squires (which was held at Old Bailey, not at the Mansion House) and conducted a private enquiry to establish her innocence. Virtue Hall was one of the witnesses in the trial of Elizabeth Canning. Eventually Squires was acquitted; Canning was convicted of perjury and transported to Connecticut, where she died in 1773

Hill also claimed in the London advertiser that he had been assaulted by Mountfort Brown at Ranelagh on 6 May 1752, whereupon Brown challenged him to a duel. A print on the back wall shows the assault (British Museum, loc. cit., and ibid. no. 3183). This event was connected with the case of Elizabeth Canning through the involvement of Henry Fielding in both cases on the opposite side to Hill

Publishd according to act 1753.

1 print : etching ; image 20.4 x 17.8 cm

The checquer's world's before thee: go farewell, Beware of Irishmen, and learn to spell. Behold the dame, whose chiromantic power, Foretells th' auspicious, or th' unlucky hour, And warns the world, what wonder may befall, to H-ll* to Virtue or to Justice Hall; *A great house in Cheapside

British Museum Catalogue of political and personal satires, London 1870-1954, no. 3212

George Rousseau, The notorious Sir John Hill, Bethlehem, Pa., 2012, p. 172

Wellcome Collection 563011i