After once the mercers had got Burton, who was the evidence, into their hands, she quickly detected numbers of her confederates, several of whom were apprehended, and chiefly on her evidence, convicted.  Amongst the rest was this Katherine Fitzpatrick, who was born in Lincolnshire, of parents far from being in low circumstances, and who were careful in bestowing on her a very tolerable education.  In the country she discovered a little too much forwardness, and though London was a very improper place in which to hope for her amendment, yet hither her friends sent her, where she quickly fell into such company as deprived her of all sentiments, either of virtue or honesty.  What practices she might pursue before she fell into shoplifting I have not been able to learn, and will not therefore impose upon my readers at the expense of a poor creature, who is so long ago gone to answer for her offences, which, as they were doubtless many of themselves, so they shall never be increased by me.

Being a woman of a tolerable person, notwithstanding her not having the best of characters, she got a man in the mind to marry her, to whom she made an indifferent good wife; and though he was not altogether clear from knowing of her being concerned with shoplifters, yet he was so far from giving her the least encouragement therein that they were on the contrary continually quarrelling upon this subject; and whenever, from any circumstances, he guessed she had been thieving, he beat her severely.  Yet all this was to no purpose, she still continued to treat in the old path and associated herself with a large number of women, who were at this time busy in stealing silks out of the shops, either in the absence of the master, or under the pretence of seeing others.  It is observable not only of Katherine Fitzpatrick, of whom we are now speaking, but also of all the persons who died for this offence, that they were extremely shy of making detailed confessions, though ready enough to confess in general that they had been grievous sinners, and that the punishment they were to undergo was very just from the hand of God.  Fitzpatrick, as well as the former criminal Holmes, charged Burton the evidence with disingenuity in what she delivered on her oath against them, and yet Fitzpatrick could not absolutely deny having been guilty of a multitude of offences as to shoplifting, so that it is highly probable, even if the evidence erred a little in immaterial circumstances, that in the main she swore truth.

The particular facts on which Fitzpatrick was convicted, were:  (1) stealing 19 yards of green damask valued at L9, the goods of Joseph Giffard and John Ravenal, on July the 29th, 1724; (2) Taking 10 yards of green satin out of the shop of John Moon and Richard Stone, value L3, on the 10th February, 1724/25; (3) Stealing, in company with another person, 50 yards of green mantua, value L10, the goods of John Autt, May the 5th, 1725; (4) Stealing 63 yards of modena and pink italian mantua, the goods of Joshua Fairy, February 24, 1724/25.  These dates were all of them somewhat more than a twelvemonth before the time of her apprehension, and she insisted on it that she had left off committing any such thing for a considerable space, which made the evidence envy her, and so brought on the prosecution.