After being questioned by concerned friends and neighbours, she was interviewed by the local alderman, who then issued an arrest warrant for Susannah Wells, the woman who occupied the house in which Canning was supposed to have been held.

With no work that day, she spent time with her family and made plans to go shopping with her mother after visiting her aunt and uncle (Alice and Thomas Colley), but changed her mind and instead remained with them for the evening.

An advertisement was placed in the newspapers, prayers were read aloud in churches and meeting houses, but other than a report of a "woman's shriek" from a hackney coach on 1 January, no clues were found as to Elizabeth's disappearance.

On this evidence, John Wintlebury and a local journeyman, Robert Scarrat, identified the house as that of "Mother" Susannah Wells at Enfield Wash, nearly 10 miles (16 km) distant.

He administered several clysters until satisfied with the results, following which Canning was taken by her friends and neighbours to the Guildhall to see Alderman Thomas Chitty, to ask that he issue a warrant for Wells's arrest.

Although Fielding was disinclined to believe a simple servant-girl he was impressed with her modesty and genteel manner, and issued a warrant against all the occupants of Wells's house, "that they might appear before me, [and] give Security for their good Behaviour".

[26][27][28] The London Daily Advertiser, a Grub Street publication, reported on 10 February: The house of that notorious woman well known by the name of Mother Wells, between Enfield Wash and Waltham Cross, was immediately suspected; and from many Circumstances appears to be the dismal Prison of the unhappy sufferer, whose melancholy Situation since her miraculous Escape is worthy of Compassion and Charitable contributions of all public-spirited people, and anyone who has any regard for the Safety of their Children and Relations, who are equally liable to the same inhuman and cruel Usage...all these circumstances being duly considered, it is not doubted but a Subscription or Contribution will soon be raised, to enable the Persons who have undertaken to detect this notorious Gang to prosecute their good Intentions with the utmost Vigour, as such a nest of Villains is of the greatest Danger to the Safety of his Majesty's good Subjects.

In the Case of, Wells was clearly identified as "that Monster of a Woman", and in an edited version which appeared a week later in the Public Advertiser it was revealed that Canning had suffered a fit after being struck on the head.

Squires was called an "old Gypsy Woman", who "robbed the girl of her stays; and then in a miserable naked Condition, because she would not become a common Prostitute, confined her in an old Back Room or loft".

An 18-year-old servant girl threatened with prostitution and held captive by a remarkably ugly old gypsy of bad repute, having escaped, emaciated, to return to her loving mother; it was a story that the vast bulk of general public as well as the gentry, found irresistible.

[27][35] This had the desired effect because on 14 February Hall stated that John Squires (son of Mary) and another man had brought Canning to Wells's house early on the morning of 2 January.

[43] She told the court she "saw nothing brought up[, but w]hen day-light appeared, I could see about the room; there was a fire-place and a grate in it, no bed nor bedstead, nothing but hay to lie upon; there was a black pitcher not quite full of water, and about twenty-four pieces of bread ... about a quartern loaf".

Squires's last witness, Thomas Greville, claimed that he had accommodated Mary and "her sister and her brother" under his roof in Coombe, on 14 January, where they sold "handkerchiefs, lawns, and such things".

"[53] According to a contemporary report in the London Daily Advertiser, as the three witnesses left the court the mob, waiting in the yard, "beat them, kicked them rolled them in the Kennel and otherwise misused them before they suffered them to get from them".

[60] He justified his activities by comparing his apparent compassion for the victim, Mary Squires, with his outrage for the deceit of her accuser, Elizabeth Canning, but his fervour was influenced in part by the attitudes of the time.

He considered the behaviour of the Canningites inappropriate for their low station and was more impressed by the assurances of people such as Alderman Chitty and Reverend Harris, who as gentlemen and public advocates were presumed more reliable.

Fifteen prominent residents of Abbotsbury, including churchwardens, Overseers of the Poor, a schoolmaster and a tithing man swore that the Squires were in Dorset in January and that their witnesses were trustworthy men.

Hall had given her testimony to Fielding under threat of imprisonment and when by chance the Grub Street writer John Hill heard from a Magistrate that she had showed signs of remorse, he was presented with a perfect opportunity to settle an old score.

The output of the writers and publishers of Grub Street emboldened opinions about the case, and in some instances reinforced long-held stereotypes of "wicked Gypsies and a poor innocent girl refusing to yield her honour".

[74] Reports began to emerge, of sinister goings-on; one such claimed that several men on horseback threatened that "they would burn all the people's houses, barns and corn thereabouts", should Squires be hanged.

Satisfied with her account, and unconcerned with Hall,[77] his critique of Squires' supporters was published as A Clear Statement of the Case of Elizabeth Canning, in which he espoused the virtuous nature of the young maid and attacked those of her detractors.

John Hill saw A Clear Statement as a direct attack on Gascoyne,[78] and blasted Fielding with The Story of Elizabeth Canning Considered, which ridiculed his enemy with such comments as: "Who Sir, are you, that are thus dictating unto the Government?

Over 100 people were present to testify on their behalf, but the Canningites stayed away; they were unaware of Gascoyne's withdrawal and feared an embarrassing release of evidence to the public from an appearance by Canning.

Myles had not been paid by his employers, and to delay proceedings, his brother Thomas sent a clerk to deliver to the court a selection of writs, but nevertheless Gibbons, Clark, and Greville were found not guilty, and released.

[86] Gentlemen, the prisoner stands indicted of one of the most heinous crimes; an endeavour, by wilful and corrupt foreswearing herself, to take away the life of a guiltless person; and with aggravation, in the black catalogue of offences, I know not one of a deeper dye.

Canning's uncle, Thomas Colley, was cross-examined about what his niece ate on her visit of New Year's Day, the prosecution apparently seeking to establish whether or not she could have been sustained for a month by the bread she claimed to have been given.

The recorder, William Moreton, stated the defence's case, and asked the jury to consider if they thought that Canning had answered the charges against her to their satisfaction, and if it was possible she could have survived for almost a month on "no more than a quartern-loaf, and a pitcher of water".

Those on Squires's side were not the only ones to come under such attacks; John Hill wrote a short song celebrating his and Gascoyne's role in the affair, and pictures of Canning in the loft, her bodice loosened to reveal her bosom, were readily available.

[119] To justify his pursuit of Canning, he wrote An Address to the Liverymen of the City of London, from Sir Crisp Gascoyne, and suffered not only literary but physical attacks, as well as death threats.

Moore explains discrepancies between Canning and the Squires' testimonies as understandable omissions and modifications, and placing much emphasis on the ability of those men in power to follow their own pursuits—often at the expense of others.