Gascoyne had stood for Parliament during Canning's trial, but came bottom of the poll. 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. The Canningites published several responses to Gascoyne's thoughts, including "A liveryman's reply to Sir Crisp Gascoyne's address", and "A refutation of Sir Crisp Gascoyne's of his conduct in the cases of Elizabeth Canning and Mary Squires", the latter presenting the trial as the culmination of a Gascoyne vendetta against Canning.