The Newgate Calendar Vol 4
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: true crime
Description: The 4th and final volume of the Newgate Calendar. This volume includes, among 51 trials, the cases of Dick Turpin, and Gow, the Scottish pirate who was the model for Sir Walter Scott's novel "Pirate".
Publisher: Burke and Hare

THE NEWGATE CALENDAR

Volume 4 of 4, 1726-1741

1824

Contents

1726

1: Edward Burnworth, William Blewitt, Emanuel Dickenson, Thomas Berry, John Legee, John Higgs, and ― Marjoram; 2: Catherine Hayes

1727

3: Richard Savage, Esq. (The Celebrated Poet, Son of the Earl of Rivers and the Unnatural Countess of Macclesfield), James Gregory, Esq., and William Merchant, Esq

1728

4: Margaret Dixon; 5: Edward Bellamy

1729

6: John Everett; 7: Major John Oneby; 8: James Cluff; 9: John Gow; 10: Jephthah Big

1730

11: Francis Charteris

1731

12: Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., and Lieutenant Robert Arnott; 13: Robert Irwin; 14: William Smith

1732

15: Robert Hallam; 16: John Hewit and Rosamund Oderenshaw; 17: Jonathan Hawkins; 18: John Waller, alias Trevor; 19: Joseph Powis; 20: William Shelton

1733

21: Isaac And Thomas Hallam; 22: Sarah Malcolm; 23: William Alcock;

24: William Gordon

1736

25: Captain John Porteous

1737

26: John Collins

1738

27: Thomas Carr, an Attorney, and Elizabeth Adams; 28: William Udall; 29: John Toon And Edward Blastock; 30: Joseph Johnson; 31: William Newington; 32: John Totterdale; 33: George Price; 34: John Richardson and Richard Coyle; 35: George Manley

1739

36: Richard Turpin; 37: David Roberts; 38: Abraham Wells; 39: James Caldclough; 40: Thomas Lympus; 41: Thomas Barkwith; 42: Edward Joines

1740

43: Mary Young alias Jenny Diver; 44: Charles Drew; 45: Elizabeth And Mary Branch; 46: William Creak; 47: William Duell; 48: Gilbert Langley

1741

49: Captain Samuel Goodere, a Fratricide; Matthew Mahony and Charles White; 50: Captain Henry Smythee; 51: James Hall

__________________

1726

1: Edward Burnworth, William Blewitt, Emanuel Dickenson, Thomas Berry, John Legee, John Higgs, and ― Marjoram

Another gang of murderers and daring robbers.

NOTWITHSTANDING Jonathan Wild, in the early career of his villainy, had been active in bringing a number of thieves to condign punishment, yet London and its environs were never more infested with common depredators, than about this time. Burnworth and his gang seem to have risen to notoriety  on the downfall of Wild; for about the time of his apprehension, they were committing the most daring robberies; but they, however, did not survive him quite a single year. The captain of this gang was born in Moorfields, London. His father was a painter, and placed his son Edward apprentice to a buckle-maker in Grub-street; in which situation he did not remain long, having given himself up to the company of loose and disorderly young men. His initiation into vicious habits took place, at an infamous place of low diversion, called the Ring, near his father's place of residence, and where it appears he excelled in the vulgar art of cudgel-playing. He soon commenced pick-pocket, and through the gradations in villainy, which we have already described, became a general thief. As a pick-pocket, he frequented every public place in and near the city. He used to steal snuff-boxes, watches, handkerchiefs, pocket-books, &c.

At length he was apprehended, and lodged in New Prison, from which he found means to escape, and renewed his former occupation, but with more circumspection, usually lounging about the fields near London during the day time, and returning to town at night in search of prey. He was a remarkably daring villain, and constantly carried pistols about hint, to aid him to make a readier escape in case of detection. Going into a public house in the Old Bailey, the landlord told him that Quilt Arnold, one of Jonathan Wild's men, who had been seeking him some days, was then in the house. Hereupon Burnworth went backwards to a room where Arnold was sitting alone; and presenting a pistol, upbraided him for endeavouring to injure his old acquaintance, Arnold having been a brother thief. Burnworth then called for a glass of brandy, and putting some gunpowder in it, compelled the other to drink it on his knees, and swear that he would never seek for him in future. He was once whipped at the cart's tail for a theft.

William Blewitt, another of this gang, was the son of poor parents near Cripplegate, who apprenticed him to a glover; but before he had served above three years of his time, he associated with ill company, and became a pickpocket and house-breaker. Having been apprehended and lodged in Newgate, he was tried for an offence, of which he was convicted, and sentenced to be transported for seven years; in consequence of which he was put on board a ship in the river, in company, with several other felons. Some of these had procured saws and files to be concealed in cakes of gingerbread, and by means of these instruments they hoped to effect their escape before the ship sailed to any distance. Blewitt having discovered their intention, disclosed it to the captain of the vessel, who seized the implements, and gave Blewitt his liberty, as a reward-for the information.

[Note: This was assuming a power which was never given to any captain of any vessel].

But he was no sooner at large, than he returned to his old practices, in consequence of which he was apprehended, and committed to Newgate. At the following sessions he was indicted for returning from transportation, and being convicted, received sentence of death; but he pleaded the service he had done by preventing the escape of the prisoners in the river: on which he was reprieved till the return of the vessel from America; when his allegations being found to be true, he was pardoned, on the condition of transporting himself. This however he neglected to do; but got into the company of Burnworth, Berry, Legee, and Higgs, the three last having been thieves from their infancy.

At this time there was a gin-shop kept in the Mint, Southwark, by a man named Ball, whose character was similar to that of Jonathan Wild. Ball, who had been himself a thief, threatened that he would cause Burnworth to be taken into custody. The latter, hearing of this circumstance, resolved on the murder of Ball and engaged his accomplices in the execution of the plan. Previous to this, while they were drinking at Islington, Burnworth proposed to break open and rob the house of a magistrate in Clerkenwell, who had distinguished himself by his diligence in causing thieves to be apprehended; and this robbery was proposed more from motives of revenge than of gain. They soon executed their design, and robbed the house of what they thought a large quantity of plate, which they carried to Copenhagen-house, at that time a public-house of ill fame; but, on examining the supposed treasure, they discovered that it was only brass covered with silver, on which they threw it into the New River.

The following day, while they were carousing, one of their associates came and informed them that some peace officers were waiting for them in Chick-lane, a place they greatly frequented. Thus informed, they kept in a body, and concealed their pistols and cutlasses under their clothes. On the approach of evening they ventured towards London, and having got as far as Turnmill-street, the keeper of Clerkenwell Bridewell happening to see them, called to Burnworth, and said he wanted to speak with him. Burnworth hesitated; but the other assuring him that he intended no injury, and the thief being confident that his associates would not desert him, swore he did not regard the keeper, whom he advanced to meet with the pistol in his hand, the other rogues waiting on the opposite side of the street, armed with cutlasses and pistols.

This singular spectacle attracting the attention of the populace, a considerable crowd soon gathered round them, on which Burnworth joined his companions, who kept together, and facing the people retired in a body, presenting their pistols, and swearing that they would fire on any one who should offer to molest them. Thus they retreated as far as Battlebridge, and then making a circle round the fields, entered London by a different avenue, and going to Blackfriars, took a boat and crossed the Thames. Having landed at the Bankside, Southwark, they went to a place called the Music-house, which was at that time much frequented by people of dissolute characters. Here they continued drinking some time, and then went into St. George's-fields, where Burnworth re-proposed the murder of Ball, on account of the threat that he had issued. All the company readily agreed, except Higgs, who said he would have no concern in murder; however, the others forced him with them. It was dark when they arrived at Ball's house, and Higgs waited at the door, while the rest went in. Ball's wife told them he was at an alehouse in the neighbourhood, but she would go and call him, which she accordingly did; he no sooner got to the door of his own house, than Burnworth seized him and dragged him in, reproaching him with treachery, in intending to betray his old acquaintance. As these desperadoes were armed with pistols,

Ball trembled with just apprehension for his life, and dropping on his knees, earnestly entreated that they would not murder him; but Burnworth, swearing that he should never obtain the reward for betraying him, shot him dead on the spot, while thus begging for his life. The murder was no sooner perpetrated, than they all sallied forth into the street; when Blewitt, supposing that the report of the pistol might alarm the neighbours, fired another into the air, saying, "We are now safe in town, and there is no fear of rogues;" thereby intimating that they had come out of the country, whither they had taken pistols for their protection. Higgs had left his companions as soon as the murder was committed; but on their way to the Falcon Stairs, where they intended to take a boat, they met with him again, when Burnworth proposed to murder him, as they had done Ball; but Marjoram, an old acquaintance, whom they had just met, interceded for his life, which was granted, on condition that, for the future, he should behave with greater courage. They now crossed the Thames, and went to the Boar's-head tavern, in Smithfield, where, not being known, they were under no apprehension of detection. Here they remained till ten at night, and then parted in different gangs, to commit separate robberies.

Some days after this, Dickenson, Berry, and Blewitt, having obtained a large booty, went to Harwich, and sailed in the packet-boat to Holland. In the mean time, Higgs went to Portsmouth, and entered on board the Monmouth man of war; but his brother happening to meet the mate of a ship in London, gave him a letter to deliver to him. The mate going accidentally into a public-house in Smithfield, heard the name of Higgs mentioned by some people who were talking of the murder, among whom was a watchman, whom the mate told that he had a letter to carry to one Higgs. On this the watchman went to the under secretary of state, and mentioned what he had heard and suspected. Hereupon the watchman, and two of the king's messengers, being dispatched to Portsmouth, Higgs was taken into custody, brought to London, and committed to Newgate. Still Burnworth, and the rest of his associates, continued to defy the laws, in the most open manner. Having stopped the Earl of Harborough's chair, during broad daylight, in Piccadilly, one of the chairmen pulled out a pole of the chair, and knocked down one of the villains, while the Earl came out, drew his sword, and put the rest to flight: but not before they had raised their wounded companion, whom they took off with them.

The number of daring robberies which were now daily committed were so alarming, that the king issued a proclamation for apprehending the offenders, and a pardon was offered to any one who would impeach his accomplices, except Burnworth, who was justly considered as the principal of the gang. Marjoram happened to be drinking at a public house in Whitecross-street one night, when a gentleman went in and read the royal proclamation.

The company present knew nothing of Marjoram; but he apprehending that some of his accomplices would become an evidence, if he did not, applied to a constable in Smithfield, and desired him to take him before the Lord Mayor. By this time the evening was far advanced, on which Marjoram was lodged in the Compter for that night, and being taken to Guildhall the next day, he discovered all the circumstances that he knew; and informing the Lord Mayor that Legge lodged in Whitecross-street, he was almost immediately apprehended, and committed to Newgate the same day.

The circumstance of Marjoram having turned evidence being now the public topic, John Barton, a fellow who had been sometime connected with Burnworth and, his gang, provided a loaded pistol, and placing himself near Goldsmith's-hall, took an opportunity, when the officers were conducting Marjoram before the Lord Mayor, to fire at him; but Marjoram observing him advancing, stooped down, so that the ball grazed his back only. The suddenness of this action, and the surprise it occasioned; gave Barton an opportunity of effecting his escape. About this time one Wilson, who had likewise belonged to the gang, quitted London, but being apprehended about two years afterwards, he was hanged at Kingston in Surrey.

In the mean time, Burnworth continued at large, committing depredations on the public, and appearing openly in the streets, notwithstanding the proclamation issued to apprehend him. He broke open the house of a distiller in Clare-market, and carried off a great number of banknotes; in consequence of which another proclamation was issued, and three hundred pounds were offered for taking him into custody; notwithstanding he still appeared at large, and gave the following among other proofs of his audacity. Sitting down at the door of a public-house, in Holborn, where he was well known, he called for a pint of beer and drank it, holding a pistol in his hand, by way of protection; he then paid for his beer, and went off with the greatest apparent unconcern.

At this time he kept company with two infamous women, one of whom was the wife of a man named Leonard; who, having belonged to the gang, thought to recommend himself to mercy, by the apprehension of Burnworth. Having told his wife what he intended, she informed same magistrates of the proposed plan, and they sent six men to assist in carrying it into execution. Shrove Tuesday being the day appointed, the men waited at a public-house till they should receive a hint to proceed.. About six in the evening Burnworth went to the lodgings of the women, to which there was a back door that opened into a yard. It was proposed to have pancakes for supper, and while one of the women was frying them, the other went to the public house for some beer, and on her return pretended to bolt the door, but designedly missed the staple; at that moment six men rushed in, and seized Burnworth before he had time to make any resistance, though he had a pistol in the pocket of his great coat. Being carried before three magistrates he was committed to Newgate; but his accomplices were so infamously daring as to attempt the murder of the woman who had occasioned his apprehension; a pistol was fired at her as she was entering the door of her own house, which being communicated to the magistrates, constables were appointed to watch nightly for her protection, till the desperadoes gave over their attempts.

Burnworth, while in Newgate, projected the following scheme of escape: having been furnished with an iron crow, he engaged some of the prisoners, who assisted him in pulling stones out of the wall, while others sung psalms, that the keepers might not hear what they wore doing. On the day following this transaction, which was carried on during the night, five condemned criminals were to be executed; but when the gaolers came to take them out, there was such an immense quantity of stones and rubbish to remove, that it was two o'clock in the afternoon before the criminals could be got out of their cells.

This scheme of Burnworth occasioned his closer confinement. He was removed into a room known by the name of the bilboes, and loaded with a pair of the heaviest irons in the prison: but he intended to have made his escape even from this place; and being furnished with files and saws from some of his acquaintance, he worked his way through a wall into a room in which were some women prisoners, one of whom .acquainting the keeper with what had happened, Burnworth was chained to the floor of the condemned hold.

Application was made to the secretary of state, to take measures for the apprehension of Berry, Dickenson, and Blewitt, who had gone over to Holland; and here upon instructions were sent to the English Ambassador at the Hague, empowering him to request of the States General, that the offenders might be delivered up to justice, if found any where within their jurisdiction. The ambassador, on receiving the necessary instructions, made the application, and orders were issued accordingly; in consequence of which Blewitt was apprehended in Rotterdam, but Dickenson and Berry had taken refuge on board a ship at the Brill. Blewitt was lodged in the state-house prison, and then the officers who took him went immediately on board the ship, and seized his two accomplices, whom they brought to the same place of confinement. They were chained to the floor till the English ambassador requested permission to send them home, which being readily obtained, they were guarded to the packet-boat by a party of soldiers, and were chained together as soon as they were put on board. When they reached the Nore, they were met by two of the king's messengers, who conducted them up the river. On the arrival of the vessel, they were put into a boat opposite the Tower, which was guarded by three other boats, in each of which was a corporal and several soldiers. In this manner they were conducted to Westminster, where they were examined by two magistrates, who committed them to Newgate, to which they were escorted by a party of the foot-guards.

On sight of Burnworth, they seemed to pity his situation, while he in a hardened manner, expressed his happiness at their safe arrival from Holland. On the approach of the ensuing assizes for the county of Surrey, they were handcuffed, put into a waggon, and in this manner a party of dragoons conducted them to Kingston. Their insolence on leaving Newgate was unparalleled -- they told the spectators that it would become them to treat gentlemen of their profession with respect, especially as they were going a journey; and likewise said to the dragoons, that they expected to be protected from injury on the road; and during their journey they behaved with great indifference, throwing money among the populace, and diverting themselves by seeing them scramble for it. A boy having picked up a halfpenny, one of a handful which Blewitt had thrown among the people, told him that he would keep that halfpenny, and have his name engraved on it, as sure as he would be hanged at Kingston, on which Blewitt gave him a shilling to pay the expense of engraving, and enjoined him to keep his promise, which it is affirmed, the boy actually did.

On their arrival at Kingston, they were put in the prison called the Stockhouse, where they were chained to the floor; and on the following day, bills of indictment were found against them, they were brought up for trial before Lord Chief Justice Raymond, and Judge Denton, but, some articles having been taken from Burnworth when he was apprehended, he refused to plead, unless they were restored to him. The judges made use of every argument to prevail on him to plead, but in vain; in consequence of which sentence was passed that he should be pressed to death. Hereupon he was taken back to the Stockhouse, where he bore the weight of one hundred, three quarters, and two pounds, on his breast. The high-sheriff who attended him on this occasion, used every argument to prevail on him to plead, to which he consented, after bearing the weight an hour and three minutes, during great part of which time he endeavoured to kill himself, by striking his head against the floor.

Being brought into court, he was tried, and convicted with his companions, They were no sooner convicted, than orders were given for their being chained to the floor; but in this deplorable situation they diverted themselves, by recounting some particulars of their robberies, to such persons whose curiosity induced them to visit the gaol. Some people wished, they would leave an account of their robberies, but Burnworth said the particulars could not be contained in an hundred sheets of paper. On passing sentence the learned judge most earnestly entreated them to prepare for another world, as their time in the present must necessarily be short. They begged that their friends might visit them; and this being complied with, files and saws were conveyed to them, to assist them in their escape. Their plan was to have mixed opium in wine, to have made the keepers sleep; and if this had taken place, they then proposed to have set fire to some piles of  wood near the prison, and in other parts of the town, and to get a considerable distance during the conflagration; but the keepers having listened to their discourse, they were more strictly guarded than before, and their whole scheme rendered abortive. A short time before their execution Burnworth told one of the keepers, that, "If he did not see him buried in a decent manner, he would meet him after death in a dark entry, and pull off his nose."

When the day of execution arrived, the prisoners were put into a cart, and a company of foot soldiers escorted them to the fatal tree. On their way Blewitt saw a gentleman named Warwick, and having obtained permission to speak to him, most earnestly entreated his pardon for having attempted to shoot him, in consequence of an information which Mr. Warwick had given against him. Dickenson and Blewitt appeared more penitent than any of the rest. They wept bitterly at the place of execution, and said, they hoped their untimely fate would teach young men to avoid such courses as had brought them to their fatal end. They suffered April 12, 1726. After execution, their bodies were brought to the new gaol in Southwark, to be fitted with chains. The bodies of Burnworth and Blewitt, were suspended on a gibbet in St. George's Fields, near where the murder was perpetrated. Legee and Higgs were hanged on Putney Common, and Berry and Dickenson on Kennington Common; but representation being made to the people in power, that Dickenson's father, when a lieutenant in the army, had died fighting for his country in Flanders, permission was given to his friends to take down and bury the body, after he had hung one day.

Marjoram, the evidence, obtained his liberty, of course, when his accomplices were convicted: but in a few days afterwards he cut the string of a butcher's apron, and ran away with his steel. Being pursued, he was apprehended, committed, and being indicted for privately stealing, was convicted, and received sentence of death; but in consideration of his having been the means of bringing the above-mentioned atrocious offenders to justice, the sentence of death was changed to that of transportation.

_________________

2: Catherine Hayes

Who with Others foully murdered her Husband, and was burned alive on 9th of May, 1726

CATHERINE HAYES was the daughter of a poor man named Hall, who lived at Birmingham, and having remained with her parents until she was fifteen years of age, a dispute then arose, in consequence of which she set off for London. On her way she met with some officers, who, remarking that her person was engaging, persuaded her to accompany them to their quarters at Great Ombersley, in Worcestershire. Having remained with them some time, she strolled on into Warwickshire, and was there hired into the house of Mr Hayes, a respectable farmer.

An intimacy soon sprang up between her and the son of her master, which ended in a private marriage taking place at Worcester; and an attempt on the part of the officers to entrap young Hayes into enlisting rendered it necessary to disclose the whole affair to the father. He felt that it would be useless now to oppose his son, in consequence of what had taken place, and he set him up in business as a carpenter. Mrs Hayes, however, was of a restless disposition, and persuaded him to enlist, which he did; and his regiment being ordered to the Isle of Wight his wife followed him. His father bought him off, at an expense of sixty pounds, and now gave him property to the value of about twenty-six pounds per annum; but after the marriage had been solemnised about six years Mrs Hayes prevailed on her husband to come to London. On their arrival in the metropolis Mr Hayes took a house, part of which he let in lodgings, and opened a shop in the chandlery and coal trade, in which he was as successful as he could have wished; but exclusive of his profit by shop-keeping he acquired a great deal of money by lending small sums on pledges, for at this time the trade of pawnbroking was followed by anyone at pleasure, and was subjected to no regulation.

Mr Hayes soon found that the disposition of his wife was not of such a nature as to promise him much peace. The chief  pleasure of her life consisted in creating and encouraging quarrels among her neighbours. Sometimes she would speak of her husband to his acquaintances in terms of great tenderness and respect, and at other times she would represent him to her female associates as a compound of everything that was contemptible in human nature. On a particular occasion she told a woman that she should think it no more sin to murder him than to kill a dog. At length her husband thought it prudent to remove to Tottenham Court Road, where he carried on his former business, but he then again removed to Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street). He soon amassed what he considered a sufficient sum to enable him to retire from business, and he accordingly took lodgings near the same spot. A supposed son of Mrs Hayes, by her former connection, who went by the name of Billings, lived in the same house, and he and Mrs Hayes were in the habit of feasting themselves at the expense of the husband of the latter.

During his temporary absence from town her proceedings were so extravagant that the neighbours deemed it right to make her husband aware of the fact; and on his return he remonstrated with her on the subject, when a quarrel took place, which ended in a fight. It is supposed that at this time the design of murdering Mr Hayes was formed by his wife, and it was not long before she obtained a seconder in her horrid project in the person of her reputed son.

At this time a person named Thomas Wood came to town from Worcestershire, and seeking out Hayes persuaded him to give him a lodging, as he was afraid of being impressed. After he had been in town only a few days Mrs Hayes informed him of the plot which existed, and endeavoured to persuade him to join her and her son. He was at first shocked at the notion of murdering his friend and benefactor, and rejected the proposals; but at length Mrs Hayes, alleging that her husband was an atheist, and had already been guilty of murdering two of his own children, one of whom he had buried under an apple-tree, and the other under a pear-tree, and besides urging that fifteen hundred pounds, which would fall to her at his death, should be placed at the disposal of her accomplices, he consented.

Shortly after this Wood went out of town for a few days, but on his return he found Mrs Hayes and her son and husband drinking together, and apparently in good humour. He joined them at the desire of Hayes, and the latter boasting that he was not drunk, although they had had a guinea's worth of liquor among them, Billings proposed that he should try whether he could drink half-a-dozen bottles of mountain wine without getting tipsy, and promised that if he did so he would pay for the wine. The proposal was agreed to, and the three murderers went off to procure the liquor. On their way it was agreed among them that this was the proper opportunity to carry their design into execution, and having procured the wine, for which Mrs Hayes paid half-a-guinea, Mr Hayes began to drink it, while his intended assassins regaled themselves with beer. When he had taken a considerable quantity of the wine he danced about the room like a man distracted, and at length finished the whole quantity; but not being yet in a state of absolute stupefaction, his wife sent for another bottle, which he also drank, and then fell senseless on the floor. Having lain some time in this condition, he got, with much difficulty, into another room, and threw himself on a bed.

When he was asleep his wife told her associates that this was the time to execute their plan, as there was no fear of any resistance on his part, and accordingly Billings went into the room with a hatchet, with which he struck Hayes so violently that he fractured his skull. At this time Hayes's feet hung off the bed, and the torture arising from the blow made him stamp repeatedly on the floor, which being heard by Wood, he also went into the room, and taking the hatchet out of Billings's hand gave the poor man two more blows, which effectually dispatched him. A woman named Springate, who lodged in the room over that where the murder was committed, hearing the noise occasioned by Hayes's stamping, imagined that the parties might have quarrelled in consequence of their intoxication; and going downstairs she told Mrs Hayes that the noise had awakened her husband, her child and herself. Catherine, however, had a ready answer to this: she said some company had visited them, and. had grown merry, but they were on the point of taking their leave; and Mrs Springate returned to her room well satisfied.

The murderers now consulted on the best manner of disposing of the body so as most effectually to prevent detection. Mrs Hayes proposed to cut off the head, because if the body were found whole it would be more likely to be known, and on the villains agreeing to this proposition she fetched a pail, lighted a candle, and all of them went into the room. The men then drew the body partly off the bed, and Billings supported the head while Wood, with his pocket- knife, cut it off, and the infamous woman held the pail to receive it, being as careful as possible that the floor might not be stained with the blood. This being done, they emptied the blood out of the pail into a sink by the window, and poured several pails of water after it. When the head was cut off, the woman recommended boiling it till the flesh should part from the bones; but the other parties thought this operation would take up too much time, and therefore advised throwing it into the Thames, in expectation that it would be carried off by the tide, and would sink.

This agreed to, the head was put into the pail, and Billings took it under his greatcoat, being accompanied by Wood; but making a noise in going downstairs, Mrs Springate called, and asked what was the matter. To this Mrs Hayes answered that her husband was going a journey; and with incredible dissimulation affected to take leave of him, pretending great concern that he was under a necessity of going at so late an hour, and Wood and Billings passed out of the house unnoticed. They first went to Whitehall, where they intended to throw in the head; but the gates being shut they went to a wharf near the Horse Ferry, Westminster. Billings putting down the pail, Wood threw the head into the dock, expecting it would be carried away by the stream; but at this time the tide was ebbing, and a lighter-man, who was then in his vessel, heard something fall into the dock, but it was too dark for him to distinguish any object.

The head being thus disposed of, the murderers returned home, and were admitted by Mrs Hayes without the knowledge of the other lodgers. The body next became the object of their attention, and Mrs Hayes proposed that it should be packed up in a box and buried. The plan was determined upon immediately, and a box purchased, but being found too small, the body was dismembered so as to admit of its being enclosed in it, and was left until night should favour its being carried off. The inconvenience of carrying a box was, however, immediately discovered, and the pieces of the mangled body were therefore taken out and, being wrapped up in a blanket, were carried by Billings and Wood to a field in Marylebone, and there thrown into a pond.

In the meantime the head had been discovered, and the circumstance of a murder having been committed being undoubted, every means was taken to secure the discovery of its perpetrators. The magistrates, with this view, directed that the head should be washed clean, and the hair combed; after which it was put on a pole in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster, that an opportunity might be afforded of its being viewed by the public.

[Note: It was formerly customary to oblige persons suspected of murder to touch the murdered body for the discovery of their guilt or innocence. This way of finding murderers was practised in Denmark by King Christianus II., and permitted over all his kingdom; the occasion whereof was this. Certain gentlemen being on an evening together in a stove, or tavern, fell out among themselves, and from words came to blows (the candles being out), insomuch that one of them was stabbed with a poniard. Now the murderer was unknown by reason of the number, although the person stabbed accused a pursuivant of the king's, who was one of the company. The king, to find out the homicide, caused them all to come together in the stove, and, standing round the corpse, he commanded that they should, one after another, lay their right hand on the slain gentleman's naked breast, swearing that they had not killed him. The gentlemen did so, and no sign appeared against them: the pursuivant only remained, who, condemned before in his own conscience, went first of all and kissed the dead man's feet; but as soon as he had laid his hand upon his breast the blood gushed forth in abundance, out of both his wound and his nostrils; so that, urged by this evident accusation, he confessed the murder, and was, by the king's own sentence, immediately beheaded. Such was the origin of this practice, which was so common in many of the countries in Europe for finding out unknown murderers. ]

Thousands went to witness this extraordinary spectacle; and there were not wanting those among the crowd who expressed their belief among themselves that the head belonged to Hayes. Their suspicions were mentioned by some of them to Billings, but he ridiculed the notion, and declared that Hayes was well, and was only gone out of town for a few days, When the head had been exhibited for four days it was deemed expedient that measures should be taken to preserve it; and Mr Westbrook, a chemist, in consequence received directions to put it into spirits.

Mrs Hayes soon afterwards changed her lodgings, and took the woman Springate with her, paying the rent which she owed, Wood and Billings also accompanying her; and her chief occupation now was that of collecting the debts due to her husband, by means of which she continued to supply her diabolical assistants with money and clothes. Amongst the incredible numbers of people who resorted to see the head was a poor woman from Kingsland, whose husband had been absent from the very time that the murder was perpetrated. After a minute survey of the head she believed it to be that of her husband, though she could not be absolutely positive; but her suspicions were so strong, that strict search was made after the body, on a presumption that the clothes might help her to ascertain it.

Meanwhile, Mr Hayes not being visible for a considerable time, his friends could not help making inquiry after him; and a Mr Ashby in particular, who had been on the most friendly terms with him, called on Mrs Hayes and demanded what had become of her husband. Catherine pretended to account for his absence by communicating the following intelligence, as a matter that must be kept profoundly secret.

"Some time ago," said she, "he happened to have a dispute with a man, and from words they came to blows, so that Mr Hayes killed him. The wife of the deceased made up the affair, on Mr Hayes's promising to pay her a certain annual allowance; but he not being able to make it good, she threatened to inform against him, on which he has absconded."

This story was, however, by no means satisfactory to Mr Ashby, who asked her if the head that had been exposed on the pole was that of the man who had been killed by her husband. She readily answered in the negative, adding that the party had been buried entire, and that the widow had her husband's bond for the payment of fifteen pounds a year. Ashby inquired to what part of the world Mr Hayes had gone, and she said to Portugal, in company with some gentlemen; but she had yet received no letter from him. The whole of this detail seeming highly improbable to Mr Ashby, he went to Mr Longmore, a gentleman nearly related to Hayes; and it was agreed between them that Mr Longmore should call on Catherine and have some conversation with her upon the same subject.

Her story to this gentleman differed in its details from that which she had related to Mr Ashby; and Mr Eaton, also a friend of Mr Hayes, being consulted, they determined first to examine the head, and then, if their suspicions were confirmed, to communicate their belief to the magistrates. Having accordingly minutely examined the head, and come to the conclusion that it must be that of their friend Hayes, they proceeded to Mr Lambert, a magistrate, who immediately issued warrants for the apprehension of Mrs Hayes and Mrs Springate, as well as of Wood and Billings, and proceeded to execute them personally.

Going accordingly to the house in which they all lived, they informed the landlord of their business, and went immediately to the door of Mrs Hayes's room. On the magistrate's rapping, the woman asked, "Who is there?" and he commanded her to open the door directly, or it should be broken open. To this she replied that she would open it as soon as she had put on her clothes; and she did so in little more than a minute; when the justice ordered the parties present to take her into custody. At this time Billings was sitting on the side of the bed, bare-legged. Some of the parties remaining below to secure the prisoners, Mr Longmore went upstairs with the justice and took Mrs Springate into custody; and they were all conducted together to the house of Mr Lambert. This magistrate having examined the prisoners separately for a considerable time, and all of them positively persisting in their ignorance of anything respecting the murder, they were severally committed for re-examination on the following day, before Mr Lambert and other magistrates. Mrs Springate was sent to the Gatehouse, Billings to New Prison, and Mrs Hayes to Tothill Fields Bridewell.

When the peace officers, attended by Longmore, went the next day to fetch up Catherine to her examination, she earnestly desired to see the head; and it being thought prudent to grant her request, she was carried to the surgeon's; and no sooner was the head shown to her than she exclaimed:

"Oh, it is my dear husband's head! It is my dear husband's head!"

She now took the glass in her arms and shed many tears while she embraced it. Mr Westbrook told her that he would take the head out of the glass that she might have a more perfect view of it and be certain that it was the same; and the surgeon doing as he had said, she seemed to be greatly affected; and having kissed it several times, she begged to be indulged with a lock of the hair; and on Mr Westbrook expressing his apprehension that she had had too much of his blood already, she fell into a fit. On her recovery she was conducted to Mr Lambert's, to take her examination with the other parties.

It is somewhat remarkable that it was on the morning of this day that the body was discovered. As a gentleman and his servant were crossing the fields at Marylebone they observed something lying in a ditch, and on going nearer to it they perceived that it was some parts of a human body. Assistance being procured, the whole of the body was found except the head; and information of the circumstance was conveyed to Mr Lambert at the very moment at which he was examining the prisoners. The suspicions which already existed were strengthened by this circumstance, and Mrs Hayes was committed to Newgate for trial; the committal of Billings and Mrs Springate, however, being deferred until the apprehension of Wood.

The latter soon after coming into town, and riding up to Mrs Hayes's lodgings, was directed to go to the house of Mr Longmore, where he was told he would find Mrs Hayes; but the brother of Longmore, standing at the door, immediately seized him, and caused him to be carried before Mr Lambert. He underwent an examination; but refusing to make any confession, he was sent to Tothill Fields Bridewell. On his arrival at the prison he was informed that the body had been found; and, not doubting but that the whole affair would come to light, he begged that he might be carried back to the justice's house. This being made known to Mr Lambert, the prisoner was brought up, and he then acknowledged the particulars of the murder, and signed his confession. This wretched man owned that since the perpetration of the crime he had been terrified at the sight of everyone he met, that he had not experienced a moment's peace, and that his mind had been distracted with the most violent agitation.

His commitment to Newgate was immediately made out, and he was conducted to that prison under the escort of eight soldiers with fixed bayonets, whose whole efforts were necessary to protect him from the violence of the mob. A Mr Mercer visiting Mrs Hayes in prison, she begged him to go to Billings and urge him to confess the whole truth, as no advantage, she said, could be expected to arise from a denial of that which was too clearly proved to admit of denial; and he being carried before justice Lambert again gave an account precisely concurring with that of Wood. Mrs Springate, whose innocence was now distinctly proved, was set at liberty.

At the trial Wood and Billings confessed themselves guilty of the crime alleged against them, but Mrs Hayes, flattering herself that as she had said nothing she had a chance of escape, put herself upon her trial; but the jury found her guilty. The prisoners being afterwards brought to the bar to receive sentence, Mrs Hayes entreated that she might not be burned, according to the then law of petty treason, alleging that she was not guilty, as she did not strike the fatal blow; but she was informed by the Court that the sentence awarded by the law could not be dispensed with.

After conviction the behaviour of Wood was uncommonly penitent and devout; but while in the condemned hold he was seized with a violent fever, and being attended by a clergyman, to assist him in his devotions, he said he was ready to suffer death, under every mark of ignominy, as some atonement for the atrocious crime he had committed. But he died in prison, and thus defeated the final execution of the law. Billings behaved with apparent sincerity, acknowledging the justice of his sentence, and saying that no punishment could be commensurate with the crime of which he had been guilty. He was executed in the usual manner, and hung in chains not far from the pond in which Mr Hayes's body was found, in Marylebone Fields.

The behaviour of Mrs Hayes was somewhat similar to her former conduct. Having an intention to destroy herself, she procured a phial of strong poison, which was casually tasted by a woman who was confined with her, and her design thereby discovered and frustrated. On the day of her death she received the Sacrament, and was drawn on a sledge to the place of execution. When the wretched woman had finished her devotions, in pursuance of her sentence an iron chain was put round her body, with which she was fixed to a stake near the gallows. On these occasions, when women were burned for petty treason, it was customary to strangle them, by means of a rope passed round the neck and pulled by the executioner, so that they were dead before the flames reached the body. But this woman was literally burned alive; for the executioner letting go the rope sooner than usual, in consequence of the flames reaching his hands, the fire burned fiercely round her, and the spectators beheld her pushing away the faggots, while she rent the air with her cries and lamentations.

Other faggots were instantly thrown on her; but she survived amidst the flames for a considerable time, and her body was not perfectly reduced to ashes until three hours later. These malefactors suffered at Tyburn, 9th of May, 1726.

[Note: Until the thirtieth year of the reign of King George III. this punishment was inflicted on women convicted of murdering their husbands, which crime was denominated petit treason, It has frequently, from some accident happening in strangling the malefactor, produced the horrid effects above related. In the reign of Mary (the cruel) this death was commonly practised upon the objects of her vengeance; and many bishops, rather than deny their religious opinions, were burned even without previous strangulation. It was high time this part of the sentence, a type of barbarism, should be dispensed with. The punishment now inflicted for this most unnatural and abhorred crime is hanging.]

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1727

3: Richard Savage, Esq. (The Celebrated Poet, Son of the Earl of Rivers and the Unnatural Countess of Macclesfield), James Gregory, Esq., and William Merchant, Esq.

Murderers who escaped Death

RICHARD SAVAGE -- a name the mention of which cannot fail to excite in every feeling mind the deepest emotions of pity, and whose almost unparalleled persecution, by an abandoned mother, tends to efface  all recollection even of his many frailties -- was born in 1698, having been the son of Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, by Captain Savage, afterwards Earl of Rivers. He might have been considered the lawful issue of Lord Macclesfield; but his mother, in order to procure a separation from her husband, made a public confession of adultery in this instance.

As soon as her spurious offspring was brought to light, the countess treated him with every kind of unnatural cruelty. She committed him to the care of a poor woman to educate as her own, and prevented the Earl of Rivers from making him a bequest of £6,000 by declaring he was already dead. She endeavoured to send him secretly to the American plantations; and at last, to bury him in obscurity and indigence for ever, placed him as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Holborn. About this period his nurse died; and, in searching her effects, Savage found some letters which unravelled the mystery of his origin. He therefore left his low occupation, and tried every method, but without avail, to awaken the tenderness and attract the regard of his mother. Being thus thrown upon the world without the aid of any fostering hand, he availed himself of the portion of learning he had acquired at the grammar school of St. Albans, and commenced author.

Savage's early productions do not seem to have afforded him either fame or profit; but in 1723 he produced a tragedy, in which himself performed a principal character, entitled "Sir Thomas Overbury"; during his employment upon which he is said to have been without a lodging, and often without food; possessing no other conveniences for study than the fields or the street; and, when he had composed a speech, stepping into a shop, and begging the use of pen, ink, and paper. The profits of this play appear to have amounted to £200; and the world was beginning to regard this victim of maternal heartlessness with a more favourable eye, when the accident occurred which put not only his reputation but his life itself into jeopardy, and brought the name of Richard Savage within the gloomy boundaries of our criminal chronology.

We have before adverted to the frailties of the subject of this memoir. He was proud, vain, and dissipated; and the narrative we are about to give will show that he was destitute of that command over his passions which should be indicated in the conduct of every wise and virtuous man. But let the humane reader pause before he passes too severe a judgment upon poor Savage; and suffer the remembrance of his forlorn condition and unheard-of wrongs to cover, at least to a certain extent, "a multitude of sins."

In the month of December, 1727, this gentleman, together with James Gregory and William Merchant, was indicted at the Old Bailey, for the murder of James Sinclair:― Savage by giving him a mortal wound with a drawn sword in the lower part of the belly; and Gregory and Merchant by aiding and abetting in the commission of the said murder.

It appeared in evidence that these three gentlemen had accidentally come, at a late hour, much disguised in liquor, to Robinson's coffee-house at Charing Cross, and went into a room where Mr. Sinclair and other company were drinking. Merchant, entering first, kicked down the table; and Savage and Gregory drawing their swords, they were earnestly desired to put them up, but refused to do so.

A scuffle ensued, in which Mr. Sinclair received a mortal wound, and was heard to say "I am a dead man": soon after which the candles were extinguished.

Another witness deposed that, as he and some other company were on the point of leaving the house, the prisoners came in, when Merchant kicked down the table, and Gregory, going up to the deceased, said, "Damn ye, you rascal, deliver your sword"; on which weapons were drawn, and the deceased wounded, as above mentioned: that the deceased had his sword drawn when the word was given by Savage; but that he held it with the point down towards the ground; but neither this deponent nor the former observed that Merchant had any sword.

There were several other witnesses to prove the fact; but it may be now proper to mention how it happened that the parties accused came to the house where it occurred. Mr. Savage had at the time a lodging at Richmond, and another at London; and having come to town to pay off the latter, and casually meeting with Gregory and Merchant, with whom he had been acquainted for some time past, they went to a coffee-house, where they drank till late in the evening. Savage would have engaged a bed at this place; but there not being accommodations for him, he and his friends went into the street, proposing to spend the night as they could, and in the morning to walk to Richmond. Strolling about, they saw a light in Robinson's coffee-house, into which they entered, and the fatal consequence ensued which we have already recited.

The perpetrators of this rash action having left the house, some soldiers were sent for, by whom they were taken into custody, and lodged in the round-house; and in the morning were carried before a magistrate, who committed them to the Gatehouse; but Mr. Sinclair dying on the following day, they were sent to Newgate.

The deceased had been attended by a clergyman, who declared that he said he was stabbed before he had time to draw his sword; and his testimony was confirmed by that of other witnesses.

When the evidence was summed up, the Court observed to the jury, that, "As the deceased and his companions were in possession of the room, if the prisoners were the aggressors, by coming into that room, kicking down the table, and immediately thereupon drawing their swords, without provocation, &c. it was murder, not only in him who gave the wound, but in those who aided and abetted him."

After a trial of eight hours, the jury found Savage and Gregory guilty of murder, and Merchant guilty of manslaughter: in consequence of which the latter was burnt in the hand and discharged.

On the 11th of December, 1727, Richard Savage and James Gregory were brought to the bar, with other capital convicts, to receive sentence of death; and being asked, in the customary manner, what they had to say why judgment should not be duly passed, Savage spoke as follows:

"It is now, my lords, too late to offer anything by way of defence or vindication; not can we expect aught from your lordships in this Court but the sentence which the law requires you, as judge, to pronounce against men in our calamitous condition. ―But we are also persuaded that as mere men, and out of this seat of rigorous justice, you are susceptible of the tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation of those whom the law sometimes perhaps exacts from you to pronounce sentence upon.

"No doubt you distinguish between offences which arise out of premeditation and a disposition habitual to vice or immorality, and transgressions which are the unhappy and unforeseen effects of a casual absence of reason and sudden impulse of passion; we, therefore, hope you will contribute all you can to an extension of that mercy which the gentle men of the jury have been pleased to show Mr. Merchant, who (allowing facts as sworn against us by the evidence) has led us into this calamity. "I hope this will not be construed as if we meant to reflect upon that gentleman, or remove anything from us upon him, or that we repine the more at our fate because he has no participation of it: no, my lord! for my part, I declare nothing could more soften my grief than to be without any companion in so great a misfortune."

It will scarcely be believed that, at this critical juncture, the inhuman countess exerted all her influence to prejudice the queen against her unhappy child, and to render unavailing every intercession that might be made to procure for him the royal mercy: at length, however, the Countess of Hertford having laid an account of the extraordinary story and sufferings of poor Savage before her majesty, a pardon was obtained for him and his companion, and they were accordingly set at liberty on the 5th of March, 1728.

Our author had now recovered his liberty, but was destitute of all means of subsistence; and his latter days appear to have been spent, for the most part, in abject poverty. His distresses do not, however, seem to have overcome him. In his lowest sphere his pride sustained his spirits, and set him on a level with those of the highest rank. After enduring numberless privations, and disgusting almost all his friends by the heedlessness (and we are afraid we must add the ingratitude) of his disposition, Savage expired at Bristol, where he had been imprisoned for debt, August, 1743, in his 46th year, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter, at the expense of the gaoler.

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1728

4: Margaret Dixon

Who was married a Few Days after she was hanged for Murder in 1728

THIS remarkable woman was the daughter of poor parents, who lived at Musselburgh, about five miles from Edinburgh, and who brought up their child in the practice of religious duties, having instructed her in such household business as was likely to suit her future situation in life. The village of Musselburgh was then almost entirely inhabited by gardeners, fishermen and persons employed in making salt. The husbands having prepared the several articles for sale, the wives carried them to Edinburgh, and procured a subsistence by crying them through the streets of that city.

When Margaret Dixon had attained years of maturity she was married to a fisherman, by whom she had several children. But there being a want of seamen, her husband was impressed into the naval service; and during his absence from Scotland his wife had an illicit connection with a man at Musselburgh, in consequence of which she became pregnant. At this time it was the law in Scotland that a woman known to have been unchaste should sit in a distinguished place in the church on three Sundays, to be publicly rebuked by the minister; and many poor infants have been destroyed because the mother dreaded this pubic exposure, particularly as many Scottish ladies went to church to be witnesses of the frailty of a sister who were never seen there on any other occasion.

The neighbours of Mrs Dixon averred that she was with child; but this she constantly denied. At length, however, she was delivered of a child; but it is uncertain whether it was born alive or not. Be this as it may, she was taken into custody, and lodged in the jail of Edinburgh. When her trial for child-murder came on several witnesses deposed that she had been frequently pregnant; others proved that there were signs of her having been delivered, and that a new-born infant had been found near the place of her residence. A surgeon deposed that, putting the lungs of the infant in water, they were found to swim,  which was deemed a proof that the child had been born alive. For it was a received opinion that, if no air be ever drawn into the lungs, they will not swim; but this circumstance is a matter of doubt even among the gentlemen of the faculty. The jury, giving credit to the evidence against her, brought in a verdict of guilty; in consequence of which she was doomed to die.

After her condemnation she behaved in the most penitent manner, confessed that she had been guilty of many sins, and even owned that she had departed from the line of duty to her husband; but she constantly and steadily denied that she had murdered her child, or even formed an idea of so horrid a crime. She owned that the far of being exposed to the ridicule of her neighbours in the church has tempted her to deny that she was pregnant; and she said that, being suddenly seized with the pangs of childbirth, she was unable to procure the assistance of her neighbours; and that a state of insensibility ensued, so it was impossible she should know what became of her infant.

At the place of execution her behaviour was consistent with her former declaration. She avowed her total innocence of the crime of which she was convicted, but confessed the sincerest sorrow for all her other sins. After execution her body was cut down and delivered to her friends, who put it into a coffin and sent it in a cart to be buried at her native place; but, the weather being sultry, the persons who had the body in their care stopped to drink at a village called Pepper Mill, about two miles from Edinburgh. While they were refreshing themselves one of them perceived the lid of the coffin move, and, uncovering it, the woman immediately sat up, and most of the spectators ran off, with every sign of trepidation. It happened that a person who was then drinking in the public-house had recollection enough to bleed her, and in about an hour she was put to bed; and by the following morning she was so far recovered as to be able to walk to her own house.

By the Scottish law, which is in part founded on that of the Romans, a person against whom the judgment of the Court has been executed can suffer no more in future, but is thenceforward totally exculpated; and it is likewise held that a marriage is dissolved by the execution of the convicted party― which indeed is consistent with the ideas that common sense would form on such an occasion.

Mrs Dixon, then, being convicted and executed as above mentioned, the King's advocate could prosecute her no further; but he filed a bill in the High Court of Justiciary against the sheriff for omitting to fulfil the law. The husband of this revived convict married her publicly a few days after she was hanged; and she constantly denied that she had been guilty of the alleged crime. She was living as late as the year 1753. This singular transaction took place in the year 1728.

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5: Edward Bellamy

A Daring Shop-Robber, who was executed at Tyburn On 27th of March, 1728

THIS malefactor was a native of London, and served his time to a tailor; but his apprenticeship was no sooner expired than he associated with some women of ill-fame, and became a thief in order to support their extravagance. His commencement in the art of theft was with a number of young pickpockets, and he soon became an adept in the profession. From this business they advanced a step further. They used to go, three or four in company, to the shops of silversmiths in the evening, and while one of them cheapened some article of small value, his companions used to secrete something of greater. It was likewise a practice with them to walk the streets at night, and, forcing up the windows of shops with a chisel, run off with any property that lay within their reach.

Having followed this infamous business about three years, he forged (an offence not then capital) a note, by which he defrauded a linen-draper of money to a considerable amount. Being taken into custody for this forgery he was lodged in Newgate, but discharged without being brought to trial, his friends having found means to accommodate the matter with the injured party.

A short time after he left Newgate he made connections with Jonathan Wild, who used frequently to borrow money from Mr Wildgoose, who kept an inn in Smithfield; and Bellamy, wishing to become acquainted with a man whom he thought he could make subservient to his interest, applied to Jonathan to recommend him to Wildgoose, but this the famous thief-taker absolutely refused.

Having often gone with messages and notes from Jonathan to Wildgoose, and being well acquainted with the hand- writing of the former, he forged a draft on the latter for ten guineas, which Wildgoose paid without hesitation; and as soon as Bellamy had got the money he omitted to pay his usual visits at Wild's office.

A few days after this transaction Wild went to his acquaintance to borrow some money, when Wildgoose told him he had paid his draft for the above-mentioned sum, and producing the note, Jonathan could not be certain that it was not his own handwriting otherwise than by recollecting that he had never given such a draft. Wildgoose was unacquainted with Bellamy's name; but by the description of his person Jonathan soon found who had committed the forgery, on which he ordered his myrmidons to be careful to apprehend the offender. Bellamy was soon found in a lodging in Whitefriars, and Jonathan's men sent word to their master that they had him in custody, and begged he would give orders how they should dispose of him. In the interim Bellamy, who expected no mercy from the old thief-taker, seized the advantage of the casual absence of his attendants from the room, fixed a rope to the bar of the window, and let himself into the street, though the room was three storeys high.

He now entertained thoughts of accommodating the affair with Wild, imagining he should be treated with the utmost severity if he should be reapprehended; but before he had proceeded in this negotiation Wild's men seized him at a gin-shop in Chancery Lane, and sent to their master for instructions how to act. To this message Jonathan returned an answer that they might give him his liberty on condition that he should come to the office and adjust the business with himself.

Thereupon Bellamy was discharged: but, knowing how dangerous it would be to affront Wild, he went the following morning to a public-house in the Old Bailey, where he sent for Jonathan to breakfast with him; and, the latter sending for Wildgoose, Bellamy gave him a note for the money received, and no further steps were taken in the affair.

As soon as this business was adjusted, Bellamy renewed his former plan of making depredations on the public, and committed an immense number of robberies in the City of London. He and one of his gang having broken the sash of a silversmith's shop in Russel-court, Drury-lane, a person who lay under the counter fired a blunderbuss at them, which obliged them to decamp without their booty. This attempt failing, they went to the house of another silversmith, which they broke open, and finding the servant-maid sitting up for her master, they terrified her into silence, and carried off effects to a large amount.

Not long after this robbery, they broke open the shop of a grocer near Shoreditch, in the expectatton at finding cash to a great amount; but the proprietor having previously secured it, they got only about ten pounds of tea, and the loose money in the tin.

Their next attempt was at the house of a hosier in Widegate alley, from whose shop they carried off some goods of value, which they sold to the Jews on the following day.

From the shop of a silversmith in Bride-lane, they carried off plate to the amount of fifty pounds; and from the house of a haberdasher in Bishopsgate-street, a load of various articles, the whole of which they disposed of to the Jews.

On another occasion, they broke open a tea shop near Gray's-Inn-lane; having removed the shutters, by cutting away part of them with chisels, they were going to lift up the sash, when a person from within hearing them, cried out thieves! on which they ran off without their booty.

Having broke into a tea-warehouse near Aldgate, they had packed up a valuable parcel of goods, when the maid servant came down stairs, undressed, and without a candle. Having gone into the yard, she returned, without knowing that they were in the house; but when she came into the shop, Bellamy seized her, and obliged her to lay on the floor, while they went off with their booty; and the same night they broke open the shop of a mercer in Bishopsgate-street, whence they carried off goods to a large amount.

Their next robbery was at the house of a grocer in Thames street. The watchman passing by as they were packing up their booty, Bellamy seized him and obliged him to put out his candle, to prevent any alarm being given. Having kept him till they were ready to go off with their plunder, they took him to the side of the Thames, and threatened to throw him in, if he would not throw in his lanthorn and staff. It need not be said that the poor man was obliged to comply with their injunctions.

Soon after this they stole a large sum of money, and a quantity of goods, from the house of a grocer which they broke open in Aldersgate-street. A neighbour saw this robbery from his window, but was too much frightened to take any measures for the detection of the villains.

Their next exploit was at an old clothes-shop, kept by a woman in Shadwell, whence they carried off every valuable article; and after this they robbed the shop of a hosier in Coleman-street, and took away goods to the amount of seventy pounds, which the thieves divided into shares, and sold them to their old acquaintance the Jews.

They were disappointed in their next attempt, which was to break open the house of a linen-draper in Westminster: for some people coming up before they had completed their operations, they were obliged to decamp with precipitation.

On the evening after this transaction, observing the door of a shop shut in St. Clement's churchyard, they made it fast with a cord on the outside, and throwing up the sash, stole a very large number of silk handkerchiefs, while the woman in the shop made many fruitless attempts to open the door; and they stole a variety of plate, wearing apparel, and other effects, the same nigh; from two houses in Holborn.

While they were thus rendering themselves the mere pests of society they became intimate with an old woman who had opened an office near Leicester Fields for the reception of stolen goods, something on the plan of that of Jonathan Wild. To this woman Bellamy and his companions used to sell much of their ill-gotten effects; but she having, on one occasion, given a smaller price than they expected, Bellamy determined on a plan of revenge; in pursuance of which he went to her office with a small quantity of stolen plate, and while she was gone with it to a silversmith he carried off her cash, to a large amount. At length he robbed a shop in Monmouth Street. But by this time he had rendered himself so conspicuous for his daring villainies that a reward of one hundred pounds was offered for apprehending him; in consequence of which he was taken, near the Seven Dials, on the following day, and committed to Newgate.

For this last fact he was tried, convicted, and received sentence. Form this time until the arrival of the warrant for his execution, he affected a cheerfulness of behaviour, and said, that he would be hanged in his shroud. But the certainty that he should suffer, and the sight of his coffin, excited more serious ideas in his mind; and he received the sacrament before his death, with evident marks of repentance for the many crimes of which he had been guilty. He was executed at Tyburn; and just before he was turned off made a speech to the surrounding multitude, in which he confessed his numerous offences, and acknowledged the justice of his sentence.

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1729

6: John Everett

Highwayman, Turnkey and Ale-House Keeper. Executed at Tyburn, 20th of February, 1729

JOHN EVERETT was a native of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, and had been well educated, his father possessing three hundred pounds per annum. He was apprenticed to a salesman, but running away from his master he entered into the army and served in Flanders, where he behaved so well that he was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

On the return of his regiment to England he purchased his discharge, and repairing to London bought the place of an officer in Whitechapel Court, in which he continued about seven years; but having given liberty to some persons whom he had arrested, one Charlesworth, a solicitor of that court, caused him to be discharged, and then sued him for the amount of the debts of the parties whom his inconsiderate good nature had liberated. To evade imprisonment Everett enlisted in Lord Albemarle's company of Foot Guards. Soon after his re-engaging in the army he fell into company with Richard Bird, with whom he had been formerly acquainted.

This Bird hinted that great advantages might be acquired in a particular way if Everett could be trusted, and the latter, anxious to know what the plan was, learned that it was to go on the road; on which an agreement was immediately concluded. Thereupon they set out on their expedition, and robbed several stages in the counties adjacent to London, from which they obtained considerable booty, in jewels, money and valuable effects. Thus successful in their first exploits they went to Hounslow Heath, where they stopped two military officers who were attended by servants armed with blunderbusses; but they obliged them to submit, and robbed them of their money and watches. The watches were afterwards left, according to agreement, at a coffee-house near Charing Cross, and the thieves received twenty guineas for restoring them.

Soon after they stopped a gentleman in an open chaise near Epsom. The gentleman drew his sword and made several passes at them, yet they robbed him of his watch, two guineas, his sword and some writings; but they returned the writings at the earnest request of the injured party. They also made a practice of robbing the butchers and higglers in Epping Forest, on their way to London. One of these robberies was singular. Meeting with an old woman, a higgler, they searched the lining of a high-crowned hat, which she said had been her mother's, in which they found about three pounds, but returned her hat.

Soon after this they stopped a coach on Hounslow Heath in which were two Quakers, who, calling them sons of violence, jumped out of the coach to oppose them; but their fellow-travellers making no resistance, and begging them to submit, all the parties were robbed of their money. Everett, remarking that one of the Quakers wore a remarkably good wig, snatched it from his head and gave him in return an old black tie, which he had purchased for half-a-crown from a Chelsea pensioner. This sudden metamorphosis caused great mirth among the other company in the coach.

About ten days after this he and his companion walked to Hillingdon Common, where, seeing two gentlemen on horseback, Everett stopped the foremost, and Bird the other, and robbed them of upwards of three guineas and their gold watches; they then cut the girths of their saddles and secured the bridles, to prevent pursuit.  They now hastened to Brentford, where, understanding that they were followed, they got into the ferry to cross the Thames; and when they were three parts over, so that the river was fordable, they gave the ferrymen ten shillings and obliged them to throw their oars into the river. They then jumped overboard and got on shore, while the spectators thought it was a drunken frolic, and the robbers got safe to London.

Some time after this, Everett was convicted of an attempt to commit a robbery on the highway, for which he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in New Prison, Clerkenwell. After some time he was employed to act here as turnkey, and, his conduct meeting with approbation, he remained in that station after the term of his imprisonment was expired; but the keeper dying, he took a public-house in Turnmill Street. He had not been long in this station when the new keeper who had been appointed frequently called on him and made him advantageous offers, on the condition of his reassuming the office of turnkey. This he did. But when Everett had perfectly instructed him in the management of the prison he dismissed him, without assigning any reason for such ungenerous conduct. Everett being now greatly in debt, and consequently obliged to remove within the rules of the Fleet Prison, took a public-house in the Old Bailey. After which he took the Cock ale-house, in the same street, which he kept three years with reputation, when the Warden of the Fleet persuaded him to keep the tap-house of the said prison.

While in this station he was charged with being concerned with the keeper in some malpractices, for which the House of Commons ordered him to be confined in Newgate; but he obtained his liberty at the end of the sessions, as no bill had been found against him. During his confinement his brewer seized his stock of beer, to the amount of above three hundred pounds, which reduced him to circumstances of great distress. He even now resolved on a life of industry if he could get employment, but his character was such that no person would engage him.

Thus perplexed, he once more equipped himself for the highway, with a view, as he solemnly declared after sentence of death, to raise only fifty pounds, as his brewer would have given him credit if he could have possessed himself of that sum. Having stopped a coach on the Hampstead road, in which were a lady, her daughter, and a child about five years old, the child was so terrified at his presenting a pistol, that he withdrew it at the request of the lady, who gave him a guinea and some silver; and though he observed she had a watch and some gold rings, &c, he did not demand them. Some company riding up, he was followed to the end of Leather Lane, where he evaded the pursuit by turning into Hatton Garden, and going into the Globe tavern. Here he called for wine, and, while he was drinking, he saw his pursuers pass; on which he paid his reckoning, and slipped into a public house in Holborn, where he again saw them pass.

Thinking himself safe, he remained here a considerable time. When he thought the pursuit was over, he called a coach at the end of Brook Street, and, driving to Honey Lane Market, purchased a duck for his supper, and a turkey for his Christmas dinner: he then went to his lodging in Newgate Market.

On the following day one Whitaker (called "the boxing drover"), circulated a report that Everett had committed a highway robbery; on which the latter loaded a brace of pistols, and vowed he would be revenged. He went to Islington in search of Whitaker, and visited several public houses which he used to frequent but, not meeting with him, the crime of murder was happily prevented. A woman in the neighbourhood of Newgate Market having buried her husband, who had left her enough to support herself and children with decency, Everett repeatedly visited the widow, was received with too great marks of esteem, and assisted her in the dissipation of that money which should have provided for her family. The widow's son, jealous of this connexion, remonstrated with his mother on the impropriety of her conduct, and told her it would end in her ruin. This made Everett and her more cautious in their meetings; but the son watched them with the utmost degree of vigilance and circumspection. Having one evening observed them go to the tavern, he provided himself with a large and sharp knife, and, entering the room where they were sitting, swore he would stab Everett to the heart; but the latter, by superiority of strength, disarmed him. The young fellow was at length persuaded to sit down, when Everett assured him that he entertained the utmost respect both for himself and his mother; but the youth answered he was a liar, and the mutual destruction both of mother and children must follow their unlawful connexion.

As the lad grew warm, Everett affected great coolness and good humour, and considered how he might most readily get rid of so unwelcome a guest, as he was unwilling so soon to part with the widow. At length he determined to make the young fellow drunk, and plied him with such a quantity of liquor that he fell fast asleep, in which condition he was left, while the other parties adjourned to a distant tavern, where they remained till morning, when Everett borrowed seven guineas of the widow, under pretence of paying her in a week. Not long after this Everett was married to this very widow at Stepney church, by which he came into possession of money and plate to a considerable amount, and might have lived happily with her if he would have taken her advice; but the extravagance of his disposition led to his ruin.

When he was in very low circumstances he casually met his old accomplice, Bird, and joined with him in the commission of a robbery in Essex. They were both taken, and lodged in Chelmsford gaol; but Everett having turned evidence, the other was convicted and executed. As soon as he obtained his liberty he committed several robberies in the neighbour hood of London, the last of which was on a lady named Ellis, whom he stopped near Islington; but, being taken into custody on the following day, he was tried, and capitally convicted. He had been married to three wives, who all visited him after sentence of death. He was likewise visited by the son of the widow; but, recollecting what had formerly passed between them, Everett would have stabbed him with a penknife, but was prevented by one of his wives; for which interposition he afterwards expressed the greatest happiness.

What gave him the most uneasiness was the crime of perjury, of which he had been guilty, with a view to take away the life of an innocent man. One Pickett, a cooper, having affronted him, he swore a robbery against him; but, the jury not being satisfied with the evidence, the man was fortunately acquitted. Mr. Nicholson, the then minister of St. Sepulchre's church, attended the prisoner while under sentence of  death, and kindly exerted himself to convince him of the atrocious nature of his offences; but the number of people who visited him from motives of curiosity took off his attention from his more important duties. However, he was at times serious, and would then advise his brethren in affliction to prepare for that death which now appeared unavoidable.

The gaol distemper having seized him while in Newgate, a report was propagated that he had taken poison, but this was totally false. At the place of execution, at Tyburn, February 20, 1729, he behaved in such a manner as induced the spectators to think that his penitence for his past crimes was unaffected.

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7: Major John Oneby

Who murdered a Man in a Duel and cheated the Gallows, 1729

MAJOR ONEBY was the son of an eminent attorney at Burnwell, in Leicestershire. His father intended him for his own honourable profession, and procured him a marriage with the niece of the celebrated Sir Nathan Wright, who was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.  Sir Nathan appointed him to be his train-bearer― no invaluable place, but greatly inferior to what the young gentleman's ambition had taught him to aspire to. However he kept his place some time, in expectation of preferment; but failing in his views of promotion in this line he bought a commission in the army.

He served under the Duke of Marlborough in several campaigns in Flanders, and was promoted in the army as the reward of his military merit. While in winter quarters at Bruges, at the close of one of these campaigns, he had a quarrel with another officer, which occasioned a duel, and Oneby, having killed the other, was brought to his trial before a court martial, which acquitted him of the murder.

The regiment being soon afterwards ordered to Jamaica, Mr Oneby went with it, and during his residence at Port Royal fought another duel with a brother officer, whom he wounded in so dangerous a manner that he expired after an illness of several months; but as he did not instantly die, no further notice was taken of the affair.

The rank of Major in a regiment of dragoons had been conferred on Mr Oneby in consequence of his services; but on the Peace of Utrecht he returned to England, and was reduced to half-pay. Repairing to London he frequented the gaming-houses, and became so complete a gambler that he commonly carried cards and dice in his pockets.

Having fallen into company with some gentlemen at a coffee-house in Covent Garden, they all adjourned to the Castle Tavern, in Drury Lane, where they went to cards. Mr Hawkins, who was of the company, having declined playing, Mr Rich asked if anyone would bet him three half-crowns. The bet was apparently accepted by William Gower, Esq., who, in ridicule, laid down three halfpence. On this Major Oneby abused Gower and threw a bottle at him; and, in return, Gower threw a glass at the other.

Swords were immediately drawn on both sides, but Mr Rich interposing, the parties were apparently reconciled, and sat down to their former diversion. Gower seemed inclined to compromise the difference, saying that he was willing to adjust the affair though the Major had been the aggressor. In answer to this Oneby said he "would have his blood," and said to Mr Hawkins that the mischief had been occasioned by him. Hawkins replied he was ready to answer, if he had anything to say; to which Oneby said: "I have another chap first."

Mr Hawkins left the company about three o'clock in the morning; soon after which Mr Oneby rose and said to Gower: "Hark ye, young gentleman, a word with you"; on which they retired to another room and shut the door. A clashing of swords being heard by the company, the waiter broke open the door, and on their entrance they found Oneby holding Gower with his left hand, having his sword in the right, and Mr Gower's sword lying on the floor. A surgeon of eminence having examined Mr Gower's wounds, it was found that the sword of his antagonist had passed through his intestines, of which wound he died the following day; on which Mr Oneby was apprehended and lodged in Newgate.

The circumstances above mentioned were stated on his trial; but some doubts arising in the minds of the jury, they brought in a special verdict, referable to the opinion of the twelve judges. Mr Oneby having remained in Newgate two years, and the judges not having met to give their opinion, he became impatient of longer confinement, and therefore moved the Court of King's Bench that counsel might be heard on his case.

Thereupon the prisoner was carried into court, by virtue of a writ of habeas corpus; and the record of the special verdict being read, the Reverend Bench, with great humanity, assigned him two counsel, a solicitor and a clerk in court.  Lord Chief Justice Raymond and three other judges presided a few days afterwards, when the Major was again brought up, his counsel, as well as those for the Crown, being heard; after which the Lord Chief Justice declared that he would take an opportunity of having the opinion of the other judges, and then the prisoner should be informed of the event.

The Major, on his return to Newgate, gave a handsome dinner, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, to the persons who had the custody of him; and, seeming to be in high spirits on account of the ingenious arguments used by his counsel, entertained little doubt of being discharged.  After a considerable time the judges assembled at Serjeant's Inn Hall to bring the matter to a final decision. Counsel were heard on both sides, and the pleadings lasted a whole day, during which the Major was carousing with his friends in Newgate, and boasting of the certainty of his escape, as he had only acted in conformity with the character of a man of honour.

The judges broke up about ten o'clock at night without declaring their opinion.

Not many days after this the keeper of Newgate told the Major he must double-iron him, to prevent his making his escape, and that he must be removed to a safer place, unless he would pay for a man to attend him in his room. Oneby was shocked at this news and asked the keeper's authority for such a proceeding, but he could obtain no satisfactory answer.

The man appointed to attend the Major in his room was one John Hooper (who was afterwards executioner), a fellow of remarkable drollery, but of such a forbidding countenance that when Oneby first saw him he exclaimed: "What the devil do you bring this fellow here for? Whenever I look at him I shall think of being hanged." Hooper, however, by a knack of telling stories, soon made himself a very agreeable companion to the Major.

At length the judges assembled again at Serjeant's Inn Hall, and having declared their opinions to each other, the Counsel for the Prosecution demanded that their Lordships would proceed to judgment. Thereupon the sense of the Bench was delivered to Mr Oneby by Lord Raymond, who said that it was the unanimous opinion of the judges that he had been guilty of murder, and that his declaring he would "have the blood" of Gower had great weight in his disfavour.

A few days after this judgment of death was passed against him, and he was ordered to be executed. On the Saturday preceding the day that he was ordered for execution an undertaker went to Newgate and delivered him a letter, of which the following is a copy, saying that he would wait below for an answer:

HONOURED SIR,

This is to inform you that I follow the business of an undertaker in Drury Lane, where I have lived many years and am well known to several of your friends. As you are to die on Monday, and have not, as I suppose, spoken to anybody else about your funeral, if your honour shall think fit to give me orders, I will perform it as cheap, and in as decent a manner, as any man alive. Your honour's unknown humble servant, G. H.

The Major had no sooner read this letter than he flew into a violent passion, which being made known to the undertaker he thought proper to decamp, without waiting for his orders. When Hooper came at night to attend Mr Oneby he told him of the letter he had received from the undertaker, and in terms very improper for his melancholy situation expressed his resentment for the supposed affront. Every hope of pardon being vanished, this unhappy man had recourse to a dreadful method of evading the ignominy of the gallows.

On the night of the Saturday last mentioned he went to bed at ten o'clock, and having slept till four o'clock on Sunday morning he asked for a glass of brandy-and-water, and pen, ink and paper, and sitting up in bed wrote the following note:

COUSIN TURVILL,

Give Mr Akerman, the turnkey below-stairs, half-a-guinea, and Jack, who waits in my room, five shillings. The poor devils have had a great deal of trouble with me since I have been here.

Having delivered this note to his attendant, he begged to be left to his repose, that he might be fit for the reception of some friends who were to call on him. He was accordingly left, and on a gentleman coming into his apartment about seven o'clock, and the Major's footman with him, he called out to the latter, "Who is that, Philip?" which were the last words he was heard to speak. The gentleman, approaching the bedside, found he had cut a deep wound in his wrist with a penknife and was drenched in blood. A surgeon was instantly sent for, but he was dead before his arrival.

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8: James Cluff

Murderer, executed at Tyburn, July 25, 1729, on an appeal, after being acquitted.

THIS UNHAPPY YOUNG man was born in Clare-market, and lived as a waiter at several public-houses, in all of which he maintained an extraordinary character for diligence, obligingness, and integrity.

Mr. Payne, master of the. Green Lattice, in Holborn, hired Cluff as a servant, and during his residence there, he fell in love with Mary Green, his fellow-servant; but she being courted by another man, constantly rejected his addresses, which frequently agitated his mind in the most violent degree.

Green's other lover coming to see her, sat in the same box with her, and was received by her in an affectionate manner; but this did not seem to be much regarded by Cluff, who was then engaged in attending the customers: but when the lover was gone, Mr. Payne, perceiving that something had discomposed Cluff's mind, asked him the reason of it; but could not prevail on him to tell the cause.

While Mr. Payne and his wife were at dinner in the parlour, and the girl was eating her dinner in one of the boxes, Mrs. Payne heard a noise, as if two persons were struggling, and going into the tap-room, Cluff said, "Come hither, madam." On this she advanced, and saw the prisoner holding the deceased by the shoulders, who was sitting on the floor, and speechless, while the blood streamed from her in large quantities.

Mrs. Payne called out, "What have you been doing, James?" He said, "Nothing." He was asked if he had seen her hurt herself? He said, No; but that he had seen her bring a knife from the cellar where she had been to draw some beer for her dinner. Mr. Payne now entered the tap-room, and then went into then cellar to discover if there was any blood there; but finding none, he accused Cluff on suspicion of having committed the murder; and instantly sent for a surgeon. When the surgeon arrived, he found that a knife had been stabbed into the upper part of the thigh, and entered the body of the girl, in such a planner that she could not survive the stroke more than a minute.

A bloody knife was found in the room, and Cluff was committed to Newgate for the murder. On his trial, the surgeon deposed that the knife fitted the wound that had been made, and that he believed the woman had not killed herself: but the jury acquitted the prisoner, from what they deemed insufficiency of evidence:

A discharge of the accused party would now have followed of course; but William Green, the brother and heir of the deceased, immediately lodged an appeal in consequence of which Cluff was brought to trial at the next sessions but one, when his case was argued with the utmost ingenuity by the counsel for and against him, but this second jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to die.

After conviction, his behaviour was the most devout and resigned that could be imagined; he exercised himself in every act of devotion, but solemnly declared his perfect innocence with respect to the murder. He was visited by his friends, who earnestly entreated him to make a sincere confession; especially as in his case it was not in the power of the king himself to grant him a pardon. In answer hereto, he freely confessed all his other crimes; but, saying he would not rush into eternity with a lie in his month, again steadily denied the perpetration of the crime of which he had been convicted. The clergyman who attended him urged him to the confession of his guilt, and even refused to administer the sacrament to him on the morning of his execution, on any other terms than those of acknowledging his crime, but nothing could shake his resolution; he still steadily persisted in his innocence.

On his way to the place of execution, he desired to stop at the door of his late master, which being granted, he called for a pint of  wine, and having drank a glass of it, he addressed Mr. Payne in the following terms:

"Sir, you are not insensible that I am going to suffer an ignominious death, for a crime of which I declare I am not guilty, as I am to appear before my great Judge in a few moments to answer for all my past sins. I hope you and my good mistress will pray for my poor soul. God bless you, and all your family."

At the place of execution he behaved in the most composed, devout, and resigned manner; and seemed to possess in the consciousness of innocence. There was a great concourse of spectators to witness his fatal end; to whom he spoke in the following manner: "Good people, I am going to die for a fact I never committed, I wish all mankind well; and as I have prayed for my prosecutors, I hope my sins will be forgiven through the merits of my ever blessed redeemer. I beg you to pray for my departing soul; and as to the fact now die for, I wish I was as free from, all other sins."

He was hanged at Tyburn on the, 25th of July, 1729, exhibiting no signs of fear to his last moment.

The case of this man is very extraordinary. The evidence against him was at best but circumstantial; and this not supported with such strong corroborative proofs as have occasioned conviction in many other instances. No person was witness to his commission of the murder; nor was there any absolute proof that he did commit it; and from the steady perseverance with which he denied it, under the most awful circumstances, and at the very concluding  scene of his life, charity would. tempt one to believe that he was innocent. Ought not this case to afford a lesson of caution to juries how they convict on circumstantial evidence? Is it not better that the guilty should escape, than the innocent be punished? All the decrees of mortals are liable to error; but the time will come when all mists shall be cleared from our sight; and we shall witness to the wisdom of those laws of Providence, which are now inscrutable to mortal eyes. Then shall we see that what appeared inexplicable to us was divinely right; and learn to admire that wisdom which, at present, so much exceeds our finite comprehension. In the mean time, we ought to adore that goodness we cannot comprehend, and rest satisfied with those dispensations, which are eternally and immutably just.

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9: John Gow

Captain of a notorious Gang of Pirates. Executed at Execution Dock, 11th of August, 1729 for Piracy

JOHN GOW was a native of one of the Orkney Islands, in the north of Scotland, and was instructed in maritime affairs, in which he became so expert that he was appointed second mate of a ship, in which he sailed on a voyage to Santa Cruz.  When the vessel was ready to weigh anchor the merchants who had shipped goods on board her came to pay a parting visit to the captain, and to give him their final instructions.

On this occasion the captain, agreeable to custom, entertained his company under an awning on the quarter-deck; and while they were regaling, some of the sailors preferred a complaint of ill-treatment they pretended to have received, particularly with regard to short allowance. The captain was irritated at so undeserved a charge, which seemed calculated to prejudice him in the opinion of his employers; but, conscious of the uprightness of his intentions, he did not reply in anger, but only said that there was a steward on board who had the care of the provisions, and that all reasonable complaints should be redressed; on which the seamen retired, with apparent satisfaction.

The wind being fair, the captain directed his men to weigh anchor as soon as the merchants had quitted the vessel. It was observed that Paterson, one of the complainants, was very dilatory in executing his orders; on which the captain demanded to know why he did not exert himself to unfurl the sails; to which he made no direct answer, but was heard to mutter: "As we eat, so shall we work." The captain heard this, but took no notice of it, as he was unwilling to proceed to extremities.  The ship had no sooner sailed than the captain considered his situation as dangerous, on reflecting that his conduct had been complained of and his orders disobeyed. Thereupon he consulted the mate, and they agreed to deposit a number of small-arms in the cabin, in order to defend themselves in case of an attack. This precaution might have been extremely salutary, but that they had spoken so loud as to be overheard by two of the conspirators who were on the quarter-deck.

The captain likewise directed the mate to order Gow, who was second mate and gunner, to clean the arms -- a circumstance that plainly insinuated to the latter that the conspiracy was at least suspected.  Those who had overheard the conversation between the captain and mate communicated the substance of it to Gow and the other conspirators, who thereupon resolved on immediate action. Gow, who had previously intended to turn pirate, thought the present an admirable opportunity, as there were several chests of money on
board the ship: wherefore he proposed to his companions that they should immediately embark in the enterprise; and they determined to murder the captain and seize the ship.  Half of the ship's company were regularly called to prayers in the great cabin at eight o'clock in the evening, while the other half were doing duty on deck; and, after service, those who had been in the cabin went to rest in their hammocks. The contrivance was to execute the plot at this juncture. Only two of the conspirators remained on duty, the rest being among those who retired to their hammocks. Between nine and ten at night a kind of watchword was given, which was, "Who fires first?" On this some of the conspirators left their hammocks, and going to the cabins of the surgeon, chief mate and supercargo, they cut their throats while they were asleep.

The surgeon finding himself violently wounded quitted his bed, and soon afterwards dropped on the floor and expired. The mate and supercargo held their hands on their throats, and going on the quarter-deck solicited a momentary respite, to recommend their souls to Heaven; but even this favour was denied, for the villains, who found their knives had failed to destroy them, dispatched them with pistols.

The captain, hearing a noise, demanded the occasion of it. The boatswain replied that he did not know, but he was apprehensive that some of the men had either fallen or been thrown overboard. The captain hereupon went to look over the ship's side, on which two of the murderers followed, and tried to throw him into the sea; but he disengaged himself and turned about to take a view of them, when one of them cut his throat, but not so as to kill him, for he now solicited mercy; but instead of granting it the other stabbed him in the back with a dagger, and would have repeated his blow but that he had struck with such force that he could not draw back the weapon. At this instant Gow, who had been assisting in the murders between the decks, came on the quarter-deck and fired a brace of balls into the captain's body, which put a period to his life.

The execrable villains concerned in this tragical affair having thrown all the dead bodies overboard, Gow was unanimously appointed to the command of the ship. Those of the sailors who had not been engaged in the conspiracy secreted themselves, some in the shrouds, some under the stores, in dreadful apprehension of sharing the fate of the captain and their murdered companions.  Gow now assembled his associates on the quarter-deck, and appointed them their different stations on board; and it was agreed to commence as pirates. The new captain now directed that the men who had concealed themselves should be informed that no danger would happen to them if they did not interfere to oppose the new government of the ship, but keep such stations as were assigned to them. The men, whose terrors had taught them to expect immediate death, were glad to comply with these terms; but the pirates, to enforce obedience to their orders, appointed two men to attend with drawn cutlasses, to terrify the others into submission. Gow and his companions now divided the most valuable effects in the cabin; and then, ordering liquor to be brought on the quarter-deck, they consumed the night in drinking, while those unconnected in the conspiracy had the care of working the ship.

The ship's crew originally consisted of twenty-four men, of whom four had been murdered and eight were conspirators, and before morning four of the other men had approved of the proceedings of the pirates; so that there were only eight remaining in opposition to the newly usurped authority.

On the following day the new captain summoned these eight men to attend him, and, telling them he was determined to go on a cruising voyage, said that they should be well treated if they were disposed to act in concert with the rest of the crew. He said that every man should fare in the same manner, and that good order and discipline were all that would be required. He further said that the captain's inhumanity had produced the consequences which had happened; that those who had not been concerned in the conspiracy had no reason to fear any ill consequences from it; that they had only to discharge their duty as seamen, and every man should be rewarded according to his merit.

To this address these unfortunate honest men made no kind of reply, and Gow interpreted their silence into an assent of measures which it was not in their power to oppose. After this declaration of the will of the new captain they were permitted to range the ship at their pleasure; but as some of them appeared to act very reluctantly a strict eye was kept on their conduct, for, as guilt is ever suspicious, the pirates were greatly apprehensive of being brought to justice by means of some these men.

A man named Williams now acted as lieutenant of the vessel; and being distinguished by the ferocity of his nature he had an opportunity of exerting his cruelty by beating the unhappy men -- a privilege that he did not fail to exert with a degree of severity that must render his memory detestable.

The ship thus seized had been called the George galley, but the pirates gave her the name of the Revenge; and, having mounted several guns, they steered towards Spain and Portugal, in expectation of making a capture of wine, of which article they were greatly deficient. They soon made prize of an English vessel laden with fish, bound from Newfoundland to Cadiz; but having no use for the cargo, they took out the captain and four men, who navigated the ship, which they sunk.

One of the seamen whom they took out of the captured vessel was named James Belvin, a man admirably calculated for their purpose, as he was by nature cruel, and by practice hardened in that cruelty. He said to Gow that he was willing to enter into all his schemes, for he had been accustomed to the practice of acts of barbarity. This man was thought a valuable acquisition to the crew, as several of the others appeared to act from motives of fear rather than of inclination.

The next vessel taken by the pirates was a Scotch ship, bound for Italy, with pickled herrings. But this cargo, like the former, being of no use to them, they sunk the vessel, having first taken out the men, arms, ammunition, and stores.

After cruising eight or ten days, they saw a vessel about the size of their own, to which they gave chase. She hoisted French colours, and crowded all her sail in order to get clear of them; and, after a chase of three days and nights, they lost the French vessel in a fog.

Being distressed for water, they now steered towards the Madeira islands, of which they came in sight in two days; but not thinking it prudent to enter the harbour, they steered off and on for several days, in expectation of making prize of some Portuguese or Spanish vessel; but their expectations were frustrated.

Their distress increasing, they stood in for the harbour, and brought the ship to an anchor, but at a considerable distance from the shore. This being done, they sent seven men, well armed, in a boat, with instructions to board a ship, cut her cables, and bring her off; but if they failed in this, they were to attempt to make prize of wine and water, conveying it in the boats to the ships. But both these schemes were frustrated since it was easily known, from the distance they lay at, that they were pirates.

When they had cruised off for some days, they found themselves in such distress, that it became absolutely necessary to seek immediate relief; on which they sailed to Port Santa, a Portuguese settlement, at the distance of about ten leagues.

On their arrival off this place, they sent their boat on shore, with a present of salmon and herrings for the governor, and the name of a port to which they pretended to be bound. The persons sent on shore were civilly treated by the governor, who accompanied some of his friends on board the ship. Gow and his associates received the governor very politely, and entertained him and his company in the most hospitable manner; but the boat belonging to the pirates not coming on board with some provisions they had expected, and the governor and his attendants preparing to depart, Gow and his people threatened to take away their lives, unless they instantly furnished them with what they required.

The surprise of the Portuguese governor and his friends, on this occasion, is not to be expressed. They dreaded instant death; and, with every sign of extreme fear, solicited that their lives might be spared. Gow being peremptory in his demands, the governor sent a boat repeatedly on shore, till the pirates were furnished with such articles as they wanted.

This business being ended, the Portuguese were permitted to depart; and the pirates determined to steer towards the coast of Spain, where they soon arrived. After cruising a few days off Cape St. Vincent, they fell in with an English vessel, bound from the coast of Guinea to America, with slaves; but had been obliged to put into the port of Lisbon. However, it would have been of no use for them to have made capture of such a vessel; yet they did take it, and putting on board the captain and men they had heretofore taken, and taking out all the provisions, and some of the sails, they left the ship to proceed on her voyage.

Falling in with a French ship, laden with wine, oil, and fruit, they took out the lading, and gave the vessel to the Scotch captain, in return for the ship which they had sunk. The Scotchman was likewise presented with some valuable articles, and permitted to take his men to sail with him; all of whom did so, except one, who continued with the pirates through choice.

The day previous to this affair they observed a French ship bearing down towards them, on which Gow ordered his people to lay to; but observing that the vessel mounted two and thirty guns, and seemed proportionately full of men, he assembled his people, and observed to them that it would be madness in them to think of engaging so superior a force.

The crew in general were of Gow's opinion; but Williams, the lieutenant, said that Gow was a coward, and unworthy to command the vessel. The fact is, that Gow possessed somewhat of calm courage, while Williams's impetuosity was of the most brutal kind. The latter, after behaving in the most abusive manner, demanded that the former should give orders for fighting the vessel; but Gow refusing to comply, the other presented his pistol to shoot him, but it only flashed in the pan.

This being observed by two of the pirates, named Winter and Patterson, they both fired at Williams, when one of them wounded him in the arm and the other in the belly. He dropped as soon as the pieces were discharged, and the other seamen, thinking he was dead, were about to throw him overboard when he suddenly sprang on to his feet, jumped into the hold, and swore he would set fire to the powder-room; and as his pistol was yet loaded there was every reason to think he would actually have done so if he had not been instantly seized and his hands chained behind him, in which condition he was put among French prisoners taken from ships they had pirated, who were terrified at the sight of him; for the savage ferocity and barbarity of his nature is not to be described, it being a common practice with him to beat the prisoners in the severest manner for his diversion (as he called it), and then threaten to murder them.

No engagement happened with the French ship, which held on her way; and two days afterwards the pirates took a ship belonging to Bristol, which was laden with salt fish and bound from Newfoundland to Oporto. Having taken out the provisions, and many of the stores, they compelled two of the crew to sail with them, and then put the French prisoners on board the newly captured vessel, which was just on the point of sailing when they began to reflect in what manner that execrable villain, Williams, should be disposed of.  At length it was determined to put him on board the Bristol ship, the commander of which was desired to turn him over to the first English man-of-war he should meet with, that he should experience the justice due to his crimes, and in the meantime to keep him in the strictest confinement.

The cruelty of Williams's disposition has been already mentioned, and the following is the most striking instance of it. Among the arguments used by Gow against engaging the French ship, one was that they had already more prisoners than they had proper accommodation for, on which Williams proposed, that those in their possession might be brought up singly, their throats cut, and their bodies thrown overboard; but Gow said there had been too much blood spilt already; for this was too horrid a proposal for even pirates to consent to; and few men, however wicked, who have committed murder, are so completely hardened as not to feel at times some remorse for it.

The fact is, Williams would have been hanged at the yard-arm if an opportunity had not offered of putting him on board the Bristol ship. When he learned their intention respecting him he earnestly besought a reconciliation; but this being refused him, and he being brought on deck in irons, he begged to be thrown overboard, as he was certain of an ignominious death on his arrival in England; but even this poor favour was denied him, and his companions only wished him "a good voyage to the gallows." When the captain of the Bristol ship reached the port of Lisbon he delivered his prisoner on boar an English man-of-war, which conveyed him to England, where he had afterwards the fate of being hanged with his companions, as we shall see in the sequel.

As soon as the Bristol ship had left them, Gow and his crew began to reflect on their situation. They were apprehensive, that as soon as intelligence of their proceedings reached Portugal, some ships would be sent in pursuit of them Hereupon they called a kind of council, in which every on gave his opinion, as dictated by his hopes of profit, or by his fears.

Some of them advised going to the coast of Guinea, others to North America, and others again to the West Indies; but Gow proposed to sail to the Isles of Orkney, on the north of Scotland, where he said they might dispose of theft effects and retire, and live on the produce. To induce his people to comply with this proposal, Gow represented that they wert much in want of water, and provisions of every kind; that their danger would be great, if they continued longer on the high seas; and, above all, that it was highly necessary for them to repair their ship, which they could not do with any degree of safety in a southern port.

He likewise said, that if any ships should be dispatched it quest of them, they would not think of searching for then in a northern latitude, so that their voyage that way would be safe; and, if they would follow his directions, much booty might be obtained by plundering the houses of the gentlemen residing near the sea-coast. The danger of alarming the country was objected to these proposals; but Gow said, that they should be able to dispatch all their business, and sail again, before such an event could happen.

Apparently convinced by this reasoning, they steered northward, and entering a bay of one of the Orkney islands, Gow assembled his crew, and instructed them what tale they should tell to the country people, to prevent suspicion: and it is probable that they might, for the present, have escaped detection, if his instructions had been literally attended to.

These instructions were, to say they were bound from Cadiz to Stockholm, but contrary winds driving them past the Sound till it was filled with ice, they were under the necessity of putting in to clean their ship; and that they would pay ready money for such articles as they stood in need of.

It happened that a smuggling-vessel lay at this time in the bay: it belonged to the Isle of Man; and, being laden with brandy and wine from France, had come north-about, to steer clear of the custom-house cutters. In their present situation, Gow thought it prudent to exchange goods with the commander of the vessel; though, in any other, he would hardly have been so ceremonious. A Swedish vessel entering the bay two days afterwards, Gow likewise exchanged some goods with the captain.

Now it was that the fate of the pirates seemed to be approaching; for such of the men as had been forced into the service began to think how they should effect their escape, and secure themselves by becoming evidence against their dissolute companions.

When the boat went ashore one evening, a young fellow who had been compelled to take part with the pirates got away from the rest of the boat's crew, and, after lying concealed some time at a farmhouse, hired a person to show him the road to Kirkwall, the principal place on the islands, about twelve miles distant from the bay where the ship lay at anchor. Here he applied to a magistrate, said he had been forced into the service, and begged that he might be entitled to the protection of the law, as the fear of death alone ad induced him to be connected with the pirates. Having given information of what he knew of their irregular proceedings, the sheriff issued his precepts to the constables and other peace officers to call in the aid of the people to assist in bringing such villains to justice. About this juncture ten of Gow's sailors, who had likewise taken an involuntary part with the pirates, seized the long-boat and, having made the mainland of Scotland, coasted the country till they arrived at Edinburgh, where they were imprisoned on suspicion of being pirates.

Notwithstanding these alarming circumstances, Gow was so careless of his own safety that he did not put immediately to sea, but resolved to plunder the houses of the gentlemen on the coast, to furnish himself with fresh provisions. In pursuance of this resolution he sent his boatswain and ten armed men to the house of Mr Honeyman, high sheriff of the county; and the master being absent, the servants opened the door without suspicion. Nine of the gang went into the house to search for treasure, while the tenth was left to guard the door. The sight of men thus armed occasioned much terror to Mrs Honeyman and her daughter, who shrieked with dreadful apprehensions for their personal safety; but the pirates, employed in the search for plunder, had no idea of molesting the ladies. They seized the linen, plate and other valuable articles, and then walked in triumph to their boat, compelling one of the servants to play before them on the bagpipes.

They then sailed to an island called Calf Sound, an intention of robbing the house of Mr Fea, who had been an old schoolfellow with Gow. This house was the rather pitched upon as Gow supposed that Mr Fea could not have yet heard of the transactions at Mr Honeyman's; but in this he was mistaken. Mr Fea's house was situated near the seashore; he had only six servants at home when the pirates appeared off the coast, and these were by no means equal to a contest with the plunderers. The tide runs so high among these islands, and beats with such force against the rocks, that the navigation is frequently attended with great danger. Gow, who had not boats to assist him in an emergency, and was unskilled in the navigation of those seas, made a blunder in turning into the bay of Calf Sound; for, standing too near the point of a small island called the Calf, the vessel was in the utmost danger of being run on shore. This little island was merely a pasture for sheep belonging to Mr Fea, who had at that time six hundred feeding on it. Gow having cast his anchor too near the shore, so that the wind could not bring him off, sent a boat with a letter to Mr Fea, requesting that he would lend him another boat to assist him in heaving off the ship, by carrying out an anchor, and assuring him that he would not do the least injury to any individual.

As Gow's messenger did not see Mr Fea's boat the latter gave him an evasive answer, and on the approach of night ordered his servants to sink his own boat and hide the sails and rigging.

While they were obeying this order five of Gow's men came on shore in the boat and proceeded, doubly armed, towards Fea's house. Thereupon the latter advanced towards them with an assurance of friendship, and begged that they would not enter the house, for his wife was exceedingly ill; that the idea of their approach had greatly alarmed her, and that the sight of them might probably deprive her of life. The boatswain replied that they had no design to terrify Mrs Fea, or any other person, but that the most rigorous treatment must be expected if the use of the boat was denied them.

Mr Fea represented how dangerous it would be for him to assist them, on account of the reports circulated to their discredit; but he offered to entertain them at an adjacent ale- house, and they accepted the invitation, as they observed that he had no company. While they were drinking, Mr Fea ordered his servants to destroy their boat, and when they had done so to call him hastily out of the company and inform him of it.

These orders were exactly complied with; and when he had left the pirates he directed six men, well armed, to station themselves behind a hedge, and if they observed him to come alone with the boatswain instantly to seize him; but if he came with all the five desperadoes he would walk forward, so as to give them an opportunity of firing without wounding himself.

After giving these orders Fea returned to the company, whom he invited to his house, on the promise of their behaving peaceably, and said he would make them heartily welcome. They all expressed a readiness to attend him, in the hope of getting the boat; but he told them he would rather have the boatswain's company only, and would afterwards send for his companions.  This being agreed to, the boatswain set forward with two brace of pistols, walking with Mr Fea till they came to the hedge where his men were concealed. Here Mr Fea seized him by the collar, while the others took him into custody before he had time to make any defence. The boatswain called aloud for his men; but Mr Fea, forcing a handkerchief into his mouth, bound him hand and foot, and then left one of his own people to guard him, while he and the rest went back to the public-house.

There being two doors to the house, some went to the one, and some to the other, and, rushing in at once, they made prisoners of the other four men before they had time to have recourse to their arms for defence.

The five pirates, being thus in custody, were sent to an adjacent village and separately confined, and in the interim Mr Fea sent messengers round the island to acquaint the inhabitants with what had been done; to desire them to haul their boats on the beach, that the pirates should not swim to and steal them; and to request that no person would venture to row within reach of the pirates' guns. On the following day the wind shifted to the north-west and blew hard, on which the pirates conceived hopes of getting out to sea; but the person employed to cut the cable missing some of his strokes, the ship's way was checked, she turned round and, the cable parting, the vessel was driven on Calf Island.

Reduced to this dilemma, without even a boat to assist in getting off the ship, Gow hung out a white flag, as an intimation that he was willing to treat on friendly terms but Mr Fea, having now little doubt of securing the pirates, wrote to Gow and told him he had been compelled to make prisoners of his men on account of their insolent behaviour. He likewise told him that the whole country was alarmed, and that the most probable chance of securing his own life would be by surrendering and becoming an evidence against his accomplices.  Four armed men in an open boat carried this letter to Gow, who sent for answer that he would give goods to the value of a thousand pounds to be assisted in his escape; but if this should be refused, he would set fire to the ship, rather than become a prisoner. He even said that he would trust to the mercy of the waves, if Mr. Fea would indulge him with a boat.

On reading this letter, Fea determined to persuade him to submit, and therefore took four men well armed, in a boat, and rowed towards the ship; but previously placed a man with a flag in his hand at the top of his house, to make such signals as might be proper to prevent his falling a sacrifice to any artifice of the pirates.

The instructions given to the servant were, that he should wave the flag once, if he saw one of the pirates swim towards the shore; but if he beheld four or more of them, he should wave it constantly, till his master got out of danger. Mr. Fea, rowing forwards, spoke through a trumpet, asking Gow to come on shore, and talk with him, which the latter said he would. Hereupon Fea lay to, in waiting for him; but at this juncture he saw a man swimming from the ship, with a white flag in his hand, on which the man on the house waved his flag; but soon afterwards he was observed to wave it continually, on which Mr. Fea's boat retired, and those in her presently saw five more of the pirates swimming towards them; but they returned to the ship as soon as they saw the others were aware of the artifice.

The first pirate, who carried the white flag, now retired to a corner of the island, and calling to Mr. Fea, told him that "the captain had sent him a bottle of brandy." Fea replied that he hoped to see Gow hanged, and that he was inclined to shoot the messenger for his insolence; on which the fellow decamped with great precipitation.

Soon after this Gow wrote a most humble letter to Mrs. Fea, imploring her interference in his behalf; and though she had determined not to interest herself in his favour, yet he resolved to go on shore; and taking a white flag in his hand, he made signals for a parley; on which Mr. Fea sent some armed men to seize him living or dead.

On their meeting, Gow insisted that one of the men should be left as a hostage; this circumstance being seen by Mr. Fea, from the windows of his house, he sailed over to the island, where he reprimanded his people for delivering the hostage; and likewise told Gow that he was his prisoner. Gow replied, that could not be, since a hostage had been delivered for him.

To this Mr. Fea replied, that be had issued no orders for delivering the hostage, and that the man who had foolishly engaged himself as such, must submit to the consequence; but he advised Gow, for his own sake, to make signals, that the man might obtain his liberty. This Gow refused to do; but Fea made signals which deceived  the pirates, two of whom came on shore with the man, and were instantly taken into custody. Gow was now disarmed of his sword, and made prisoner, after begging to be shot with his sword in his possession.

The leader of the gang being thus secured, Mr. Fea had recourse to stratagem to get all the rest into his power. He now compelled Gow to make signals for some of them to come on shore, which they readily did, and were apprehended by men concealed to take them as they arrived.

Fea now insinuated to Gow, that he would let him have a boat to escape, if he would send for his carpenter to repair it, and to bring with him two or three hands to assist him: Gow complied; the men came off, and were severally seized; but as there were other people still on board, Mr. Fea had recourse to the following contrivances to get them into his possession. He directed his own servants to provide hammers, nails, &c. and make a pretence of repairing the boat; and while this was doing, told Gow to send for his men, since he must have possession of the ship before he would deliver up the boat.

The pirates, on receiving their late captain's orders to come on shore, were very doubtful how to act; but, after a short debate, and having no officers to command them, they shared what money they possessed, and coming on shore, were all taken into custody.

Thus, by an equal exertion of courage, conduct and artifice did Mr Fea secure these dangerous men, twenty-eight in number, without a single man being killed or wounded, and with only the aid of a few countrymen: a force apparently very insufficient to the accomplishment of such a business. When all the prisoners were properly secured, Mr Fea sent an express to Edinburgh, requesting that proper persons might be sent to conduct them to that city.  In the interim, Mr. Fea took an inventory of all the effects in the ship, to be appropriated as the government might direct.

Six Articles, of which the following are a copy, were found on board the ship, in Gow's handwriting. It is conjectured, that while they were entangled among the rocks of the Orkney Islands, these articles were hastily drawn up, and arose from their distressed situation.

1. That every man shall obey his commander in all respects, as if the ship was his own, and as if he received monthly wages.

2. That no man shall give, or dispose of, the ship's provisions; but every one shall have an equal share.

3. That no man shall open, or declare to any person or persons, who they are, or what designs they are upon; and any persons so offending shall be punished with immediate death.

4. That no man shall go on shore till the ship is off the ground, and in readiness to put to sea.

5. That every man shall keep his watch night and day; and at the hour of eight in the evening every one shall retire from gaming and drinking, in order to attend his respective station.

6. Every person who shall offend against any of these articles shall be punished with death, or in such other manner as the ship's company shall think proper.

The express from Mr Fea being arrived at Edinburgh, another was forwarded to London, to learn the Royal pleasure respecting the disposal of the pirates; and the answer brought was, that the Lord Justice Clerk should immediately send them to London, in order to their being tried by a Court of Admiralty, to be held for that purpose. When these orders reached Edinburgh a guard of soldiers marched to fetch them to that city; and on their arrival they were put on board the Greyhound frigate, which immediately sailed for the Thames.

On their arrival in the river a detachment of the guards from the Tower attended their landing, and conducted them to the Marshalsea Prison, where they once more saw Lieutenant Williams, who had been conveyed to England by the man-of-war which received him from the Bristol captain at Lisbon. This Williams, though certain of coming to an ignominious end, took a malignant pleasure in seeing his companions in like circumstances of calamity. A commission was now made out for their trial; and soon after their commitment they underwent separate examinations before the judge of the Admiralty Court in Doctors' Commons, when five of them, who appeared to be less guilty than the rest, were admitted evidences against their accomplices. Being removed from the Marshalsea to Newgate, their trials came on at the Old Bailey, when Gow, Williams and six others were convicted, and received sentence of death; but the rest were acquitted, as it seemed evident that they had been compelled to take part with the pirates.

The behaviour of Gow, from his first commitment, was reserved and morose. He considered himself as an assured victim to the justice of the laws, nor entertained any hope of being admitted an evidence, as Mr. Fea had hinted to him that he might be.

When brought to trial he refused to plead, in consequence of which he was sentenced to be pressed to death in the usual manner. His reason for this refusal was, that he had an estate which he wished might descend to a relation, and which would have been the case had he died under the pressure.

But when the proper officers were about to inflict this punishment, he begged to be taken again to the bar to plead, of which the judge being informed, humanely granted his request; and the consequence was that he was convicted, as above-mentioned, on the same evidence as his accomplices.

While under sentence of death, he was visited by some Presbyterian ministers, who laboured to convince him of the atrociousness of his crime; but he seemed deaf to all their admonitions and exhortations.

Williams's depravity of mind exceeds all description. He seemed equally insensible to the hope of happiness, or the fear of torment in a future state. He boasted, to those who visited him, of his constantly advising Gow "to tie the prisoners back to back, and throw them into the sea," to prevent their giving evidence against them.

Gow, Williams and six of their accomplices were executed together. A remarkable circumstance happened to Gow at the place of execution. His friends, anxious to put him out of his pain, pulled his legs so forcibly that the rope broke and he dropped down; on which he was again taken up to the gibbet, and when he was dead was hanged in chains on the banks of the Thames.

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10: Jephthah Big

Executed at Tyburn, Sept. 19, 1729, for sending a letter to extort money.

THIS MALEFACTOR was a native of Spitalfields, and having a brother who was coachman to a gentleman of fortune, he conceived an idea of supplying his own extravagancies, by extorting money from his brother's master.

Calling on one Peter Salter, he took him to an obscure public-house near the Minories, where he developed his scheme, saying he might obtain a hundred guineas by sending a threatening letter; but was at a loss to think what house the money should he sent to: at length he fixed on a public-house, called the Shoulder of Mutton, at Billingsgate, whither he directed Salter to go, and wait till a porter should bring a letter directed to John Harrison, which letter Salter was to carry to Big, at an alehouse on Fish-street Hill.

Agreeable to this direction, Salter waited at the Shoulder of Mutton till a porter brought a letter, and spoke to the landlord and his son, who seemed surprised at reading the contents. Guilt is ever cowardly; and one of them going out, Salter imagined it was to call an officer to apprehend him; on which he slipped out of the house, and went to his companion on Fish-street Hill.

These associates in roguery taking a walk to Moor-fields, Big said he was undaunted by this repulse, and that he would write such a letter as would make the gentleman tremble; and he did not doubt of success. In consequence of an agreement between the parties, another letter was sent, ordering the gentleman to send a hundred guineas, inclosed in a parcel, to the Black Boy in Goodman's-fields, directed to John Harrison.

Salter went daily, and drank at this house, where he had hitherto been a stranger, in expectation of an answer, which he was to receive, guarding only against any artifice that might be used to apprehend him. While he was thus waiting, he read an advertisement in the newspaper, offering a reward for the incendiary.

At this juncture a, porter brought a letter, which he gave the landlord, who having read it, the porter said; "I have a parcel for one Mr. Harrison; do you know such a gentleman?" The landlord inquired if any person present answered to that name; but Salter was too much on his guard to do so; and drinking his beer without any sign of fear, he went to an alehouse near Aldgate, where he met his accomplice and told him a scheme was laid to apprehend him.

After some conference, they adjourned to a public-house near the residence of the gentleman to whom the threatening letters had been sent. Here Big sent for his brother, who attended, but said, as he was obliged to go out with his master, he could not stay with them. Big now observed that his brother had complained of the peevish disposition of his master, and asked if he did not intend to leave him. The brother replied, that his master had been very fretful for some days past: but added, "I have now found out the reason; for some vile rogue has sent a threatening letter, and swears he will murder him, if a sum of money is not sent to a public-house in  Goodman's-fields."

When Big's brother was gone, he told Salter he would send another letter, whatever might be the consequence; but Salter persuaded him not to run the risk of a proceeding which must be followed by certain ruin.

A few days after this, the porter who had carried the letter and seen Salter at both the public-houses, happened to meet him, and suspecting that he might be the incendiary, delivered him into the custody of a peace-officer, on which he accused Big as the principal, who was thereupon apprehended and committed to Newgate, and Salter admitted evidence for the crown.

Big being tried at the Old Bailey, was sentenced to die; but, after conviction, he seemed to be of opinion that he had not been guilty of a capital offence in sending a letter to extort money. He was thought to be a Roman Catholic, since he refused the attendance of the Ordinary while he lay in Newgate.

He was hanged at Tyburn, on the 19th of September, 1729, but was so ill at the place of execution, that he could not attend the devotions proper for men in his calamitous situation.

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1730

11: Francis Charteris

Convicted of using violence to the person of Ann Bond.

THE name of Charteris, during life, was a terror to female innocence; may, therefore, his fate, and the exposure of his villainy, act as their shield against the destructive machinations of profligate men, especially such as those upon whom the blind and fickle goddess, Fortune, may have unworthily heaped riches. The wealthy profligate, in order to gratify an inordinate passion, will promise, perjure, and pay, to any length, or to any amount― then, 'like a loathsome weed, cast you away.'

Be thus advis'd, ye young and fair,

Let virtuous men engage your care.

The rake and libertine despise;

Their breath is poison -- O be wise!

Their arts and wiles turn quick away,

And from fair Virtue's path ne'er stray.

By the law of Egypt rapes were punished by removal of the offending parts. The Athenian laws compelled the ravisher of a virgin to marry her. It was long before this offence was punished capitally by the Roman law; but at length the Lex Julia inflicted the pains of death on the ravisher. The Jewish law also punished this crime with death; but, if a virgin was deflowered without force, the offender was obliged to pay a fine and marry the woman. By the 18th of Elizabeth, cap. 7, this offence was made felony without benefit of clergy.

It is certainly of a very heinous nature, and, if tolerated, would be subversive of all order and morality; yet it may still be questioned how far it is either useful or politic to punish it with death; and it is worth considering whether, well knowing that it originates in the irregular and inordinate gratification of unruly appetite, the injury to society may not he repaired without destroying the offender.

In most cases this injury. might be repaired by compelling, where it could he done with propriety, the criminal to marry the injured party; and it would he well for society if the same rule extended not only to all forcible violations of chastity, but even to instances of premeditated and systematic seduction.

in cases, however, where marriage could not take place, on account of legal disability or refusal on the part of the woman, the criminal ought to be severely punished by pecuniary damages to the party injured, and by hard labour and confinement, or transportation for life.

The execrable subject of this narrative was born at Amsfield, in Scotland, where he was heir to an estate which his ancestors hadpossessed above four hundred years; he was also related to some of the first families in the North by intermarriages with the nobility.

Young Charteris, having received a liberal education, made choice of the profession of arms, and served first under the Duke of Marlborough, as an ensign of foot, but was soon advanced to the rank of cornet of dragoons: he appears, however, to have had other views than fighting when he embraced the life of a soldier.

Being a most expert gamester, and of a disposition uncommonly avaricious, he made his knowledge of gambling subservient to his love of money; and, while the army was in winter-quarters, he stripped many of the officers of all their property by his skill at cards and dice. But he was as knavish as he was dexterous: and, when he had defrauded a brother-officer of all his money, he would lend him a sum at the moderate interest of a hundred per cent, taking an assignment of his commission as security for the payment of the debt.

John, Duke of Argyle, and the Earl of Stair, were at this time young men in the army; and, being deter mined that the inconsiderate officers should not be thus ruined by the artifices of Charteris, they applied to the Earl of Orkney, who was also in the army then quartered at Brussels, representing the destruction that must ensue to young gentlemen in the military line, if Charteris was not stopped in his proceedings.

The Earl of Orkney, anxious for the credit of the army in general, and his countrymen in particular, represented the state of the case to the Duke of Marlborough, who gave orders that Charteris should be put under arrest, and tried by court-martial. The court was composed of an equal number of English and Scotch officers, that Charteris might have no reason to say he was treated with partiality.

After a candid hearing of the ease, the proofs of Charteris's villainy were so strong, that be was sentenced to return the money he had obtained by usurious interest, to be deprived of his commission, and to be drummed out of the regiment, his sword being first broken; which sentence was executed in its fullest extent.

Thus disgraced, Charteris quitted Brussels, and, in the road between that place and Mecklin, he threw his breeches into a ditch, and then, buttoning his scarlet cloak below his knees, he went into an inn to take up his lodgings for the night.

It is usual, in places where armies are quartered, for military officers to be treated with all possible respect; and this was the case with Charteris, who had every distinction shown him that the house could afford, and, after an elegant supper, was left to repose.

Early in the morning he rang the bell violently, and, the landlord coming terrified into his room, he swore furiously that he had been robbed of his breeches, containing a diamond ring, a gold watch, and money to a considerable amount; and, having previously broken the window, he intimated that some person must have entered that way, and carried off his property; and he even insinuated that the landlord himself might have been the robber.

It was in vain that the innkeeper solicited mercy in the most humiliating posture. Charteris threatened that be should be sent to Brussels, and suffer death, as an accessory to the felony.

Terrified at the thought of approaching disgrace and danger, the landlord of the house sent for some friars of an adjacent convent, to whom he represented his calamitous situation, and they generously supplied him with a sum sufficient to reimburse Charteris for the loss he pretended to have sustained.

Our unprincipled adventurer now proceeded through Holland, whence he embarked for Scotland, and had not been long in that kingdom before his servile submission, and his money, procured him another commission in a regiment of horse; and he was afterwards advanced to the rank of colonel.

Amidst all his other avocations, the love of money was his ruling passion; for the acquirement whereof there was no crime of which he would not have been guilty.

The Duke of Queensbury was at this time commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland, which was assembled at Edinburgh, to deliberate on the proposed union with England. Charteris having been invited to a party at cards with the Duchess of Queensbury, he contrived that her Grace should be placed in such a manner, near a large glass, that he could see all her cards; and he won three thousand pounds of her in consequence of this stratagem. One good, however, resulted from this circumstance: the Duke of Queensbury, incensed at the imposition, brought a bill into the House to prohibit gaming for above a certain sum; and this bill passed into a law.

Our adventurer continued his depredations on the thoughtless till be had acquired considerable sums. When he had stripped young men of their ready cash at the gaming-tables, it was his practice, as before, to lend them money at an extravagant interest, for which he took their bonds to confess judgment, and the moment the bonds became due he failed not to take every legal advantage.

By a continued rapacity of this kind he acquired several considerable estates in Scotland, and then removed to London, which, as it was the seat of greater dissipation, was a place better adapted to the exertion of his abilities.

He now became a great lender of money on mortgages, always receiving a large premium, by which at length he became so rich as to purchase several estates in England, particularly in the county of Lancaster.

Colonel Charteris was as infamous on account of his amours as for the unfeeling avarice of his disposition: his house was no better than a brothel, and no woman of modesty would live within his walls. He kept in pay some women of abandoned character, who, going to inns where the country waggons put up, used to prevail on harmless young girls to go to the colonel's house as servants; the consequence of which was, that their ruin soon followed, and they were turned out of doors, exposed to all the miseries consequent on poverty and a loss of reputation.

His agents did not confine their operations to inns, but, wherever they found a handsome girl, they endeavoured to decoy her to the colonel's house; and, among the rest, Ann Bond fell a prey to his artifices. This young woman had lived in London, but, having quitted her service on account of illness, took lodgings at a private house, where she recovered her health, and was sitting at the door, when a woman addressed her, saying, she could help her to a place in the family of Colonel Harvey; for the character of Charteris was now become so notorious, that his agents did not venture to make use of his name.

Bond being hired, the woman conducted her to the colonel's house, where she was three days before she was acquainted with his real name. Her master gave her money to redeem some clothes, which she had pledged to support her in her illness; and would have bought other clothes for her, but she refused to accept them.

He now offered her a purse of gold, an annuity for life, and a house, if she would lie with him; but the virtuous girl resisted the temptation; declared she would not be guilty of so base an act; that she would discharge her duty as a servant, and that her master might dismiss her if her conduct did not please him.

On the day following this circumstance she heard a gentleman asking for her master by the name of Charteris, which alarmed her fears still more, as she was not unapprized of his general character; wherefore she told the housekeeper that she must quit her service,  as she was very ill.

The housekeeper informing the colonel of this circumstance, he sent for the poor girl, and threatened that he would shoot her if she left his service. He likewise ordered the servants to keep the door fast, to prevent her making her escape; and, when he spoke of her, it was in the most contemptuous terms.

On the following day he directed his clerk of the kitchen to send her into the parlour; and, on her attending him, he bade her stir the fire: while she was thus employed, he suddenly seized and committed violence on her, first stopping her mouth with his night- cap; and afterwards, on her saying that she would prosecute him, he beat her with a horsewhip, and called her by the most opprobrious names.

On his opening the door the clerk of the kitchen appeared, to whom the colonel pretended that she had robbed him of thirty guineas, and directed him to turn her out of the house, which was accordingly done.

Hereupon she went to a gentlewoman named Parsons, and, informing her of what had happened, asked her advice how to proceed. Mrs. Parsons recommended her to exhibit articles against him for the assault; but, when the matter came afterwards to he heard by the grand jury, they held that it was not an attempt, but an actual commission, of the fact; and a bill was found accordingly.

When the colonel was committed to Newgate he was loaded with heavy fetters; but he soon purchased a lighter pair, and paid for the use of a room in the prison, and for a man to attend him.

Colonel Charteris had been married to the daughter of Sir Alexander Swinton, of Scotland, who bore him one daughter, afterwards married to the Earl of Wemys; and the earl, happening to be in London at the time of the above-mentioned transaction, procured a writ of habeas corpus, in consequence of which the colonel was admitted to bail.

When the trial came on every art was used to traduce the character of the prosecutrix, with a view to destroy the force of her evidence; but, happily, her character was so fair, and there was so little reason to think that she had any sinister view in the prosecution, that every artifice failed; and, after a long trial, in which the facts were proved to the satisfaction of the jury, a verdict of guilty was given against the colonel, who received sentence to be executed in the accustomed manner.

On this occasion Charteris was not a little obliged to his son-in-law, Lord Wemys, who caused the Lord President Forbes to come from Scotland, to plead the cause before the privy council; and an estate of 300L. per annum for life was assigned to the president for this service.

At length the king consented to grant the colonel a pardon, on his settling a handsome annuity on the prosecutrix.

Colonel Charteris was tried at the Old Bailey on the 25th of February, 1730.

After his narrow escape from a fate which he had so well deserved he retired to Edinburgh, where he lived about two years, and then died in a miserable manner, a victim to his own irregular course of life.

He was buried in the family vault, in the churchyard of the Grey Friars of Edinburgh; but his vices had rendered him so detestable, that it was with some difficulty he was committed to the gave; for the mob almost tore the coffin in pieces, and committed a variety of irregularities, in honest contempt of such an abandoned character.

Soon after Charteris was convicted a fine mezzotinto print of him was published, representing him standing at the bar of the Old Bailey, with his thumbs tied; and under the print was the following inscription:

Blood!--must a colonel, with a lord's estate,

Be thus obnoxious to a scoundrel's fate?

Brought to the bar, and sentenc'd from the bench,

Only for ravishing a country wench?

Note: At Exeter, on the 5th of October, 1753, an unworthy minister of the Holy Gospel, the Reverend Peter Vine, was hanged for committing a crime of this nature.

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1731

12: Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., and Lieutenant Robert Arnott

Convicted as Highwaymen in 1731, but afterwards reprieved

SIR SIMON CLARKE and Lieutenant Robert Arnott were tried and convicted of a highway robbery at an assize held at Winchester, but the influence exerted on their behalf almost smothered the promulgation of the trial. The Gentleman's Magazine for the month of March, 1731, contains the following information; and as we have met with it in no other periodical work of that time, for, in fact, few such are now in preservation, we give it without further comment:

"Came on at Winchester, the trials of Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., and Lieutenant Robert Arnott, who were convicted of a robbery on the highway. A  numerous concourse of gentry were present. Sir Simon made a most pathetic and moving speech, which had such an effect, that there was scarce a dry eye in the court. The High Sheriff and Grand Jury, considering the antiquity, worth and dignity of Sir Simon's ancestors, the services they had done their king and country, together with the youth and melancholy circumstances of that unhappy gentleman, agreed to address his Majesty in their behalf; upon which a reprieve sine die, which implies for ever, was granted them."

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13: Robert Irwin

Executed at Tyburn, in the year 1731, for Murder.

IN THE FATE of this man we have another instance of the tormenting impulse that impels murderers, who have escaped the punishment which awaits such as shed innocent blood, to return, as it were involuntarily, to make atonement for the horrid crime.

This hoary sinner was, at the time of his committing the murder in question, a soldier in the second regiment of foot guards. On the evening of the fatal deed, he had been drinking Geneva with a comrade of the name of John Briggins, after which they went together to a gaming. house, called the Phoenix, in the Hay-market, where Irwin had some time held the office of door-keeper.

[Note: Soldiers in the guards, for long and faithful services, are often indulged with leave of absence from duty, in order to allow them to earn a little addition to their pay, which, alone, but ill supplies the comforts to old age.]

Ringing the bell, one Piercy, who had succeeded Irwin as door-keeper, opened a wicket; but seeing who it was, said, he had orders not to let him in, as he had already been turned out for breeding quarrels and disturbances. Enraged at this language from the man who had supplanted him, he drew his bayonet, pushed it through the wicket, into the very heart of Piercy, and then made his escape. Hearing the next morning that the door-keeper of the Phœnix had been murdered, he determined to desert his regiment, which he immediately put in practice, and fled to Ireland, where he remained long undiscovered among his relations, and might, for the remainder of his wretched life, have remained thus concealed, had his mind been undisturbed; but his situation grew irksome, and nobody could dissuade him from returning to London. As a reason for so doing, he pretended, that from his long services in the army, he would, on application be made an out-pensioner of Chelsea hospital, and fancied the murder would be forgotten. He had not, however, been many days in London, before he was met by one John Roberts, who caused him to be apprehended. He was tried at the Old Bailey, for the murder of Piercy, near five years after the commission of the crime, when his old comrade Briggins, appeared, and swore that he saw Irwin give the fatal blow. He was found guilty, and executed at Tyburn, where he confessed the fact.

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14: William Smith

A notorious horse-stealer, executed at Chelmsford, April 13,1731

IN THE FORMER part of the last century, horse-stealing was a very common theft. Thieves could then dispose of their stolen booty with much more facility than at present; the laws being better maintained and carried into execution than formerly.

The subject of the present enquiry was not only a horse but a cattle-stealer of every description. Smith was born in Cambridge, bred a clothier, had been a soldier, then degraded to the post of footman to a private family; and from that lazy, saucy kind of life became connected with horse-stealers. Owing to his person, not yet known in the scenes of their depredations, he for some time acted as the receiver of the gang. He returned some of the stolen property for the reward offered, cut out or altered the marks of others, and drove the remainder to a distance for sale. From a rich farmer in Essex, he stole four fine large colts, and gave them to a colonel in the French service, hoping to be rewarded by a commission in his regiment; but Monsieur, though he liked the young horses, despised the thief; and Smith found that he had been outwitted. In revenge, he defrauded a farmer of six horses, pretending to purchase them.

Becoming now known in Essex, he changed his depredations to Surrey, and soon cheated a farmer's widow of two cows. Having next stolen a horse and a mare, he was about to drive the whole off for sale, when, on the 27th of May, 1731, he was apprehended. The cows were were found yoked together, and tied to the horses tails and he was in the very act of cutting off the ears of the former, in order to deface them, having already altered the marks of the horses.

He was tried for the offences committed in Essex, at Chelmsford, and found guilty of felony, in horse-stealing. In the interim between his condemnation and execution, he gave out that he could inform persons how to recover their property of which he had robbed them, and cheated many out of sums of money by false tales, and other deceitful acts; and the produce of this shocking depravity he wasted in drinking and gaming, which shameful practice he continued to the day of his execution. He suffered at Chelmsford, along with Thomas Willer; another horse-stealer, on the 18th of August, 1731.

At the next assize for the same county another horse-stealer was convicted and executed. This man's name was John Doe, against whom thirty-nine bills of indictment were found by the grand jury. He belonged to a numerous gang of depredators, who stole cattle of every description, and drove them to Smithfield market, in London, where he had the effrontery to sell them.

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1732

15: Robert Hallam

Executed for murdering his wife, February 14th, 1732

ROBERT HALLAM was a native of London, and intended by his parents for a maritime life, in preparation for which they had him instructed in navigation, and then apprenticed him to the captain of a trading vessel. He served his time with fidelity, acquired the character of an able seaman, and afterwards went on board several vessels as a mate, and was held in great reputation.

On his return to London he married a young woman, who being averse to his going again to sea, he purchased two of the Gravesend wherries, and continued to get his living on the Thames nine years.

His family being increased by several children, he took a public house, which was chiefly attended to by his wife, while he still pursued his business as a proprietor of the Gravesend boats.

The taking an alehouse was an unfortunate circumstance for Hallam; for the house being frequented by the lowest of the people, and his wife being addicted to drinking, the place was a perpetual scene of riot and confusion.

Hallam, returning from his business one evening, found his wife intoxicated: being irritated by this circumstance, he expressed his sentiments with great freedom; and she replying with some warmth, he beat her so as to leave evident marks of resentment on her face.

Hallam's son now told his father that a waterman who lodged in the house frequently slept with his mother; and some persons present likewise hinting that this was probable, from certain familiarities they had observed between the woman and the waterman, Hallam charged his wife with being unfaithful to his bed, and she confessed that she had been so; on which he beat her in a more severe manner than before.

Not long after this he came home late at night, and knocked at the door;. but, no one coming to let him in, he procured a ladder to get in at the window; when his wife appeared, and admitted him. On his asking the reason why she did not sooner open the door, she said she had been asleep, and did not hear him; but she afterwards confessed that she had a man with her, and had let him out at a back window before she opened the door to her husband.

The infidelity of Hallam's wife tempted him to equal indulgence of  his irregular passions: he had illicit connexions with several women, and, in particular, seduced the wife of a waterman, which broke the husband's heart, and he died in consequence of the affair.

On a particular night Hallam came home very much in liquor, and went to bed, desiring his wife to undress herself, and come to bed likewise. She sat, partly undressed, on the side of the bed, as if afraid to go in; while he became quite enraged at her paying no regard to what he said. At length she ran downstairs, and he followed her, and locked the street-door to prevent her going out. On this she ran up into the dining-room, whither he likewise followed her, and struck her several times. He then went into another room for his cane, and she locked him in.

Enraged at this, he broke open the door, and, seizing her in his arms, threw her out of the window, with her head foremost, and her back to the ground, so that, on her falling, her back was broken, her skull fractured, and she instantly expired. A person passing just before she fell heard her cry out "Murder! for God's sake! for Christ's sake! for our family's sake! for our children's sake, don't murder me, don't throw me out of the window!"

We give the above circumstances us what were sworn to on the trial, in consequence of which the jury found Hallam guilty, and he received sentence of death: but the prisoner denied the fact, insisting that she threw herself out of the window before he got into the room; and he persisted in avowing his innocence to the last hour of his life. He was executed at Tyburn, February 14, 1732.

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16: John Hewit and Rosamund Oderenshaw

Murderers, executed March 29, 1732

THOUGH adultery is, by holy writ, denounced as a crime heinous to God; and though we have daily instances of the shocking enormities to which it leads the unguarded; yet virtue and modesty are constantly outraged by the commission of this sin with impunity. No wonder, then at the mischief arising from this vice, when our very princes, who are bound by every tie to hand down to the meanest members of society examples worthy of emulation, seem regardless of. that commandment of God, which says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

The murder perpetrated in the present case, was the result of an adulterous connection. John Hewit was a butcher and a married man, at Derby, and Rosamond Oderenshaw, a servant to the landlady of the Crown public-house, at Nun's green, a widow, to whose inordinate desires she fell a victim, being made the instrument of murdering the wife of Hewit. From the confessions of these malefactors, it appeared that Hewit had criminal knowledge of both the landlady and her servant woman.

The former of these abandoned women, in order to secure her paramour to herself, by marrying him, determined on the murder of Mrs Hewit. To this horrid end, the landlady procured some poisons and mixed it in a pancake, which, through promises of reward, she prevailed upon the servant to give to Hannah Hewit, who, little suspicious, eat heartily thereof, until she was seized with a pain in her stomach, and, vomiting a part of the contents in the yard, a pig that eat of it soon died, and the unfortunate woman expired in excruciating torments, at the end of three hours. While the devoted victim eat the poisoned food, the hardened landlady appeared to be composedly ironing some clothes in the parlour, yet the instigator of the foul deed escaped; while the husband, who was proved to have been accessory to the crime, and the servant alone, met their just punishment.

The condemned wicked woman, a short time previous to her execution, confessed that, through the persuasion of her mistress, she had some weeks before put poison into the broth of Mrs. Hewit, but not in a sufficient quantity to produce the intended effect; and that she had borne a bastard child, which she murdered, and buried the body in a certain spot, which she described; digging the ground, the bones of a child, apparently seven months old, were accordingly found.

This miserable man and woman provided themselves with a shroud each, in which they walked to the gallows; where they died penitent, and confessed their guilt, on March 29, 1732.

About this period, Faulkner's Journal, the best periodical publication Ireland ever produced, contained a note of a murder committed under the most unnatural and cruel circumstances, but we do not find it in any criminal catalogue whatever. Too short for a narrative of itself and unwilling to avoid handing it with others of a similar shade of darkness, as a warning to society against the commission of sins, we have here inserted it, as being nearly a similar case, in chronological order.

"The assizes at Ennis, in. Ireland, for the year 1731, brought to light a still more shocking murder, if one can be more heinous than another. A cruel and unnatural woman, named Mary Meddun, was convicted of the wilful murder of her husband and her son, by blows on their temples, when asleep, with a hatchet, of which they both immediately expired. What rendered this wretch more odious to the people attending her execution, was a firm belief that she had murdered a former husband."

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17: Jonathan Hawkins

Who played Cards after committing a Double Murder and Arson near Wells. Executed 14th of April, 1732

JONATHAN HAWKINS was born and bred in the parish of Mark, near the city of Wells, in Somersetshire, of honest and industrious parents, who educated him in the principles of religion; but, being poor, gave him little or no learning. His father was a husbandman, and brought up his son Jonathan in his own occupation, whereby he acquired a sufficient livelihood and maintenance.

He spent all the time of his youth soberly, and in the fear of God, constantly attending at Divine service. He was not addicted to lying, swearing, blaspheming, hard drinking or keeping any ill company; but detestably shunned and abhorred all those enormous vices and lewd courses. When he arrived at man's estate he married, and led a sober and regular life during the limited time of the matrimonial bonds. But after his wife's death he began to swerve from his former course of life, and gradually betook himself to commit several petty crimes.  Among the rest of his friends and acquaintances he had contracted a mutual friendship with one George Gase, who resided in the same parish, and was Jonathan's brother-in-law. It seems that Jonathan, having occasion for a certain sum of money, applied to his brother-in-law, who supplied him with the sum requested, and for the security thereof received Jonathan's bond. The appointed time of payment being partly expired, he studied by what means he might free himself from the payment thereof, and concluded to procure the bond into his custody, or at least to deprive his brother-in-law of any advantage thereby. Monday, the 17th of January, 1732, was the day on which he had prefixed to officiate and determine his intended villainy; when, entering the house of his brother-in-law, and finding no one therein save the old man and his daughter, Mary Gase, he embraced the opportunity, and put his wicked design in execution, by barbarously murdering them both (the one being nearly eighty years of age and the other about thirty), and afterwards firing the house, which doubtless was to consume the dead bodies, that so his villainy might be cloaked, and he pass unsuspected. As soon as he had completed this horrid act he retired to a neighbour's house, and there played at cards, with as little seeming regret or outward concern as though nothing had befallen him.

But in the middle of their diversion they were instantly interrupted, and the scene immediately changed, occasioned by one of the people looking out, and crying: "Fire! Fire!" which sudden disaster alarming them, they all showed a forward and voluntary diligence in going to quench the fire except Jonathan, who on being required to assist them therein answered in the negative. The major part of the parish were gathered together before the force of the conflagration became unquenchable, so that they entered the house; where, to their great surprise (mirabile dictu!), they found the bodies of the old man (Jonathan's brother-in-law) and his daughter lying prostrate on the ground, weltering in their blood, with their throats cut from car to ear. By this time all the inhabitants were in a confusion and uproar, and knew not who to charge with the fact. In this consternation they remained for some time, till, Jonathan being asked for the key of the door, he replied: "It is in that hedge yonder" (pointing to a box-hedge), where they found it accordingly.

They had now just grounds for suspicion and, perceiving his countenance to change, they charged him with murdering the people, and carried him to the place where the bodies lay, to touch them. When he had done this, his colour alternately changed; and being taxed with the murder he confessed all. And when it was demanded why he set the house on fire, he answered that he did it to burn the bond which he had given his brother-in-law. He was seized and carried before a justice, who committed him to Ilchester jail.  After about two months' imprisonment Jonathan was conveyed from Ilchester to Taunton, in order to receive his trial. He pleaded guilty to the indictment, and acknowledged all that was deposed against him in court, and accordingly received sentence of death. He was executed on the 14th day of April, 1732, being in the thirty-fourth year of his age, on a very high gibbet, erected on a large common, adjoining to the said parish, called Markmoor, and afterwards taken down and hanged in chains in the same place.

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18: John Waller, alias Trevor

Pilloried for perjury, and pelted to death by the populace, 13th June, 1732

THE pillory is an engine made of wood, to punish offenders, by exposing them to public view, and rendering them infamous. There is a statute of the pillory 51 Henry III.; and by statute it is appointed for bakers, forestallers, and those who use false weights, perjury, forgery, &c. Lords of Leets are to have a pillory and tumbrel or it will be the cause of forfeiture of the leet; and a village may be bound by proscription to provide a pillory, &c. The name is derived from two Greek words, signifying 'to look through a door;' because one standing on the pillory puts his head, as it were, through a door.

This profligate wretch, Waller, to robbery added the still greater sin of accusing the innocent, in order to receive the reward in certain cases attending conviction. The abominable dealer in human blood was tried at the Old Bailey for robbing, on the highway, one John Edglin, and afterwards, under the name of John Trevor, giving a false evidence against the said John Edglin, whereby his life might have become forfeited to the abused laws of the country. On the latter charge he was found guilty.

It appeared, on this memorable trial, that Waller made it a practice to go the circuits as regularly as the judges and counsel, and to swear robberies against such as he deemed fit objects for his purpose, from no other motive than to obtain the reward given by each county for the apprehension and conviction of criminals for highway robberies and other offences therein committed.

The sentence of the Court was, that he should pay a fine of twenty marks, and be imprisoned for the term of two years, and at the expiration thereof to find good and sufficient security for his good behaviour during the remainder of his life; that he do stand twice in and upon the pillory, bareheaded, with his crime written in large characters; and that he do also stand twice before the pillory, likewise bareheaded, one hour each time.

On Tuesday, the 13th of June, 1732, this wicked man was put in the pillory, pursuant to his sentence, at the Seven Dials, in London; where, so great was the indignation of the populace, that they pelted him to death and the day after the coroner's inquest gave a verdict, 'Wilful murder by persons unknown.'

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19: Joseph Powis

Strolling player turned housebreaker, executed 9th October, 1732

JOSEPH Powis was a native of St. Martin's in the Fields; and his father dying while he was an infant, his mother married a smith in St. Martin's Lane, who was remarkable for his ingenuity.

The father-in-law going to Harfleur, in Normandy, with many other skilful artists, to be concerned in an iron manufactory, took Powis with him when he was only eight years of age.

They had not been long here before the father-in-law received a letter, advising him of the death of his wife; on which he left the boy to the care of an Englishman, and came to London in order to settle his affairs, but soon returned to Normandy.

The scheme in which they had embarked failing, they came back to England, and the man, marrying a second wife, took a shop in Chancery Lane, London, and sent young Powis to school, where he made such progress, that a little time gave hope of his becoming a good Latin scholar.

But he had not been long at school before his father-in-law took him home, to instruct him in his own business; and hence his misfortunes appear to have arisen; for such was his attachment to literature, that, when he was sent of an errand, he constantly loitered away his time reading at the stall of some bookseller.

When he had been about four years with his father, two lads of his acquaintance persuaded him to take a stroll into the country, and they wandered through the villages adjacent to London for about a week, in a condition almost starving, sometimes begging food to relieve the extremities of hunger, and finally compelled by distress to return to town.

The father-in-law of Powis received him kindly, forgave his fault, and he continued about a year longer with him; but, having read a number of plays, he had imbibed such romantic notions as disqualified him for business.

Inspired with an idea of going on the stage, he offered his services to Mr. Rich, then manager of Covent Garden Theatre; but, having repeated some parts of the tragedy of Julius Caesar, Rich told him he was disqualified for the stage, and advised him to attend to his trade.

Soon after this Powis a second time quitted his father-in-law, and rambled through the country some days; but returning on a Sunday, in the absence of the family, he broke open a chest, and, taking out his best clothes, again decamped.

Nothing being missed except the boy's clothes, it was easily judged who must be the thief; wherefore the father-in-law went with a constable in search of the youth, whom he took before a magistrate, in the hope of making him sensible of his folly. The justice threatening to commit him unless he 'made a proper submission, he promised to go home and do so; but, dropping his father-in-law in the street, he went to an acquaintance, to whom he communicated his situation, and asked his advice how to act. His friend advised him to go home, and discharge his duty; but this not suiting his inclination, and it being now the time of Bartholomew Fair, he engaged with one Miller to act a part in a farce exhibited at Smithfield.

His next adventure was the going to Dorking, in Surrey, with one Button, a strolling player, by whom he was taught to expect great things; but Button, having previously affronted the inhabitants, met with no encouragement; on which they proceeded to Horsham, in Sussex, where they were equally unsuccessful.

Powis now slept in a hay-loft, near the kitchen of an inn, and, being almost starved, he used to get in at the window and steal the victuals while the family were in bed. He likewise stole a new pair of shoes belonging to the landlord; but the latter, soon discovering the thief, took the shoes from him, and gave him an old pair instead.

About this time Button took Powis's clothes from him, and gave him others that were little better than rags.

Having left this town, they put up at an inn, where the landlord obliged the company to sleep in the hay loft, admitting none but the manager to come within the house. At night Powis crept into the kitchen, devoured the remains of a cold pie, and stole a pair of boots and a pair of stockings, with which he retreated into the hay- loft. He continued to steal provisions several nights, till the landlord and Button watched, with loaded guns, in expectation of the thief, who, however, came not that night.

Powis, having obtained a few halfpence by one of his petty thefts, stole out from the hay-loft to drink at a public house; but the other landlord, being there, knew the boots to be his; on which our unfortunate adventurer hastily retreated to his loft, where he expected to lie secure; but the landlord, Button, and others, following him, seized him, and took him into the kitchen for examination. He readily confessed that he had stolen the victuals; on which he was delivered into the custody of two countrymen to guard him till the next day, when it was proposed to take him before a magistrate.

The family having retired to bed, Powis pretended to fall fast asleep; on which one of his guards said, 'How the poor fellow rests, notwithstanding his misfortunes;' to which the other said, 'Let me sleep an hour, and then I will watch while you sleep.'

In a few minutes both the men were asleep; on which Powis, thinking to escape, attempted to put on the boots; but, making some noise, the landlord heard him, and, coming downstairs, Powis affected to slumber as before. The landlord awakened the guardians, and bade them take more care of their prisoner; which having promised to do, they soon fell asleep again.

Our adventurer now took the boots in his hand, and, getting out of the inn-yard, ran with the utmost expedition till he got out of the town, and then drawing on the boots, he proceeded on his journey to London. However, he missed his way, and, getting on a common, knew not how to proceed; but going into a cow-house, in which was a quantity of flax, he lay down to rest. In the morning the owner of the flax found him, and inquiring what business he had there, Powis said that, being intoxicated, he had lost his way: on which the other directed him into the right road, and our hero hastened forward, in the apprehension of being pursued.

Towards evening be arrived near Dorking, but did not enter the town till it was nearly dark. As he was going through the street he heard a door open; and, turning round, a woman, who had a candle in her hand, called him; and, on his demanding what she wanted, she said to another woman, 'Sure enough it is he.'

This woman, who had washed the players' linen, said that two men had been in pursuit of him; and that his best way would be to avoid the high road, and get to London some other way with all possible expedition.

Powis immediately took this advice, and, quitting the turnpike-road, got to a farm-house, where he stole some books and other trifles, ate some provisions, and then proceeded towards London, stopping at Stockwell, at a house kept by the mother of his father- in-law's wife. All this happened in the night; but, knowing the place, he went into the back yard, and lay down to sleep on some straw.

Observing several threshers come to work in the morning, he concealed himself under the straw till night, when he crept out, went to a public house, drank some beer, and returned to his former lodging.

Inspired by the liquor he had drank, he began to sing, which drawing some people round him, they conducted him into the house.

His mother-in-law, happening to be there on a visit, spoke with great kindness to him, and advised him to remain there till she had communicated the affair to her husband.

In a few days the father-in-law came to him, and expressed his readiness to take him home, if he would but attend his business, and decline his present vagrant course of life. This he readily agreed to do, and continued steady during the winter; but on the approach of summer he again left his friends, and rambled about near a month, subsisting on the casual bounty of his acquaintance.

Falling into company with Joseph Paterson, whom he had known among the strolling players, Paterson engaged him to perform a part in the tragedy of 'The Earls of Essex,' at Windmill Hill, near Moorfields, which was then the place of resort for the lower class of spouters in and near London.

The part of Lord Burleigh being assigned to Powis, and it being intimated in the printed bills that this part was to be performed by 'A young gentleman, being his first appearance on the stage,' the curiosity of the public was somewhat excited, so that there was a full house. Unfortunately, Lord Burleigh was dressed in the shabbiest manner; and, being little better than a compound of rags and dirt, it was with some difficulty the minister of state went through his part, amidst the laughter and ridicule of the spectators.

Returning home through Ludgate Street, after the play, he saw a gentleman who said he had dropped three guineas, but had picked up one of them. Powis, happening to find the other two, kept one for himself, and gave the other to the owner, who, not knowing that he had retained one, insisted on his drinking a glass of wine, and thanked him for his civility.

Being stopped one night in Chancery Lane by a violent shower of rain, he climbed over a gate, and got under the shelter of a pent- house belonging to the Six Clerks' Office, where he remained till morning, when the clerks came to their business, and he was then afraid to appear, lest he should be taken for a thief from the shabbiness of his dress.

Leaning against a plastered wall, part of it broke; but, as the place he stood in was very dark, no one observed it; on which he resolved to profit by the accident; in consequence of this, he, at night, made the breach wider, and got into the office, whence he stole six guineas, and about fifty shillings in silver.

Having spent this money, he determined to join his old companions on Windmill Hill; and, in his way thither, he observed a fellow pick a countryman's pocket of a bag of money in Smithfield; and a cry of 'Stop thief!' being immediately circulated, the pickpocket dropped the bag, which Powis took up unobserved, and, retiring to a public house, examined its contents, which he found to amount to above fifty pounds.

Having put the money in his pocket, he threw away the bag, and retired to his lodgings. This money, a greater sum than he had ever before possessed, was soon spent in extravagance, and he was again reduced to great extremities.

Thus distressed, he got into the area of a coffee-house in Chancery Lane, and attempted to force the kitchen window but, not succeeding, he secreted himself in the coal-cellar till the following evening, when he got into the house, and hid himself in a hole behind the chimney.

When the family was gone to rest, he stole some silver spoons, and about three shillings' worth of half pence from the bar, and, having now fasted thirty hours, he ate and drank heartily; but, hearing a person come downstairs, he pulled off his shoes, and, retiring hastily, got into a hole where broken glass was kept, by which his feet were cut in a shocking manner.

It happened to be only the maid-servant who came downstairs; and, going into the kitchen, Powis put on his shoes, and ran through the coffee-room into the street.

Being again reduced, he broke into the Chancery Office, where be stole about four pounds ten shillings, which being spent, he looked out for a fresh supply. Going to St. Dunstan's Church, at the time of morning prayers, he hid himself in the gallery till night, and then stole some of the prayer-books, which he proposed to have carried off the next morning, when the sexton appeared, who, being more terrified than the thief, ran to procure the assistance of another man; but in the mean time Powis bad so secreted himself that they could not find him after a search of two hours; they therefore at length gave it up, concluding that he had got out through one of the windows. However, he remained in the church all that day, and at the hour of prayer next morning went off with as many books as produced him a guinea.

On the following night he visited an acquaintance in Ram Alley, Fleet Street, where he observed a woman deposit some goods in a room, the door of which she fastened with a padlock. On this be concealed himself in the cellar till towards morning, when he opened the padlock with a crooked nail, and stole two gold rings and a guinea, being baulked in his expectation of a much more valuable prize.

One of the prayer-books which he had stolen from St. Dunstan's Church he sold to a bookseller in the Strand; and, while the lady who had lost it was inquiring at the bookseller's if such a book had fallen into his hands, Powis happened to stop to speak with a gentleman at the door; on which the bookseller said, 'There is the man who sold it me!' and the lady replied, 'He is a thief, and has stolen it!'

The bookseller, calling Powis into his shop, asked if he had sold him that book, which he acknowledged; and, being desired to recollect how he had obtained it, he said he could not; on which the bookseller threatened to have him committed to prison; but the lady, now earnestly looking at him, asked if his name was Powis. He said it was; on which she burst into tears, and said, 'I am sorry for you, and for your poor father; you are the cause of all his unhappiness.' The bookseller, happening likewise to know Powis's father, delivered the book to the lady, and permitted the young thief to depart, on promise to pay for it on the following day: but the day of payment never came.

A few nights after this he climbed up the sign-post belonging to a pastry-cook in Fleet Street, and got in at a chamber-window, whence he descended into the shop; but, not finding any money in the till, stole only two or three old books, and filled his pockets with tarts, with which he decamped.

Calling some days afterwards at the same shop to buy a tart, he found the people of the house entertaining themselves with the idea of the disappointment the thief had met with: and a lady who lodged in the house produced her gold watch, saying she supposed that had been the object of his search.

This circumstance encouraged him to make another attempt; wherefore, on the following night, he again ascended the sign-post, and got in at the window; but hearing a person coming downstairs without shoes, he got back to the sign-post, descended, and ran off. He was instantly pursued, but escaped through the darkness of the night.

Chagrined at this disappointment, he sauntered into the fields, and lay down under a hay-rick. He slumbered awhile; but, being distressed in mind, he imagined he heard a voice crying, 'Run, run, fly for your life; for you are pursued, and if you are taken you will be hanged.' He started with wild affright, and large drops of sweat ran down his face, occasioned by the agitation of his mind.

Finding that he had only been disturbed by a dream, he again lay down; but the stings of his conscience continuing to goad him, he dreamt that a person came to him, saying, 'Young man, you must go away from hence; for, were I to suffer you to remain here, I should expect a judgment to fall on me: so go away, or I will fetch a constable, who shall oblige you to go.' Being again terrified, he walked round the hay-rick, calling out 'Who is there?' but receiving no answer, he lay down once more, and dreamt that his father-in- law stood by him, and spoke as follows:-- 'O son! will you never take warning till justice overtakes you? The time will come when you will wish, but too late, that you had been warned by me.'

Unable now to sleep, through the agonies of his mind, he wandered about till morning, and had formed a resolution of returning to his father-in-law; but as he was going to him he met an old acquaintance, who paid him a debt of a few shillings; and, going to drink with him, Powis soon forgot the virtuous resolutions he bad formed.

On parting from this acquaintance he went to the house of another, where he slept five hours; and then, being extremely hungry, went to a public house, where he supped, and spent all his money, except eightpence.

Thus reduced, he resolved to make a fresh attempt on the Chancery Office, for which purpose he broke through the wall, but found no booty.

In the mean time his father-in-law exerted his utmost endeavours to find him, to consult his safety; and, having met with him, told him it would be imprudent for him to stay longer in London, as people began to be suspicious of him: wherefore he advised him to go to Cambridge, and work as a journeyman with a smith of his acquaintance.

Young Powis consenting, the father bought him new clothes, furnished him with some good books, and gave him money to proceed on his journey. He now left the old gentleman; but soon afterwards meeting with six strolling players, one of whom he had formerly known, they sat down to drinking; at which they continued till all Powis's money was spent, and then he sold his new clothes.

Our young adventurer now became so hardened in guilt that there appeared no prospect of his reformation. One Sunday morning early he attempted to break open the house of a baker in Chancery Lane; but the family being alarmed, he was obliged to decamp without his booty, though not without being known. This affair coming to the knowledge of the father, he commissioned some  friends to tell the boy, if they should meet him, that he was still ready to receive him with kindness, if he would mend his conduct.

Powis, being now very much distressed, applied to his still generous relation, who advised him to go to the West Indies, as the most effectual method of being out of danger; and he promised to furnish him with necessaries for the voyage.

Accepting the offer, Powis was properly fitted out, and sent on board a ship in the river, where he was confined in the bold, to prevent his escaping. In a day or two afterwards he was allowed the liberty of the ship; but most of the seamen now going on shore to take leave of their friends, he resolved to seize the opportunity of making his escape, and of taking some thing of value with him.

Waiting till it was night, he broke open a chest belonging to a passenger, and, having stolen a handsome suit of clothes, he took the opportunity of the people on watch going to call others to relieve them; and, dropping down the side of the ship, got into a boat; but, having only a single oar, he was unable to steer her;, and, after striving a considerable time, was obliged to let her drive; the consequence of which was, that she ran on shore below Woolwich.

Quitting the boat, he set off towards London; but near Deptford he met with two men, who asked him to sell his wig; on which he went to a public house with them, where they told him that a friend of theirs had been robbed of such a wig, and they suspected him to be the robber. Powis saw through the artifice, and, calling the landlord, desired that a constable might be sent for to take the villains into custody; but the men immediately threw down their reckoning, and ran off in the utmost haste.

Our adventurer, proceeding to London, changed his clothes, and took to his former practice of housebreaking; in which, however, he was remarkably unsuccessful. Strolling one night to the house where he had formerly been at Stockwell, he got in at the window, and stole a bottle of brandy, a groat coat, and some other articles; but the family being alarmed, he was pursued and taken.

As be was known to the people of the house, they threatened to convey him to the ship; but be expressed so much dread at the consequence, that they conducted him to his father-in-law, whose humanity once more induced him to receive the returning prodigal with kindness.

Powis now lived regularly at home about nine weeks, when, having received about a guinea as Christmas-box money, he got into company, and spent the whole; after which he renewed his former practices.

Having concealed himself under some hay in a stable in Chancery Lane, be broke into a boarding-school adjoining to it, whence he stole some books and a quantity of linen: and, soon after this, he broke into the house of an attorney, and, getting into a garret, struck a light; but some of the family being alarmed, there was an outcry of 'Thieves!' A man ascending a ladder being observed by Powis, he attempted to break through the tiling; but, failing in this, the other cried 'There is the thief!' Terrified by these words, he got into a gutter, whence he dropped down to a carpenter's yard adjoining, but could get no farther.

While he was in this situation, the carpenter, going into the yard with a candle, took him into custody, and lodged him in the roundhouse; but on the following day his father-in-law exerted himself so effectually, that the offence was forgiven, and he was once more taken home to the house of this ever-indulgent friend.

After he had been three months at home, the father in-law was employed to do some business for Mr. Williams, a Welsh gentleman of fortune, who having brought his lady to London to lie in, she died in child-bed; and it was determined that she should be buried in Wales. Hereupon Powis's father-in-law was sent for to examine all the locks, &c. that the effects might be safe in the absence of Mr. Williams.

Our youth, being employed as a journeyman in this business, found a box of linen that was too full, on which he took out some articles. In removing the linen he found a small box, remarkably heavy, which, on examination, appeared to contain diamonds, jewels, rings, a gold watch, and other articles, to the amount of more than 200L., all which he stole, and put the box in its place. This being done, he called the maid to see that all was safe, and delivered her the key of the larger box.

Being possessed of this booty, Powis consulted an acquaintance as to the method of disposing of it, who advised him to melt the gold, and throw the jewels into the Thames, This being agreed upon, the acquaintance kept the jewels; and the gold being sold for eleven uineas, Powis had seven of them, which he soon squandered away.

About a fortnight after the effects were stolen Powis was apprehended on suspicion of the robbery, and committed to Newgate; and, being tried at the next sessions, was sentenced to be transported for seven years; the jury having given a verdict that he was guilty of stealing to the value of thirty-nine shillings.

He lay in Newgate a considerable time; till at length his father-in-law, after repeated entreaties, and a promise of a total reformation of manners, made such interest, that he was burnt in the hand, and  set at large.

Yet again was this ungrateful boy taken under his parent's roof, where he continued about seven months; when, meeting with one of his dissolute companions, he spent all his money, and was then afraid to return home.

He now refrained some time from acts of theft; and, taking lodgings in an alley in Fleet Street, subsisted by borrowing money of his acquaintance. Soon afterwards, however, he broke open a trunk at his lodgings, and stole some linen, which he pawned for five shillings and sixpence.

On the next day the landlord charged him with the robbery; but, not intending to prosecute him, was content with recovering his linen from the pawnbrokers, and took Powis's word for making good the deficient money.

In less than a week after the adjustment of this affair our young, but hardened, villain broke open the coffee-house in Chancery Lane which we have already mentioned, and stole a few articles, which produced him about thirty shillings: and soon afterwards he broke into the Chancery Office, where be stole two books, which he sold for half a crown.

On the following evening he went again to the office, and hid himself under the staircase; but, being heard to cough by a man who had been left to watch, be was taken into custody, and conveyed to a tavern in the neighbourhood, where his father-in-law attended, and pleaded so forcibly in his behalf, that he was permitted to go home with him for the night.

On the following day some gentlemen came to examine him, when he denied the commission of a variety of crimes with which he had been charged; but the gentlemen, having consented to his escape for this time, advised him not to appear again in that neighbourhood, as the Masters in Chancery had given strict orders for prosecuting him.

After receiving some good advice from his father-in-law, he was recommended to work with a smith in Milford Lane, in the Strand: but Powis had a brother who called upon him a few days afterwards, and told him that a warrant was issued to apprehend him for robbing the Chancery, which obliged him to abscond.

Strolling one evening in the Spa Fields, near Islington, some constables apprehended him as a vagrant, and lodged him, with several others, in New Prison; and on the following day most of the prisoners were discharged by a magistrate, and Powis was ordered to be set at liberty; but, not having money to pay his fees, he was taken back to the prison, where he remained a few days longer, and was then set at liberty by the charity of a gentleman, who bade him 'thank God, and take care never to get into trouble again.'

In a short time after his discharge he broke into the Earl of Peterborough's house at Chelsea, and stole some trifling articles from the kitchen, which he sold for four shillings; and on the following night he robbed another house in the same neighbourhood of some effects, which he sold for ten shillings.

This trifling sum being soon spent, he broke open a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he got a considerable quantity of money; and, to prevent persons who knew him from suspecting that be was the thief, he forged a letter, as coming from his grandfather in Yorkshire, purporting that he had sent him such a sum.

In a short time afterwards, at a kind of ball given by one of his companions to celebrate his birthday, Powis fell in love with a girl who made one of the company.

The girl paying no attention to his addresses, Powis waited on her  mother, and, after some conversation with her, was permitted to pay his personal respects to the daughter, to whom he pretended that his grandfather in Yorkshire would leave him a large sum of money; and, in proof of what he said, he showed her some counterfeit letters, appearing to have the postmark on them.

The girl made no objection to him as a husband; but said it would be prudent in him to visit his grandfather, and ask his consent to the match, which would contribute to her peace of mind. On this he left her, and broke open a house that evening, whence he stole a few things, which he sold for fifteen shillings, and, calling on her the next day, took his leave, as if preparing for his journey.

His plan was to commit some robbery by which he might obtain a considerable sum, and then, concealing himself for some time, return to his mistress, and pretend that his grandfather had given him the money.

Going to see 'The Beggars' Opera,' he was greatly shocked at the appearance of Macheath on the stage in fetters, and could not forbear reflecting what might he his own future fate; yet about a week afterwards he broke open a cook's shop, and stole some articles, the sale of which produced him a guinea.

On the following day he called at Newgate, treated the prisoners to the amount of seven shillings, and, on his quitting the prison, met two girls whom he knew; and with them he went to Hampstead, where he treated them to the amount of twelve shillings and sixpence; so that only eighteen pence remained of his last ill-gotten guinea.

On the following day Powis went to the Black Raven, in Fetter Lane, where he observed the landlord put some gold into a drawer, of which be determined, if possible, to possess himself. About midnight he went away, having first stolen the pin that fastened the cellar-window.

Returning at two in the morning, he got into the cellar, and attempted to open the door of the tap room; but, failing in this, he was about to return by the way he had entered, when a watchman coming by, and seeing the window open, alarmed the family. Powis now escaped into a carpenter's yard, and hid himself: but the landlord coming down, and several persons attending, be was apprehended; not, however, till one person had run a sword through his leg, and another struck him a blow on the head that almost deprived him of his senses; circumstances of severity which could not be justified, as he made no resistance.

The offender was lodged in the Compter for the present, and, being removed to Newgate, was brought to his trial at the Old Bailey, convicted of the burglary, and received sentence of death. The jury, considering the cruelty with which he had been treated, recommended him to mercy: however, the royal favour was not extended to him, as he had before been sentenced to transportation.

When brought up to receive sentence, be begged to be represented as an object worthy of the royal lenity; but was told not to expect such indulgence. He likewise wrote to his sweetheart to exert her influence, which she promised, but could do nothing to serve him.

He was hanged at Tyburn on the 9th of October, 1732, along with William Shelton, at the age of twenty-two years, after admonishing the spectators to take warning by his fatal end, and expressing the utmost detestation of the irregularities of his life.

The case of this malefactor will afford a very striking lesson to youth. In the former part of his life we see the miserable situation of a strolling player; and surely the distresses he encountered will be deemed enough to terrify thoughtless young men, who are fond of what is called spouting, from engaging in this vagrant course of life.

The terrors of Powis's conscience when be lay down to sleep under the hay-rick show that there is no peace to the wicked. One self-approving hour, the consequence of having discharged our duty, must afford more solid satisfaction than whole months spent in that riot and debauchery which may be purchased with ill-gotten wealth.

Nothing, surely, can be equal to the goodness with which Powis was treated by his father-in-law. His kindness appears to have been almost without example, and what could scarcely have been expected even from a real parent.

This offender, then, sinned against all advice, all warning, all indulgence: but we trust his fate will have a forcible effect on young people who may read this narrative. We hope it will, in a particular manner, teach them the necessity of duty to their parents; and that the only way to be happy in advanced life is to be virtuous and religious while they are young.

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20: William Shelton

Executed at Tyburn, October 9, 1732, for highway robbery.

WILLIAM SHELTON was born of respectable parents near Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and received a liberal education in the learned languages. At a proper age he was apprenticed to an apothecary at Enfield; but his master applied to his father to take him back at the end of two years, as his conduct was so irregular that he did not choose any further connection with him.

In consequence hereof he was placed with an apothecary at Stoke Newington; and, though he still kept gay company, he served six years with a fair character.

About this time he became violently enamoured of his mistress's sister, who was by no means insensible to his addresses. She lived in the family; but no person suspected their intimacy, till the mistress accidentally heard her sister freely represent to Shelton the disagreeable consequence that must arise from keeping bad company and late hours.

Shelton's master and his wife both disapproved of the intended match, on account of his keeping too much gay company; and his own parents objected to it from the same reason, wishing him to acquire greater steadiness of mind before he married.

When his seven years were complete, he took leave of the young lady with professions of lasting love; and his father having supplied him with money, he engaged in business, and was for some time greatly successful; but his immoderate attachment to pleasure lost him much of his business and many of his friends.

He had not been long in trade before he became enamoured of a young lady, daughter of a widow in his neighbourhood; and having made an acquaintance with her, unknown to her mother, he conveyed her out of a back window of the house, and married her at the Fleet. So soon had he forgot his vows to the former lady!

The father of the bride having been a citizen of London, her fortune had been deposited in the hands of the chamberlain, who readily paid it to the husband.

Shelton was still in considerable business; but his attachment to company was such that his expenses exceeded his income; so that he grew daily poorer; and his father dying about this time, left all his fortune to his widow, for her life; so that Shelton had nothing to expect till after the death of his mother.

He now made acquaintance with some people of abandoned character, and took to a habit of gaming, by which his circumstances became still more embarrassed, and he was obliged to decline business after he had followed it only two years.

Thus distressed, he entered as surgeon on board a ship bound to Antigua, and was received with such singular tokens of respect by the inhabitants of the island, that he resolved to settle there as a surgeon, and write to England for his wife to come over to him; but an unfortunate circumstance prevented the carrying of this scheme into execution.

In the island of Antigua it is customary to exercise the militia weekly, when the officers on duty treat their brethren in rotation, and invite what company they please. Mr. Shelton being invited by Colonel Ker, the latter gave a generous treat, and urged his friends to drink freely. On the approach of night, some of them would have gone home; but the colonel prevailed on them to stay till the next day, hinting that it might be dangerous to meet some negroes who had quitted the plantation.

Shelton agreed, among, others, to stay: but he had not been long in bed, when the liquor he had drank occasioned the most excruciating pain in his bowels. The next morning he took some medicines to abate the pain, and the end was answered for the present; but he determined to embark for England, as he thought he felt the symptoms of an approaching consumption.

Hereupon he sailed for his native country, and arrived to the surprise of his friends, who had been taught to expect that he would continue in Antigua. They, however, advised him to settle at Buntingford, in Hertfordshire, where there was a vacancy occasioned by the death or an apothecary. Shelton, having inquired into the affair, and finding no prospect worth his notice, his wife's mother persuaded him to take a house at Brassin, a village near Buntingford, intimating that she would live with him, and be at the expense of housekeeping. This proposal was accepted; but when the leases were drawn, the old lady refused to execute them, so that Shelton was obliged to abandon his agreeable prospect, in a way that appeared not very reputable to himself.

Distressed in mind, and not knowing how to support himself, he determined to commence highwayman; and having hired a horse, and furnished himself with pistols, he rode to Finchley Common; but after looking out some hours, and meeting with no booty there, he returned towards London, in his way to which he took about thirty shillings from four ladies, whom he stopped in a coach; and he obtained three shillings and sixpence from a gentleman he met on the road.

He now put on a mask; and, thus disguised, robbed the passengers in three stage-coaches on Epping Forest of their watches and money: Some persons on horseback immediately pursued him, and were very near  him at Waltham Abbey, but taking a different road, he went round by Cheshunt, and escaped to London, where he, the next day, heard that his pursuers had galloped after him to Enfield.

The watches he sold to a Jew, and having spent the money, he rode out to Hounslow Heath, where he demanded a gentleman's money, and, after some hesitation on the part of the latter, robbed him of thirty- two guineas and some silver. This done, he crossed the Thames to Richmond, where he dined, and afterwards stopped two ladies, in a coach, on Putney Common, but got no booty from them, as they had just before been robbed by another highwayman.

On the same evening he robbed a Quaker of nine pounds; and, early on the following morning, he stopped the Northampton stage, and robbed the passengers of twenty-seven pounds. The reason for these rapid robberies was, that he had a debt to discharge which he had contracted at the gaming table, which being done, he appeared among his former companions as before.

Soon after this he rode towards Chiswick, in the hope of meeting a colonel in the army but as the gentleman knew him, he was apprehensive, of being recollected by his voice, though he wore a mask. The colonel seeing a man masked coming forward, produced a pistol, and on the other coming up, fired at him, and grazed the skin of his horse's shoulder. Shelton now fired, and wounded the colonel's horse, on which the colonel discharged his other pistol, but without effect. Hereupon the highwayman demanded his money, which having received, to the amount of about £50, he took a circuit round the country, and came into London at night.

On the week following this robbery, he obtained a booty of ten guineas, some silver, and two gold watches, on Finchley Common; but, being pursued by some gentlemen on horseback, he concealed himself on Enfield Chace, and having eluded his pursuers, he rode to London, but in his way robbed a gentleman and lady of between thirty and forty shillings, on Muswell Hill.

On the following evening he took a ride, but did not rob any person; but; on his return through Islington, he heard somebody cry out, "Stop the highwayman!" On which he rode hastily up a lane, where his horse had nearly stuck fast in a slough; but, getting through it, he stopped in a field, and saw his pursuers waiting in expectation of him. He, therefore, made a circle, and got down Goswell-street, to the end of Old-street, where he again heard the cry of, "A highwayman!" on which he rode to Dog-House-Bar, and escaped by the way of Moorfields.

Soon after this he rode to Enfield Chace, and putting on a mask, robbed one of the northern stages, while the driver was watering his horses at a pond. Some men who were playing at skittles seeing this robbery, surrounded his horse; but, on his firing a pistol, they ran away, and he pursued his journey to London.

Having one day committed a robbery on the Hertford road, he was returning to town, when he overtook two farmers, who had been drinking at an alehouse till they were valiant, and were wishing to meet Mr. Shelton, whom they would certainly take: and they wondered how people could permit him to proceed unmolested. On which Shelton presented his pistol, and they delivered their money, with every sign of fear; the money was but trifling, which he returned, laughing at them for their assumed courage

His next robbery was on Finchley common, where he took several watches, and sixteen pounds, from the company in the Northampton stage; and the name of Shelton was now become so eminent, that many other robbers courted his acquaintance; among whom were two men who had formed a design of robbing the turnpike-man on Stamford Hill, but had not resolution to carry their plan into execution.

This design was no sooner mentioned to Shelton, than he agreed to be concerned: whereupon they went on foot from London at ten o'clock at night; but before they reached the spot, Shelton's companions relented, and would go no farther; on which they came to town, in their way to which they robbed a gentleman of a few shillings; but Shelton determined to have no farther connection with these people.

His next robbery was on two gentlemen in a chaise, both of them armed with pistols, in the road from Hounslow, from whom he took £16 and soon after this, being destitute of cash, and determined to make a bold attempt, he robbed several coaches one evening, and acquired booty of £90 exclusive of rings and watches.

In consequence of these repeated robberies, a proclamation was issued for taking Shelton into custody, wherein was given a minute description of his person; on which he concealed himself some time in Herefordshire; but he had not long been there, before a person who recollected him informed a neighbouring magistrate, on which he was taken into custody, and conveyed to London.

He was tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, for several robberies in Middlesex, and being convicted, he was sentenced to die.

While in prison he affected great gaiety of disposition, and was fond of entertaining his visitors with the history of his exploits. At times indeed, he would be more serious; but he soon recurred to his former volatility.

On the arrival of the warrant for his execution, he seemed greatly agitated, and it was remarked that he shed some tears; but having recourse to the bottle, he dissipated those ideas that had given him uneasiness. At the place of execution he refused to perform the customary devotions.

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1733

21: Isaac And Thomas Hallam

Murderers and Highwaymen, hanged in Lincolnshire, 20th of February, 1733, upon the Spot where they committed their Crime

ISAAC AND THOMAS HALLAM were brothers, who had long, with too much success, carried on a series of daring robberies, and perpetrated cruel murders, insomuch that Government offered a reward for their apprehension. They were at length taken, and charged with the murder of William Wright, a youth of only eighteen years of age, who was found in a post-chaise at Faldingworth Gate, near Market Rasen, in Lincolnshire, with his head almost severed from his body, covered over with the seat-cloth, and his pockets rifled.

In consequence of the proclamation, extraordinary search was made after these desperate depredators, but they baffled their pursuers nearly a month. At length they were taken into custody, and committed to the jail of the city of Lincoln.  Among their various outrages, they, in mere wantonness, forced a post-boy to blow his horn, then told him he had sounded his own death-peal, and immediately cut his throat, as well as that of his horse, and the bodies of the man and the beast were next morning found close together. From this detestable barbarity, the post-boys of Lincoln mustered with horns on their entrance into Lincoln, and greeted them with their loudest blasts; whereupon, now stung with remorse, one of them was observed to weep.

They were convicted of the murders of William Wright and Thomas Gardner; and afterwards confessed that they committed, in company with each other, sixty-three robberies and one murder, exclusive of that for which they were condemned to die. Yet did these shocking offenders attempt to evade their punishment. They procured a case-knife, which they notched like a saw, in order to cut off their irons; and then, with a spike-nail, they began digging through the wall of their prison; but were detected.

In passing to the place of execution of Isaac, which was the spot where they had murdered the post-boy, this unfortunate brother fell into violent agonies and perturbation of mind. At the gallows, there being no clergyman to attend them, he called to one of the spectators to assist him in his devotions, which the good man readily complied with, and he prayed with much fervency. Thomas was ordered to be carried farther, to the place where they had murdered Mr Wright, but on his seeing his brother turned off, and struggling with life, he shrieked out in a dreadful manner. He then was drawn to Faldingworth Gate, where he died in dreadful agonies of mind. This execution took place on the 20th of February, 1733.

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22: Sarah Malcolm

Executed for the Murder of a Wealthy Old Lady in the Inns of Court, 7th of March, 1733

THIS unhappy young woman, who at the period of her death was only twenty-two years of age, was born of respectable parents, in the county of Durham, in the year 1711; but her father having, through his extravagance, spent the whole of the property which he possessed, she was at length compelled to resort to what is commonly called servitude, for the means of subsistence. In this condition for several years she conducted herself extremely well; but at length, being employed at the Black Horse, a low public-house in Boswell Court, near Temple Bar, which had been constantly the notorious resort of persons of bad character, she formed connections of no very creditable class, by whom she was led on to her ruin. Having at length quitted the Black Horse she was recommended as a laundress to take charge of chambers in the Inns of Court; and amongst those for whom she there worked was a Mrs Lydia Duncomb, a lady nearly eighty years of age, who occupied a set of chambers in the Temple; Elizabeth Harrison, aged sixty, and Ann Price, aged seventeen, living with her in the capacity of servants. This lady being reputed to be very rich, a scheme was formed by Sarah Malcolm of robbing her chambers; her object being, it was supposed, by the acquisition of wealth, to make herself a fitting match for a young man named Alexander, who she hoped would marry her.

The night of Saturday,3rd of February, 1733, was fixed upon by her for the commission of the robbery, and Martha Tracy, a woman of light character, her paramour, Alexander, and his brother, were to be her assistants in the execution of the project. Malcolm, by means of her acquaintance with the chambers, obtained possession of the keys of the outer door in the course of the day, and at night the robbery was effected, but with it the murder also of Mrs Duncomb and her servants Harrison and Price. On the Sunday morning some surprise was excited on its being observed that none of Mrs Duncomb's family was to be seen; and at length, as the day advanced, great alarm was exhibited, and suspicions were entertained that all was not right.

Mrs Love, Mrs Rhymer and Mrs Oliphant, friends of Mrs Duncomb, assembled in the afternoon at the door of her chambers, in obedience to an invitation which they had received to dinner; but being unable to gain admittance by knocking, they at length determined to force an entrance. One of the windows was resorted to for this purpose, to which access was obtained from a neighbouring set of chambers; and then, on Mrs Oliphant going into Mrs Duncomb's bedroom, the old lady was found there strangled, while her servant Harrison was discovered in an adjoining apartment also strangled, and the girl Price was seen lying on her bed with her throat cut from ear to ear.

The news of this diabolical crime soon became published through the neighbourhood; and on the chambers of the deceased being examined it was found that they had been stripped of all the valuables which could be easily carried away, consisting of money, silver and plate, and other articles of a similar description. In the course of the day some circumstances transpired tending to fix the suspicions of the police upon the woman Malcolm; and, upon her lodgings being searched, a silver tankard, the handle of which was covered with blood, was found concealed in a close-stool. She was in consequence taken into custody, and having undergone an examination on the following day, before the magistrates, she was committed to Newgate. Upon her entering the jail she was searched by Johnson, one of the turnkeys, who took from her a considerable sum of money in gold and silver coin, and she admitted to him that it was Mrs Duncomb's. "But," added she, "I'll make you a present of it if you will say nothing of the matter." The jailer took possession of the money, but produced it to his superior officers, acquainting them with the conversation which had passed.

In the course of the subsequent imprisonment of the unhappy woman she frequently conversed with Johnson upon the subject of the murder, and admitted that she had arranged the robbery, although she declared that she had nothing to do with putting Mrs Duncomb and her servants to death. She asserted that two men and a woman were concerned with her, and that she
watched on the stairs while they entered the chambers. At her trial, when called on for her defence, she made a similar declaration, and stated that Tracy and the two Alexanders were her companions; but she still persisted in her allegation of her ignorance of the murder until it was discovered by Mrs Oliphant on the day after it was committed. A verdict of guilty was, however, returned, and the wretched woman was ordered for execution.

After her conviction she evinced the most sincere penitence, but still persisted in her refusal to confess herself guilty of the whole crime with which she was charged. Upon the bellman coming to her in the customary manner she attended anxiously to what he said, and at the conclusion of his address threw him a shilling to buy wine.

On the morning of execution, 7th of March, 1733, she appeared more composed than she had been for some time past, and seemed to join in prayers with the ordinary, and another gentleman who attended, with much sincerity. When in the cart she wrung her hands and wept most bitterly.

At the place of execution, near Fetter Lane, she behaved with the utmost devoutness and resignation to the Divine will; but when the ordinary, in his prayers, recommended her soul to God she fainted, and with much difficulty recovered her senses. On the cart driving off she turned towards the Temple, crying out, "Oh, my mistress, my mistress! I wish I could see her!" and then, casting her eyes towards heaven, called upon Christ to receive her soul.

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23: William Alcock

Who first abandoned, and then murdered, his wife. Executed at Northampton, March 9, 1733.

This unnatural and cruel man was an inhabitant of the town of Bourn, in Lincolnshire. He had been married only two years, when he left his wife, who was afflicted with the palsy, giving out that the cause of absence was in consequence of having found her in bed with another man. He travelled to Colchester, married again, and set-up his business, that of a miller, in, which he was successful.

He employed a man of the name of Peck, as his assistant, but upon some words arising between them, Alcock discharged him, without suffering him to complete the job he had in hand. Peck replied, "I'll do as good a job for you; for I have heard you have a wife in Lincolnshire, and I'll travel the kingdom over, till I find her, and send her to you." Upon this he instantly set out, and bent his course in order to fulfil his threat. He enquired at every town he came to in Lincolnshire, until he actually found Mrs. Alcock. In effecting this, he spent nearly two years; and to defray his expenses, he occasionally stopped for a few days to work: and when his wages were expended in his travels, he worked again; thus persevering until he had accomplished his determined purpose.

The parish officers of Bourn, who had the maintenance of the deserted woman to provide, received Peck's information, and despatched two of the parishioners to Colchester, with whom Alcock entered into a compromise, on the following conditions: to pay down twenty pounds, and within a month thirty pounds more; and to fetch away his wife from Bourn. He accordingly arrived there on the 22d of August, 1732, on a good horse, and a new pillion for his wife to ride on behind him. He, however, tried every means to induce the officers to keep her, offering a yearly sum sufficient for that purpose, and observed that, "she was so disagreeable to him, that he would rather be hanged, than take her again."

Finding his offers all rejected, he set off with her on the 24th, and on the next day the body of the unfortunate woman was discovered in a ditch under a willow-tree, near Pilsgate, in the parish of Barnack,  in Northamptonshire, and about eight miles from Bourn. It appeared that she had been strangled with a short cord, which but just met about her neck; and the pillion was found a little distance from her body. The murderer immediately proceeded to Colchester; and on the 28th was apprehended by officers from Bourn, and the next day fully committed to gaol.

Though convicted on the clearest evidence, yet this obdurate man, even to the last moment of his existence, denied the justice of his sentence; and his behaviour, daring the short interval allowed prisoners to make their peace with God, evinced the most shocking depravity. He constantly refused the consolations of devotion, and paid no attention to the warnings of a clergyman, who at length desisted from farther exhortations, On the morning of his execution, he drank to intoxication; yet, on coming out of the prison, he sent for a pint of wine; which being refused him by the sheriff, he would not get into the cart which waited to convey him to execution, until the money given for that purpose was returned to him. On the road to the gallows he sung part of the old song of Robin Hood, adding to each verse, the chorus of derry down, &c. At intervals he swore, kicked, and spurned, at any person who touched the cart.

When tied up to the fatal tree, he kicked off his shoes, to avoid a well known proverb; and being told by a person in the cart with him, and who wished, thus late, to reclaim him, that he had much better read and repent, than thus vilely swear and sing, he struck the book out of this humane man's hands, damned the spectators, and called for wine. During the singing of psalms, and reading of prayers, this monster was employed in talking and nodding to his acquaintance; telling some to remember him; others to drink to his good journey; and with his last words, he inveighed against the injustice of his case.

He was hanged at Northampton, amid the groans and detestation of many thousand spectators

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24: William Gordon

Highwayman, on whose body, after execution, an experiment was made to bring him to life

THIS malefactor was brought up to the business of a butcher; but for twenty years previous to his execution, had been a reputed highwayman. He was tried at Chelmsford for a desperate attack and robbery on Epping-forest, but escaped conviction by proving an alibi. He brought a number of evidences to prove that he was in Ireland when this robbery was committed.

William Gordon was convicted at the Old Bailey, of a highway robbery on Mr. Peters, under-treasurer. of the Temple, between Knightsbridge and Hyde-park corner, whom he robbed of his hat, wig, watch, and a gold ring; and, being at the time in a state of intoxication, he was soon apprehended, and had no other plea to offer, but that he was drunk.

What rendered this criminal's case sufficiently remarkable to find a place in these volumes, was a report circulated that he had cut his throat, just before he was carried out to execution, and that a surgeon sewed it up. The cause of this report was as follows:

Mr. Chovot, a surgeon, having, by frequent experiments on dogs, discovered, that opening the windpipe, would prevent the fatal  consequences of being hanged by the neck, communicated it to Gordon, who consented to the experiment being made on him. Accordingly, pretending to take his last leave of him, the surgeon secretly made an incision in his windpipe; and the effect this produced on the malefactor was, that when he stopt his mouth, nostrils, and ears, air sufficient to prolong life, issued from the cavity. When he was hanged, he was observed to retain life, after the others executed with him were dead. His body, after hanging three quarters of an hour, was cut down, and carried to a house in Edgware road., where Chovot was in attendance, who immediately opened a vein, which bled freely, and soon after the culprit opened his mouth and groaned. He, however, died; but it was the opinion of those present at the experiment, that had he been cut down only five minutes. sooner, life would have returned. He suffered along with James Ward and William Keys, for a highway, and with William Norman, for a street robbery, on the 27th of April, 1733.

A month after the execution of Gordon, John Davis, who had frequently robbed in company with him, was brought to execution on the same tree from which Gordon was hanged. Davis feigned himself sick, and entreated the sheriff that he might not be tied in the cart on his road to Tyburn, and which was humanely granted. When the executioner was fastening the rope round the neck of John Jones, another malefactor to be then executed, Davis jumped out of the cart, made his way through the astonished spectators, and ran over two fields; but being knocked down by a countryman; he was brought back, tied up, and hanged. He confessed having committed various daring robberies, along with the notorious old offender Gordon.

[Note: Alibi: This is a common and dangerous defence, yet it seldom succeeds, from the facility with which the accused can suborn men, hardened like themselves in scenes of iniquity, to swear the prisoner, at the time when the robbery had been stated to have been committed, was elsewhere. Too often, however, have prosecutors erred in the identity of the persons by whom they had been plundered; in which case, nothing short of a. well substantiated alibi can impeach their evidence.]

The writer of this article, excited by the case of two unfortunate young men, paid his half-crown (a most disgraceful practice) for a seat in the gallery of the Old Bailey, in order to witness their trial, and to view the effects of an alibi, which he heard would be set up against the evidence of a gentleman of title, and filling a high situation in the law. The prosecutor, in this case, was Sir Thomas Davenport; and the accused, ―Smith, who kept the Assembly Rooms, at Kentish Town, near London, at the time of his apprehension; and ―Brown, the son of a widow, the landlady of a reputable public-house, in Chapel-street, Bedford-row.

In the year 1785, these innocent young men were brought to the bar of that awful tribunal, in heavy irons, charged with robbing on the highway, Sir Thomas and Lady Davenport. Sir Thomas, his head covered with his legal wig, on the top of which was the black patch of the King's Serjeants of the Court of Common Pleas, swore, that on a certain evening, a few weeks before, at about twilight, on the Uxbridge road, the prisoners at the bar, one of them mounted on a brown and the other on a grey horse, stopped his carriage, in which were his lady and himself, and putting them in fear of their lives, presented pistols, and demanded his money, which he immediately gave them. Mr. Garrow, then a young counsel, acting in behalf of the prisoners, with much diffidence to the learned Serjeant, cross-examined Sir Thomas, observing, that human nature was liable to mistake objects injuring them, especially at the time he was robbed, and wished him to be positive as to the identity of the prisoners. The witness, upon this, turned round, and fully viewed them, saying, "As far as a man can swear to another, the prisoners at the bar robbed me, as I have described."

Lady Davenport was next called, and she also swore to the prisoners. Then came forward the coachman and footman of Sir Thomas, who corroborated the evidence of their master and mistress.

Two horses, of the colour described to have been rode by the highwaymen, were brought to the court yard of the Old Bailey, and sworn to be the same, according to the best of the belief of the witnesses, on which the prisoners were mounted.

This was the evidence on the part of the crown, a case so strong, that every casual spectator supposed it would justly warrant the jury in finding the accused guilty. Being called upon for their defence, they handed up a written statement of their case, the import of which was, that on the evening of the supposed robbery, they were at their respective homes. To substantiate this plea, a number of respectable inhabitants of Kentish-town deposed, that the day of the robbery sworn to, was the anniversary dinner of a club, of which they were members, held at the house of the prisoner Smith; that be was attending upon them from the time of dinner until midnight, and never out of their club-room a single half hour at a time. Four or five had already sworn to this, adducing the strongest circumstances to corroborate their testimony, and many more were behind, ready to do the same, when the court interposed, by observing that the alibi, respecting Smith, was clearly substantiated. In behalf of Brown proof was also adduced, that he was, on the same evening, serving in his mother's barroom.

Judge Heath, in summing up the case, observed, that had Sir Thomas remained in court, he would himself have been convinced, that he was mistaken in the identity of the prisoners. No imputation, however, could be, thrown upon the evidence farther, than that all of them were too positive. Sir Thomas, doubtless convinced they were the men who robbed him, was followed by his lady and their servants; and when we are told that Smith and Brown were intimate friends, being both publicans, and that they had sometimes rode out together on horses similar to those sworn to, and which were actually their own property, there is some reason to excuse the mistake; but it should be a most serious caution to prosecutors of men, charged with a crime which affects life, in giving their evidence of the identity of the persons accused.

These young men had borne irreproachable characters, and the miseries entailed upon them in this world, arising from their being thus innocently arraigned, is the most melancholy part of this note. Smith sunk into despondency, and soon died. Brown, also stung with shame, left his aged mother, and went abroad. Had they borne up against their misfortune, a very few years, their minds might have been fully set at ease; for the robbers of Sir Thomas Davenport were convicted of another offence, and in the cells of Newgate, confessed that they, mounted on the same coloured horses, were the men who robbed him!!!

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1736

25: Captain John Porteous

Convicted of murder, but murdered by the mob

FEW CASES have excited more attention than that of Captain Porteous, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death but who having rendered himself obnoxious to the people, was dragged out of prison, and killed by an enraged mob. The magistrates of Edinburgh, the town in which the riot took place, were fined for neglect of their duty, and rendered incapable of acting again in any judicial capacity, and the royal proclamation was issued, in which a large reward was offered for the apprehension of the murderers, but from such an immense mob as that which seized Porteous, it was impossible to select any individuals.

John Porteous was born of indigent parents, near the city Edinburgh, who bound him apprentice to a tailor, with who after the expiration of his apprenticeship, he worked as journeyman.

Porteous was soon noticed by several reputable gentlemen, as young man of good address and fine accomplishments, and one whom they entertained a desire to serve.

It happened at this time, that a gentleman who had been lord provost of Edinburgh, growing tired of his mistress, wished to disengage himself from her in a genteel manner: and knowing Porteous to be very poor he proposed his taking her off his hands by making her his wife. When the proposition was first made to the lady she rejected in with much disdain, thinking it a great degradation to match with journeyman tailor; but on the gentleman's promising her a fortune of five hundred pounds, she consented, and they were married accordingly. Porteous now commenced master, and met with good success for some time; but being much addicted to company, he neglected his business; by which means he lost many of his customers. His wife, in consequence, was obliged to apply to her old friend the provost, to make some other provision for them.

In Edinburgh there are three companies of men, of twenty-five each, who are employed to keep the peace, and take up all offenders, whom they keep in custody till examined by a magistrate. An officer is appointed to each of these companies, whom they style captain, with a salary of £80 a year, and a suit of scarlet uniform, which in that part of the world is reckoned very honourable.

A vacancy happening by the death of one of these captains, the provost immediately appointed his friend Porteous to fill up the place; who being now advanced to honour, forgot all his former politeness, for which he was so much esteemed when a tradesman; and assumed all the consequence of a man in authority.

If a riot happened in the city, Porteous was generally made choice of by the magistrates to suppress it, he being a man of resolute spirit and unacquainted with fear. On these occasions he would generally exceed the bounds of his commission, and would treat the delinquents with the utmost cruelty, by knocking them down with his musket, and frequently breaking legs and arms.

If sent to quell a disturbance in a house of ill fame, notwithstanding he was a most abandoned debauchee himself, he would take pleasure in exposing the characters of all those he found there, thereby destroying the peace of many families: he would treat the unhappy prostitutes with the greatest inhumanity, and even drag them to a prison, though many of them had been reduced by himself.

Amongst the many instances of cruelty he committed, we shall mention the following, because it procured him the universal hatred of the people in that city: A vacancy happening in the lectureship of a neighbouring church, two young gentlemen were candidates; and having each an equal number of votes, the dispute was referred to the presbytery; who declared in favour of Dawson. The other candidate, Mr Wotherspoon, appealed to the synod, who reversed the order of the presbytery. As the parishioners were much exasperated, and a tumult being apprehended at the church on the day Mr Wotherspoon was to preach his first sermon, Porteous was ordered there to keep the peace, but finding, on his arrival, Mr. Dawson had got possession of the pulpit, he went up the steps without the least ceremony, seized him by the collar, and dragged him down like a thief. In consequence of the wounds he received at this time, Mr D. died a few weeks after.

Mr Wotherspoon coming in at the time of the affray, Mr. Dawson's friends were so enraged, that they immediately fell on him, whom they beat in such a terrible manner, that he also died about the same time as Mr Dawson.

Thus the lives of two amiable young gentlemen were sacrificed to the brutality of this inhuman monster. Many men, women, and children, were also much wounded in the affray; yet this wretch escaped unpunished: no notice being taken of the many instances of his barbarity.

Nothing gave more pleasure to this fellow than his being employed to quell riots, which, to the disgrace of the magistrates he was too much encouraged in. On these occasions he never wanted an opportunity of exercising his savage disposition. Smuggling was so much practised in Scotland at that time, that no laws could restrain it. The smugglers assembled in large bodies, so that the revenue officers could not attack them without endangering their lives.

The most active person in striving to suppress these unlawful practices was Mr Stark, collector for the county of Fife, who being informed that one Andrew Wilson had a large quantity of contraband goods at his house, persuaded a number of men to accompany him; and they seized the goods, and safely lodged them (as they thought) in the Custom-House, but Wilson being man of enterprising spirit, went in company with one Robertson, and some more of his gang, to the Custom-House, when breaking open the doors, they recovered their goods, which they brought off in carts, in defiance of all opposition.

Mr Stark hearing that such a daring insult had been committed, dispatched an account thereof to the Barons of the Exchequer who immediately applying to the Lord Justice Clark, his lordship issued his warrant to the sheriff of Fife, commanding him to assemble all the people in his jurisdiction to seize the delinquents and replace the goods. In consequence of the above order, many were apprehended, but all discharged again for want of evidence, except Wilson and Robertson, who were both found guilty and sentenced to die.

A custom prevailed in Scotland at that time, of taking the condemned criminals to church every Sunday, under the care of three or four of the city guards. The above two criminals were accordingly taken to one of the churches on the Sunday before they were to suffer; when, just getting within the door, Wilson (though handcuffed) assisted in his companion's escape, by seizing hold of one soldier with his teeth, and keeping the others from turning upon him, while he cried out to Robertson to run.

Robertson accordingly took to his heels, and the streets being crowded with people going to church, he passed uninterrupted, and got out of one of the city gates just as they were going to shut it: a custom constantly observed during divine service. The city being now alarmed, Porteous was immediately dispatched in search of him, but all in vain, as Robertson met with a friend who knocked off his handcuffs, and procured him a horse; and the same evening got on board a vessel at Dunbar, which landed him safe in Holland.

He was living in the year 1756, and kept a public-house with great credit, near the bridge at Rotterdam.

On the following Wednesday a temporary gallows was erected in the grass-market, for the execution of Wilson, who was ordered to be conducted there by fifty men, under the command of Porteous.

Porteous being apprehensive that an attempt would be made to rescue the prisoner, represented to the provost the necessity there was for soldiers to be drawn up ready to preserve the peace. On which five companies of the Welsh fusiliers, commanded by a major, were ordered to be in readiness in the lawn-market, near the place of execution.

No disturbance arising, the prisoner finished his devotions, ascended the ladder, was turned off, and continued hanging the usual time; at the expiration of which, the hangman going up the ladder to cut him down, a stone struck him on the nose, and caused it to bleed. This stone was immediately followed by many others, at which Porteous was so much exasperated, that he instantly called out to his men 'Fire and be damned'; discharging his own piece at the same time, and shooting a young man, who was apprentice to a confectioner, dead on the spot.

Some of the soldiers more humanely fired over the heads of the people; but unfortunately killed two or three who were looking out at the windows. Others of the soldiers wantonly fired amongst the feet of the mob, by which many were so disabled as to be afterwards obliged to suffer amputation.

Porteous now endeavoured to draw off his men, as the mob grew exceedingly outrageous, throwing stones with everything else they could lay their hands on, and continuing to press on the soldiers; on which Porteous, with two of his men, turned about and fired, killing three more of the people, which amounted to nine in the whole that were left dead upon the spot; and many wounded.

A serjeant was sent by the major of the Welsh fusiliers to inquire into the cause of the disturbance, but the mob was so outrageous that he could gain no intelligence. Porteous, being assisted by the Welsh fusiliers, at last conducted his men to the guard, when, being sent for by the provost, he passed a long examination, and was committed to prison in order to take his trial for murder.

On the 6th of July, 1736, the trial came on before the lords of the justiciary, previous to which Porteous made a judicial confession that the people were killed as mentioned in the indictments; but pleaded self-defence. His counsel then stated the following point of law to be determined by the judges, previous to the jury being charged with the prisoner: 'Whether a military officer with soldiers under his command, who fires, or orders his men to fire, when assaulted by the populace, is not acting consistently with the nature of self-defence, according to the laws of civilised nations?'

The counsel being ordered to plead to the question by the court, they pronounced, as their opinion, 'That if it was proved that Captain Porteous either fired a gun, or caused one or more to be fired, by which any person or persons was or were killed, and if the said firing happened without orders from a magistrate properly authorised, then it would be murder in the eye of the law.'

Thus the question being decided against him, and the jury impanelled, forty-four witnesses were examined for and against the prosecution.

The prisoner being now called on for his defence, his counsel insisted that the magistrates had ordered him to support the execution of Wilson, and repel force by force, being apprehensive of a rescue; that powder and ball had been given them for the said purpose, with orders to load their pieces.

They insisted also, that he only meant to intimidate the people by threats, and actually knocked down one of his own men for presenting his piece; that finding the men would not obey orders, he drew off as many as he could; that he afterwards heard a firing in the rear, contrary to his orders. That in order to know who had fired he would not suffer their pieces to be cleaned till properly inspected, and that he never attempted to escape, though he had the greatest opportunity, and might have effected it with the utmost ease.

They farther insisted, that admitting some excesses had been committed, it could not amount to murder, as he was in the lawful discharge of his duty, and that it could not be supposed to be done with premeditated malice.

In answer to this the counsel for the crown argued, that the trust reposed in the prisoner ceased when the execution was over; that he was then no longer an officer employed for that purpose for which the fire-arms had been loaded, and that the reading the riot act only could justify their firing, in case a rescue had actually been attempted.

The prisoner's counsel replied, that the magistrates, whose duty it was to have read the act, had deserted the soldiery, and took refuge in a house for their own security, and that it was hard for men to suffer themselves to be knocked on the head when they had lawful weapons put into their hands to defend themselves.

The charge being delivered to the jury, they retired for a considerable time, when they brought him in guilty, and he received sentence of death.

The king being then at Hanover, and much interest being made to save the prisoner, the queen, by the advice of her council, granted a respite till his Majesty's return to England. The respite was only procured one week before his sentence was to be put in execution, of which, when the populace were informed, such a scheme of revenge was meditated as is perhaps unprecedented.

On the 7th of September, 1736, between nine and ten in the evening, a large body of men entered the city of Edinburgh, and seized the arms belonging to the guard; they then patrolled the streets, crying out, 'All those who dare avenge innocent blood, let them come here.' They then shut the gates and placed guards at each.

The main body of the mob, all disguised, marched in the mean time to the prison; when finding some difficulty in breaking open the doors with hammers, they immediately set fire to it; taking great care that the flames should not spread beyond their proper bounds. The outer door was hardly consumed before they rushed in, and, ordering the keeper to open the door of the captain's apartment, cried out, 'Where is the villain, Porteous?' He replied, 'Here I am, what do you want with me?' To which they answered, that they meant to hang him in the Grass Market, the place where he had shed so much innocent blood.

His expostulations were all in vain, they seized him by the legs and arms, and dragged him instantly to the place of execution.

On their arrival, they broke open a shop to find a rope suitable to their purpose, which they immediately fixed round his neck, then throwing the other end over a dyer's pole, hoisted him up; when he, endeavouring to save himself, fixed his hands between the halter and his neck, which being observed by some of the mob, one of them struck him with an axe, which obliging him to quit his hold, they soon put an end to his life.

When they were satisfied he was dead they immediately dispersed to their several habitations, unmolested themselves, and without molesting anyone else.

Such was the fate of Captain John Porteous, a man possessed of qualifications which, had they been properly applied, might have rendered him an honourable and useful servant of his country. His undaunted spirit and invincible courage would have done honour to the greatest hero of antiquity. But being advanced to power, he became intoxicated with pride, and instead of being the admiration of his fellow citizens, he was detested and hated by all who knew him. The fate of this unhappy man, it is hoped, will he a caution to those who are in power not to abuse it; but, by a humane as well as diligent discharge of their duty, to render themselves worthy members of society.

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1737

26: John Collins

Executed for murdering Jane Upcot, and exposing her head on a spike, 1737

THIS man of blood lived in a village called Harledown, near Exeter, and was by trade a thatcher. He had kept company with a young woman named Jane Upcot, and who received his addresses, which appeared to be honourably offered.

The account of the circumstances which led to the shocking catastrophe we have to relate does not disclose the motive for which the devil worked him up to put to death the object of his love. It was proved that on the 16th of May, 1737, the villain murdered this Jane Upcot. He afterwards, not glutted with shedding her blood, actually cut off the head from the body, tore out the heart, and stuck them on a spar-hook, with which he had killed her; and then, fixing the instrument near the decollated body, left the horrid spectacle to the view of the passing traveller!!!

Nature sickens at the recital -- let us therefore pass to some less inhuman malefactor: this man deserved a severer death than the gallows.

He was executed at Exeter, in the year 1737.

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1738

27: Thomas Carr, an Attorney, and Elizabeth Adams

Executed at Tyburn, 18th of January, 1738, for Robbery

THOMAS CARR, when he committed the robbery for which he suffered, was an attorney-at-law, of eminence in the Temple, and Elizabeth Adams a woman with whom he cohabited. He had been many years vestry clerk of the parish of St Paul, Covent Garden, a very respectable office. On the 15th of October, 1737, they were indicted at the Old Bailey, for robbing William Quarrington of ninety-three guineas and a diamond ring at the Angel and Crown tavern, near Temple Bar, upon which they were found guilty, and sentence of death passed on them.  Carr endeavoured to obtain the Royal mercy, but the Privy Council replied that "a flagrant breach of the law was greatly aggravated in being committed by a man professing the law."

On the 18th of January, 1738, thirteen miserable beings were carried from Newgate to Tyburn, there to suffer death for different offences; and among them were Carr and Adams, each in a mourning-coach. They both received the Sacrament on the Sunday preceding; and then, and at the place of execution, denied the fact for which they suffered. They were both remarkably composed for people in their dreadful situation, and just as the cart began to draw away they kissed each other, joined hands, and thus were launched into eternity.

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28: William Udall

A Profligate Apprentice, who turned Highwayman. Executed at Tyburn, 14th of March, 1738

THE father of this reprobate was an eminent distiller in Clerkenwell, London. He gave his son a good education, and bound him apprentice to a watchmaker, in Leadenhall Street, where he was idle, but soon learned from some abandoned journeymen the trick of scraping gold from the inside of watch-cases, which he sold, and then squandered away his ill-gotten pelf.

His master died before he was detected, and he was turned over to another, whom he offended before he had served a quarter of a year.  He then went to live with one Mr Stanbridge, of Clerkenwell, who engaged to procure him his freedom at the expiration of the term for which he was originally apprenticed.

He had not been long in the service of Stanbridge before he connected himself with a number of young pickpockets, with whom he used to go out of an evening and steal watches, swords, hats and anything they could lay their hands on, which they deposited with one Williams, in Hanging Sword Alley, Fleet Street, who disposed of the effects and shared the booty with the young thieves.

Udall's father was apprised of his living in an irregular manner, but had no idea that he had proceeded to such lengths as to become a robber. However, to reclaim him from his evil courses, he took a house for him, and put him into business in a very reputable way.

One of Udall's companions was a youth named Raby, who, having served his time to a barber, his friends likewise put into business, and for some months the young fellows appeared to attend the duties of their respective professions; but they had not quitted their old connections, for they used to go almost every night to Drury Lane, to a house of ill-fame, which was kept by a woman named Bird. In this place they associated with several young fellows of abandoned character. At length they agreed to commence as highwaymen, and, in consequence thereof, committed a number of robberies in and near Epping Forest and Finchley Common, one of which was attended with a circumstance of unusual barbarity.

These associates in wickedness, having stopped the St Albans coach, robbed the passengers of about five pounds, and immediately put spurs to their horses; but they had not ridden far before Udall said that a lady in the coach had a remarkably fine ring on her finger. On this Raby rode back, and, the lady being unwilling to part with the ring, the remorseless villain drew a knife and cut off her finger for the sake of the paltry prize. This horrid action being perpetrated, they rode to Hampstead, and having robbed some other people the same evening they hastened to Drury Lane, where they divided the spoil.

On one occasion Udall and two of his accomplices, named Baker and Wager, stopped a coach on the road to Uxbridge. A guard being behind the coach, with a blunderbuss, Baker threatened him with instant death if he did not throw it away, and the man obeyed. Wager and Udall guarded the coachman and postilion, while Baker robbed the company; but this was no sooner done than the guard produced a horse-pistol, with which he fired at Udall, and brought him to the ground; on which Baker shot the guard, so that he instantly expired.

Udall was conveyed to a farmhouse near Uxbridge by his accomplices, and lay there six weeks before he recovered; but soon afterwards they killed the person who guarded another coach as it was going over Turnham Green.  Only a short time after the commission of this atrocious crime Udall knocked down a young woman in Fenchurch Street, whom he robbed of a cloak, a handkerchief and her pocket, which contained only a few halfpence.

Not long after this adventure, Udall and some of his associates robbed a physician in the Strand, for which they were all of them apprehended; but Udall became an evidence against his accomplices, by which he escaped the fate which he had so frequently merited.

He and an accomplice named Man then committed several robberies in the neighbourhood of Epping Forest, and Udall, having one night left his horse at a public-house in the Forest, went to Man's lodgings in an absolute state of intoxication. While he was in this situation Man went out and locked the door, on pretence of care that the men from the Marshalsea should not apprehend his companion; but he immediately delivered himself into custody and gave the key to the runners, who, entering the house, seized Udall, in bed, and conveyed them both to their former apartments.

Man now seriously reflected on his situation, and being apprehensive that he might be seen by some person who would charge him with a capital offence he begged to be conducted to a magistrate, before whom he was admitted an evidence against his companion, on a charge of his having committed several robberies on the highway.

Hereupon Udall was committed to Newgate, and being tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was convicted, principally on the evidence of Man, and received sentence of death. He was hanged at Tyburn, on 14th of March, 1738.

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29: John Toon And Edward Blastock

Executed at Tyburn, May 20, 1738, for highway robbery.

THE PARENTS of John Toon were respectable inhabitants of Shoreditch, who having bestowed on him a liberal education, apprenticed him, to a capital ironmonger, who had married his sister; but not being happy in this situation, his father sent him to sea at the expiration of three years. After two voyages to Barbadoes, he grew tired of the life of a seaman, which he quitted to live with his uncle, who was a carman, and in whose service he behaved so unexceptionably, that on the death of the uncle; which happened soon afterwards, he took possession of four hundred pounds, which his relation had bequeathed him, as the reward of his good conduct.

Soon after becoming possessed of this money, he married the sister of Edward Blastock, and began to live in a most extravagant manner. When he had dissipated half his little fortune, Blastock proposed that they should go into Yorkshire, and embark in public business. This proposal being accepted; they took an inn in Sheffield, the place of Blastock's birth; but both of the landlords being better calculated to spend than to get money, Toon soon found his circumstances embarrassed.

Thus situated, he reflected on Blastock for advising him to take the inn; and the other recriminated; by recounting the faults of Toon. In consequence of this dissention, Blastock brought, his wife to London, whither Toon and his wife soon followed, after selling off their effects.

Toon, who was totally reduced, met his own elder brother one day in Cheapside. This brother, who was a dyer in Shoreditch, took little notice of the other, but as Toon imagined he was going out for the day, he went to his house, and met with his wife, who entreated him to stay dinner; to which he consented, and in the mean time he went to see the men at work, and finding one among them of genteel appearance, whom he learnt was his brothers book-keeper, he became extremely enraged that his brother should employ. a stranger in this station in preference to himself, at a time that he was in circumstances of distress.

In this agitation of mind he returned into the house, and: whilst his sister-in-law was gone into another room, he stole a small quantity of silver-plate, and decamped: and having soon spent the produce of this theft, he determined on the dangerous and fatal resource of the highway.

His first expedition was to Epping. Forest, where he waited along time in expectation of a booty; and at length observing a coach come from Lord Castlemain's seat, he used the most dreadful imprecations to compel the coach-man to stop, and robbed two ladies of near three pounds, with a girdle-buckle, and an etwee-case.

He now imagined that he had got a valuable prize: but he, at length pawned the buckle and etwee for twelve shillings; finding that the latter was base metal; though he had mistaken it for gold, and the former was set with crystal stones instead of diamonds, as they had appeared to his eye.

He soon spent his ill-gotten treasure, and going again on the highway, stopped and robbed several persons, among whom was a gentleman named Currier, who earnestly exhorted him to decline his present course of life, not only from the immorality, but the danger of it. The robber thanked the gentleman for his advice; but said that he had no occasion for it, as he was sufficiently apprized, of his danger, but he must have his money, on pain of instant death; and having robbed him of three guineas, he decamped with the utmost expedition

One of his next robberies was on Epping Forest, where he dispossessed a gentleman of his money and a gold watch; which he left in the hands of a receiver of stolen goods, to dispose of to the best advantage, but the watch being of value, and in high estimation with the Owner, he advertised it, with a reward of eight guineas, on which the receiver delivered  it, and took the money, but gave Toon only seven of them, pretending that was all he could obtain.

Toon not having read the advertisement, was ignorant of the trick that had been put upon him; but being some days afterwards upon Epping Forest, and having in vain waited some time for a booty he went to the Green Man by Lord Castlemain's house, where he heard one, of his lordship's footmen recounting the particulars of the robbery, and saying that the watch had been recovered on giving eight guineas for it.

This circumstance determined Toon never  to lodge any of his future booties in the hand of this man. But. it will now be proper to say something of the other malefactor, whose story makes part of this narrative.

EDWARD BLASTOCK was a native of Sheffield, in Yorkshire, and was apprenticed in London to a peruke-maker in the temple; and his master dying when he had served about five years, his mistress declined trade; and gave the young fellow his indentures, on the representation of the gentlemen of the law, that they wished him, rather than any other, to succeed her late husband.

But the rent of the house being high, Blastock was afraid to enter on business so early in life, as he, was at that time only eighteen years of age: on which he took two rooms in White Friars, where he began to practise in his business, and met with great success.

Coming by this means into the  possession of money before he knew the value of it, he attached himself to the fashionable pleasures of the town, by which he soon incurred more debts than he could discharge; and consequently was obliged to decline business, and have recourse to the wretched life of a strolling player; refusing to accept of a good situation which was offered him by a gentleman of the Temple.

Soon afterwards Blastock married, had several children, and being reduced to great distress, went into Yorkshire with Toon, as has been already mentioned. On his return from Yorkshire, he again engaged himself as a strolling player and after some  time, casually meeting with Toon, the latter represented the advantages to be made by the life of a highwayman, and wished him to embark in that business; which he declined on the double score of its danger and immorality.

Not long after this refusal Blastock was seized with an indisposition, which threatened his life, and confined him so long that his wife was obliged to pawn almost all her effects for his support; and being visited by Toon during his illness, the latter again wished him to commence highwayman.

Blastock had no sooner recovered his health than, depressed by want, he yielded to the dangerous solicitation, and went with his accomplice to Epping  Forest, where they stopped the chariot of a gentleman, whom they robbed of a few shillings and a pocket-piece, and then came to London.

On the following day, they went again towards the forest; but, in crossing Hackney Marsh, Toon's horse sunk in a slough, where he continued for so long a time that they found it impossible to achieve any profitable adventure for that night.

Thus disappointed, they returned to London, and on the 27th of February following set out on another expedition, which proved to be their last of the kind. While Toon was loading his pistols, he was prepossessed with the idea that his fate was speedily approaching; nevertheless he resolved to run every hazard: on which they rode as far as Muswell Hill, where they stopped a gentleman named Seabroke, and demanded his money.

The gentleman gave them eighteen shillings, saying it was all he had, and adding, "God bless you, gentlemen, you are welcome to it." Toon then demanded his watch, which Mr. Seabroke delivered, expressing himself again in the same words. This robbery being committed, they galloped hard towards Highgate, and their horses being almost. tired, Blastock, stung with the guilt of his conscience, looked frequently behind him, in apprehension that he was pursued; and so strong was the terror of conscience, "which makes cowards of us all," that both of them agreed to quit their horses, and make their escape.

They now ran through a farm-yard, and taking the back road which leads from Highgate to Hampstead, they got to London on foot; and Blastock now declared his determination never to embark in such another project, while he congratulated himself on his narrow escape.

They now took a solemn oath, that, if either of them should he apprehended, neither would impeach the other; and the watch obtained in the last robbery being sold for two guineas, Blastock received his share, and went to join a company of strolling players at Chatham.

The stolen watch being advertised, the purchaser carried it to Mr. Seabroke, telling him that he knew Toon, and would assist in taking him into custody; the consequence of which was, that the offender was lodged in Newgate on the same day.

Toon kept his oath in declining to give any information against his accomplice; but Blastock having agreed  to go with the players to a greater distance from London than Chatham, returned to town to bid his wife and children adieu. When he arrived, which was about midnight, his wife and her sister were in bed: and the former having opened the door, he was informed that Toon was in custody, and advised to seek his safety by an immediate: flight.

This advice, however, he did not take; and in the morning, Toon's wife desired he would stay while she visited her husband, declaring that she would not mention his having returned to London.

On her return from this visit, she wept much, and expressed her wishes for the approach of night, that he might retire in safety. In the evening, while supper was providing, she went out, under pretence of a visit to her husband, but instead thereof, she went to Toon's brother, who taking her before a magistrate; some peace-officers were sent to take Blastock into custody:

Mrs. Toon directed the officers to the room where Blastock was, in company with two men of his acquaintance, who were advising him on the emergency of his affairs. Blastock, suspecting some foul play, concealed himself in a closet; and when the officers came in, they first seized one, and then the other of the persons present; but were soon convinced that neither of them was the party they were in search of.

On this the officers made a stricter search, and finding Blastock in the closet, took him into custody. Having taken leave of his wife and children, they carried him before a magistrate, who asked him if he had not a worse coat than that which he then wore. Blastock owned that he had, and actually sent for it; and it was kept to be produced in evidence against him.

While the officers were conducting him to Newgate, in a coach, they told him that Mrs. Toon had given the information against him; at which he was so shocked, that it was some time before he could recover his recollection, being absolutely insensible when he was lodged in prison.

These malefactors being tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, were capitally convicted, and received sentence of death; and, after conviction, were confined in the same cell: but being unhappy together, from their mutual recriminations of each other, the keeper caused them to be separated.

Toon behaved more penitently than malefactors usually do; and Blastock exhibited an uncommon instance of unfeigned penitence and contrition. They embraced each other at the place of their death, and Blastock delivered the following speech to the surrounding multitude:

"Dear Friends,

I do not come here to excuse myself, although I have been first led into the crime for which suffer, and then basely betrayed; no, I am sensible of my guilt, nor should I have made the world acquainted with this barbarous treatment that I have met with, even from a near relation, had it not been with a view of preventing the ruin of many young persons.

"Let my fate be an example to them, and never let any man in trade think himself above his business, nor despise the offers of those who would serve him. Let them purchase wisdom at my cost, and never let slip any opportunity that bids fair to be of the least advantage to them, for experience tells me, that had I done as I now advise you, I had never come to this end.

"The next thing never to trust your life in the hands of a near relation; for money makes those who pretend to be your nearest friends; your most bitter enemies. Never be persuaded to do any thing you may be sorry for afterwards, nor believe the most solemn Oaths, for there is  no truth in imprecations; rather take a man's word; for those that will swear will lie: Not but that that I believe there are some in the world, with, who would suffer the worst of deaths, rather than betray the trust reposed in them.

"What, I have here declared; as I am a dying man, I protest before God is true; and here; before God and the world, I freely forgive those who betrayed me, and die in peace with all mankind.

"I implore the forgiveness of that God who has promised pardon and forgiveness to all those who sincerely repent; and I hope I have done my best endeavours, while in prison, to make my peace with a justly offended God. I hope the moment I leave this troublesome world, my soul will be received into eternal happiness, through the merits of Jesus Christ.

"I conclude with my prayers for the welfare of my poor unhappy wife and children, who are now reduced to misery; and taking a long farewell of the world, I commit my spirit into the hands of him who gave me being."

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30: Joseph Johnson

Pickpocket and "Esquire," who swindled many Farmers and was executed at Tyburn, 19th of July, 1738, at the Age of Sixty

THIS HOARY-HEADED sinner, who was both a pick-pocket and a swindler, was permitted to proceed in his career of villainy for a longer time than any who have fallen under notice. There is no species of robbery which he did not commit, or in which habitual  practice had not made him a proficient.

His parents lived in the Old Jewry, and, being very poor people, his education was totally neglected. He kept bad company almost from his infancy, and becoming a pickpocket while yet a child, he continued that practice till he was above twenty years of age. He then took to a new mode of fraud. He used to meet porters and errand-boys in the streets and, by a variety of false pretences, get possession of the goods entrusted to their care. For one of these offences he was taken into custody, and tried at the Old Bailey, where he was acquitted in defect of evidence.  Having thus obtained his liberty, he had recourse to his former practices, till, being apprehended for stealing a sword, he was tried and convicted at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to seven years' transportation.

It happened that one of his fellow-convicts was possessed of a stolen bank-note, which was changed, as is presumed, with the captain of the vessel, who had a gratuity for their liberty; for when they arrived in America they were set at large, and took lodgings at New York, where they lived some time in an expensive manner; and the captain, on his return to England, stopped at Rotterdam, where he offered the stolen note to a banker; on which he was lodged in prison, and did not obtain his liberty without considerable difficulty.

Johnson and his associate, having quitted New York, embarked for Holland, whence they came to England, where they assumed the dress and appearance of people of fashion, and frequented all the places of public diversion. Thus disguised, Johnson used to mix with the crowd and steal watches, etc., which his accomplice carried off unsuspected.

In the summer-time, when London was thin of company, Johnson and his companion used to ride through the country, the former appearing as a gentleman of fortune and the latter as his servant. On their arrival at an inn they inquired of the landlord into the circumstances of the farmers in the neighbourhood, and when they had learned the name and residence of one who was rich, with such other particulars as might forward their plan, the "servant" was dispatched to tell the farmer that the "Esquire" would be glad to speak with him at the inn; and he was commissioned to hint that his master's property in the public funds was very considerable.

This bait generally succeeded: the farmer hastened to the inn, where he found the "Esquire" in an elegant undress; who, after the first compliments, informed him that he was come down to purchase a valuable estate in the neighbourhood, which he thought so well worth the buying that he had agreed to pay part of the money that day; but not having sufficient cash in his possession he had sent for the farmer to lend him part of the sum, and assured him that he should be no loser by granting the favour.

To make sure of his prey, he had always some counterfeit jewels in his possession, which he used to deposit in the farmer's hands, to be taken up when the money was repaid; and, by artifices of this kind, Johnson and his associate acquired large sums of money; the former not only changing his name, but disguising his person so that detection was almost impossible.

This practice he continued for a succession of years, and in one of his expeditions of this kind got possession of a thousand pounds, with which he escaped unsuspected. In order to avoid detection he took a small house in Southwark, where he used to live in the most obscure manner, not even permitting his servant-maid to open the window lest he should be discovered.

Thus he continued committing these kinds of frauds, and living in retirement on the profits arising from them, till he reached the age of sixty years; when, though he was poor, he was afraid to make fresh excursions to the country, but thought of exercising his talents in London.

Thereupon he picked the pockets of several persons of as many watches as produced money enough to furnish him with an elegant suit of clothes, in which he went to a public ball, where he walked a minuet with the kept mistress of a nobleman, who invited him to drink tea with her on the following day.

He accepted the invitation, when she informed him that she had another engagement to a ball, and should think herself extremely honoured by his company. He readily agreed to the proposal; but, while in company, he picked the pocket of Mr Pye, a merchant's clerk, of a pocket-book, containing bank-notes to the amount of five hundred pounds.

Pye had no idea of his loss till the following day, when he should have accounted with his employer. When the discovery was made, immediate notice was sent to the bank to stop payment of the notes; and Johnson was actually changing one of them, to the amount of fifty pounds, when the messenger came thither. Thereupon he was taken into custody, and being tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, for privately stealing, was capitally convicted; and this offence being without the benefit of clergy, he was sentenced to death.

His behaviour after condemnation was consistent with his former character; he expressed neither remorse nor repentance, but seemed perfectly sensible to the awful fate which awaited hem. He was hanged at Tyburn, on the 19th of July, 1738, without making any confession of his crimes, and refusing to join in the customary devotions on such an awful occasion, though a sinner of above sixty years of age

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31: William Newington

A Writer, who forged a Draft for One Hundred and Twenty Pounds and was executed at Tyburn on 26th of August, 1738

THIS unhappy young man was a native of Chichester, in Sussex, and was the son of reputable parents, who, having given him a good education, placed him with Mr Cave, an attorney of that town, with whom he served his clerkship; and then, coming to London, lived as a hackney-writer with Mr Studley, in Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, for about two years and a half.

But Newington being of a volatile disposition, and much disposed to the keeping of company and irregular hours, Mr Studley discharged him from his service; on which he went to live with Mr Leaver, a scrivener, in Friday Street, with whom he continued between two and three years, and served him with a degree of fidelity that met with the highest approbation.

This service he quitted about a year before he was convicted of the offence which cost him his life; and in the interval lived in a gay manner, without having any visible means of support, and paid his addresses to a young lady of very handsome fortune, to whom he would soon have been married. It is presumed that, being distressed for money to support his expensive way of life, and to carry on his amour, he was tempted to commit forgery, which, by an Act of Parliament then recently passed, had been made a capital offence.  He went to Child's coffee-house, in St Paul's Churchyard, where he drew a draft on the house of Child & Company, bankers, in Fleet Street, in the following words: --

SIR FRANCIS CHILD AND COMP.

Pray pay to Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., or order, the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds, and place it to the account of your humble servant, THOMAS HILL To SIR FRA. CHILD AND COMP. TEMPLE BAR.

The draft he dispatched by a porter, but was so agitated by his fears while he wr ote it that he forgot to put any date to it; otherwise, as Mr Thomas Hill kept cash with the bankers, and as the forgery was admirably executed, the draft would have been paid; but, at the instant that the porter was about to put his endorsement on it, one of the clerks said he might go about his business, for that they did not believe the draft was a good one. The porter returned to the coffee-house without the draft, which the bankers' clerks had refused to deliver him but on his return he found that the gentleman was gone.

At the expiration of two hours the bankers' clerks came to Child's coffee-house and inquired for the person who had made the draft; but he was not to be found, for in the absence of the porter he had inquired for the Faculty Office in Doctors' Commons, saying he had some business at that place and would return in half-an-hour.  About two or three hours afterwards the porter's son told him that a gentleman wanted him at the Horn and Feathers, in Carter Lane, where he went, and told Newington that the bankers had refused to pay the note. "Very well," said he, stay here till I go and put on my shoes, and I will go with you and rectify the mistake."

When the porter had waited nearly three hours, and his employer did not return, he began to suspect that the draft was forged, and some hours afterwards, calling in at the Fountain ale-house in Cheapside, he saw Newington; on which he went and fetched a constable, who took him into custody, and lodged him in the compter.

Being tried at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, he was capitally convicted, notwithstanding nine gentlemen appeared to give him an excellent character; but character has little weight where evidence is positive and the crime is capital. When called down to receive sentence of death he delivered the following address:-  "May it please your Lordship: This my most melancholy case was occasioned by the alone inconsiderate rashness of my inexperienced years. The intent of fraud is, without doubt, most strongly and most positively found against me; but I assure your Lordship I was not in want; nor did I ever think of such a thing in the whole course of my life till within a few minutes of the execution of this rash deed. "I hope your Lordship has some regard for the gentlemen who have so generously appeared in my behalf; and as this is the first fact, though of so deep a dye, my youth and past conduct may, I hope in some measure, move your Lordship's pity, compassion and generous assistance."

After conviction, Newington flattered himself that he should escape the utmost ignominy of the law through the intercession of his friends; but when the warrant for execution, in which his name was included, was brought to Newgate, he appeared to be greatly shocked; but recollecting and composing himself he said: "God's will be done." But immediately bursting into tears, he lamented the misery which his mother would naturally endure when she should be acquainted with the wretched fate of her unfortunate son.

The dreadful tidings being conveyed to his mother, she left Chichester with an aching heart; and it was a week after her arrival in London before she could acquire a sufficient degree of spirits to visit the unfortunate cause of her grief. At length she repaired to the gloomy mansion; but when she saw her son fettered with chains it was with the utmost difficulty that she could be kept from fainting. She hung round his neck, while he dropped on his knees and implored her blessing and forgiveness; and so truly mournful was the spectacle that even the jailers, accustomed as they are to scenes of horror, shed tears at the sight. He was executed at Tyburn, on the 26th of August, 1738.

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32: John Totterdale

Executed at Tyburn, October 5, 1738, for the murder of his wife.

IN the history of this man's crime, we have again to present a cruel and premeditated murder of a good wife. On this strangely unnatural deed, we have already expatiated; and therefore, can only repeat our wonder and abhorrence of men taking away that life which was a comfort to their own.

This malefactor, who was a native of North Currey, in Somersetshire, after having been employed in the business of agriculture, came to London about the time that he had arrived at the years of maturity, and lived in several families as a servant, maintaining always a respectable character.

Having saved some money in service, he married, and took a public-house in the parish of St. John, Westminster, where he perpetrated the murder which cost him his life.

Coming home one evening somewhat intoxicated, he sat down to drink with two women who were in a room with his wife. Mrs. Totterdale quitting the room, her husband soon followed her, with a knife and fork in his hand; soon after which, the cry of murder was heard; when Daniel Brown, who lodged in the house, running up stairs, saw Totterdale stamp on his wife two or three times as she lay on the floor.

On this, Brown seized the knife and fork which Totterdale still held in his hand, and having got the woman into another room, she locked it, and he persuaded the husband to go down stairs.

Soon afterwards, Totterdale's passion increasing, he procured a key, with which he opened the door, when his wife was sitting at the foot of a bed, with the curtains drawn to hide her: so that he did not at first observe where she was; on which, Brown waved his hand, intimating that she should retire; but she did not, being either afraid, or unable to move; and the husband discovering her, a few words passed between them, when he kicked her, caught hold of her feet, dragged her off the bed, and threw her down about seven of the stairs, where she lay senseless.

Terrified at this sight, Brown ran into his own room, where he staid three or four minutes, and then going down the stairs, found that Totterdale had dragged his wife into a room, and fastened the door; but Brown heard her say, "For Christ's sake Johnny! Johnny, for Christ's sake don't kill me!" Mr. Brown then went out, but found the woman dead when he returned, at the end of about an hour and a half.

The husband was now taken into custody, and the body of the deceased being examined by a surgeon, he found that nine of her ribs were broke, and that her right arm was stabbed in the joint, to the depth of four inches.

Totterdale being committed to the Gatehouse, was visited by his wife's sister, who said to him, "O John! John ! how could you be so barbarous as to murder your poor wife?" In answer to which, he said, "The devil overpowered me; I was pushed on by the devil, both to begin and finish the deed― I cannot recall or undo what I have done; but I wish I could bring back my poor, unhappy, unprepared wife from the grave again."

Some of his acquaintance asked him why he did not attempt to make his escape after he had committed the murder, he replied that he had an intention of so doing, but as he was going out of the room, he imagined be heard a voice saying, "John, John, stay― What have you done? You cannot go off" which supposed words deprived him of all possibility of effecting, his escape.

Being brought to his trial at the Old Bailey, the evidence against him was so clear, that the jury did not hesitate to find him guilty, in consequence of which he was sentenced to die.

After conviction, he declared that he had no fear of the disgraceful death that awaited him, and that he would willingly suffer any degree of torture, as an atonement, for the crime of which he had been guilty.

On being told that his name was included in the warrant for execution, he replied, "The Lord's will be done; I am ready to die, I am willing to die; only I beg of God that I may not (though I deserve it) die an eternal death: and though I am cut off from this world for my heinous offences, yet I hope it is not impossible that I should live for ever in a better state. I have been guilty of the unnatural murder of my poor wife: the Lord be more merciful to me than I was to her, or else I perish." He added, that he hoped those who had received injuries from him would forgive him; as he freely forgave those by whom he had been injured.

Totterdale found a generous friend in Mr, Paul, a brewer, who had served him with beer while in trade: for when in prison, he supplied him with the necessaries of life. He likewise provided for his two children, and took care to see the unhappy man buried by the side of his wife, agreeable to an earnest request he made in a letter written the day before his execution.

The behaviour of this wretched man, after conviction, and at the place of his death, was decent, devout, and resigned in a high degree. He appeared to be a sincere penitent; and admonished others not to indulge that violence of passion which ended in his destruction.

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33: George Price

Sentenced to Death for murdering his Wife, but died of Jail Fever, 22nd of October, 1738

THIS malefactor was a native of Hay, in Brecknockshire, where he lived as a servant to a widow lady. Having lived in this station seven years, he repaired to London, and became acquainted with Mary Chambers, servant at a public-house at Hampstead, whom he married at the expiration of a fortnight from his first paying his addresses to her; but Mr Brown, his master, disapproving of the match, dismissed Price from his service.

Soon after this he took his wife into Brecknockshire, and imposed her on his relations as the daughter of a military officer, who would become entitled to a large fortune. He was treated in the most friendly manner by his relations; and the young couple returning to London, the wife went to lodge at Hampstead, while Price engaged in the service of a gentleman in New Broad Street.

Mrs Price, being delivered of twins, desired her husband to buy some medicine to make the children sleep, which he procured; and on the children dying soon afterwards a report was circulated that he had poisoned them; but this circumstance he denied to the last moment of his life. Price now paid his addresses to other women, and conceiving his wife as an obstacle between him and his wishes he formed the infernal resolution of murdering her. He told her that he had procured the place of a nursery-maid for her in the neighbourhood of Putney, and that he would attend her thither that very day. He then directed her to meet him at the Woolpack, in Monkwell Street. Accordingly she went home and dressed herself (having borrowed some clothes of her landlady) and met her husband, who put her in a chaise, and drove her out of town towards Hounslow.

When he came on Hounslow Heath it was nearly ten o'clock at night; when he suddenly stopped the chaise and threw the lash of the whip round his wife's neck; but drawing it too hastily he made a violent mark on her chin; immediately finding his mistake, he placed it lower, on which she exclaimed: "My dear! my dear! For God's sake -- if this is your love, I will never trust you more." Immediately on her pronouncing these words, which were her last, he pulled the ends of the whip with great force; but, the violence of his passion abating, he let go before she was quite dead; yet, resolving to  accomplish the horrid deed, he once more put the thong of the whip about her neck, and pulled it with such violence that it broke; but not till the poor woman was dead.

Having stripped the body, he left it almost under a gibbet where some malefactors hung in chains, having first disfigured it to such a degree that he presumed it could not be known. He brought the clothes to London, some of which he cut in pieces, and dropped in different streets; but knowing that the others were borrowed of the landlady he sent them to her, a circumstance that materially conduced to his conviction.  He reached London about one o'clock in the morning, and being interrogated why he came at such an unseasonable hour, he said that the Margate hoy had been detained in the river by contrary winds.

On the following day the servants and other people made so many inquiries respecting his wife that, terrified at the idea of being taken into custody, he immediately fled to Portsmouth, with a view to entering on board a ship; but no vessel was then ready to sail.  While he was drinking at an ale-house in Portsmouth he heard the bellman crying him as a murderer, with such an exact description of him that he was apprehensive of being seized, and observing a window which opened to the water he jumped out, and swam for his life. Having gained the shore, he travelled all night, till he reached a farmhouse, where he slept on some straw in the barn.

On the following day he crossed the country towards Oxford, where he endeavoured to get into service, and would have been engaged by a physician, but happening to read a newspaper in which he was advertised he immediately decamped from Oxford, and travelled into Wales. Having stopped at a village a few miles from Hay, at the house of a shoemaker, to whom his brother was apprenticed, the latter obtained his master's permission to accompany his brother home; and while they were on their walk the malefactor recounted the particulars of the murder which had obliged him to seek his safety in flight. The brother commiserated his condition; and, leaving him at a small distance from their father's house, went in and found the old gentleman reading an advertisement describing the murderer. The younger son bursting into tears, the father said he hoped his brother was not come; to which the youth replied:

"Yes, he is at the door; but being afraid that some of the neighbours were in the house he would not come in till he had your permission."

The offender on being introduced fell on his knees, and earnestly besought his father's blessing; to which the aged parent said:

"Ah! George, I wish God may bless you, and what I have heard concerning you may be false."

The son said: "It is false; but let me have a private room; make no words; I have done no harm; let me have a room to myself."

Being accommodated agreeable to his request, he produced half-a-crown, begging that his brother would buy a lancet, as he was resolved to put a period to his miserable existence; but the brother declined to in any way aid in the commission of the crime of suicide; and the father, after exerting every argument to prevent his thinking of such a violation of the laws of God, concealed him for two days.

It happened that the neighbours observed a fire in a room where none had been for a considerable time before, and a report was propagated that Price was secreted in the house of his father; whereupon he thought it prudent to abscond in the night; and having reached Gloucester he went to an inn and procured the place of an ostler. During his residence at Gloucester two of the sons of the lady with whom he had first lived as a servant happened to be at a school in that city, and Price behaved to them with so much civility that they wrote to their mother describing his conduct; in reply to which she informed them that he had killed his wife, and desired them not to hold any correspondence with him.

The young gentlemen mentioning this circumstance, one of Price's fellow-servants said to him: "You are the man that murdered your wife on Hounslow Heath. I will not betray you, but if you stay longer you will certainly be taken into custody."

Stung by the reflections of his own conscience, and agitated by the fear of momentary detection, Price knew not how to act; but at length he resolved to come to London and surrender to justice; and calling on his former master, and being apprehended, he was committed to Newgate.

At the following sessions at the Old Bailey he was brought to his trial, and convicted. He was sentenced to death, but died of the jail fever in Newgate, before the law could be executed on him, on the 22nd of October, 1738.

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34: John Richardson and Richard Coyle

Pirates, hanged at Execution Dock,  25th January, 1738

THE crime of piracy is generally accompanied by murder. Richardson, to both these crimes, added that of swindling. His memory will with justice be particularly execrated by our female readers; for it will be found that, through the most consummate hypocrisy, he succeeded in seducing, and then abandoning, several of their sex.

John Richardson was an American, having been born in the city of New York, where he went to school till he was fourteen years old: he was then put under the care of his brother, who was a cooper; but, not liking that business, he sailed on board a merchant ship, commanded by his namesake, Captain Richardson.

After one voyage, he served five years to a carpenter; but having made an illicit connexion with his master's daughter, who became pregnant, he quitted his service, and entered on board a ship bound to Jamaica; on his arrival there he was impressed, put on board a man of war, and brought to England.

The ship's crew being paid at Chatham, he came to London, took lodgings in Horsleydown, and spent all his money. On this he entered as boatswain on board a vessel bound to the Baltic; but, being weary of his situation, he soon quitted that station, having first concerted and executed the following scheme of fraud.

Knowing that there was a merchant in the country with whom the captain had dealings, be went to a tavern, and wrote a letter, as from the captain, desiring that the merchant would send him a hundred rix-dollars. This letter he carried himself, and received the money from the merchant, who said he had more at the captain's service if it was wanted.

Being possessed of this sum, he, the next day, embarked on board a Dutch vessel bound to Amsterdam; and soon after his arrival connected himself with a woman whose husband had sailed as mate of a Dutch East India ship. With this woman ho cohabited about eight months, when she told him that it would be necessary for him to decamp, as she daily expected her husband to return from his voyage.

Richardson agreed to depart, but first determined to rob her; and, having persuaded her to go to the play, he took her to a tavern afterwards, where he plied her with liquor till she was perfectly intoxicated. This being done, he attended her home, and, having got her to bed and found her fast asleep, ho took the keys out of her pocket, and, unlocking the warehouse, stole India goods to the amount of two hundred pounds, which he conveyed to a lodging he had taken to receive them. Re then replaced the keys; but, finding some that were smaller, he with those opened her drawers, and took out sixty pounds. Some years afterwards be saw this woman at Amsterdam, but she made no complaint of the robbery; by which it may reasonably be supposed that she was afraid her husband might suspect her former illicit connexion.

Having put his stolen goods on board one of the Rotterdam boats, he departed for that place, where he found the captain of a vessel bound to New England, with whom he sailed at the expiration of four days.

On their arrival at Boston, Richardson went to settle about fifty miles up the country, in expectation that the property be possessed might procure him a wife of some fortune. Having taken his lodgings at a farmer's, he deposited his goods in a kind of warehouse.

It being now near the Christmas holy-days, many of the country people solicited that he would keep the festival with them. These offers were so numerous, that he scarce knew bow to determine; but at length accepted the invitation of a Mr. Brown, to which he was influenced by his having three daughters, and four maid-servants, all of them very agreeable young women.

Richardson made presents of India handkerchiefs to all the girls, and so far ingratiated himself into their favour that in a short time all of them were pregnant. But before this circumstance was discovered there happened to he a wedding, to which the daughter of a justice of the peace was invited as a brides-maid, and Richardson as a brides-man.

Our adventurer, soon becoming intimate with the young lady, persuaded her to go and see his lodgings and warehouse, and offered to make her a present of any piece of goods which she might deem worth her acceptance. At length she fixed on a piece of chintz, and carried it home with her.

Two days afterwards Richardson wrote to her; and, her answer being such as flattered his wishes, be likewise wrote to her father, requesting permission to pay his addresses to the daughter. The old gentleman readily admitted his visits, and, at the end of three months, gave his consent that the young people should be united in wedlock.

As there were no licenses for marriage in that country, it was the uniform custom to publish the bans three successive Sundays in the church. On the first day no objection was made; but on the second Sunday all the girls from the house where he had spent his Christmas made their appearance to forbid the bans, each of them declaring that she was with child by the intended husband.

Hereupon Richardson slipped out of the church, leaving the people astonished at the singularity of the circumstance; but he had reason to suppose that it would not be long before he should hear from the father of the young lady, whom he had already seduced.

Accordingly, in a few days be received a letter from the old gentleman, begging that he would decline his visits, as his conduct furnished a subject of conversation for the whole country; and with his request Richardson very cheerfully complied; but in about four months he was sent for, when the justice offered him £300 currency, to take his daughter as a wife. He seemed to hesitate at first; but at length consenting, the young lady and he went to a village at the distance of forty miles, where the banns were regularly published, and the marriage took place, before the other parties were apprised of it.

However, in a little time after the wedding, he was arrested by the friends of the girls whom he had debauched, in order to compel him to give security for the maintenance of the future children; on which his father-in-law engaged that he should not abscond, and paid him his wife's fortune.

Having thus possessed himself of the money, and being sick of his new connexion, be told his wife and her relations that, not being fond of a country life, he would go to New York and build him a ship, and would return at the expiration of three months. The family, having no suspicion of his intentions, took leave of him with every mark of affection; but he never went near them any more.

Having previously sent his effects to Boston, he went to that place, where he soon spent his money amongst the worst kind of company, and, no person being willing to trust him, was reduced to great distress. It now became necessary that he should work for his bread; and, being tolerably well skilled in ship-building, he got employment under a master-builder, who was a Quaker, and who treated him with the greatest indulgence.

The Quaker was an elderly man, who bad a young wife, with whom Richardson wished to be better acquainted: he therefore one day quitted his work and went home to the house; but he had but just arrived there when he was followed by the old man, who came in search of him, and found him talking to his wife. The Quaker asked him what business he had there, and why be did not keep at his work. Richardson replied that he only came home for an auger: to which the Quaker said, 'Ah! friend John, I do not much like thee; my wife knows nothing of thy tools, and I fear thou hadst some evil thoughts in thy head.'

Hereupon Richardson went back to his work without making any reply, but soon afterwards demanded his wages. The Quaker hesitated to pay him, hinting that he was apprehensive his wife had paid him already; on which Richardson said he would sue him for the debt, and desired him to consider that, if he made such an excuse in open court, he would be disgraced through the country.

On this the Quaker paid his demand, but absolutely forbade him ever to come within his house again; Richardson promising to obey, and intending to have complied with the injunction.

About eight days afterwards, the old gentleman, having some business up the country to purchase timber, desired his young wife to accompany him, to prevent any ill consequences that might arise in his absence. To avoid this journey, the lady feigned indisposition, and took to her bed.

The husband had not been long gone before Richardson, meeting the maid-servant in the street, asked after the health of her mistress, who, the girl said, wanted to see him; and he promised to wait upon her about nine in the evening.

Punctual to his engagement he attended the lady, and renewed his visits to her till the return of her husband was apprehended, when he broke open a chest, stole about seventy pounds, and immediately agreed with Captain Jones for his passage to Philadelphia.

When he arrived at the last-mentioned place, he took lodgings at the house of a widow who had two daughters; and, paying his addresses to the mother, he was so successful, that for four months, while he continued there, he acted as if be had been master of the house.

After this intimacy with the mother had continued some time, he became attached to one of the daughters; and on a Sunday, when the rest of the family were absent, found an opportunity of being alone with her; but the mother, returning at this juncture, interrupted their conversation, and expressed her anger in the most violent terms.

Nor was this all, for when she was alone with the offender she severely reproached him; but be made his peace by pretending an uncommon attachment to her; yet within a month she found him taking equal freedoms with her second daughter. Upon this the mother became outrageous, and told him that the consequence of his connexion with the other girl was, that she was already pregnant. Richardson now quarrelled in his turn, and told her that if her daughter was breeding she must procure her a husband, for he would have nothing to do with her.

At length, when the old woman's passions were in some degree calmed, he represented to her the impossibility of his marrying both her daughters; but said that, if she could procure a husband for one of them, he would take the other.

The old lady soon procured a young man to marry one of her daughters, and then constantly teazed Richardson to wed the other, which he steadily refused to do unless she would advance him a sum of money. She hesitated for some time; but at length said she would give him a hundred pounds, and half her plate; on which he consented, and the marriage was solemnized; but he had no sooner possessed himself of this little fortune than he embarked on board a ship bound for South Carolina.

Within a month after his arrival in this colony he became acquainted with one Captain Roberts, with whom he sailed as mate and carpenter to Jamaica, and during the voyage was treated in the most friendly manner. The business in Jamaica being dispatched, they returned to Carolina.

The owner of the ship living at some distance up the country, and the winter advancing, the captain fixed on Richardson as a proper person to sleep on board and take care of the vessel. This he did for some time, till about a week before Christmas, when he was invited to an entertainment to be given on occasion of the birth-day of his owner's only daughter.

A moderate share of skill in singing and dancing recommended Richardson to the notice of the company, and in particular to that of the young lady, by which he hoped to profit on a future occasion.

In the following month it happened that a wedding was to be celebrated at the house of a friend of the owner, on which occasion Richardson was sent for; and when he appeared the young lady welcomed him wishing that he would oblige the company with a dance; to which be replied, that he should he happy to oblige the company in general, and her in particular.

Richardson, having been a partner with the young lady during the dancing at the wedding, begged leave to conduct her home; and, when the ceremonies of the wedding were ended, he had the honour to attend her to her abode. When they had got into the midst of a thick wood he pretended to be ill, and said he must get off his horse and sit down on the ground. She likewise dismounted, and they walked together under the shade of a chestnut-tree, where they remained till the approach of evening, when he conducted her home, after having received very convincing proofs of her kindness.

Going to his ship for that night, he went to her father's house on the following day, and found an opportunity of speaking to her, when he entreated her to admit of his occasional visits; but she said there were so many negro servants about the house that it would be impossible. On this he said he would conduct her to the ship when the family were asleep; and the girl foolishly consenting to this proposal, the intrigue was carried on for a fortnight, when she became so apprehensive of a discovery that she would go no longer.

But the lovers being uneasy asunder, they bribed an old female negro, who constantly let Richardson into the young lady's chamber when the rest of the family were retired to rest.

At length the mother discovered that her daughter was with child, and charged her to declare who was the father, on which she confessed that it was Richardson. The mother acquainting her husband with the circumstance, the old gentleman sent for Richardson to supper, and, after rallying him on his prowess, told him that he must marry and support his daughter. Richardson said it was out of his power to support her; but the father promising his assistance, the marriage took place.

Soon afterwards the old gentleman gave his son-in-law the ship, and a good cargo, as a marriage portion, and Richardson embarked on a trading voyage to Barbadoes; but he had not been many days at sea when a violent storm arose, in which he lost his vessel and cargo, and he and his crew were obliged to take to the boat to save their lives.

After driving some days at sea, they were taken up by a vessel which carried them to St. Kitt's, where Richardson soon met with a Captain Jones, who told him that one of his wives had died of a broken heart. This circumstance, added to that of the loss of his ship, drove him distracted; so that he was confined to his chamber for four months.

On his recovery he went mate with the captain who had carried him to St. Kitt's; but, quitting this station in about five months, he sailed to Antigua, where a young gentleman, who happened to be in company with Richardson, was so delighted with his skill in dancing a hornpipe, that be invited him to his father's house, where he was entertained for a fortnight with the utmost hospitality.

One day, as he was rambling with the young gentleman to take a view of some of the plantations, Richardson stopped on a sudden, and, putting his hand to his pocket, pretended to have lost his purse, containing twenty pistoles. The young gentleman told him there was more money in Antigua. 'True,' said Richard son, 'but I am a stranger here; I am a Creolian from Meovis.' On this the other asked, 'Do you belong to the Richardsons at Meovis I know their character well.'

Our adventurer, aware that the governor of Meovis was named Richardson, had the confidence to declare that be was his son; on which the other exclaimed, 'You his son, and want money in Antigua! No, no; only draw a bill upon your father, and I will engage that mine shall help you to the money.'

The project of raising cash in this manner delighted Richardson; and the young gentleman's father was no sooner acquainted with the pretended circumstance than he expressed a willingness to supply him with a hundred pistoles, on which he drew a bill on his supposed father for the above-mentioned sum, and received the money.

About a week afterwards be wrote a letter to his imputed father, informing him how generously he bad been treated by his friends in Antigua, and subscribing himself his 'dutiful son.' This letter he intrusted to the care of a person in whom he could confide, with strict orders not to deliver it; and, when as much time had elapsed as might warrant the expectation of an answer, he employed the mate of a ship to write a letter to the old gentleman, as from his supposed father, thanking him for his civilities to his son.

The gentleman was greatly pleased at the receipt of this letter, which be said contained more compliments than his conduct had deserved; and be told Richardson that be might have any farther sum of money that be wanted. On this our adventurer, who was determined to take every advantage of the credulity of his new acquaintance, drew another bill for a hundred pistoles, and soon afterwards decamped.

He now embarked on board a vessel bound to Jamaica, and, on his arrival at Port Royal, purchased a variety of goods of a Jew merchant; which, with other goods that the Jew gave him credit for, he shipped on board a trader to Carthagena, where be disposed of them: but he never went back to discharge his debt to the Jew.

From Carthagena he sailed to Vera Cruz, and thence to England, where he took lodgings with one Thomas Ballard, who kept a public house at Chatham. Now it happened that Ballard had a brother, who, having gone abroad many years before, had never been heard of. Richardson bearing a great resemblance to this brother, the publican conceived a strong idea that he was the same, and asked if his name was not Ballard. At first be answered in the negative; but finding the warm prepossession of the other, and expecting to make some advantage of his credulity, he at length acknowledged that he was his brother.

Richardson now lived in a sumptuous manner, and without any expense; and Ballard was never more uneasy than when any one doubted of the reality of the relationship. At length Ballard told Richardson that their two sisters were living at Sittingbourne, and persuaded him to go on a visit to them, to which Richardson readily agreed: the two sisters had no recollection of this man; however, Ballard having persuaded them that he was the real brother who had been so long absent, great rejoicings were made on account of his safe arrival in his native country.

After a week of festivity it became necessary for Ballard to return to his business at Chatham: but the sisters, unwilling to part with their newly found brother, persuaded him to remain awhile at Sittingbourne, and told him that their mother, who had been extremely fond of him, had left him twenty pounds, and the mare on which she used to ride; and in a short time he received the legacies.

During his residence with his presumptive sisters be became acquainted with Anne and Sarah Knolding, and, finding that their relations were deceased, and that Anne was left guardian to her sister, be paid his addresses to the former, who was weak enough to trust him with her money, bonds, writings, and the deeds of her estate. Hereupon be immediately went to Chatham, where he mortgaged the estate for three hundred pounds, and thence went to Gravesend, where he shipped himself on hoard a vessel bound for Venice.

On his arrival at that place he hired a house, and lived unemployed till be had spent the greater part of his money; when he sold off his effects and went to Ancona, where he became acquainted with Captain Benjamin Hartley, who had come thither with a lading of pilchards, and on board whose ship was Richard Coyle, the other offender mentioned in this narrative.

Captain Hartley being in want of a carpenter, Richardson agreed to serve him in that capacity; and the ship sailed on a voyage to Turkey where the captain took in a lading of corn, and then sailed for Leghorn. On the first night of this voyage, Coyle, who was chief mate, came on deck to Richardson, and asked him if he would he concerned in a secret plot to murder the captain and seize the vessel. Richardson at first hesitated; but he at length agreed to take his share in the villainy.

The plan being concerted, they went to the captain's cabin about midnight, with an intention of murdering him; but, getting from them, he ran up the shrouds, whither he was followed by Richardson and a seaman named Larson. The captain descended too quick for them, and as soon as be gained the deck Coyle attempted to shoot him with a blunderbuss, which missing fire, Mr. Hartley wrested it from his hands, and threw it into the sea.

This being done, Coyle and some others of the sailors heaved the captain overboard; but, as be hung by the ship's side, Coyle gave him several blows which rather stunned him; as, however, he did not let go his hold, Richardson seized an axe, with which he struck him so forcibly that be dropped into the sea.

Coyle now assumed the command of the ship, and, Richardson being appointed mate, they sailed towards the island of Malta, where they intended to have refitted; but some of the crew objecting to putting in there, they agreed to go to Minorca. When they came opposite Cape Cona, on the coast of Barbary, the weather became so foul that they were compelled to lie-to for several days, after which they determined to sail for Foviniano, an island under the dominion of Spain.

Arriving at this place, they sent on shore for water and fresh provisions; but as they had come from Turkey, and could not produce letters of health, it was not possible for them to procure what they wanted.

It had been a practice with the pirates to keep watch alternately, in company with some boys who were on board; but during the night, while they lay at anchor off this place, two of the men destined to watch fell asleep: on which two of the boys hauled up a boat and went ashore, where they informed the governor of what had passed on hoard.

One of the parties who should have watched being awaked, he ran and called Richardson, whom he informed that the boys were gone; on which Richardson said it was time for them to be gone likewise; they therefore hauled up the long-boat without loss of time, and, putting on board her such things as would be immediately necessary, set sail, in the hope of making their escape.

In the interim the governor sent down a party of soldiers to take care of the ship, and prevent the escape of the pirates; but, it being quite dark, they could not discern the vessel, though she lay very near the shore: but, when they heard the motion of the oars, they fired at the pirates, who all escaped unwounded.

Steering towards Tunis, they stopped at a small island called Maritime, where they diverted themselves with killing rabbits: for, though the place is apparently little more than a barren rock, yet it so abounds with these animals that a man may easily kill a thousand in a day.

Leaving this place, they stopped twelve miles short of Tunis, where Richardson was apprehended, and carried before the governor, who asking whence he came, he told him he was master of a vessel, which having been lost off the coast of Sardinia, be was necessitated to take to his long-boat, and had been driven thither by distress of weather.

This story being credited, the governor seemed con erned for the fate of him and his companions, and recommended them to the house of an Italian, where they might be accommodated; sending, in the mean time, to the English consul, to inform him that his countrymen were in distress.

When they had been about a fortnight at this place Richardson sold the long-boat, and, having divided the produce among his companions, he went to Tunis to be examined by the English consul, to whom he told the same story that he had previously told the governor: on which the consul ordered him to make a formal protest thereof, for the benefit of the owners and their own security.

Hereupon the consul supplied him with money, which he shared with his companions. Coyle kept himself continually drunk with the money he had received, and, during his intoxication, spoke so freely of their transactions, that he was taken into custody by order of the consul, and sent to England; and Richardson would have also been apprehended, but, being upon his guard, and learning what had happened to his companion, he embarked on board a ship bound for Tripoli, where he arrived in safety.

At this place he drew a bill on an English merchant of Leghorn, by which he obtained twenty pounds, and then embarked for theisland of Malta; he sailed from thence to Saragossa, in the island of Sicily, whence going to Messina, he was known by a gentleman who bad lived at Ancona, and who, remembering his engagement in the service of Captain Hartley, had him apprehended on suspicion of the murder.

He remained in prison at Messina nine months: on which be wrote a petition to the King of Naples, setting forth that he had been a servant to his father, and praying the royal orders for his release. In consequence of this petition the governor of Messina was commanded to set him at liberty; on which be travelled to Rome, and thence to Civita Vecchia, where he hoped to get employment on board the Pope's gallies in consequence of having turned Roman Catholic.

While he was at Civita Vecchia he became known to Captain Blomet, who invited bin, with other company, on board his ship: when the company was gone, the captain showed him a letter, in which he was described as one of the murderers of Captain Hartley. Richardson denied the charge; but the captain calling down some hands, be was put in irons, and sent to Leghorn, whence be was transmitted to Lisbon: here he remained three months, and being then put on board the packet-boat, and brought to Falmouth, be was conveyed to London. Richardson was lodged first in the Marshalsea, but afterwards removed to Newgate; and, being tried at the Old Bailey, received sentence of death, along with Coyle, for the murder of Captain Hartley.

Richard Coyle was a native of Devonshire, and born near Exeter. His parents having given him such an education as was proper to qualify him for a maritime life, be was apprenticed to the master of a trading vessel, and served his time with reputation to himself and satisfaction to his employer.

When his time was expired, he made several voyages in ships of war, and likewise served on board various merchantmen; he had also been master of a ship for seventeen years, generally sailing from, and returning to, the port of London. In these commands he maintained a good character; but, meeting with misfortunes, he was reduced to serve as mate in different ships; and at length sailed with Captain Hartley, bound to the Levant, when he became acquainted with Richardson, as already related.

After conviction Coyle acknowledged the equity of the sentence against him and, in some letters to his friends, confessed his penitence for the crime of which he had been guilty, and his readiness to yield his life as an atonement for his offences.

With respect to Richardson, he seemed regardless of the dreadful fate that awaited him; and, having lived a life of vice and dissipation, appeared altogether indifferent to the manner in which that life should end.

The above-mentioned malefactors were hanged at Execution Dock on the 25th of January, 1738.

With regard to Coyle, we do not hear that he had been guilty of any notorious crime but that for which he died; but the life of Richardson was such a continued scene of irregularity, deception, and fraud, as is almost unequalled. His treachery to the many unhappy women of whom he pretended to be enamoured was, alone, deserving of the fate which finally fell to his lot.

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35: George Manley

Executed at Wicklow, in Ireland, in August, 1738, for murder.

WE have no particulars, either of the life of this criminal, or the circumstances attending the horrid crime for which he was executed.

We have, indeed, found a note, briefly naming the case of George Manley, but evidently inserted for the purpose of introducing a singular speech, made by him to the spectators, at the place of execution, which evinces strong natural abilities, and a knowledge of mankind, seldom found in criminals of his description. As we have never met with a dying speech so satirical and severe upon the general turpitude of mankind, we readily present it to our readers. Be it said, that this man was hardened, fearless, or mad; we exclaim with Shakespeare, "If this be madness, there is method in it."

George Manley, having arrived at the place of execution, behaved in a strange and undaunted manner, addressing the spectators thus:

"My Friends,

"You assemble to see― What?― A man take a leap into the abyss of death. Look, and you shall see me go, with as much courage as Curtius, when he leapt into the gulf to save his country from destruction. What then will will you see of me!― You say, that no man without virtue can be courageous. You see, I am courageous. You'll say, I have killed a man. ―Marlborough killed his thousands, and Alexander his millions: Marlborough and Alexander, and many others who have done the like, are famous in history for Great Men. But I killed one solitary man. ―Aye, that's the case. ―One solitary man. I'm a little murderer, and must be hanged. Marlborough and Alexander plundered countries― They were Great Men. I ran in debt with the ale-wife, I must be hanged.

"Now, my friends, I have drawn a parallel between two of the greatest men that ever lived, and myself; but these were men of former days. Now I'll speak a word of some of the present days: How many men were lost in Italy and upon the Rhine, during the last war, for settling a king in Poland? Both sides could not be in the right; they are Great Men; but I killed a solitary man, I'm a little fellow. The King of Spain takes our ships, plunders our merchants, kills and tortures our men; but what of all that? What he does is good; he's a Great Man, he is clothed in purple, his instruments of murder are bright and shining, mine was, but a rusty gun; and so much for comparison.

"Now, I would fain know, what authority there is in Scripture for a rich man to murder, to plunder, to torture, and ravage whole countries; and what law it is, that condemns a poor man to death for killing a solitary man, or for stealing a solitary sheep to feed his family. But bring the matter closer to our own country: What is the difference between running in a poor man's debt, and by the power of gold, or any other privilege, preventing him from. obtaining his right; and clapping a pistol to a man's breast, and taking from him his purse? Yet the one shall thereby obtain a coach, and honours, and titles, &c. The other ― What?― A cart and a rope.

"From what I have said, my brethren, you may, perhaps, imagine I am hardened; but believe me, I am fully convinced of my follies, and acknowledge the just judgment of God has overtaken me: I have no hopes, but from the merits of my Redeemer, who I hope will have mercy on me, as he knows that murder was far from my heart, and what I did was through rage and passion, being provoked thereto by the deceased.

Take warning, my dear comrades: Think! O think! what I would now give, that I had lived another life."

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1739

36: Richard Turpin

A famous Highway Robber, who shot dead one of his own Comrades and was executed at York On 7th of April, 1739

THIS NOTORIOUS character was for a long time the dread of travellers on the Essex road, on account of the daring robberies which he daily committed; was also a noted house-breaker, and was for a considerable time remarkably successful in his desperate course, but was at length brought to an ignominious end, in consequence of circumstances which, in themselves, may appear trifling. He was apprehended in consequence of shooting a fowl, and his brother refusing to pay sixpence for the postage of his letter occasioned his conviction.

He was the son of a farmer at Thackstead in Essex; and, having received a common school education, was apprenticed to a butcher in Whitechapel; but was distinguished from his early youth for the impropriety of his behaviour, and the brutality of his manners. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, be married a young woman of East Ham, in Essex, named Palmer: but he had not been long married before he took to the practice of stealing his neighbours' cattle, which he used to kill and cut up for sale.

Having stolen two oxen belonging to Mr. Giles, of Plaistow, he drove them to his own house; but two of Giles's servants, suspecting who was the robber, went to Turpin's where they saw two beasts of such size as had been lost: but as the hides were stripped from them, it was impossible to say that they were the same: but learning that Turpin used to dispose of his hides at Waltham-Abbey, they went thither, and saw the hides of the individual beasts that had been stolen.

No doubt now remaining who was the robber, a warrant was procured for the apprehension of Turpin; but, learning that the peace-officers were in search of him, he made his escape from the back window of his house, at the very moment that the others were entering at the door.

Having retreated to a place of security, he found means to inform his wife where he was concealed; on which she furnished him with money, with which he travelled into the hundreds of Essex, where he joined a gang of smugglers, with whom he was for some time successful; till a set of the Custom house officers, by one successful stroke, deprived him of all his ill-acquired gains.

Thrown out of this kind of business, he connected himself with a gang of deer-stealers, the principal part of whose depredations were committed on Epping Forest, and the parks in its neighbourhood: but this business not succeeding to the expectation of the robbers, they determined to commence house-breakers.

Their plan was to fix on houses that they presumed contained any valuable property; and, while one of them knocked at the door, the others were to rush in, and seize whatever they might deem worthy of their notice.

The first attack of this kind was at the house of Mr. Strype, an old man who kept a chandler's shop at Watford, whom they robbed of all the money in his possession, but did not offer him any personal abuse.

Turpin now acquainted his associates that there was an old woman at Loughton, who was in possession of seven or eight hundred pounds; whereupon they agreed to rob her; and when they came to the door, one of them knocked, and the rest forcing their way into the house, tied handkerchiefs over the eyes of the old woman and her maid.

This being done, Turpin demanded what money was in the house; and the owner hesitating to tell him, he threatened to set her on the fire if she did not make an immediate discovery. Still, however, she declined to give the desired information; on which the villains actually placed her on the fire, where she sat till the tormenting pains compelled her to discover her hidden treasure; so that the robbers possessed themselves of above £400 and decamped with the booty.

Some little time after this they agreed to rob the house of a farmer near Barking; and knocking at the door, the people declined to open it; on which they broke it open; and having bound the farmer, his wife, his son-in-law, and the servant maid, they robbed the house of above £700; which delighted Turpin so much that he exclaimed, "Aye, this will do if it would always be so!" and the robbers retired with their prize, which amounted to above £80 for each of them.

This desperate gang, now flushed with success, determined to attack the house of Mr. Mason, the keeper of Epping Forest; and the time was affixed when the plan was to be carried into execution; but Turpin having gone to London, to spend his share of the former booty, intoxicated himself to such a degree, that he totally forgot the appointment.

Nevertheless, the rest of the gang resolved, that the absence of their companion should not frustrate the proposed design; and having taken a solemn oath to break every article of furniture in Mason's house, they set out on their expedition.

Having gained admission, they beat and kicked the unhappy man with great severity. Finding an old man sitting by the fire-side they permitted him to remain uninjured; and Mr. Mason's daughter escaped their fury, by running out of the house, and taking shelter in a hog-sty.

After ransacking the lower part of the house, and doing much mischief, they went up stairs, where they broke every thing that fell in their way, and among the rest a china punchbowl, from which dropped one hundred and twenty guineas, which they made prey of, and effected their escape. They now went to London, in search of Turpin, with whom they shared the booty, though he had not taken an active part in the execution of the villainy.

On the 11th of January, 1735, Turpin and five of his companions went to the house of Mr. Saunders, a rich farmer at Charlton in Kent, between seven and eight in the evening, and having knocked at the door, asked if Mr. Saunders was at home. Being answered in the affirmative, they rushed into the house, and found Mr. Saunders, with his wife and friends, playing at cards in the parlour. They told the company that they should remain uninjured, if they made no disturbance. Having made prize of a silver snuff-box which lay on the table a part of the gang stood guard over the rest of the company, while the others attended Mr. Saunders through the house, and breaking open his escritoires and closets, stole about £100 exclusive of plate.

During these transactions the servant maid ran up stairs, barring the door of her room, and called out, "Thieves!" with a view of alarming the neighbourhood; but the robbers broke open the door of her room, secured her, and then robbed the house of all the valuable property they had not before taken. Finding some minced-pies, and some bottles of wine, they sat down. to regale themselves; and meeting with a bottle of brandy, they compelled each of the company to drink a glass of it.

Mrs. Saunders fainting through terror, they administered some drops in water to her, and recovered her to the use of her senses. Having staid in the house a considerable time, they packed up their booty and departed, having first declared, that if any of the family gave the least alarm within two hours, or advertised the marks of the stolen plate, they would return and murder them at a future time.

The division of the plunder having taken place, they, on the 18th of the same month, went to the house of Mr. Sheldon, near Croydon, in Surrey, where they arrived about seven in the evening. Having got into the yard, they perceived a light in the stable, and going into it, found the coachman attending his horses. Having immediately bound him, they quitted the stable, and meeting Mr. Sheldon in the yard, they seized him, and compelling him to conduct them into the house, they stole eleven guineas, with the jewels, plate, and other things of value, to a large amount. Having committed this robbery, they returned Mr. Sheldon two guineas, and apologized for their conduct.

This being done, they hastened to the Black Horse, in the Broad-way, Westminster, where they concerted the robbery of Mr. Lawrence, of Edgware, near Stanmore, in Middlesex, for which place they set out on the 4th of February, and arrived at a public-house in that village, about five o'clock in the evening. From this place they went to Mr. Lawrence's house, where they arrived about seven o'clock, just as he had discharged some people who had worked for him.

Having quitted their horses at the outer gate, one of the robbers going forwards, found a boy who had lust returned from folding his sheep; the rest of the gang following, a pistol was presented and instant destruction threatened if he made any noise. They then took off his garters, and tied his hands, and told him to direct them to the door, and when they knocked, to answer, and bid the servants open it, in which case they would not hurt him; but when the boy came to the door he was so terrified that he could not speak; on which one of the gang knocked, and a man servant, imagining it was one of the neighbours, opened the door, whereupon they all rushed in, armed with pistols.

Having seized Mr. Lawrence and his servant, they threw a cloth over their faces, and taking the boy into another room, demanded what fire-arms were in the house; to which he replied, only an old gun, which they broke in pieces. They then bound Mr. Lawrence and his man, and made them sit by the boy; and Turpin searching the old gentleman, took from him a guinea, a Portugal piece, and some silver; but not being satisfied with this booty, they forced him to conduct them up stairs, where they broke open a closet, and stole some money and plate: but that not being sufficient to satisfy them, they threatened to murder Mr. Lawrence, each of them destining him to a different death, as the savageness of his own nature prompted him. At length one of them took a kettle of water from the fire, and threw it over him; but it providentially happened not to be hot enough to scald him.

In the interim, the maidservant who was churning butter in the dairy, hearing a noise in the house, apprehended some mischief; on which she blew out her candle to screen herself; but being found in the course of their search, one of the miscreants compelled her to go up stairs, where he gratified his brutal passion by force. They then robbed the house of all the valuable effects they could find, locked the family in the parlour, threw the key in the garden, and took their ill-gotten plunder to London.

The particulars of this atrocious robbery being represented to the king, a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of the offenders, promising a pardon to any one of them who would impeach his accomplices; and a reward of 501. was offered, to be paid on conviction. This, however, had no effect; the robbers continued their depredations as before; and, flushed with the success they had met with, seemed to bid defiance to the laws.

On the 7th of February, six of them assembled at the White Bear Inn, in Drury-lane, where they agreed to rob the house of Mr. Francis, a farmer near Mary-le-bone. Arriving at the place, they found a servant in the cow-house, whom they bound fast, and threatened to murder, if he was not perfectly silent. This being done, they led him into the stable, where finding another of the servants, they bound him in the same manner.

In the interim Mr. Francis happening to come home, they presented their pistols to his breast, and threatened instant destruction to him, if he made the least noise or opposition. Having bound the master in the stable with his servants, they rushed into the house, tied Mrs. Francis, her daughter, and the maidservant, and beat them in a most cruel manner. One of the thieves stood as a sentry while the rest rifled the house, in which they found a silver tankard, a medal of Charles the First, a gold watch, several gold rings, a considerable sum of money, and a variety of valuable linen and other effects, which they conveyed to London.

Hereupon a reward of £100 was offered for the apprehension of the offenders: in consequence of which two of them were taken into custody, tried, convicted on the evidence of an accomplice, and hanged in chains: and the whole gang being dispersed, Turpin went into the country to renew his depredations on the public.

On a journey towards Cambridge, he met a man genteelly dressed, and well mounted: and expecting a good booty, he presented a pistol to the supposed gentleman, and demanded his money. The party thus stopped happened to be one King, a famous highwayman, who knew Turpin; and when the latter threatened destruction if he did not deliver his money, King burst into a fit of laughter, and said, "What, dog eat dog? ― Come, come, brother Turpin; if you don't know me, I know you, and shall be glad of your company."

These brethren in iniquity soon struck the bargain, and immediately entering on business, committed a number of robberies; till at length they were so well known, that no public-house would receive them as guests. Thus situated they fixed on a spot between the King's-Oak and the Loughton Road, on Epping Forest, where they made a cave, which was large enough to receive them and their horses.

This cave was inclosed within a sort of thicket of bushes and brambles, through which they could look and see passengers on the road, while themselves remained unobserved.

From this station they used to issue, and robbed such a number of persons, that at length the very pedlars who travelled the road, carried fire-arms for their defence: and, while they were in this retreat, Turpin's wife used to supply them with necessaries, and frequently remained in the cave during the night.

Having taken a ride as far as Bungay, in Suffolk, they observed two young women receive fourteen pounds for corn, on which Turpin resolved to rob them of the money. King objected, saying it was a pity to rob such pretty girls: but Turpin was obstinate, and obtained the booty.

Upon their return home on the following day, they stopped a Mr. Bradele, of London, who was riding in his chariot with his children. The gentleman, seeing only one robber, was pre paring to make resistance, when King called to Turpin to hold the horses. They took from the gentleman his watch, money, and an old mourning ring; but returned the latter, as he declared that its intrinsic value was trifling, yet he was very unwilling to part with it.

Finding that they readily parted with the ring, he asked them what he must give for the watch: on which King said to Turpin, "What say ye, Jack? ― Here seems to be a good honest fellow; shall we let him have the watch?"― Turpin replied, "Do as you please;" on which King said to the gentleman, "You must pay six guineas for it: we never sell for more, though the watch should be worth six and thirty." The gentleman promised that the money should be left at the Dial, in Birchin-lane.

On the 4th of May, 1737, Turpin was guilty of murder, which arose from the following circumstance: A reward of 1001. having been offered for apprehending him, one Thomas Morris, a servant of Mr. Thompson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest, accompanied by a higgler, set out in order to apprehend him. Turpin seeing them approach near his dwelling, Mr. Thompson's man having a gun, he mistook them for poachers; on which he said, there were no hares near that thicket: "No, (said Morris) but I have found a Turpin;" and presenting his gun required him to surrender.

Hereupon Turpin spoke to him, as in a friendly manner, and gradually retreated at the same time, till having seized his own gun, he shot him dead on the spot, and the higgler ran off with the utmost precipitation.

This murder being represented to the Secretary of State, the following proclamation was issued by government, which we give a place to, from its describing the person of this notorious depredator.

"It having been represented to the King, that Richard Turpin did, on Wednesday, the 4th of May last, barbarously murder Thomas Morris, servant to Henry Thompson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest,  and commit other notorious felonies and robberies, near London, his Majesty is pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of his accomplices, and a reward of £200 to any person or persons that shall discover him, so that he may be apprehended and convicted.

Turpin was born at Thackstead, in Essex, is about thirty, by trade a butcher, about five feet nine inches high, very much marked with the small-pox, his cheek-bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom; his visage short, pretty upright, and broad about the shoulders."

Turpin, to avoid the proclamation, went further into the country in search of his old companion King: and in the mean time sent a letter to his wife, to meet him at a public-house at Hertford. The woman attended according to this direction; and her husband coming into the house soon after she arrived, a butcher, to whom he owed five pounds, happened to see him; on which he said, "Come, Dick, I know you have money now; and if you will pay me, it will be of great service."

Turpin told him that his wife was in the next room; that she had money, and that he should he paid immediately; but while the butcher was hinting to some of his acquaintance, that the person present was Turpin, and that they might take him into custody after he had received his debt, the highwayman made his escape through a window, and rode off with great expedition.

Turpin having found King, and a man named Potter, who had lately connected himself with them, they set off towards London, in the dusk of the evening; but when they came near the Green Man, on Epping Forest, they overtook a Mr. Major, who riding on a very fine horse, and Turpin's beast being jaded he obliged the rider to dismount, and exchange horses.

The robbers now pursued their journey towards London, and Mr. Major going to the Green Man, gave an account of the affair; on which it was conjectured that Turpin had been the robber, and that the horse which he exchanged must have been stolen.

It was on a Saturday evening that this robbery was committed; but Mr. Major being advised to print hand-bills immediately, notice was given to the landlord of the Green Man, that such a horse as Mr. Major had lost, had been left at the Red Lion, in Whitechapel. The landlord going thither, determined to wait till some person came for it; and, at about eleven at night, King's brother came to pay for the horse, and take him away: on which he was immediately seized, and conducted into the house.

Being asked what right he had to the horse, he said he had bought it; but the landlord examining a whip which he had in his hand, found a button at the end of the handle half broken off, and the name of Major on the remaining half. Hereupon he was given into the custody of a constable; but as it was not supposed that he was the actual robber, he was told, that he should have his liberty, if he would discover his employer.

Hereupon he said, that a stout man, in a white duffel coat, was waiting for the horse in Red Lion-street; on which the company going thither, saw King, who drew a pistol attempted to fire it, but it flashed in the pan; he then endeavoured to draw out another pistol, but he could not, as it got entangled in his pocket.

At this time Turpin was watching at a small distance and riding towards the spot, King cried out, "Shoot him, or we are taken;" on which Turpin fired, and shot his companion, who called out, "Dick, you have killed me;" which the other hearing, rode off at full speed.

King lived a week after this affair, and gave information that Turpin might be found at a house near Hackney-marsh; and, on inquiry, it was discovered that Turpin had been there on the night that he rode off, lamenting that he had killed King, who was his most faithful associate.

For a considerable time did Turpin skulk about the forest, having been deprived of his retreat in the cave since he shot the servant of Mr. Thompson. On the examination of this cave there were found two shirts, two pairs of stockings, a piece of ham, and a part of a bottle of wine.

Some vain attempts were made to take this notorious offender into custody; and among the rest, the huntsman of a gentleman in the neighbourhood went in search of him with blood-hounds. Turpin perceiving them, and recollecting that King Charles II. evaded his pursuers under covert of the friendly branches of the oak, mounted one of those trees under which the hounds passed, to his inexpressible terror, so that he determined to make a retreat into Yorkshire.

Going first to Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire, he stole some horses, for which he was taken into custody, but he escaped from the constable as he was conducting him before a magistrate, and hastened to Welton, in Yorkshire, where he went by the name of John Palmer, and assumed the character of a gentleman.

He now frequently went into Lincolnshire, where he stole horses, which he brought into Yorkshire, and either sold or exchanged them.

He often accompanied the neighbouring gentlemen on their parties of hunting and shooting; and one evening, on a return from an expedition of the latter kind, he wantonly shot a cock belonging to his landlord. On this Mr. Hall, a neighbour, said, "You have done wrong in shooting your landlord's cock;" to which Turpin replied, that if he would stay while he loaded his gun, he would shoot him also.

Irritated by this insult, Mr. Hall informed the landlord of what had passed; and application being made to some magistrates, a warrant was granted for the apprehension of the offender, who being taken into custody, and carried before a bench of justices, then assembled at the quarter-sessions, at Beverley, they demanded security for his good behaviour, which he being unable, or unwilling to give, was committed to Bridewell.

On inquiry it appeared that he made frequent journeys into Lincolnshire, and on his return always abounded in money, and was likewise in possession of several horses; so that it was conjectured he was a horse-stealer and highwayman.

On this the magistrates went to him on the following day, and demanded who he was, where he lived, and what was his employment? He replied in substance, "that about two years ago he had lived at Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire, and was by trade a butcher, but that having contracted several debts, for sheep that proved rotten, he was obliged to abscond, and come to live in Yorkshire."

The magistrates not being satisfied with this tale, commissioned the clerk of the peace to write into Lincolnshire, to make the necessary inquiries respecting the supposed John Palmer. The letter was carried by a special messenger, who brought an answer from the magistrate in the neighbourhood, importing that John Palmer was well known, though he had never carried on trade there: that he had been accused of sheep-stealing for which he had been in custody but had made his escape from the peace officers: and that there were several informations lodged against him for horse-stealing.

Hereupon the magistrates thought it prudent to remove him to York Castle, where he had not been more than a month, when two persons from Lincolnshire came and claimed a mare and foal, and likewise a horse, which he had stolen in that county.

After he had been about four month in prison, he wrote the following letter to his brother in Essex:

"Dear Brother,

York, Feb. 6, 1739.

"I am sorry to acquaint you, that I am now under confinement in York Castle, for horse-stealing. If I could procure an evidence from London to give me a character, that would go a great way towards my being acquitted. I had not been long in this county before my being apprehended, so that it would pass off the readier. For Heaven's sake dear brother, do not neglect me; you will know what I mean, when I say,

I am yours,

"JOHN PALMER."

This letter being returned, unopened, to the Post-Office in Essex, because the brother would not pay the postage of it, was accidentally seen by Mr. Smith, a school-master, who having taught Turpin to write, immediately knew his hand, on which he carried the letter to a magistrate, who broke it open; by which it was discovered that the supposed John Palmer was the real Richard Turpin.

Hereupon the magistrates of Essex dispatched Mr. Smith to York, who immediately selected him from all the other prisoners in the castle. This Mr. Smith, and another gentleman, afterwards proved his identity on his trial.

On the rumour that the noted Turpin was a prisoner in York Castle, persons flocked from all parts of the country to take a view of him, and debates ran very high whether he was the real person or not. Among others who visited him, was a young fellow who pretended to know the famous Turpin, and having regarded him a considerable time with looks of great attention, he told the keeper he would bet him half a guinea that he was not Turpin; on which the prisoner, whispering the keeper, said, "Lay him the wager, and I'll go your halves."

When this notorious malefactor was brought to trial, he was convicted on two indictments, and received sentence of death.

After conviction he wrote to his father, imploring him to intercede with a gentleman and lady of rank to make interest that his sentence might be remitted; and that he might be transported. The father did what was in his power: but the notoriety of his character was such, that no persons would exert themselves in his favour.

This man lived in the most gay and thoughtless manner after conviction, regardless of all considerations of futurity, and affecting to make a jest of the dreadful fate that awaited him.

Not many days before his execution, he purchased a new fustian frock and a pair of pumps, in order to wear them at the time of his death: and, on the day before, he hired five poor men, at ten shillings each, to follow the cart as mourners: and he gave hatbands  and gloves to several other persons: and he also left a ring, and some other articles, to a married woman in Lincolnshire, with whom he had been acquainted.

On the morning of his death he was put into a cart, and being followed by his mourners, as above-mentioned, he was drawn to the place of execution, in his way to which he bowed to the spectators with an air of the most astonishing indifference and intrepidity.

When he came to the fatal tree, he ascended the ladder; when his right leg trembling, he stamped it down with an air of assumed courage, as if he was ashamed of discovering any signs of fear, Having conversed with the executioner about half an hour, he threw himself off the ladder, and expired in a few minutes.

The spectators of the execution were affected at his fate, as he was distinguished by the comeliness of his appearance. The corpse was brought to the Blue Boar, in Castle-Gate, York, where it remained till the next morning, when it was interred in the church-yard of St. George's parish, with an inscription on the coffin, with the initials of his name, and his age. The grave was dug remarkably deep, but notwithstanding the people who acted as mourners took such measures as they thought would secure the body: it was carried off about three o'clock on the following morning; the populace, however, got intimation whither it was conveyed, and found it in a garden belonging to one of the surgeons of the city.

Having got possession of it they laid it on a board, and carried it through the streets in a kind of triumphal manner, they then filled the coffin with unslacked lime, and buried it in the grave where it had been before deposited.

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37: David Roberts

Executed for high treason, in diminishing the gold coin of the realm, April 3, 1739.

THIS MALEFACTOR, who was a native of Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, was apprenticed to a joiner; but quitting his master's service, he worked some time as a journeyman at the Devizes, in Wiltshire, where he married a wife with a fortune of three hundred pounds.

His wife dying in childbed, he remained at the Devizes a considerable time, during which he dissipated all his wife's fortune, except about forty pounds, with which he came to London, and took lodgings with a widow, who kept a public-house. Roberts soon became so intimate with the widow, that she told him it was necessary he should marry her. He embraced the proposal, imagining that it would procure him a decent establishment in life; but being frequently arrested for debts contracted by his wife previous to the marriage, he sold the household furniture to a broker, and left her to provide for herself.

He now engaged in partnership with his brother, a carpenter in Southwark, and saved a considerable sum of money. He next embarked in business for himself, and obtained a large share of credit, but, when his debts became due, he took lodgings within the rules of the King's Bench, in order to evade their payment.

Even while in this situation he undertook a piece of work by which he made three hundred pounds profit; and might have gained more, but that he quarrelled with his employer. At this period, one Sarah Bristow, who had been transported for a felony, returned after the expiration of a year, and becoming acquainted with Roberts, lived with him as his wife for a considerable time. She went with him to Bristol, where he rented an inn, which he furnished on credit: but one of his London creditors getting notice of his retreat, arrested him, and Roberts standing trial, cast him on some informality in the Writ, he, however, thought it imprudent to remain, and shipping his effects for London, he and Mrs. Bristow came to town, and lodged again within the rules of the Bench.

Notwithstanding his situation, he took an inn at Coventry, but was observed by a timber-merchant named Smith, to whom he owed fifty-five pounds. Mr. Smith finding that Roberts had taken the house, arrested him for the above sum. Roberts found means to compromise this affair; but his other creditors learning whither he had retired, it became necessary to conceal himself.

Roberts, thinking it would be unsafe to remain in Coventry, commissioned Mrs. Bristow to purchase such goods as she could get on credit, with a view to carry them off to some place where they were not known.

He now came to London, leaving Mrs. Bristow to send the goods by a waggon; but some of the creditors, having intelligence of what was intended, attached them.

Mrs. Bristow wrote to Roberts, giving a short account of what had happened; on which he sent one Carter to obtain a full information: but not hearing from him as he expected, Roberts set out for Coventry, notwithstanding the risk to which he exposed himself.

On his arrival he found the house nearly stripped, and Mrs. Bristow and Carter in a high degree of intimacy. However, he did not stay long to examine into the state of affairs, being advised to retire to London, with all expedition.

Roberts now moved the Court of King's Bench for a rule against his creditors, to shew cause why they had attached his goods, and the Court recommending an arbitration, it was awarded that Roberts should receive one hundred and thirty pounds, and give his creditors a bill of sale for the lease and effects: on his receiving this sum, Carter applied to him to borrow twenty pounds, with which he said he could acquire a fortune, by purchasing a liquid that would dissolve gold, but Roberts would not lend him the money; Carter, however, found means to raise it, and took to the practice of diminishing the coin, in which he was so successful that he soon abounded in cash. Roberts became very anxious to know the secret, but the other refusing to discover it, he determined on a practice equally dishonest and dangerous, which was that of filing gold. When he had filed off as much dust as was worth ten pounds, Mrs. Bristow stole the box and sold the contents; after this he employed a person at half-a-crown a day to sell the filings, but, not agreeing together, he determined to act for himself; and, having sold a quantity of dust to a refiner, went to a public-house near Hicks's Hall, kept by a Mr. Rogers, whom he asked to give him a bank-note for some gold. Rogers, on feeling the guineas, found that some of the dust stuck to his fingers; on which he said, "What have we got here? The fellow who filed these guineas ought to be hanged for doing his business in so clumsy a manner." Without saying more, he stepped out, and procured a constable, who took Roberts into custody; but after detaining him six hours, discharged him on his own authority.

Roberts prosecuted the publican and constable for false imprisonment; but failed in the suit, and an evidence in his behalf was committed on a charge of perjury, while the publican was bound to prosecute Roberts, who lodged privately at Islington.

While he was in this retreat, and forming a design to go to Lisbon, Mrs. Bristow brought him a newspaper, in which his person was described; whereupon they went together to Chatham, and thence to Ramsgate, where they met Mrs. Bristow's brother, who was likewise included in the advertisement, and they all went on board a vessel bound for Calais, but quarrelling among themselves, the captain gave orders that they should be landed at Dover. Provoked by this, Roberts threw the captain into the sea, and if the boat had not been sent to take him up, he must infallibly have been drowned. The captain was no sooner on board than Roberts took the helm, and steered the vessel to her port; where Mrs. Bristow's brother making the custom-house officers acquainted with Roberts's character, his boxes were searched, and the implements for filing money found; but he escaped in the mean time to Dunkirk, whence, to avoid pursuit, he went to Ostend, and sending for Mrs. Bristow, they embarked for England, and took lodgings near the Strand.

Roberts could not detach himself from the pursuit of filing money; and took a house at Bath, where he used to work at his occupation during the night,

Going to a chemist's shop to purchase a liquid, he saw a person who knew him, on which he went home, and told Mrs Bristow that he was apprehensive of being taken into custody. Some officers came almost immediately and conveyed him before a justice of peace, who sent notice to London of his being in custody.

When brought to his trial at the Old Bailey, he was convicted on the fullest evidence, and received sentence of death. Till the arrival of the warrant for his execution he scarcely mentioned any circumstances respecting his conduct; but was afterwards more explicit.

On the night before his execution, he acknowledged that he had murdered his first wife during her lying-in.

The second wife went to visit him in prison; but he declined seeing her, alleging that her company would only disturb him in his preparations for that awful state on which he was about to enter. The rest of his conduct was highly becoming his melancholy situation.

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38: Abraham Wells

Executed at Tyburn, May 30, 1739, for horse-stealing.

ALL the accounts which we found of this criminal agree that he was such a dunce, when a boy, that though he had the chance of a common school education, he could not be taught even to read and write; and as a man, he was idle and extravagant. He was the son of an honest man, a carpenter at Enfield, who bound him to a butcher, at his native place, where he engaged in business for himself, and sold considerable quantities of meat by wholesale, at the London markets. He paid his addresses to a widow of some fortune, whom he married; but she prudently reserved a part of her property to her own use.

When Wells had been married some time, he became so uneasy that his wife opposed his extravagance, that, being unhappy at home, he kept bad company, though it was some years before he committed the crime for which he lost his life.

A man being indicted at the Old Bailey for horse-stealing, Wells became an evidence in his favour, but his testimony was of such a nature, that he was committed to Newgate for perjury, and not released till he had suffered six months' imprisonment, and paid a fine.

He had now repeated quarrels with his wife and her relations; in consequence of which he neglected his business, so that he lost the greater part of his customers. Thus distressed in mind and circumstances, he stole a horse from a field near Edmonton, which he took to Smithfield Market, and offered for sale; but the owner of the horse having repaired to London before him, had him taken into custody on the spot, and carried before a magistrate, who committed him to prison.

Previous to his trial he caused some of his relations to be served with subpoenas, to give evidence respecting him, and among the rest two of his wife's brothers; but these men instead of endeavouring to alleviate his distress, represented him to the court as a man of abandoned character, who had long since deserved the severest sentence of the law: nay, so virulent was their malice, that they told the court the circumstance of his having been committed for perjury, as above-mentioned. This conduct was justly censured by the judges, who represented the cruelty of their endeavouring to injure a man whom they were called in to serve: and observed that with regard to the perjury, he had already suffered the sentence of the law, so that it had no reference to the case in hand.

The evidence against him being clear and positive, conviction followed of course, and he received sentence of death.

After conviction he spoke with the utmost bitterness of reproach, respecting the conduct of his wife and relations; and though the former repeatedly went to Newgate, he constantly refused to see her, till within a few days of his death, when the approaching horror of his fate seemed to have made such an impression on his mind, that he consented to receive her visit.

On their first meeting they wrung their hands in an agony of grief, but floods of tears coming to their relief, their affliction in some degree subsided: and when they mutually recriminated on each other; the wife abused the husband for ruining his family; and he said that she had been the occasion of his present misfortunes.

On her next visit he again censured her conduct; on which she charged him with having associated with another woman; but this he solemnly denied, on the word of a dying man; and averred that the affair had no foundation but in the jealousy of her own disposition. The Ordinary of Newgate now interposed, and represented to Mrs. Wells the extreme impropriety of censuring a man in her husband's unhappy circumstances.

On the day before his death his mind was agitated to such a degree, that it was thought he might be guilty of suicide, on which a man was engaged to be with him, to prevent the dreadful consequences: but his mind soon became more composed, and he employed himself in exercises of devotion.

When he arrived at the fatal tree, he lamented the errors of his past life in the most affecting manner: but even, at that solemn period he could not help reflecting on his wife's relations, who, he said, had promoted his ruin.

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39: James Caldclough

Executed for Robbery, July 2nd 1739.

THE city of Durham gave birth to this offender, who was the son of people of fair character: they, having given him a decent education, put him apprentice to a shoemaker, with whom he lived about three years, till, having contracted a habit of idleness, and being attached to had company, he quitted his master, and enlisted in the second regiment of foot-guards.

He had not been long in London before he became acquainted with a fellow named Thomas, who offered to put him into an easy way of getting money; and Caldclough, listening to his invitation, dined with Thomas and some of his associates, on a Sunday, at a public house; and afterwards attended them to Newington Green, where they continued drinking for some time, and at the approach of evening set out towards London, with a view of robbing such persons as they might meet.

As they crossed the fields towards Hoxton, they stopped a gentleman, whom they robbed of a watch and some silver, and, tying him to a gate, they retired to a public house in Brick Lane, Old Street, where they spent the night in riot and drunkenness.

Caldclough being a young fellow of genteel appearance, and remarkable spirit, his accomplices advised him to commence highwayman; but, none of them having money to purchase horses and other necessaries to equip them in a genteel manner, it was determined that two of the gang should commit a robbery which might put them in a way of committing others.

With this view they went into Kent and stole two horses, which they placed at a livery-stable near Moorfields; after which the gang went in a body to Welling, in Hertfordshire, where they broke open a house, and stole about fourteen pounds in money, and some other valuables, which furnished them with clothes and the other requisites for their intended expedition.

Thus provided, they rode to Enfield Chase, where they robbed the passengers in a stage-coach of their watches and money; and soon afterwards stopped another coach in the road to Epping Forest, from which they got a large booty, and divided it at their place of meeting in Brick Lane, Old Street, spending the night in licentious revelry.

But a short time had passed after this robbery when Caldclough and one of his companions rode to Epping Forest; and, having stopped a coach in which were two gentlemen and a young lady, a servant that was behind the coach would have attacked the robbers, but that the gentlemen desired him to desist, that the young lady might not be terrified. The gentlemen then gave the robbers their money, apologizing for the smallness of the sum, and saying that they should have been welcome to more had it been in their possession.

As they were riding towards London, after committing this robbery, they quitted their horses, and fastened them to a tree, in order to rob the Woodford stage-coach, which they observed to be full of passengers; but the coachman, suspecting their intent, drove off with such expedition that they could not overtake him.

Disappointed in this attempt, they rode towards Wanstead, where they saw another coach, the passengers in which they intended to have robbed; but, as a number of butchers from London rode close behind the carriage, they thought propel to desist from so dangerous an attempt.

Thus disappointed of the expected booty, Caldclough and Thomas, on the following day, which was Sunday, rode to Stamford Hill, where they robbed three persons of their watches, and about four pounds in cash. Flushed with this success, they determined to put every person they should meet under contribution; in consequence of which they robbed seven persons more before they reached London, from whom they obtained about ten guineas, with which they retired to the old place of resort in Brick Lane.

Soon after this they rode to Finchley Common, where meeting with only empty carriages, they were returning to London, when they met the Barnet coach near Islington, and robbed the company of about fifteen shillings. On the following day they collected six shillings and sixpence from another of the Barnet coaches, and nine shillings from the Highgate stage, on their return to town; and this was the whole of the poor booty they obtained this day, at the imminent risk of their lives.

A few days afterwards Caldclough and another of the gang stopped a person of very decent appearance near Hackney, and demanded his money; but the gentleman, bursting into tears, said he was in circumstances of distress, and possessed only eighteen-pence; on which, instead of robbing him, they made him a present of half a crown; a proof that sentiments of humanity may not be utterly banished even from the breast of a thief. On their return to town they robbed a man of fourteen shillings, and then went to their old place of retreat.

On the day after this transaction they went to the Red Lion alehouse, in Aldersgate Street, where having drank all day, and being unable to pay the reckoning, they called for more liquor, and then quitted the house, saying that they would soon return. Going immediately towards Islington, they met a gentleman, to whom they said that they wanted a small sum to pay their reckoning. On this the gentleman called out 'Thieves!' and made all possible resistance; notwithstanding which they robbed him of a gold watch, which they carried to town and pawned, and then, going to the alehouse, defrayed the expenses of the day.

In a little time after this one of the gang sold the two horses which had been stolen as before mentioned, and appropriated the money to his own use; after which he went into the country, and spent some time with his relations; but, finding it difficult to abstain from his old practices, he wrote to Caldclough, desiring he would meet him at St. Albans, where it was probable a good booty might be obtained.

Caldclough obeyed the summons; and, on his arrival, found that the scheme was to rob the pack-horses belonging to the Coventry carrier. [The usual mode of conveying goods from one part of the kingdom to another was, formerly, by means of packhorses; but this has given place to road-waggons and canals.] The man drinking at a house near St. Albans, and permitting the horses to go forward, Caldclough and his accomplice, who had hidden themselves behind a hedge, rushed out and stopped the horses; and, having robbed the packages to the amount of fifty pounds, carried their booty to London, where they disposed of it.

Having dissipated in extravagance the money acquired by this robbery, they went into Hertfordshire, to rob a gentleman whom they had learnt was possessed of a considerable sum. Getting into the yard near midnight, the owner of the house demanded what business they had there; to which they replied, 'Only to go through the yard;' whereupon the gentleman fired a gun, which, though it was loaded with powder only, terrified them so, that they decamped without committing the intended robbery.

Caldclough, and one of his accomplices named Robinson, being reduced to circumstances of distress, determined to make depredations on the road between London and Kensington. While they were looking out for prey, two gentlemen, named Swafford and Banks, were observed on the road behind them; but Mr. Swafford being at some distance before his companion, Caldclough and Robinson, who were provided with hangers, robbed him of some silver; but not till they had first wounded him hi a manner shocking to relate― they cut his nose almost from his face, and left him weltering in his blood.

Soon afterwards Mr. Banks came up, whom they robbed of five guineas, and then, hurrying towards Kensington, went over the fields to Chelsea, where they took a boat, and crossed the Thames; and, walking to Lambeth, took another boat, which carried them to Westminster.

In the mean time Mr. Banks, who had missed his. friend, proceeded to Kensington, where he made inquiry for him; but, finding that he had not reached that place, he was apprehensive that he might have been murdered; and, going back with a gentleman in search of him, they found him in the condition already described.

Mr. Swafford was immediately removed to the house of a surgeon, where proper care being taken of him, he recovered his health, after a long series of diligent attendance; but his wounds were of such a kind as totally to disfigure the features of his face, his nose having been cut so as to hang over his mouth.

The villains were taken into custody on the very day after the perpetration of this horrid deed, when Robinson being admitted an evidence against his accomplice, he was brought to trial at the next sessions, convicted, and received sentence of death.

After conviction Caldclough seemed to entertain no hopes of a pardon; but, appropriating all his time to contrition for the vices of his past life, prepared for futurity with all the zeal of one who appeared to be a sincere penitent.

He was executed at Tyburn, July 2, 1739, and made the following speech to the surrounding multitude: ―

'I humbly beg that all you young men whom I leave behind me would take warning in time, and avoid bad houses as well as bad company. Remember my dying words, lest some of you come to the same end, which I pray God you never may. What I am now going to suffer is the just punishment for my crimes; for, although I did not commit murder, yet I look upon myself equally guilty, as the poor gentleman must have died had he not met with assistance.

'Were I able to make satisfaction to those whom I have wronged, I would do it; but, alas! I cannot, and therefore I pray that they will forgive me. I hope my life will be at least some satisfaction, as I have nothing besides to give: and, as I die in charity with all mankind, may the Lord Jesus receive my soul!'

In the case of this malefactor, as in that of many others, we have a striking instance how extremely penitent a man may be when his penitence can avail nothing to the injured party. We hope that those who read narratives of this kind will reflect that the true way to be happy is never to he guilty of such crimes as will lay them under the necessity of such ineffectual repentance.

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40: Thomas Lympus

Executed near Wells, in Somersetshire, 21st of September 1739, for robbing the Mail.

FROM serving as a messenger some years to the General Post Office, this man formed the dangerous resolution of robbing the mails. At that time the vast property in circulation by means of the post was not, as at present, secured from being plundered by any lurking thief upon the road.

On the 21st of February, 1738, this public plunderer began his depredations by stopping the post-boy bringing the Bath and Bristol mails, about seven o'clock in the evening, at the end of Sunning Lane, two miles north of Reading, in Berkshire.

For the apprehension of the robber the Postmaster-General offered a reward of two hundred pounds, over and above the reward by Act of Parliament for apprehending highwaymen; or if any accomplice in the said robbery should make a discovery of the person who committed the fact, such accomplice should be entitled to the reward of two hundred pounds, and also receive his Majesty's most gracious pardon. The advertisement described the robber to be a middle-sized man, wearing a great riding-coat, with a white velvet or plush cape.

No sooner had Lympus rifled the bags of their most valuable contents than he determined upon attempting to make his escape to France. For this purpose he hastened to the nearest seaport, and actually landed there, but not before the officers of justice got information of his flight. They pursued him to France, and demanded him to be delivered up to them as a national robber; but on flying to the sanctuary of the Church, and declaring himself a Roman Catholic, he received protection, and for a while evaded the official laws of his own country. There is ever to be found in such as fly for a heinous crime, after some time passed abroad in safety, a desire to return, which in vain they struggle to suppress. So it was in some measure with T. Lympus, who could not rest with his booty in France, but returned in a short time for further plunder, and immediately committed another mail robbery, for which he was apprehended and brought to trial.

It appeared by the evidence of the post-boy that he was stopped by the prisoner on horseback between the towns of Crewkerne and Sherborne, who compelled him to dismount, then bound him hand and foot, and rode off with the mail, containing twenty- four bags, from as many post towns.  Having taken out the bank-notes, he again contemplated an escape to France, and for that purpose again embarked; but the winds were no longer propitious to his hopes, for the vessel was driven back, and obliged to put into Dartmouth. Here he offered one of the stolen notes in payment, endorsed by one Follet, of Topsham, and it being described in the account of the robbery he was suspected of being the robber.

Apprehending himself to be in danger he immediately decamped, making the best of his way towards Kingsbridge; but he was pursued by seven men, who took him on a warrant being granted for that purpose. He was convicted of this robbery, and after much equivocation, confessed, since sentence of death, having robbed the Bristol mail a little more than a year before, and impeached one Patrick, a dealer in hops, as his accomplice.

He was executed on the top of Dunkit Hill, within a mile of Wells, in Somersetshire, Sept. 21, 1739, and affected to die professing the religion he had adopted in France.

The security now given to our mail-coaches rendering an open attempt on them impracticable, unless sustained by a whole band of robbers, recourse has been frequently had to artifice in order to get possession of the mail. One of these tricks was thus played off with success.

It was customary to deposit the mail-bags at a private house in Castle Street, Reading, near to which the horses belonging to the mail were changed. The guard announced the approach of the mail to the inn, by sounding his horn, and, whilst the horses were putting to, he went to the receiving-house to exchange his bags. A horn was sounded in the street, quite late in the evening of the 26th of January, 1806, and soon after a man called for the downward bag, which was delivered to him, as usual, out of a window, and in return for which he gave a bag, which was afterwards found to contain shavings. The robbery was discovered soon after by the arrival of the mail, but not till the villains had effected their escape.

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41: Thomas Barkwith

An accomplished Scholar and Linguist, who was executed at Tyburn 1st of December, 1739, for Robbery

THIS unfortunate young gentleman was the descendant of a respectable family in the Isle of Ely. At a very early period of life he was observed to possess a strength of understanding greatly beyond what could be expected at his years, and this determined his father to add to such extraordinary gifts of nature the advantages of a liberal education; nor was the necessary attention omitted to impress upon his mind a just idea of the principles of religion and the absolute necessity of practical virtue.

Before the young gentleman had arrived at his fourteenth year he attained to a great proficiency in the Greek, Latin, French and Italian languages, and he afforded an indisputable proof of the depth of his penetration and the brilliancy of his fancy in the production of a variety of poetical and prose essays. His figure was pleasing, and improved by a graceful deportment; his manner of address was insinuating, and he excelled in the art of conversation.

Soon after he had passed his fourteenth year he received an invitation to visit an aunt residing in the metropolis. He had not been many days at this lady's house before he became conspicuous throughout the whole circle of her acquaintance equally on the score of his mental powers and personal qualifications; and he was dissuaded by his friends from returning into the country, it being their unanimous opinion that London was, of all others, the place where opportunities would be most likely to occur which the youth might improve to the advancement of his fortune. A short time after his arrival in the metropolis he procured a recommendation to a Master in Chancery of high reputation and extensive practice; and this gentleman appointed him to the superintendence of that department of his business which related to money matters. In this office he acquitted himself entirely to the satisfaction of his employer, who considered him as a youth in whom he might safely repose an unlimited confidence. He possessed the particular esteem of all those who had the happiness of his acquaintance; and it was their common opinion that his fine talents and great capacity for business could not fail to introduce him to some considerable station in life. The gentleman in whose service Barkwith had engaged, being under the necessity of going into Wales on some business respecting an estate there, commissioned Barkwith to receive the rents of a number of houses in London. In the neighbourhood of the solicitor lived a young lady of whom Barkwith had for some time been passionately enamoured, and immediately upon the departure of the former for Wales he determined to avail himself of the first opportunity of making a declaration of honourable love.  Though the young lady did not mean to unite herself in marriage with Mr Barkwith, yet she encouraged his addresses; and to this disingenuous conduct is to be attributed the fatal reverse of his fortune from the most flattering prospect of acquiring a respectable situation in the world to the dreadful event of suffering an ignominious death at Tyburn.

So entirely was his attention engrossed by the object of his love that his master's most important business was wholly neglected, and he appeared to have no object in view but that of ingratiating himself in the esteem of his mistress; to gratify whose extravagance and vanity he engaged in expenses greatly disproportioned to his income, by making her valuable presents and accompanying her to the theatres, balls, assemblies and other places of public entertainment.

Upon the return of the solicitor he found the affairs which he had entrusted to Barkwith in a very embarrassed situation, and upon searching into the cause of this unexpected and alarming circumstance it was discovered that the infatuated youth had embezzled a considerable sum. The gentleman, having made a particular inquiry into the conduct of Barkwith, received such information as left but little hopes of his reformation; and therefore he, though reluctantly, yielded to the dictates of prudence, and resolved to employ him no longer.  Barkwith now hired chambers, in order to transact law business on his own account; but as he had not been admitted an attorney he was under the necessity of acting under the sanction of another person's name; whence it may be concluded that his practice was not very extensive. He might, however, by a proper attention to his business, and a moderate economy in his expenses, have retrieved his affairs in a short time; but, unhappily, his intercourse with the young lady was still continued, and he thought no sacrifice too great for convincing her of the ardour of his affection.

He resided at his chambers about six months, when his creditors became exceedingly importunate for him immediately to discharge their several demands. His necessities were so pressing as to drive him almost to desperation. He took horse on the morning of the 13th of November, pretending that he was going to Denham, in Buckinghamshire, in order to transact some important business in relation to an estate which was to devolve to a young lady, then in her minority. It is not now known whether he went to Denham; but about four o'clock in the afternoon he stopped a coach upon Hounslow Heath, and robbed a gentleman who was in the vehicle of a sum in silver not amounting to twenty shillings.  In a short time a horseman came up, who was informed by the coachman that his master had been robbed by Barkwith, who was yet in sight.

The horseman immediately rode to an adjacent farmhouse, where he procured pistols, and persuaded a person to accompany him in search of the highwayman, who after a long chase surrendered, saying to the people who surrounded him that he was a gentleman heavily oppressed with misfortunes, and supplicating in the most pathetic terms that they would favour his escape; but his entreaties had no effect.

He was promptly secured during the night; and the next morning conducted before a magistrate for examination. He war ordered to London, where he was re-examined, and then committed to Newgate.  He was tried at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey, and condemned to suffer death. He was conveyed to Tyburn on the 21st of December, 1739.

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42: Edward Joines

Executed for the murder of his wife, December 21, 1739.

ALTHOUGH nothing can be offered in extenuation for the horrid crime of murder, yet provocation, and passion, fermenting a sudden madness, have, sometimes precipitated men to do an act, which has plunged them into an abyss of mental misery. Contemplating such effects, we are willing to make some allowance for the commission of this murder. Had not the perpetrator been goaded by the unbridled tongue of his wife, abetted by that of his daughter-in-law,-- and what domestic torments can be greater? we may conclude, that both might have lived the course of nature. This case should warn the matron not to irritate her husband; and should he, unhappily, break the bonds of prudence, we beseech her to recur alone to conciliation. Hard, indeed, is that man's heart who, in his cooler moments, will not listen to the soft remonstrances of a virtuous woman.

The parents of Edward Joines were respectable housekeepers in Ratcliffe-highway, who, being desirous that the boy should be qualified for business, placed him under the direction of a master of a day- school in Goodman's fields, where he continued a regular attendance about five years, but without gaining any considerable improvement.

Soon after he had completed his fourteenth year, he was removed from the school, and his father informed him, that he was endeavouring to find some reputable tradesman who would take him as an apprentice: but the youth expressed an aversion to any occupation, but that of a gardener. Finding that he had conceived a strong prepossession in favour of this business, they bound him to a gardener in Stepney, whom he served, in an industrious and regular manner, for the space of seven years; and he, for some time afterwards, continued with the same master in the capacity of a journeyman, his parents being so reduced, through misfortunes, that they could not supply him with money to carry on business on his own account.

A short time after the expiration of his apprenticeship, he married a milk-woman, by whom he had seven children in the course of twenty years, during which time he lived in an amicable manner with his wife, earning a tolerable subsistence by honest industry. His children all died in their infancy, and upon the decease of his wife he procured employment at Bromley; and that he might lose but little time in going to, and returning from, his work, he hired a lodging at the lower end of Poplar, in a house kept by a widow, with whom he, in a few days, contracted a criminal familiarity. They had lived together about a twelvemonth, jointly defraying the household expenses, when she, more frequently than usual, gave way to the natural violence of her temper, threatening that he should not continue in the house unless he would marry her: which he consented to do, and, adjourning to the Fleet, the ceremony was performed.

After their marriage their disagreements became, more frequent and violent; and upon the wife's daughter leaving her service, and coming to reside with them, she united with her mother in pursuing every measure that could tend to render the life of Joines insupportably miserable. On his return from work, one evening, a disagreement; as usual, took place, and being aggravated by her abusive language, he pushed her from him, and falling against the grate, her arm was much scorched, in consequence of this she swore the peace against him; but when they appeared before the magistrate who had granted the warrant for the apprehension of Joines, they were advised to compromise their disagreement, to which they mutually agreed.

By an accidental fall, Mrs. Joines broke her hand, about a month after the above affair; but timely application being made to a surgeon, she, in a short time, had every reason to expect a perfect and speedy recovery.

Joines being at a public-house, on a Sunday afternoon, the landlord observed his daughter-in-law carrying a pot of porter from another ale-house, and mentioned the circumstance to him, adding that the girl had been served with a like quantity at his house but a short time before. Being intoxicated, Joines took fire at what the publican had imprudently said, and immediately went towards the house, which was on the opposite side of the street, with an intention of preventing his wife from drinking the liquor. He struck the pot out of her hand, and then seizing the arm that had been broke, twisted it till the bone again separated.

The fracture was again reduced; but such unfavourable symptoms appeared, that an amputation was judged necessary for preserving the life of the patient. In a short time afterwards, however, she was supposed to be in a fair way of recovery; and calling one day at the gardens where her husband was employed, she told his fellow-labourers that she had great hopes of her arm being speedily cured, adding, that she was then able to move her fingers with but very little difficulty.

The hopes of this unfortunate woman were falsely grounded: for on the following day she was so ill, that her life was judged to be very precarious. She sent for Joines from his work: and upon his coming to her bedside, he asked, if she had any accusation to allege against him; upon which, shaking her head, she said, she would forgive him, and hoped the world would do so too. She expired the next night, and in the morning he gave some directions respecting the funeral, and then went to work in the gardens as usual, not entertaining the least suspicion that he should be accused as the cause of his wife's death; but upon his return in the evening be was apprehended on suspicion of murder.

An inquest being summoned to inquire whether the woman was murdered, or died according to the course of nature, it appeared in evidence, that her death was occasioned by the second fracture of her arm; the jury, therefore, brought in a verdict of wilful murder against Joines, who was, in consequence, committed to Newgate in order for trial.

At the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey, Joines was arraigned on an indictment for the wilful murder of his wife. In the course of the trial it appeared, that the prisoner had frequently forced the deceased into the street, at late hours of the night, without regard to her being without clothes, or the severity of the weather. The surgeon who attended her deposed, that a gangrene appeared on her arm, in consequence of its being broke the second time, which was indisputably the cause of her death.

Near three months had elapsed from the time of her arm being first broke, to that of her decease; but not more than ten days had passed from the second fracture to the consequent mortification. The law expresses that if a person, violently wounded, dies within twelve calendar months, the offender causing such wound, or wounds, shall he deemed guilty of a capital felony. As it was evident that his wife died in consequence of his cruelty, within the time limited by law, Joines was pronounced to be guilty of murder, and sentenced to suffer death.

During the confinement of Joines in Newgate, he did not appear to entertain a proper sense of his guilt. As his wife did not die immediately after the fracture of her arm, it was with difficulty he could be persuaded that the jury had done him justice in finding him guilty of murder. He had but a very imperfect notion of the principles of religion; but the ordinary of the prison took great pains to inspire him with a just sense of his duty towards his Creator. Though he was distressed for all the necessaries of life during the greatest part of his confinement, his daughter-in-law, who had taken possession of his house and effects, neglected either to visit him, or afford him any kind of assistance; and he was violently enraged against the young woman, on account of this behaviour. Joines suffered along with Thomas Barkwith.

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1740

43: Mary Young alias Jenny Diver

The Head of a Gang of Thieves of every Description. Executed at Tyburn, 18th of March, 1740

WE HAVE seldom heard of any more skilled in the various arts of imposition and robbery, than Mary Young. Her depredations, executed with undaunted courage, and artful deception, are surpassed by none which we have, as yet, met with.

Mary Young was born in the north of Ireland; her parents were in indigent circumstances; and dying while she was in a state of infancy, she had no recollection of them.

At about ten years of age she was taken into the family of an old gentlewoman, who had known her father and mother, and who caused her to be instructed in reading, writing, and needle-work; and in the latter she attained to a proficiency unusual to girls of her age.

Soon after she had arrived to her fifteenth year, a young man, servant to a gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood, made pretensions of love to her; but the old lady being apprized of his views, declared that she would not consent to their marriage, and positively forbade him to repeat his visits at her house.

Notwithstanding the great care and tenderness with which she was treated, Mary formed the resolution of deserting her generous benefactor, and of directing her course towards the metropolis of England; and the only obstacle to this design was, the want of money towards her support till she could follow some honest means of earning a subsistence. She had no strong prepossession in favour of the young man, who had  made a declaration of love to her; but she, determining to make his passion subservient to the purpose she had conceived, promised to marry him on condition of his taking her to London. He joyfully embraced this proposal, and immediately engaged for a passage in a vessel bound for Liverpool.

A short time before the vessel was to sail, the young man robbed his master of a gold watch and eighty guineas, and then joined the companion of his flight, who was already on board the ship, vainly imagining that his infamously acquired booty would contribute to the happiness he should enjoy with his expected bride. The ship arrived at the destined port in two days; and Mary being indisposed, in consequence of her voyage, her companion hired a lodging in the least-frequented part of the town, where they lived a short time in the character of man and wife.

Mary being restored to health, they  agreed for a passage in a wagon that was to set out for London in a few days. On the day preceding that fixed for their departure they accidentally called at a public-house, and the man being observed by a messenger dispatched in pursuit of him from Ireland, he was immediately taken into custody. He being committed to prison, Mary sent him all his clothes and part of the money she had received from him, and the next day took her place in the wagon for London. In a short time her companion was sent to Ireland, where he was tried, and condemned to suffer death; but his sentence was changed to that of transportation.

Soon after her arrival in London, Mary contracted an acquaintance with one of her countrywomen, named Anne Murphy, by whom she was invited to partake of a lodging in Long Acre. Here she endeavoured to obtain a livelihood by her needle, but not being able to procure sufficient employment, her situation in a little time became truly deplorable.

Murphy intimated to her that she could introduce her to a mode of life that would prove exceedingly lucrative; adding, that the most profound secrecy was required. In the evening Murphy introduced her to a number of men and women, assembled in a kind of club, near St Giles's. These people gained their living by cutting off women's pockets and stealing watches, etc., from men in the avenues of the theatres, and at other places of public resort; and on the recommendation of Murphy they admitted Mary a member of the society.

After Mary's admission they dispersed, in order to pursue their illegal occupation, and the booty obtained that night consisted of eighty pounds in cash and a valuable gold watch. As Mary was not yet acquainted with the art of thieving, she was not admitted to an equal share of the night's produce; but it was agreed that she should have ten guineas. She now regularly applied two hours every day in qualifying herself for an expert thief, by attending to the instructions of experienced practitioners; and in a short time she was distinguished as the most ingenious and successful adventurer of the whole gang.

A young fellow of genteel appearance, who was a member of the club, was singled out by Mary as the partner of her bed; and the cohabited for a considerable time as husband and wife.

In a few months our heroine became so expert in her profession as to acquire great consequence among her associates, who distinguished her by the appellation of "Jenny Diver" -- on account, as we conceive, of her remarkable dexterity, and by that name we shall call her in the succeeding pages of this narrative.

Jenny, accompanied by one of her female accomplices, joined the crowd at the entrance of a place of worship in the Old Jewry, where a popular divine was to preach, and observing a young gentleman with a diamond ring on his finger she held out her hand, which he kindly received in order to assist her; and at this juncture she contrived to get possession of the ring without the knowledge of the owner; after which she slipped behind her companion and heard the gentleman say that as there was no probability of gaining admittance he would return. Upon his leaving the meeting he missed his ring, and mentioned his loss to the persons who were near him, adding that he suspected it to be stolen by a woman whom he had endeavoured to assist in the crowd; but as the thief was unknown she escaped.

The above robbery was considered as such an extraordinary proof of Jenny's superior address that her associates determined to allow her an equal share of all their booties, even though she was not present when they were obtained. A short time after the above exploit she procured a pair of false hands and arms to be made, and concealing her real ones under her clothes she repaired on a Sunday evening to the place of worship above mentioned in a sedan-chair, one of the gang going before to procure a seat among the more genteel part of the congregation, and another attending in the character of a footman.

Jenny being seated between two elderly ladies, each of whom had a gold watch by her side, she conducted herself with seeming great devotion; but when the service was nearly concluded she seized the opportunity, when the ladies were standing up, of stealing their watches, which she delivered to an accomplice in an adjoining pew. Flushed with the success of this adventure, our heroine determined to pursue her good fortune; and as another sermon was to be preached the same evening she adjourned to an adjacent public-house, and, having entirely changed her dress, she returned to the meeting, where she had not remained long before she picked a gentleman's pocket of a gold watch, with which she escaped unsuspected.

Her accomplices also were industrious and successful for, on a division of the booty obtained this evening, they each received thirty guineas. Jenny had now obtained an ascendancy over the whole gang, who, conscious of her superior skill in the arts of thieving, came to a resolution of yielding an exact obedience to her directions.  Jenny, again assumed the appearance of a pregnant woman, and, attended by an accomplice, as a footman, went towards St James's Park on a day when the King was going to the House of Lords, and there being a great number of persons between the Park and Spring Gardens she purposely slipped down, and was instantly surrounded by many of both sexes, who were emulous to afford her assistance; but, affecting to be in violent pain, she intimated to them that she was desirous of remaining on the ground till she should be somewhat recovered. As she expected, the crowd increased, and her pretended footman and a female accomplice were so industrious as to obtain two diamond girdle-buckles, a gold watch, a gold snuff-box and two purses, containing together upwards of forty guineas.

Two of the gang being confined to their lodgings by illness, Jenny and the man with whom she cohabited generally went in company in search of adventures. They went together to Burr Street, Wapping, and, observing a genteel house, the man, who acted as Jenny's footman, knocked at the door, and saying that his mistress was on a sudden taken extremely ill, begged she might be admitted. This was readily complied with, and, while the mistress of the house and her maid-servant were gone upstairs for such things as they imagined would afford relief to the supposed sick woman, she opened a drawer and stole sixty guineas; and after this, while the mistress was holding a smelling-bottle to her nose, she picked her pocket of a purse, which, however, did not contain money to any considerable amount. In the meantime the pretended footman, who had been ordered into the kitchen, stole six silver tablespoons, a pepper-box and a salt-cellar. Jenny, pretending to be somewhat recovered, expressed the most grateful acknowledgements to the lady, and, saying she was the wife of a capital merchant in Thames Street, invited her in the most pressing terms to dinner on an appointed day, and then went away in a hackney-coach, which by her order had been called to the door by her pretended servant.

She practised a variety of felonies of a similar nature different parts of the metropolis and its environs; but the particulars of the above transactions being inserted in the news papers, people were so effectually cautioned, that our adventurer was under the necessity of employing her invention upon the discovery of other methods of committing depredations on the public.

The parties whose illness we have mentioned being recovered, it was resolved that the whole gang should go to Bristol, in search of adventures during the fair, which is held in that city every summer; but being unacquainted with the place, they deemed it good policy to admit into their society a man who had long subsisted there by villainous practices.

Being arrived at the place of destination, Jenny and Anne Murphy assumed the characters of merchant's wives, the new member and another of the gang appeared as country traders, and our heroine's favourite retained his former character of footman. They took lodgings at different inns, and agreed that, if any of them should be apprehended, the others should endeavour to procure their release by appearing to their characters, and representing them as people of reputation in London. They had arrived to such a proficiency in their illegal occupation, that they were almost certain of accomplishing every scheme they suggested; and when it was inconvenient to make use of words, they were able to convey their meaning to each other by winks, nods, and other intimations.

Being one day in the fair, they observed a west country clothier giving a sum of money to his servant, and heard him direct the man to deposit it in a bureau. They followed the servant, and one of them fell down before him, expecting that he would also fall, and that, as there was a great crowd, the money might be easily secured. Though the man fell into the channel, they were not able to obtain their expected booty, and therefore they had recourse to the following stratagem: One of the gang asked whether his master had not lately ordered him to carry home a sum of money; to which the other replied in the affirmative. The sharper then told him he must return to his master who had purchased some goods, and waited to pay for them.

The countryman followed him to Jenny's lodging, and being introduced to her, she desired him to be seated, saying, his master was gone on some business in the neighbourhood, but had left orders for him to wait till his return. She urged him to drink a glass of wine, but the poor fellow repeatedly declined her offers with awkward simplicity; the pretended footman having taught him to believe her a woman of great wealth and consequence. However, her encouraging solicitations conquered his bashfulness, and he drank till he became intoxicated. Being conducted into another apartment he was soon fast locked in the arms of sleep, and while in that situation he was robbed of the money he had received from his master, which proved to be £100. They were no sooner in possession of the cash than they discharged the demand of the inn-keeper, and set out in the first stage for London.

Our heroine now hired a real footman, and her favourite, who had long acted in that character, assumed the appearance of a gentleman. She hired lodgings in the neighbourhood of Covent-garden, that she might more conveniently attend the theatres. She proposed to her associates to reserve a tenth part of the general produce for the support of such of the gang as might, through illness, be rendered incapable of following their iniquitous occupations: and to this they readily assented.

Jenny dressed herself in an elegant manner, and went to the theatre one evening when the king was to be present; and during the performance she attracted the particular attention of a young gentleman of fortune from Yorkshire, who declared, in the most passionate terms, that she had made an absolute conquest of his heart, and earnestly solicited the favour of attending her home. She at first declined a compliance, saying she was newly married, and that the appearance of a stranger might alarm her husband. At length she yielded to his entreaty, and they went together in a hackney- coach, which set the young gentleman down in the neighbourhood where Jenny lodged, after he had obtained an appointment to visit her in a few days, when she said her husband would be out of town.

Upon Jenny's joining her companions, she informed them that while she remained at the play-house, she was only able to steal a gold snuff-box; and they appeared to be much dissatisfied on account of her ill success: but their good humour re turned upon learning the circumstances of the adventure with the young gentleman, which they had no doubt would prove exceedingly profitable.

The day of appointment being arrived, two of the gang appeared equipped in elegant liveries, and Anne Murphy appeared as waiting-maid. The gentleman came in the evening, having a gold-headed cane in his hand, a sword with a gold hilt by his side, and wearing a gold watch in his pocket, and a diamond ring on his finger.

Being introduced to her bed-chamber, she contrived to steal her lover's ring; and he had not been many minutes undressed before Anne Murphy rapped at the door, which being opened, she said, with an appearance of the utmost consternation, that her master was returned from the country. Jenny, affecting to be under a violent agitation of spirits, desired the gentleman to cover himself entirely with the bed-clothes, saying she would convey his apparel into another room, so that if her husband came there, nothing would appear to awaken his suspicion: adding that, under pretence of indisposition, she would prevail upon her husband to sleep in another bed, and then return to the arms of her lover.

The clothes being removed, a consultation was held, when it was agreed by the gang that they should immediately pack up all their moveables, and decamp with their booty, which, exclusive of the cane, watch, sword, and ring, amounted to an hundred guineas.

The amorous youth waited in a state of the utmost impatience till the morning, when he rang the bell, and brought the people of the house to the chamber-door, but they could not gain admittance, as the fair fugitive had turned the lock, and taken away the key; when the door was forced open the gentleman represented in what manner he had been treated; but the people of the house were deaf to his expostulations, and threatened to circulate the adventure throughout the town, unless he would indemnify them for the loss they had sustained. Rather than hazard the exposure of his character, he agreed to discharge the debt Jenny had contracted; and dispatched a messenger for clothes and money, that he might take leave of a house of which he had sufficient reason to regret having been an inhabitant.

Our heroine's share of the produce of the above adventure amounted to £70. This infamous association was now become so notorious a pest to society, that they judged it necessary to leave the metropolis where they were apprehensive that they could not long remain concealed from justice. They practised a variety of stratagems with great success in different parts of the country: but, upon revisiting London, Jenny was committed to Newgate, on a charge of having picked a gentleman's pocket: for which she was sentenced to transportation.

She remained in the above prison nearly four months, during which time she employed a considerable sum in the purchase of stolen effects. When she went on board the transport vessel she shipped a quantity of goods, nearly sufficient to load a wagon. The property she possessed ensured her great respect, and every possible convenience and accommodation during the voyage; and on her arrival in Virginia she disposed of her goods, and for some time lived in great splendour and elegance.  She soon found that America was a country where she could expect but little emolument from the practices she had so successfully followed in England; and therefore she employed every art that she was mistress of to ingratiate herself in the esteem of a young gentleman who was preparing to embark on board a vessel bound for the Port of London. He became much enamoured of her, and brought her to England; but while the ship lay at Gravesend she robbed him of all the property she could get into her possession, and, pretending an indisposition, intimated a desire of going on shore, in which her admirer acquiesced: but she was no sooner on land than she made a precipitate retreat.

She now travelled through several parts of the country, and by her usual wicked practices obtained many considerable sums. At length she returned to London, but was not able to find her former accomplices. She now frequented the Royal Exchange, the theatres, London Bridge and other places of public resort, and committed innumerable depredations on the public. Being detected in picking a gentleman's pocket upon London Bridge, she was taken before a magistrate, to whom she declared that her name was Jane Webb, and by that appellation she was committed to Newgate. She was arraigned for privately stealing, and pronounced guilty. The property being valued at less than one shilling, she was sentenced to transportation.

A twelvemonth had not elapsed before she returned from transportation a second time, and on her arrival in London she renewed her former practices. A lady going from Sherborne Lane to Walbrooke was accosted by a man, who took her hand as if to assist her in crossing some planks that were placed over the channel for the convenience of passengers; but he squeezed her fingers with so much force as to give her great pain, and in the meantime Jenny picked her pocket of thirteen shillings and a penny. The gentlewoman, conscious of being robbed, seized the thief by the gown, and she was immediately conducted to the compter. She was examined the next day by the Lord Mayor, who committed her to Newgate in order for trial, and at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey she was tried on an indictment for privately stealing, and the jury brought in the verdict, "Guilty;" in consequence of which she received sentence of death.

After conviction she seemed sincerely to repent of the course of iniquity in which she had so long persisted, punctually attending prayers in the chapel, and employing great part of her time in private devotions. The day preceding that on which she was executed, she sent for the woman who nursed her thud, then about three years old, and after informing her that there was a person who would pay for the infant's maintenance, earnestly entreated that it might be carefully instructed in the duties of religion, and guarded from all temptations to wickedness, and then, after acknowledging that she had long been a daring offender against the laws, both of God and man, she entreated the woman to pray for the salvation of her soul; she then took her leave, apparently deeply impressed with the sentiments of contrition.

On the following morning she appeared to be in a serene state of mind: but being brought into the press-yard, the executioner approached to put the halter about her, when her fortitude abated: but in a short time her spirits were again tolerably composed.

She was conveyed to Tyburn in a mourning-coach, being attended by a clergyman, to whom she declared her firm belief in all the principles of the Protestant religion; and at the place of execution she employed a considerable time in fervent prayer. Her remains were, by her particular desire, interred in St. Pancras church-yard.

We should always allow due force to the advice of our friends; and if the conduct that is recommended to us points to happiness, what folly is it to neglect it, in order to gratify an inclination, the indulgence of which will yield but a temporary gratification, and may prove the source of lasting sorrow.

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44: Charles Drew

Parricide, executed at St. Edmondsbury, 9th April, 1740

THIS CULPRIT was the son of the man he murdered, and who was the owner of good property at Long Melford, in Suffolk; for the possession of which, to support, like George Barnwell, an extravagant wanton, he committed the foul deed for which he was executed.

Mr. Drew, senior, was an attorney; yet of so unaccountable a disposition, that he wholly neglected his son's education, having quarrelled with and lived separate from his wife. There were five daughters and the unhappy one who murdered him, and to all he appears to have conducted himself with the most culpable reserve and unfriendliness.

When Charles arrived at years of maturity he became acquainted with one Elizabeth Boyer, who submitted to his solicitations, but was a woman of so much art, that most people thought be would marry her; and, when she urged him to it, he said, 'Betsey, let us stay a little longer; it will be worse for us both if I do it now, for my father will certainly disinherit me:' to which she replied, 'I wish somebody would shoot the old dog.'

This discourse was heard to pass between them in the month of January, 1740, and Mr. Drew was found murdered in his house on the first of February following. On inquiry into the affair, it was suspected that Mr. Drew was shot with a gun which had been lent to his son by Mrs. Boyer; and, though no prosecution was commenced against her, there was every reason to imagine that she bad been the chief instigator to the atrocious crime.

Charles, having been to the Chelmsford assizes, fell into company with some smugglers, among whom was one Humphreys, a hardened villain, whom he invited to meet him at Mrs. Boyer's lodgings. They accordingly met; when Drew promised to settle two hundred pounds a year on him if he would murder his father; and gave him likewise at the time a considerable sum of money. Humphreys hesitated some time; but, at length consenting to the horrid proposal, they went together towards the house, having a gun loaded with slugs, about eleven at night on the 31st of January. It was agreed that young Drew should stand at a distance, while Humphreys was to knock at the door, ask for the old man, and then shoot him; but Humphreys' courage failing him when he came near the spot, he threw down the gun, saying he would have no concern in the murder. On this young Drew commanded him to keep silence, on pain of death; and, taking up the gun, went to the door, and, when his father opened it, shot him dead on the spot.

Having committed this horrid parricide, he said to Humphreys, 'The job is done;' on which Humphreys went to Dunmow, in Essex, where he had appointed to meet some smugglers that night, and after that travelled to London.

Young Drew, going to London, made application for the king's pardon to any one except him who had actually murdered his father; in consequence of which an advertisement to that purpose was inserted in the London Gazette, signed by the secretary of state; and another advertisement followed it, in which Drew himself offered a reward of a hundred pounds on conviction of the murderer. This procedure appears evidently to have been intended to take off all suspicion from himself, though he meant not to fix it on Humphreys.

This latter, being apprehended on suspicion, gave such an indifferent account of the transaction, that he was ordered to be kept in custody: and while he was in prison Drew sent him twenty pounds, with the promise of a hundred more. After he was committed the suspicion of his guilt grew stronger, and was corroborated by several informations.

This gave Drew great uneasiness; he took the utmost pains to suppress all farther informations, and even to destroy the credibility of those already made. He publicly declared that Humphreys was not the man who shot his father, and threatened to prosecute the officer who apprehended him.

Drew now resided in London, where he changed his name to that of Roberts, and corresponded with Humphreys, who had assumed the name of John Smith. Some letters falling into the bands of Timothy Drew, Esq. a namesake only, he went to London in search of the murderer; and, after repeated inquiries, was told that he lodged in Shire Lane, whither he went, and asked for him by the name of Roberts. The people of the house said they had no lodgers; but the gentleman, who had a magistrate's warrant for apprehending the offender, insisted on searching the house: the search, however, was made in vain.

On this he went to several bagnios, and at length to a house in Leicester Fields, where he inquired for Mr. Roberts. Drew had given orders that he should be denied, for the landlord said that all the gentlemen who had lodged there the preceding night were gone; but Mr. Timothy Drew, observing him whisper one of the waiters, suspected the truth of this declaration, and, calling for a pint of wine, asked the waiter to drink with him. After some conversation he raised his voice, and in a positive manner declared that he knew Mr. Roberts was in the house, but that his real name was Charles Drew, and that he had murdered his father; then he threatened to have all the people in the house apprehended for concealing a murderer. This authoritative manner induced the waiter to confess that the gentleman was in the house. Hereupon he was conducted to the mansion of Justice de Veil; and, after an examination of above six hours, was committed to Newgate under a strong guard.

During his residence in the prison he gave Jonathan Keate, the turnkey, a bond of half his fortune, on the condition of permitting him to escape, and accompanying him to France; and, for his farther security, he executed a bond for the payment of a thousand pounds. The turnkey seemed to comply, and the time was fixed on for their departure; but the man having informed Mr. Akerman, the keeper, of the progress of the affair, Drew was removed into the old condemned hole, where a guard was placed over him night and day.

On the approach of the assizes Humphreys being admitted an evidence, Drew was convicted after a trial of several hours.

After conviction be seemed not to have a proper sense of the enormity of the crime of which he had been guilty, and would have attributed it to his father's ill treatment of him. He said that his father denied him necessary money for his expenses; and that his having refused to make over an estate to him was the first instigation to his committing the horrid crime.

He was visited by his sisters, who carefully avoided reflecting on him; and did all in their power to console him in his unhappy situation.

He was hanged near St. Edmund'sbury, on the 9th of April, 1740, amidst the greatest crowd of spectators that were almost ever assembled on such a melancholy occasion in that part of the country.

He seemed to part with life with evident signs of reluctance, begging the clergyman who attended him to continue the devotions to the last possible moment.

The man suffered in the twenty-fifth year of his age.

The crime of murder is in itself so horrid, that it requires no aggravation; but that of parricide is of the worst species of murder, The destruction of those from whom, under God, we have immediately derived our being, has something in it so shocking to humanity, that one would think it impossible it should ever be committed.

By the Lex Pompeia of the Romans parricides were ordained to be put into a sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and thrown into the sea, thus to perish by the most cruel of all tortures. The Egyptians also put such delinquents to death in the most horrible manner. They gradually mangled their body and limbs, and, when almost every limb was dislocated or broken, they placed the criminal, writhing and screeching with pain, upon thorns, where he was burnt alive! In China impiety to parents was considered a crime similar in atrocity to treason and rebellion, for which criminals were sentenced to be cut in ten thousand pieces! By the ancient Jewish law it was also death for children to curse or strike their parents: in fine, every nation punished the parricide in the most exemplary manner.

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45: Elizabeth And Mary Branch

Mother and Daughter, executed at Ivelchester on the 3rd of May, 1740, for murdering a Girl

THESE cruel women were born at Philips Norton, in Somersetshire. The mother was distinguished from her childhood by the cruelty of her disposition. She married a farmer, named Branch, but the husband soon found what an unfortunate choice he had made; for his wife no sooner came into possession of her matrimonial power than she began to exercise her tyranny on her servants, whom she treated with undeserved and unaccountable cruelty, frequently denying them the common necessaries of life, and sometimes turning them out of doors at night in the midst of winter; but their wages in these cases were sent them by Mr Branch, who was as remarkable for his humanity and justice as his wife for the opposite qualities. Mary Branch, the daughter, was an exact resemblance of her mother in every part of her diabolical temper.

Mr Branch dying, and leaving an estate of about three hundred pounds a year, he was no sooner buried than all the servants quitted the family, determined not to live with so tyrannical a mistress; and her character became so notorious that she could obtain no servants but poor creatures who were put out by the parish, or casual vagrants who strolled the country.

It is needless to mention the particulars of the cruelties of this inhuman mother and daughter to their other servants, at whom they used to throw plates, knives and forks on any offence, real or supposed; we shall therefore proceed to an account of their trial and execution for the murder of Jane Buttersworth, a poor girl, who had been placed with them by the parish officers.  At the assizes held at Taunton, in Somersetshire, in March, 1740, Elizabeth Branch and Mary, her daughter, were indicted for the wilful murder of Jane Buttersworth; when the principal evidence against them was in substance as follows: Ann Somers, the dairymaid, deposed that the deceased, having been sent for some yeast, and staying longer than was necessary, excused herself to her old mistress on her return by telling a lie; on which the daughter struck her violently on the head with her fist, and pinched her ears. Then both of them threw her on the ground, and the daughter knelt on her neck, while the mother whipped her with twigs till the blood ran on the ground, and the daughter, taking off one of the girl's shoes, beat her with it in a cruel manner. The deceased cried for mercy, and after some struggle ran into the parlour, where they followed her and beat her with broomsticks till she fell down senseless; after which the daughter threw a pail of water on her, and used her with other circumstances of cruelty too gross to mention. Somers now went out to milk her cows, and on her return, at the expiration of half-an-hour, found her mistress sitting by the fire and the girl lying dead on the floor; but she observed that a clean cap had been put on her head since she went out, and that the blood had run through it. At night the body was privately buried.

This transaction, added to the character of the mistress, having raised a suspicion in the neighbourhood, a warrant was issued by the coroner to take up the body, and an inquest being made into the cause of the girl's death, Mr Salmon, a surgeon, declared that she had received several wounds, almost any one of which would have proved mortal. The jury found both prisoners guilty, and they were sentenced to die.

As the country people were violently enraged against them, they were conducted to the place of execution between three and four in the morning, attended only by the jailer and about half-a-dozen people, lest they should have been torn in pieces.  When they came to the spot, it was found that the gibbet had been cut down; on which a carpenter was sent for, who immediately put up another, and mother and daughter were executed before six o'clock, to the disappointment of the country to witness the death of two such unworthy wretches.

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46: William Creak

Mail robber: Executed, much lamented, on Bagshot-heath, and his body hung in chains, where he committed the robbery.

THIS is another particular case, which we do not find. any reporters who have gone before us to have noted.

We have already observed, that this species of public robbery, was formerly, though never pardoned after conviction, very common. It is now a matter of surprise, to reflect that such vast property, as always has been remitted by post-letters, should have been so insecurely guarded in their conveyance. A lad with the mail behind him, often carried thousands of pounds through lonely roads, in the dead hour of night. Hence, where there could be no resistance, every lurking cowardly thief, was able to take the mail at his pleasure; but happily, the disposal of the plunder seldom failed of leading to a discovery of the perpetrator.

When the unfortunate man, who is the subject of the present report, was tempted to swerve from the paths of honesty, in robbing the mail, he was a linen-draper of good repute, at Henley-upon-Thames.

He married the sister of one Kitson, a maltster of the same town, by whom, it appears, he was seduced to commit the robbery; and who then, having received a part of the plunder, basely impeached, and brought him to an ignominious death. We say basely, though the public received benefit from the information of Kitson, yet cannot we divest ourselves of detestation of such individual treachery.

In consequence of this information, a warrant was issued for the apprehension of Creak, who had repaired to London with the remainder of the bank-notes, in order to pass them away. After considerable search, he was apprehended in the borough of Southwark; in the very, act of putting off some of the stolen notes, for payment of linens, and when he found that he was apprehended he stuffed the remainder into his mouth, and actually swallowed them before they could be recovered.

He was indicted at the Assizes held at Kingston, for the county of Surry, in the month of August, 1740, and convicted of robbing the Western and Portsmouth mails.

This man, though his offence was of so heinous a nature, may claim some compassion from the feeling reader. He had a large family, bore an excellent character among his neighbours, and his credit was still good with his merchants in London.

Unsuspicious of others, he had given credit to a considerable amount, and was deceived in promises of payment. It also appeared that this was the only piece of iniquity, in which he had been concerned.

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47: William Duell

Executed for Murder and came to Life again while being prepared for Dissection in Surgeons' Hall, 24th of November, 1740

WILLIAM DUELL was convicted of occasioning the death of Sarah Griffin, at Acton, by robbing and ill-treating her. Having suffered, 24th of November, 1740, at Tyburn, with Thomas Clock, William Meers, Margery Stanton and Eleanor Munoman (who had been convicted of several burglaries and felonies), his body was brought to Surgeons' Hall to be anatomised; but after it was stripped and laid on the board, and one of the servants was washing it, in order to be cut, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to come quicker and quicker, on which a surgeon took some ounces of blood from him; in two hours he was able to sit up in his chair, and in the evening was again committed to Newgate, and his sentence, which might be again inflicted, was changed to transportation.

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48: Gilbert Langley

Transported for robbing a man of three farthings, December, 1740

GILBERT LANGLEY was born of Roman Catholic parents in London, where his father was an eminent goldsmith, and who sent his son to the seat of his grandfather in Derbyshire when he was only three years of age.

Having continued in this situation four years, his mother's anxiety induced her to fetch him home; soon after which he was entered in the school of the Charterhouse, where he became a tolerably good classical scholar.

The father now wished to send his son abroad for farther education, and that he might not fail of being brought up a strict Catholic: this was warmly opposed by the mother, through tenderness to her child; but her death left the father to act as he pleased.

The prior of the Benedictine convent at Douay being in London, Langley's father agreed for his board and education, and committed him to the care of his new guardians with whom he proceeded to Dover, sailed for Calais, and, having travelled thence to St. Omers, on the following day reached Douay, where young Langley was examined by the prior and fellows of the college, and admitted of the school.

At the end of three years he became a tolerable master of the French language, exclusive of his other literary acquirements so that, at the Christmas following, he was chosen king of the class, which is a distinction bestowed on the best of the scholars, whose business it is to regulate the public entertainments of the school.

It was the custom at Douay for officers to attend at the gates of the town, to detect any persons bringing in contraband liquors, because the merchants of the place paid a large duty on them, which duty was annually farmed by the highest bidder.

During the Christmas holidays Langley and three of his schoolfellows quitted the town, to purchase a small quantity of brandy at an under price; but being observed by a soldier, who saw their bottles filled, he informed the officers of the affair; the consequence of which was that the young gentlemen were stopped, and the liquor found hid under their cassocks. They offered money for their release; but it was refused, and they were conducted to the house of the farmer-general.

At the instant of their arrival two Franciscan friars, seeing them, said it was illegal to take students before the civil magistrates, because the superior of their own college was accountable for their conduct.

Hereupon they were taken home to the prior; and the Farmer-general making his demand of the customary fine, the prior thought it extravagant, and refused to pay it: but at length the matter was settled by arbitration.

In the Catholic colleges the students lived in a very meagre manner during the season of Lent having little to subsist on but bread and sour wine; a circumstance that frequently tempted them to supply their wants by acts of irregularity. However, if English students, out of their own money, could procure animal food, they might dress it; the servants of the college pretending not to see the impiety.

At this season Langley and five of his companions, oppressed by the calls of hunger, determined to make an attack on the kitchen; but, at the instant they had forced open the door, they were overheard by the servants, the consequence of which was that many furious blows were exchanged by the contending parties.

On the following day the delinquents were summoned to attend the prior, who was so incensed at this outrage against the good order of the society, that he declared they should be expelled as soon as a consistory of the monks could be held.

But, when the consistory assembled, they resolved to pardon all the offenders, on acknowledging their faults, and promising not to renew them, except one, named Brown, who had twice knocked down the shoemaker of the college because he had called out to alarm the prior.

The young gentlemen, chagrined at losing their associate, determined to be revenged on some one at least of the servants who had given evidence against them; and, after revolving many schemes, they determined that the man who lighted the fires should be the object of their vengeance, because he had struck several of them during the rencounter.

This being resolved on, they disguised themselves, and went to a wood-house adjacent to the college; and, being previously provided with rods, they waited till the man came with his  wheelbarrow to fetch wood, when one of them, going behind him, threw a cloak over his head, which being immediately tied round his neck, the rest stripped him, and flogged him in the most severe manner; while he called for assistance, but in vain, our heroes having taken previous care to shut the door of time wood-house.

The flagellation was just ended when the bell rung for the students to attend their evening exercise; on which they left the unhappy victim of their revenge, and repaired to the public hall.

In the mean time the poor sufferer ran into the cloisters, exclaiming 'Le diable! Le diable!' as if he really thought the devil had tormented him: and hence he ran to the kitchen, where he recounted the adventure to his fellow-servants, who dressed his wounds, carried him to bed, and gave him something to nourish him.

A suspicion arising that the students had been the authors of this calamity to the poor fellow, the servants communicated the circumstances of it to the prior, who promised his endeavours to find out and punish the delinquents, and with this view went into the hall with a look at once penetrating and indignant: but the young gentlemen having bound themselves to secrecy by an oath, no discovery could be made.

Young Langley having distinguished himself by his attention to literature for the space of two years, the monks began to consider him as one who would make a valuable acquisition to their society, for which reason they treated him with singular respect, and at length prevailed upon him to agree to enter into the fraternity if his father's consent could be obtained.

As Langley was in no want of money, he frequently went into the town, to habituate himself to the manners of the people, and to observe their customs. One day, being a holiday, he, and one of his school-fellows named Meynel, asked the prior permission to walk on the ramparts; which being denied, they went out without leave, and, repairing to a tavern, drank wine till they were intoxicated.

In this condition they went to the ramparts, where, having been for some time the laughing-stock of the company, they went home to bed. Being missed at evening prayers, some of the other students apologized for their absence by saying they were ill, and the excuse was very readily admitted: but in a few days afterwards a gentleman called on the prior, and told him what a ridiculous figure his students had made on the ramparts.

Incensed at this violation of their duty, the prior sent for them to his chamber, and gave orders that they should be flogged with great severity. This indignity had such an effect on the mind of Langley that he grew reserved and morose, and would have declined all his studies, but that one of the monks, called Father Howard, restored him to good humour by his indulgent treatment, and persuaded him to pay his usual attention to literature.

Father Howard's considerate conduct had such an effect on Langley, that he spent the greater part of his time with that gentleman, who instructed him in the principles of logic, and was about to initiate him in those of philosophy, when his father wrote a letter requiring him to return to his native country.

The society being unwilling to lose one who they thought would become a valuable member, the prior wrote to England, requesting that the youth might be permitted to complete his education; but the father insisted on his return.

Hereupon the young gentleman left the college, and, proceeding by the way of St. Omers, reached Calais in two days. As the wind was contrary, it was some days longer before the company embarked for England, when, instead of putting into Dover, the vessel came round to the Thames, and the passengers were landed at Gravesend.

Langley, having spent all his money at Calais, now affected an air of unconcern, saying that he had no English money in his possession, from his having been so long abroad; on which one of the company lent him money, and on the following day he arrived at his father's house in London.

When he had reposed himself some days after his travel, the father desired him to make choice of some profession; on which he mentioned his inclination to study physic or law; but the old gentlemnan, who had no good opinion of either of these professions, persuaded him to follow his own trade of a goldsmith.

For the present, however, he was placed at an academy in Chancery Lane, that he might be instructed in those branches of knowledge requisite for a tradesman; but, becoming acquainted with some young gentlemen of the law, he found that his father's allowance of pocket-money was insufficient for his use; and, being unwilling that his new acquaintance should think he was deficient in cash, he purloined small sums from a drawer in his father's shop; and, when he did not find any money there, stole some pieces of broken gold, which he disposed of to the Jews.

Mr. Langley having sent his son with some plate to the house of a gentleman in Grosvenor Square, the youth saw a very beautiful woman go into a shop opposite a public house; on which he went into the latter, and, inquiring after her, found she had gone to her own lodgings. This ascertained, he delivered his plate, and formed a resolution of visiting the lady on the Sunday following.

When the Sunday came the old gentleman went out to smoke his pipe, as the son imagined, at an adjacent public house; and in the mean time the son stole seven guineas from three different bags, that his father might not discover the robbery, and immediately repaired to the lodgings of the lady whom he had seen.

From her lodgings they went to a tavern, where they continued till the following day, having no idea of detection: but it happened that Mr. Langley, senior, instead of going to the public house as usual, had watched the son to the tavern above mentioned.

On the following day the father interrogated the youth respecting his conduct, and particularly asked where he had been the day before. The young fellow said he had been at church, where he met with some acquaintance, who prevailed on him to go to the tavern.

The father, knowing the falsehood of his tale, corrected his son in a severe manner, and forbade him to dine at his table till his conduct should be reformed. Thus obliged to associate with the servants, young Langley became soon too intimate with the kitchen-maid, and robbed his father to buy such things as he thought would be acceptable to her.

Among other things he purchased her a pair of shoes laced with gold, which he was presenting to her in the parlour at the very moment that his father knocked at the door. The girl instantly quitted the room; and the old gentleman interrogating the son respecting the shoes, the latter averred that a lady, who said she had bought them in the neighbourhood, desired leave to deposit them at their house till the following day.

After this the father permitted the son to dine with him as usual; but it was not long before he caught him in too intimate a connexion with the maid-servant in the kitchen; on which the girl was dismissed from her service, and Mr. Langley threatened to disinherit his son unless he would reform his conduct.

A middle-aged woman of grave appearance was now hired as a servant; but the evil complained of was far from being cured, as an intimacy between her and the young gentleman was soon discovered by the father.

It was not long after the servant-girl above mentioned had been discharged before she swore herself pregnant by the son, on which he was taken into custody by a warrant; the consequence of which was that the father paid fifteen pounds to compromise the affair, after which he received the son to his favour, and forgave all the errors of his former conduct.

The death of the old gentleman put his son in possession of a considerable fortune, exclusive of a good settled trade; and for the first year he applied himself so closely to business, that he made a net profit of seven hundred pounds: but he did not long continue this course of industry; for, having formerly made connexions with women of ill fame, particularly in the purlieus of Drury Lane, be now renewed his visits to those wretched victims to, and punishers of, the vices of men.

A man of genteel appearance, named Gray, having ordered plate of Langley to the amount of a hundred pounds, invited him to a tavern to drink. In the course of the conversation the stranger said he had dealt with his late father, and would introduce him to a lady who had thirty thousand pounds to her fortune. This was only a scheme to defraud Langley, who delivered the plate, and took a draft for the money on a vintner in Bartholomew Close; but, when he went to demand payment, the vintner was removed.

On the following day the vintner's wife went to Langley, and informed him that Gray had defrauded her husband of four hundred and fifty pounds; and Langley, being of a humane disposition, interested himself so far in behalf of the unfortunate man, that a letter of license for three years was granted him by his creditors.

Langley now took out an action against Gray, but was not able to find him; when one day he was accosted by a man in Fleet Street, who asked him to step into a public house, and he would tell him where he should meet with the defrauder. Langley complying with the proposal, the stranger said he would produce Gray within an hour if the other would give him a guinea; which being done, the stranger went out, but returned no more.

Exasperated by this circumstance, which seems to have been a contrivance of one of Gray's accomplices, Mr. Langley employed an attorney, who soon found the delinquent, against whom an action was taken out, in consequence of which be was confined several years in the Marshalsea.

Langley now became a sportsman on the turf at Newmarket, under the instruction of a vintner in Holborn, whose niece entered into his service, but soon fell a victim to his unbounded passion for the sex.

Langley becoming acquainted with some young fellows in the Temple, three of them, and four women of the town, went with him to Greenwich, where they gave the ladies the slip, and took a boat to London; but the women, pursuing them, overtook them in the river, and, attempting to board their boat, afforded great diversion to the spectators: our adventurers' watermen, however, rowing hard, they reached the Temple, and concealed themselves in one of the chambers a few minutes before the ladies landed.

Soon after this Langley made another excursion to Greenwich to visit a lady and gentleman, who, having a remarkably handsome servant-maid, our adventurer found means to seduce her; the consequence of which was that she became pregnant, and made repeated applications to him for support: whereupon he gave her a considerable sum of money, and heard no more of her from that period.

Thus living in a continual round of dissipation, his friends recommended matrimony us the most likely step to reclaim him; in consequence of which he married a young lady named Brown, with a handsome fortune.

He had not been long married before he determined to borrow all the cash and jewels he could, and decamp with the property. As he had the reputation of being in ample circumstances, be found no difficulty in getting credit for many articles of value, with which he and his wife embarked for Holland; and, in the mean time, his creditors took out a commission of bankruptcy against him.

When Langley came to Rotterdam he applied to the States-General for protection, in apprehension of being pursued by his creditors; but the States not being then sitting, the creditors made application to Lord Chesterfield, then ambassador at the Hague, which frustrated his intention.

In the interim his creditors found out his lodgings in a village near Rotterdam; but be eluded their search, leaving his wife, with four hundred pounds, in the care of a friend; and not even telling her the place of his retreat, to prevent any possibility of a discovery.

After skulking from place to place, he went back to Rotterdam, and surrendered to his creditors; but found that his wife was gone with an English captain to Antwerp. On his arrival in England he was examined before the commissioners, and treated with the customary lenity.

After his affairs were adjusted he sailed to Barbadoes, where he soon contracted so many debts that be was glad to take his passage to Port Royal, in Jamaica; and soon after his arrival there he went to visit a planter at some distance, who would have engaged him as his clerk.

Langley told the planter that he owed twenty dollars at Port Royal, for which he had left his chest as a security. The gentleman instantly giving him the money to redeem it, he went to Port Royal, assumed the name of Englefield, embarked on board a man of war as midshipmen, and came to England, where the ship was paid off at the expiration of six mouths.

On his arrival in London he sent for a man who had formerly lived with his father, from whom he learnt that his creditors had not made any dividend under the bankruptcy, and were engaged in a lawsuit respecting a part of the property. This faithful old servant of his father told him that his wife had retired to the north of England; and, giving him money, recommended it to him to lodge privately in Southwark.

This advice he followed, and kept himself retired for some time; but, passing through Cheapside, he was arrested, and conducted to the Poultry Compter, where he continued many months, during which he was supported by the benevolence of the old servant above mentioned. While in the Compter he made some very bad connexions; and, being concerned with some of the prisoners in an attempt to escape, he was removed to Newgate, as a place of greater security.

While in this prison he fell ill of a disorder which threatened his life; whereupon his friends discharged the debt for which he had been arrested, and removed him to lodgings, where he soon recovered his health.

Shortly afterwards he got recommended to a captain in the Levant trade, with whom he was to have sailed; but an unhappy attachment to a woman of ill fame prevented his being ready to make the voyage.

Langley's friends were chagrined at this fresh instance of his imprudence; and soon afterwards he was arrested, and carried to a spunging-house, where he attempted to despatch himself by a halter; but the rope breaking, he escaped with life. The bailiff and his wife happening to be now absent, and only two maid-servants in the house, Langley made them both drunk, and, effecting his escape, crossed the water into the Borough, where be worked some time with a colour-grinder.

Disgusted at a life attended by so much labour, he contracted with the captain of a Jamaica ship, who took him to that island on the condition of selling him as a slave, and, on his arrival, sold him to Colonel Hill, who employed him to educate his children: but Langley, soon running from his employer, went on board a ship bound to England: being impressed on his arrival in the Downs, he was put on board a man of war, and carried round to Plymouth.

Langley and another man, deserting from the ship, strolled to London, and took up their residence in a twopenny lodging hut, as Langley now found no friends to support him, he contracted with one of those persons called crimps, who used to agree with unhappy people to go as slaves to the colonies. His contract now was to sail to Pennsylvania; but, while the ship lay in the Thames, he and a weaver from Spitalfields made their escape, and, travelling to Canterbury, passed themselves as Protestant refugees.

Going hence to Dover, they embarked for Calais; and, after some weeks' residence in that place, Langley sailed to Lisbon, where he remained only a short time before he contracted debts which obliged him to seek another residence, and he went to Malaga, in Spain.

His poverty was now extreme; and, while be sat melancholy one day by the sea-side, some priests asked him from what country he came. He answered, in Latin, 'From England.'

Hereupon they conducted him to a convent, relieved his distresses, and then began to instruct him in the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. Langley disguised his sentiments, and, after being apparently made a convert, was recommended as a page to a Spanish lady of distinction.

In this situation he continued several months; but, having an affair of gallantry with the niece to the old lady, he was compelled to make a precipitate retreat from a window, and shelter himself in the house of an Irish tailor; who procured a passage for him to Gibraltar in the first ship that sailed.

On his arrival at Gibraltar he would have entered into the army; but being refused, because he was not tall enough, his distress compelled him to work as a labourer in repairing the barracks. He soon quitted this business, and officiated as a waiter in the tennis-court belonging to the garrison; but, it being intimated to the governor that he was a spy, he was lodged in a dungeon, where he remained more than a fortnight.

On obtaining his discharge he embarked on board a Spanish vessel bound to Barbary with corn: and, on his return to Spain, applied to the monks of a convent, who charitably relieved him; and the prior agreed to take him a voyage to Santa Cruz. Having, however, no great prospect of pecuniary advantage in this way of life, he went to Oratava, where some English merchants contributed to his support; but be soon sailed to Genoa, as he could get no settled employ at Oratava.

From Genoa the vessel sailed to Cadiz; and Langley, being now appointed steward to the captain, in the course of his reading some letters found one directed to Messrs. Ryan and Mannock; and, having been a schoolfellow with Mr. Mannock, he requested the captain's permission to go on shore, and was received by him in the most friendly manner: he offered to serve him in any way within his power, when Langley said that what he wished was a discharge from his present situation.

Hereupon Mannock wrote to the captain, desiring him to pay the steward, and discharge him; but this being refused, Langley took a lodging, to which he was recommended by his friend, who desired he would dine daily at his table till he procured a passage for England. He likewise gave him money and clothes, so as to enable him to appear in the character of a gentleman.

Langley behaved with great regularity for some time; out the season of a carnival advancing, he got into company with a woman of ill fame, with whom he spent the evening; and, on his return, was robbed of his hat, wig, and a book which he bad borrowed of his friend.

On the following day Mr. Mannock saw the book lying at a shop for sale, which chagrined him so much that he asked Langley for it, who thereupon acknowledged the whole affair; and Mr. Mannock supposing the woman was privy to the robbery, he took out a warrant against her; by which he recovered his book, which he greatly esteemed.

This matter being adjusted, Langley, by the help of his friend, procured a passage for England; but just when be was going to embark he met with a woman, who detained him till the ship had sailed; on which he took a boat, and passed over to St. Lucar, where he went on board an English vessel, which brought him to his native country.

On his arrival in London he found that his creditors, under the bankruptcy, had received ten shillings in the pound, which gave him reason to hope that he should have a sum of money returned to him, with which he proposed to engage in a small way of business; and in that view applied to his wife's mother for her assistance, and also to inform him where he might find his wife; but she positively refused to comply with either request.

Langley now gave himself up to despair, associated with the worst of company, and, though he had some money left him at this juncture, he dissipated the whole in the most extravagant manner.

He now made an acquaintance with one Hill, a young fellow who was in similar circumstances; and, having agreed to go to Paris together, they walked as far as Dover; but, on their arrival, finding that an embargo had been laid on all vessels in the port, they  determined to return to London.

Being now destitute of cash, they demanded a man's money on the highway; but, on his saying he had not any, they searched him, and took from him three farthings, which they threw away almost as soon as they had got it for this offence they were apprehended on the same day, and, being tried at the next assizes for Kent, werecapitally convicted; but the sentence was changed to transportation for seven years.

Langley was transported in the month of December, 1740.

This man appears to have fallen the victim of unrestrained appetite and an aversion to honest industry. That his heart was not wholly depraved we may charitably infer from his treatment of the unfortunate vintner. But early vices grew up in him, until they (as is commonly the case) assumed the force of habits; and thus a life which might have been passed honourably and usefully, and by consequence happily, became overwhelmed with wretchedness and ultimate ignominy. It is to be regretted that his mother-in-law refused to befriend him on his last arrival in England. Had she done so, his sad experience might possibly have preserved him from future dishonesty and shame.

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1741

49: Captain Samuel Goodere, a Fratricide; Matthew Mahony and Charles White

Executed for the Murder of Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart., at the Hot Wells, Bristol, 20th of April, 1741

SIR JOHN DINELY GOODERE succeeded his father, Sir Edward, in the possession of an estate of three thousand pounds a year, situated near Evesham, in Worcestershire. His brother, Samuel, was bred to the sea, and at length was advanced to the rank of captain of a man-of-war.

Sir John married the daughter of a merchant and received twenty thousand pounds as a marriage portion. But mutual unhappiness was the consequence of this connection, for the husband was brutal in his manners, and the wife perhaps not strictly observant of the sacred vow she had taken: for she was too frequently visited by Sir Robert Jasen; and, after recriminations between the married pair, Sir John brought an action in the Court of Common Pleas for criminal conversation, and five hundred pounds' damages were awarded by the jury.

Sir John's next step was to indict his lady for a conspiracy, and, a conviction following, she was fined and imprisoned a year in the King's Bench. He likewise petitioned for a divorce; but, the matter being heard in the House of Lords, his petition was thrown out.  Sir John having no children, Captain Samuel Goodere formed very sanguine expectations of possessing the estate; but finding that the brother had docked the entail in favour of his sister's children, the Captain sought the most diabolical means of revenge for the supposed injury.

While the Captain's vessel lay in the port of Bristol, Sir John went to that city on business; and being engaged to dine with an attorney, named Smith, the Captain prevailed on the latter to permit him to make one of their company, under pretence of being reconciled to his brother. Mr Smith consented, and used his good offices to accommodate the difference, and a sincere reconciliation appeared to have taken place.

This visit was made on the 10th of January, 1741, and the Captain, having previously concerted his measures, brought some sailors on shore with him, and left them at a public-house, in waiting to seize the baronet in the evening. Accordingly, when the company broke up, the Captain attended his brother through the streets, and when they came opposite the public-house the seamen ran out, seized Sir John, and conveyed him to a boat that had been appointed to wait for his reception. As soon as the victim was in the boat he said to his brother: "I know you have an intention to murder me, and if you are ready to do it, let me beg that it be done here without giving yourself the trouble to take me on board." To which the Captain said: "No, brother; I am going to prevent your rotting on land; but, however, I would have you make your peace with God this night."  Being put on board, Sir John appealed to the seamen for help; but the Captain put a stop to any efforts they might have made to assist him, by saying he was a lunatic, and brought on board to prevent his committing an act of suicide.

White and Mahony now conveyed him to the purser's cabin, which the Captain guarded with a drawn sword, while the other villains attempted to strangle him with a handkerchief which they found in his pocket, the wretched victim crying out "Murder!" and beseeching them not to kill him, and offering all he possessed as a compensation for his life.

As they could not strangle him with the handkerchief the Captain gave them a cord; with which Mahony dispatched him, while White held his hands and trod on his stomach. The Captain now retired to his cabin, and on the murder being committed the perpetrators of it went to him and told him "the job was done"; on which he gave them money, and bade them seek their safety in flight.

The attorney with whom the brothers had dined having heard of the commission of a murder, and knowing of the former animosity of the Captain to his brother, immediately conjectured who it was that had fallen a sacrifice; on which he went to the Mayor of Bristol, who issued his warrant to the water-bailiff, who, going on board, found that the lieutenant and cooper had prudently confined the Captain to his cabin.

The offender, being brought on shore, was committed to Newgate, and Mahony and White, being taken a few hours afterwards, were lodged in the same prison. At the sessions held at Bristol on the 26th of March 1741, these offenders were brought to trial, and, being convicted on the fullest evidence, received sentence of death. They were hanged near the Hot Wells, Bristol, on the 20th of April, 1741, within view of the place where the ship lay when the murder was committed.

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50: Captain Henry Smythee

Executed at Dorchester, April 12, 1741, for the murder or the female whom he had seduced.

NO SOONER had we resumed the pen, after putting the finishing stroke to the interesting account of Gilbert Langley; and while yet the innocent Nanette was tripping o'er our fancy; the case of a detested murderer of the female he had loved, obtrudes upon our notice. When the object of his lust, and the victim of his barbarity, fell into his snare, she was innocent, virtuous and beautiful, as Nanette. With the poet would we exclaim,

Accurs'd be that man who rifles innocence and beauty,

And then, like a detested weed, throws it away."

Yet, after the commission of such crimes, men have breathed the air of heaven, while they deserved damnation; until the terribly offended laws of man have inflicted punishment on the wretches. Every circumstance that could aggravate, will be found in this shocking case. The murderer was a husband to another woman, and a father of children born in wedlock.

Henry Smythee was brought up to a sea-faring life, and succeeded his father in the command of a large merchant ship, in a foreign trade. After he had made several voyages, a storm obliged him to put into the harbour of Pool in Dorsetshire, where he saw a young lady, the daughter of a merchant, to whom he paid his addresses, and was in a short time married. His wife's father dying soon after their marriage, Mr. Smythee declined going any longer to sea, engaged in the mercantile business, and employed his leisure hours in rural diversions.

One day, when out with his gun, he wandered so far from home that he lost his way, and being very hungry, he strolled to a cottage kept by a poor widower, named Ralph Mew, who had an only daughter, equally distinguished by the elegance of her form, and the simplicity of her manners.

Mr. Smythee requested the favour of some food; but the countryman suspecting that he meant to take some undue advantage of him, told him he might be supplied at a public-house a mile distant. Smythee, to convince the countryman that he was no impostor, shewed him a diamond-ring, a purse of gold, and his watch; on which he was asked to sit down; and Jane Mew the daughter, fried some bacon and eggs for him, while her father drew some of his best ale.

After the repast, he recounted some of his adventures in foreign parts; but in the mean time regarded the daughter with an eye of desire, and being struck with her superior charms, resolved to get possession of her, if possible.

On his quitting the house, the old man told him that if he came that way another time, he should be welcome to any thing in his cottage, except his daughter. On the-following day he went to the cottage, and gave the old man a tortoise-shell snuff-box, as a compliment for his hospitable behaviour the day before.

The old cottager going out, Mr. Smythee paid his warmest addresses to the daughter, to whom he presented some jewels: but she no sooner judged of his design, than she said, "Is it thus, sir, you make returns for my father's hospitality, and my civility? And can you be such a wretch, as to think that my poverty will make me guilty of a dishonourable action?" Saying this, she rejected his presents with contempt; while he, struck with the force of what she had urged, remained some time speechless, and then attributed his conduct to the violence of his passion, and offered to make her all the satisfaction in his power, by marriage.

The girl acquainting her father with what had passed, Mr. Smythee was permitted to pay his addresses in an honourable way: but such were his artifice and villainy, that his solemn vows of marriage soon prevailed over the too credulous girl; and her ruin was the consequence.

When the father found that his daughter was pregnant, he died with grief, leaving the unhappy girl a prey to the pungent sorrows of her own mind. Distressed as she was, she wrote to her seducer, but as he took no notice of her letter, she went to Pool, and being directed to his house, the door was opened by Mrs. Smythee, who demanded her business, and said she was the wife of the person for whom she inquired. The poor girl was so shocked to find that Mr. Smythee had a wife, that it was with difficulty she was kept from fainting.

When somewhat recovered, she said that she was with child by Mr. Smythee, who had seduced her under promise of marriage. Hereupon the wife censured her conduct with unreasonable severity, and threatened that she should be lodged in prison if she did not immediately quit the town.

Leaving the house, the unhappy creature fainted in the street, and was soon surrounded by a number of females, who insulted her with every term of reproach. When she recovered her senses, she went to a public-house, where she intended to have lodged; but the landlady threatening to send for the beadle, she was obliged to quit the house.

In the interim Mr. Smythee came to his own house, and after being compelled to listen to the reproaches of his wife on the infidelity of his conduct, he went out, and desired a person to call on the young woman, and appoint her to meet him at a place without the town.

The unfortunate girl met him accordingly; what passed between them it is impossible to know; but on the following day she was found with her throat cut, and a bloody knife laying by her. Smythee absconding, it was generally supposed that he had been the murderer; and, on his return to Pool, about a month afterwards, he was taken into custody, and lodged in the county gaol.

In his defence at his trial, he urged that the reason of his absence from his family was a quarrel with his wife, in consequence of the unhappy discovery that had been made by the deceased: but as he could bring no proof of his being absent from the spot when the murder was committed, no doubt remained of his guilt, he was capitally convicted, and sentenced to die.

After conviction, he was visited by several clergymen, who exerted themselves to impress him with a due sense of his awful situation. As his death advanced, he became still more resigned, acknowledged the many errors of his life, and confessed himself worthy to undergo the rigour of the law.

He walked to the place of execution, amidst an immense surrounding multitude, and, having ascended the cart, addressed the populace, advising them to refrain from yielding to them first impulses of temptation, as they would wish to be preserved from the violation of the Divine laws. After the usual devotions, he drew his cap over his face, and saying, "To thee, O Lord, I resign my soul," he was launched into eternity.

____________________

51: James Hall

Hanged for Petit-Treason, in the Murder of his Master.

THIS malefactor, according to the account given by himself, was descended of honest parents, of Wells in Hampshire, who gave him such an education as might qualify him for any ordinary rank of life.

Being unwilling to remain in the country, be came to London, and lived some time with a corn-chandler; and after a continuation in this service, he married, and had several children; but not living happily with his wife, articles of separation were executed between them. After this he married another woman, by whom he had one child, and who visited him after his being in custody for the murder.

At the sessions held at the Old Bailey, in August, 1741, he was indicted for the murder of John Penny, gentleman, and pleading guilty, received sentence of death.

Mr Penny had chambers in Clement's Inn; and Hall had lived with him seven years before he committed the murder: nor had he formed any design of being guilty of the horrid deed till within about a month of its perpetration: but having kept more company than his circumstances could afford, he had involved himself in difficulties, which made him resolve to murder and rob his master.

On the 7th of June, he intoxicated himself with liquor, and then determined to carry his design into execution. Mr Penny coming home between eleven and twelve at night, Hall assisted in undressing him in the dining-room; and while he was walking towards the bed, the villain followed him with a stick which he had concealed for the purpose, and struck him one blow with such force that he never spoke afterwards; and continued his blows on the head till he was apparently dead.

Willing, however, to be certain of completing the horrid tragedy, and to avoid detection, he went into the dining room, and stripping himself naked, he took a small fruit knife belonging to his master, and returning to the chamber, cut his throat with it, holding his neck over the chamber-pot. Mr Penny bled very freely; for when the  blood was mixed with a small quantity of water, it almost filled the pot five times; and three of the pots thus mixed the murderer threw into the sink, and two in the coal-hole. He then took his master's waistcoat, which was lined with duffel, and bound it round his neck, to suck up the remainder of the blood.

This being done, he took the body on his shoulders, carried it to the necessary, and threw it in head foremost; and flying back immediately to the chambers, under the most dreadful apprehensions of mind, he took his master's coat, bloody shirt, the stick that he had knocked him down with, and some rags that he had used in wiping up the blood, and running a second time naked to the necessary-house, threw them in at a hole on the opposite side of it.

The body being thus disposed of, he stole about thirty-six guineas from his master's pocket, and writing-desk; and such was the confusion of his mind, that he likewise took some franks, sealing-wax, and other articles for which he had no use: and then he employed the remainder of the night in washing and rubbing the rooms with cloths; but finding it no easy matter to get out the blood, he sent for the laundress in the morning to wash them again, telling her that his master's nose had bled over night.

On the following day the guilty wretch strolled from place to place, unable to find rest for a moment any where; and all his thoughts being engaged in concealing the murder, which he hoped was effectually done, from the place in which he had secreted the body.

On the Friday following he went to Mr Wooton, his master's nephew, on a pretence of enquiring for Mr Penny, who he said had quitted the chambers two days before, and gone somewhere by water; so that he was afraid some accident had happened to him.

Mr Wooton was so particular in his enquiries after his uncle, that Hall was exceedingly terrified at his questions, and knew not what answer to make to them. After this the criminal went twice every day to Mr Wooton, to enquire after his master, for ten days; but lived all the while in a torment of mind that is not to be described.

So wretched was he, that finding it impossible to sleep in the chambers, he got his wife to come and be with him: and they lay in Mr Penny's bed: but still sleep was a stranger to him.

At length Mr Wooton had Hall taken into custody, on a violent suspicion that he had murdered his uncle. On his first examination before a magistrate, he steadily avowed his innocence: but being committed to Newgate he attempted an escape: this, however, was prevented; and a few days afterwards he confessed his guilt before some relations of the deceased.

We have already mentioned that he pleaded guilty on his trial; and have now to add that, after sentence was passed on him, he was exceedingly contrite and penitent, and confessed his guilt in letters to his friends.

On the day before his death he received the sacrament, with all apparent signs of that penitence which was necessary to prepare him for the dreadful scene that lay before him.

He was hanged at the end of Catherine Street in the Strand, on the 15th of September, 1741, and his body afterwards hung in chains at Shepherd's Bush, three miles beyond Tyburn Turnpike, on the road to Acton.

The following is a letter which this malefactor wrote to his wife, the night preceding his execution.

Twelve o'clock Sunday night

My Dear,

I am very sorry we could not have the liberty of a little time by ourselves, when you came to take your leave of me; if we had, I should have thought of many more things to have said to you than I did; but then I fear it would have caused more grief at our parting. I am greatly concerned that I am obliged to leave you and my child, and much more in such a manner, as to give the world room to reflect upon you on my account; though none but the ignorant will, but rather pity your misfortunes, as being fully satisfied of your innocency in all respects relating to the crime for which I am in a few hours to suffer.

I now heartily wish, not only for my own sake, but the injured persons, yours, and my child's, that I was as innocent as you are, but freely own I am not, nor possibly can be in this world; yet I humbly hope, and fully trust, through God's great mercy, and the merits of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, to be happy in the next.

After I parted with you, I received the holy sacrament comfortably, which Mr Broughton was so good as to administer to me, who has also several times before taken a great deal of pains to instruct me, and so has some others of his acquaintance, by whose assistance, and my own endeavours, I hope God will pardon all my sins for Christ's sake, and admit me into his heavenly kingdom.

My dear, some of my latest prayers will be to God to direct and prosper you and my child in all good ways, so long as he pleases to let you live here on earth; that afterwards he may receive you both to his mercies to all eternity. I hope I shall willingly submit to my fate, and die in peace with all men. This is now all the comfort I can give you in this world, who living was, and dying hope to remain,

Your loving and most affectionate husband,

JAMES HALL

To all we have said on the subject of murder, little need be added on this occasion. Those who fail to be struck by a recital of this horrid tale, must have less humanity than we hope falls to the share of any of our readers.

Instead, therefore, of making any remarks on this particular case, we will suppose it to be a sufficient comment on itself; and conclude with a prayer that we may all be delivered even from the temptation of spilling innocent blood!

End

Table of Contents

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- 1741