The Newgate Calendar Vol 2
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: true crime
Publisher: Burke and Hare

THE NEWGATE CALENDAR

Volume 2 of 4, 1684-1709

1824

Contents

1684

1: William Nevison

1685

2: John Cottington Alias Mul-Sack; 3: Edward And Joan Bracey;

1686

4: Jonathan Simpson

1687

5: William Cady

1688

6: Philip Stansfield, Son of Sir James Stansfield

1689

7: John Chislie of Dalry; 8: William Bew; 9: Patrick O'Bryan; 10: Thomas Rumbold; 11: William Davis, The Golden Farmer

1690

12: Jack Bird; 13: Old Mobb; 14: Tom Kelsey; 15: Sir John Johnston

1691

16: Jack Withrington; 17: Jacob Halsey; 17: Will Macqueer; 18: Tom Cox; 19: Jack Collet alias Cole; 20: Tom Waters; 21: Moll Jones; 22: Tom Taylor

1692

23: Henry Harrison, Gent.; 24: Jocelin Harwood; 25: Simon Fletcher; 26: Madam Mary Butler

1693

27: William Jones (alias Goodwin) and John Barber; 28: James Leonard

1694

29: Edward Hinton; 30: Tom Austin; 31: James Whitney

1696

32: George Seager; 33: William Joyce

1697

34: Dr Francis Salisbury and Thomas Houghton; 35; Will Hollyday 36: John Shorter

1699

37: Spencer Cowper, Esq.; John Marson, Ellis Stevens And William Rogers,  Gents; .38: Tom Rowland; 39: John Bellingham

1700

40: William Morell; 41: John Larkin; 42: Michael Van Berghen, Catherine Van Berghen and Dromelius, their Servant, Publicans; 43: George Caddell; 44: John Holliday or Simpson; 45: George Griffiths; 46: The Rev. Thomas Hunter, M.A.; 47: John Cowland, Gentleman

1701

48: Captain John Kidd; 49: Herman Strodtman

1702

50: Mary Adams

1703

51: Mary Channel; 52: Tim Buckley; 52: Tom Jones; 53: Dick Bauf; 54: Thomas Estrick; 55: Alexander Balfour; 56: Jack Withers; 57: John Peter Dramatti; 58: Thomas Cook; 59: Moll Raby; 60: Moll Hawkins

1704

61: Harvey Hutchins; 62: Tom Sharp; 63: John Smith

1705

64: Edward Jefferies; 65: John Smith

1706

66: Roger Lowen; 67: Arthur Chambers; 68: Jack Goodwin alias Plump

1707

69: William Elby otherwise Dunn; 70: John Herman Brian; 71: Jack Hall; 72: Dick Low

1708

73: William Gregg; 74: John Morgridge; 75: Jack Ovet; 76: Anne Harris; 77: Madam Churchill; 78: Captain Evan Evans

1709

79: Dick Hughes; 80: Christopher Slaughterford

_____________

1684

1: William Nevison

A Highwayman who, dying Of the Plague as was thought, reappeared as his own Ghost, and was finally executed at York in 1684

WILLIAM NEVISON was born at Pomfret* in Yorkshire, about the year 1639, of well-reputed, honest, and reasonably estated parents, who bred him up at school, where he made some progress as to his learning, and in the spring of his youth promised a better harvest than the summer of his life produced; for, to say truth, he was very forward and hopeful until he arrived at thirteen or fourteen years of age, when he began to be the ringleader of all his young companions to rudeness and debauchery. So early as this he also took to thieving, and stole a silver spoon from his father; for which being severely punished at school, the punishment was the subject of the next night's meditation, which issued into a resolution of revenge on his master, whatever fate he met with in the execution thereof. To which end, having hit on a project for his purpose, and lying in his father's chamber, he gets softly up before such time as the day appeared, and hearing that his father slept he put his hand into his pocket, where he found the key of his closet, which unperceived he drew hence, and down he creeps to the said closet, where he supplies himself with what cash he could readily find, which amounted to about ten pounds, and with this, knowing that his said master had a horse he had particular delight for, that then grazed behind his house, he gets a bridle and saddle from his father's stable, and an hour before morning arrays and mounts the said horse onwards for London, at which he arrives within four days; when, the evening coming upon him, he cuts the throat of the horse, within a mile or two of the town, for fear it should prove a means of his discovery if he should have carried it to an inn.

[ * Pontrefact― Transcriber]

When he came to London he changed his garb and name, and being a lusty well-looking lad put himself into the service of a brewer, where for two or three years he lived, not at all changed in mind, though opportunity was not, during that time, ripe to put his ill intentions into practice, though he watched all seasons to advance himself, by having several times attempted to rob his master, which at last he thus effected. Taking the advantage one night of the clerk's drunkenness, who was his master's cashier, he got up by stealth after him into the counting-house, where, the said clerk falling asleep, he rifled the same of all such cash as he could conveniently come at, which amounted to near two hundred pounds, and fled to Holland, where, running away with a burgher's daughter, who had robbed her father of a great deal of money and jewels, he was apprehended, had the booty taken from him, and clapped in jail; and had he not broken out, he had certainly made his exit beyond sea.

Having thus made his escape, he got, after divers difficulties, into Flanders, and listed himself amongst the English volunteers, who were under the command of the Duke of York, who about the same time was made Lieutenant-General of the Spanish forces, under Don John of Austria, that were then designed to raise the siege of Dunkirk, which was besieged by the English and French armies, and behaved himself very well while he was in a military employment; but not greatly liking it, and having got some money whilst he was in the service, he came over to England, and bought himself a horse and arms, and resolved for the road, and perhaps a pleasant life, at the hazard of his neck, rather than toil out a long remainder of unhappy days in want and poverty, which he was always averse to.

Being thus supplied, every day one booty or other enriched his stores, which he would never admit a sharer in, choosing to manage his designs alone, rather than trust his life into the hands of others, who by favour or misfortune might be drawn in to accuse him.  One day Nevison, who went otherwise by the name of Johnson, travelling on the road, and scouring about in search of prize, met two countrymen, who, coming up towards him, informed him that it was very dangerous travelling forwards, for that the way was set, and they had been robbed by three highwaymen, about half-a-mile off; and if he had any charge of money about him it were his safest course to turn back. Nevison asking them what they had lost, they told him forty pounds; whereupon he replied:

"Turn back with me, and show me the way they took, and, my life to a farthing, I'll make them return you your money again."

They rode along with him till they had sight of the highwaymen; when Nevison, ordering the countrymen to stay behind him at some distance, rode up and spoke to the foremost of them, saying:

"Sir, by your garb, and the colour of your horse, you should be one of those I look after, and, if so, my business is to tell you that you borrowed of two friends of mine forty pounds, which they desired me to demand of you, and which before we part you must restore."

"How!" quoth the highway-man. "Forty pounds! Damn you, sir, is the fellow mad?"

"So mad," replied Nevison, "as that your life shall answer me if you do not give me better satisfaction."

With that he draws his pistol and suddenly claps it to his breast, and finding then that Nevison had also his rein, and that he could not get his sword or pistols, he yielded, telling him his life was at his mercy.

"No," says Nevison, "it is not that I seek for, but the money you robbed these two men of, who are riding up to me, which you must refund."

The thief was forced to consent, and ready to deliver such part thereof as he had, saying his companions had the rest; so that Nevison having made him dismount, and taking away his pistols, which he gave to the countrymen, ordered them to secure him, and hold his own horse, whilst he took the thief's and pursued the other two, who he soon overtook; for they, thinking him their companion, stopped as soon as they saw him; so that he came up to them in the midst of a common.

"How now, Jack," says one of them, "what made you engage with yon fellow?"

"No, gentlemen," replies Nevison; "you are mistaken in your man. Thomas, by the token of your horse and arms, he hath sent me to you for the ransom of his life, which comes to no less than the prize of the day, which if you presently surrender you may go about your business; if not, I must have a little dispute with you at sword and pistol."

At which one of them let fly at him, but missing his aim received Nevison's bullet into his right shoulder; and being thereby disabled, and Nevison about to discharge at the other, he called for quarter, and came to a parley, which, in short, was made up, with Nevison's promise to send their friend, and their delivering him all the ready money they had, which amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds, and silver. With this, Nevison rides back to the two countrymen, and releases their prisoner, giving them their whole forty pounds, with a caution for the future to look better after it, and not, like cowards, as they were, to surrender the same on such easy terms again.

In all his pranks he was very favourable to the female sex, who generally gave him the character of a civil obliging robber; he was charitable also to the poor, relieving them out of the spoils which he took from them that could better spare it; and being a true Royalist, he never attempted anything against that party. One time Nevison, meeting with an old sequestrator on the road, stopped the coach and demanded some of that money which he had thievishly extorted from poor widows and orphans, and ought to be returned. At which words the old man, in a fit of terror, and especially so when a pistol was clapped to his breast, began to expostulate for his life; offering whatsoever he had about him for his ransom, which he readily delivered, to the
value of sixty broad-pieces of gold. But this not serving the turn, Nevison told him that he must come thence, and go with him about some other affairs he had to concert with him, and beg leave of three young gentlewomen who were also passengers in the coach with him that they would spare one of the coach-horses for an hour or two, which should certainly be returned that night for the next day's journey. So Nevison left them, and took his prize with him on the postilion, which he loosed from his coach, and carried him from them in a great fright, thinking he was now near his end. The gentlewomen pursued their journey. About two hours after they were got to their inn, in comes the old sequestrator on the postilion's horse before mentioned, and gave a lamentable relation of how he had been used; and forced to sign a bill under his hand of five hundred pounds for his redemption, payable by a scrivener in London on sight, which he doubted not but would be received before he could prevent the same; and indeed he did not doubt amiss, for Nevison made the best of his way all night, and the next day by noon received the money, to the no small vexation of him that owned it.

About the year 1661, having one day met a considerable prize, to the value of four hundred and fifty pounds, from a rich country grazier, with this he was resolved to settle down quietly and go back to Pomfret, where he was most joyfully received by his father, who, never hearing of him in his absence of seven or eight years, thought he had been really dead. He lived very honestly with his father till he died, and then returned to his old courses again, committing such robberies as rendered his name the terror of the road; insomuch that no carrier or drover who passed the same but was either forced to compound for their safety by a constant rent, which he usually received from them at such and such houses, where he appointed them to leave it, or they were sure to be rifled for the failure thereof.

Committing some robberies in Leicestershire, he was there taken, and committed to Leicester Jail, where he was so narrowly watched, and strongly ironed, that he could scarce stir; yet by a cunning stratagem he procured his enlargement before the assizes came. For one day, feigning himself extremely ill, he sent for two or three trusty friends, one of whom was a physician, who gave out that he was sick of a pestilential fever; and that unless he had the benefit of some open air, in some chamber, he would certainly infect the whole jail, and die of the said distemper. Hereupon the jailer takes off his fetters and removes him into another room, to lie by himself. In the meantime a nurse was provided him, and his physician came twice or thrice a day to visit him, who gave out there was no hopes of his life, and that his distemper was extremely contagious. On which report, the jailer's wife would not let her husband, nor any of the servants, go nearer than the door; which gave Nevison's confederates a full liberty to practise their intent, which they did thus. A painter was one day brought in, who made all over his breast blue spots, resembling those that are the forerunners of death in the disease commonly called the plague; as likewise several marks on his hands, face and body, which are usually on such that so die. All which being done, the physician prepared a dose whereby his spirits were confined for the space of an hour or two, and then immediately gave out that he was dead. Hereupon his friends demand his body, bringing a coffin to carry him away in. The jailer, as customary, orders a jury -- the nurse having formally laid him out -- to examine the cause of his death, who, fearing the contagion he was said to die of, stayed not long to consider thereon; but having viewed him, seeing the spots and marks of death about him, his eyes set, and his jaws close muffled, they brought in their verdict that he died of the plague; and thereupon he was put in the coffin and carried off.

Being thus discharged, he falls to his trade again, and meeting several of his old tenants the carriers, who used to pay him his rents as aforesaid, told them they must advance the same, for that his last imprisonment had cost him a great sum of money, which he expected to be reimbursed among them. They being strangely surprised at sight of Mr Nevison, after the reports of his death, brooked about that his ghost walked, and took upon him the employment it was wont when living, which was the more confirmed by the jailer at Leicester, who had brought in his verdict of the jury on oath, who had examined the body and had found it dead, as above mentioned; whereby he had been discharged by the Court, as to the warrant of his commitment. But afterwards, when the same came to be known, and the cheat detected, the said jailer was ordered to fetch him in, at his peril. Whereupon great search was made for him in all places, and a reward of twenty pounds set upon his head for any person who should apprehend him.

Nevison, after this, was determined to visit London. and the company he happened to fall in with upon the road was a crew of canting beggars, pilgrims of the earth, the offspring of Cain, vagabonds and wanderers over the whole world, fit companions for such as made a trade of idleness and roguery, and these were at this time fit companions for him, who, seeing the merry life they led, resolved to make one of their company. Whereupon, after he had a little more ingratiated himself amongst them, and taken two or three cups more of rum booze, he imparted his inventions to one of the chief of them, telling him he was an apprentice who had a cursed master, whose cruelties had caused him to run away from him; and that whatever fortune might betide him, yet should not the most necessitous conditions he could be plunged into ever make him to return to him again. And therefore, if he might be admitted into their society, he should faithfully observe and perform what rules and orders were imposed upon him. The chief beggar very much applauded him for his resolution, telling him that to be a beggar was to be a brave man, since it was then in fashion.

"Do not we," said he, "come into the world like arrant beggars, without a rag upon us? And do not we all go out of the world like beggars, without a rag upon us? And do not we all go out of the world like beggars, without anything, saving only an old sheet over us? Shall we then be ashamed to walk up and down in the world like beggars, with old blankets pinned about us? No, no; that would be a shame to us indeed. Have we not the whole kingdom to walk, at our pleasure? Are we afraid of the approach of quarter day? Do we walk in fear of bailiffs, sergeants and catchpoles? Whoever knew an arrant beggar arrested for debt? Is not our meat dressed in every man's kitchen? Does not every man's cellar afford us beers? And the best men's purses keep a penny for us to spend?"

Having these words, as he thought, fully fixed him in love with begging, he then acquainted the company with Nevison's desires, who were all of them very joyful thereat, being as glad to add one to their society as a Turk is to gain a proselyte to Mahomet. The first question they asked him was, if he had any loure in his bung. He stared at them, not knowing what they meant; till at last one told him it was money in his purse. He told them he had but eighteen pence, which he freely gave them. This, by a general vote, was condemned to be spent on booze for his initiation. Then they commanded him to kneel down, which being done, one of the chief of them took a gage of booze, which is a quart of drink, and poured the same on his head, saying:

"I do by virtue of this sovereign liquor install thee in the roage, and make thee a free denizen of our ragged regiment. So that henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant, and to carry a doxy or mot along with thee, only observing these rules: First, that thou art not to wander up and down all countries, but to keep to that quarter that is allotted to thee. And, secondly, thou art to give way to any of us that have borne all the offices of the wallet before; and upon holding up a finger, to avoid any town or country village where thou seest we are foraging for victuals for our army that march along with us. Observing these two rules, we take thee into our protection, and adopt thee a brother of our numerous society."

Having ended his oration, Nevison rose up, and was congratulated by all the company's hanging about him like so many dogs about a bear, and leaping and shouting like so many madmen, making such a confused noise with their gabbling that the melody of a dozen of oyster-wives, the scolding at ten conduits, and the gossiping of fifteen bake-houses were not comparable unto it. At length he that installed him cried out for silence, bidding the French and English pox to light on their throats for making such a yelping. Then fixing their eyes upon Nevison, he read a lecture to him out of the devil's horn-book, as followeth.

"Now," saith he, "that thou art entered into our fraternity, thou must not scruple to act any villainies which thou shalt be able to perform, whether it be to nip a bung, bite the Peter Cloy, the lurries crash, either a bleating cheat, cackling cheat, grunting cheat, quacking cheat, Tiboth-buttery, Margery Prater, or to cloy a mish from the crack man's― that is, to cut a purse, steal a cloak-bag or portmanteau, convey all manner of things, whether a chicken, sucking-pig, duck, goose, hen, or steal a shirt from the hedge; for he that will be a quier cove, a professed rogue, must observe this rule, set down by an ancient pat Rico in these words:

' Wilt thou a-begging go. o per se-o, o per se-o.

Then must thou God forsake,

And to the devil thee be take. o per se-o, etc.'

"And because thou art yet but a novice in begging, and understandest not the mysteries of the canting language, to principle thee the better thou shalt have a doxy to be thy companion, by whom thou mayst receive fit instructions for thy purpose." And thereupon he singled him out a girl of about fourteen years of age, which tickled his fancy very much, that he had gotten a young wanton to dally withal. But this was not all; he must presently be married to her, after the fashion of their pat Rico, who amongst beggars is their priest; which was done after this manner.

They got a hen, and having cut off the head of it, laid the dead body on the ground, placing him on the one side, and his doxy on the other; this being done, the pat Rico, standing by, with a loud voice bid them live together till death did them part. Then one of the company went into the yard and fetched a dry cow-turd, which was broken over his doxy's head, in imitation of a bride-cake; and so, shaking hands and kissing each other, the ceremony of the wedding was over, and for joy of the marriage they were all as drunk as beggars; belt then to hear the gabbling noise they made would have made anyone burst himself with laughing. Some were jabbering in the canting language, others in their own; some did nothing but weep, and profess love to their mots; others swore swords and daggers to cut the throats of their doxies if they found them tripping; one would drink a health to the bride till he slavered again; some were for singing bawdy songs, others were devising oaths for justices of peace, head-boroughs and constables.

At last, night approaching, and all their money being spent, they betook themselves to a barn not far off, where they couched a hogshead in the dark man's, and went to sleep.  Nevison, having met with this odd piece of diversion in his journey, slipped out of the barn, when all were asleep, took horse and posted directly away. But coming to London, and finding his name too much noised about to induce him to stay there, he returned into the country, and fell to his own pranks again.

Several who had been robbed by him happened to meet him, and could not help thinking but his ghost walked, considering the report of his pestilential death in Lincoln Jail. In short, his crimes became so notorious that a reward was offered to anyone who would apprehend him. This made many waylay him, especially two brothers named Fletcher, one of whom Nevison shooting dead, he got off; from whence going into a little village about thirteen miles from York, he was taken by Captain Hardcastle and sent to York Jail, where in a week's time he was  tried, condemned, and executed, aged forty-five.

_________________

1685

2: John Cottington Alias Mul-Sack

Chimney-Sweep, Pickpocket and Highwayman, who brought off some big Coups. Executed in April, 1685

THE father of John Cottington, or Mul-Sack, as he was oftener called, was a haberdasher of small wares in Cheapside, and one time reputed to be pretty wealthy; but having a large extensive family, and being himself very fond of what is commonly called good company, he so far wasted his substance as to die very poor― even so poor as to be buried by the parish. This was an unhappy thing for his children, who were no less than nineteen in number, fifteen of which were daughters, and John was the youngest of them all of either sex, which exposed him perhaps to more misfortunes than those who had some reason to govern themselves by, at the time when they became orphans.

At about eight years of age he was put out apprentice to a trade no less honourable than chimney-sweeping. He was bound for a great many years, as he was so young at the time of going to his master; but he took care not to make his servitude longer than ordinary, for instead of adding six or seven years, he cut off two from the usual term, and ran away in the fifth year of his  apprenticeship, apprehending that as he was got into his teens he was as good a man as his master, and being confident that he had learned enough of his trade for him to live upon.

He had not been long gone from his master before he perceived business coming on him even as fast as he could wish, and he made all the advantage possible of his good fortune― not in the usual sneaking manner, by hoarding up all he got, but by behaving himself like a gentleman, swearing at everyone that offended him, and assuming to himself almost as much state as the old chimney-sweeper below, who we may be certain is haughty, because to say anyone is as proud as Lucifer is become a proverb.

Nor was it only in Cottington's carriage that you might observe the effects of his good fortune, for he lived in the best manner possible; no liquor but sack, forsooth, would go down with him, and that too must always be mulled, to make it the more pleasant. It was from this that he got his name of Mul-Sack, by which he was commonly called, and by which we shall choose to distinguish him in the following account of his exploits.

One evening Mul-Sack was drinking at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street when he observed what he thought was a beautiful woman; and being naturally pretty amorous, and at that time in particular warm with his favourite liquor, he made his addresses to her. Madam appeared to be none of the coyest, for she received him very freely, only nothing but matrimony would go down with her, which did not thoroughly please him.

"Yet why," thought he at last, "should I be against it? I can keep myself and a wife very well, and I never saw a woman whom I could like better than this; therefore, hang it! I'll e'en take her, for better for worse."

Upon this he immediately gave her his hand, and there were no more words to the bargain, but away they tramped to the Fleet together; where divinity linked their hands, pronounced them man and wife, and prayed heartily for their welfare; in particular, that they might be successful in their honest and lawful endeavours for the procreation of children, which, as the holy office of the Church informs us, is the principal end of matrimony.

But how was our jolly bridegroom deceived at night when he found himself espoused to an hermaphrodite, and that the lady he had married was no other than a person well known by the name of Aniseed Robin? The redundancy of nature was soon discovered, and the bride confessed her fault, or, if you please, his fault, with abundance of seeming contrition, while poor Mul-Sack had nothing more to do in bed than to go to sleep as usual.

This disappointment in matrimony had a great effect upon our gentleman's manners; for whereas he was never before known to be guilty of any worse crime than spending his money, sitting up late, and keeping jovial company, he now ran into all sorts of extravagances. In particular, he got acquainted with five noted amazons in Drury Lane, who were called the women shavers, and whose actions were then much talked of about town, till, being apprehended for a riot, and one or two of them severely punished, the rest fled to Barbados.

Mul-Sack was once present when these furies got a poor woman among them whom one of them suspected of having been great with her husband. As a punishment for this they stripped her as naked as she was born, beat her with rods in a terrible manner, and then shaved off all the hair about her whole body. After that they soused her in a tub of soapsuds over head and ears, and in fine almost killed her, in spite of all her tears, cries and protestations of innocence.

After the law― the greatest enemy that people of this character have in the world― had deprived Mul-Sack of these worthy companions, he resolved to pursue his amours elsewhere, and to that purpose appeared, when out of his business, in a very smart and genteel manner; being withal a graceful person, and having a very extraordinary flow of words for a man of his calling. With these accomplishments he found means to insinuate himself into the good liking of a merchant's wife in Mark Lane, who had before this none of the best of characters.

This lady had originally been very handsome, but by a long course of amours her beauty was a little the worse for wearing when Mul-Sack became acquainted with her. However, what she wanted in person she made up in purse; for our smut made a shift to squeeze out of her about one hundred and twenty pounds before she fell sick and died, which happened not a great while afterwards.

Mul-Sack had lately been so plentifully supplied with money, that when his kind benefactress departed this life, and changed this vain world, as we ought in Christian charity to believe, for a better, he could not think of applying himself to business anew, and relapsing again to his sooty occupation.  Mul-Sack now turned pickpocket― a calling that generally serves for an introduction to the gentlemen who make the heroes of this history. As a trial of his dexterity, the first thing he did was to take a very valuable gold watch, set with diamonds, from a lady of chief quality in those times of usurpation.

One Mr Jacob, a man very much followed by the Precisians, preached at that time a weekly lecture at Ludgate church, and the gentlewoman we are speaking of was one of his admirers and constant attendants. Mul-Sack had taken notice for some time how the pretty bauble hung dangling at her side by a gold chain. One of the companions he had engaged on this occasion found means to take out the pin of one of the coach wheels, so that the wheel fell, and the coach caused an obstruction just under the gate. The end of this was to make a crowd, and oblige madam to alight before she came to the church door; all which was effected, and Mul-Sack stood ready, dressed in what was then the height of the mode, to offer the lady his arm into the church. He presented himself very impudently, the favour was kindly accepted, and by the way he found means to cut the gold chain in two, and secure the watch as they passed through the crowd.

The loss was not perceived till Mr Jacob concluded, when the devout gentlewoman was going to see how long the spiritual meal had lasted. But, alas! all the consolation she had received vanished after her darling watch.  We are informed that, before Mul-Sack left off this trade, he was once so impudent as to attempt the pocket of Cromwell himself, and the danger he then ran of being detected was the occasion of his leaving this secret sort of knavery and taking to the highway, in company with one Tom Cheney.

These two fellows had the courage and confidence to set upon Colonel Hewson, a great man in those times, and one who had been advanced from a cobbler to the dignity he then enjoyed merely because his conscience was according to the measure of that time; that is very large, or if you please very small, which expressions, the witty author of Hudibras tells us, signify the same thing. The colonel's regiment was then marching to Hounslow, and he not so far before it but some of the troopers saw the action of our bravoes. Nobody can doubt but they were soon pursued; yet by the help of a good horse Mul-Sack got clear off; but Cheney's beast failing him he was obliged to stand in his own defence, which he did very stoutly, till he was overpowered by numbers, desperately wounded, taken prisoner, and carried to Newgate.

Sessions began at the Old Bailey within a few days after, and Cheney, being brought to the bar, begged to have his trial put off on account of his wounds. But the favour could not be obtained; for they caused a chair to be brought for him to sit in, obliged him to plead, and passed sentence of death upon him. What he had urged as a motive for putting off his trial was made the means to hasten his execution; for though it was two o'clock in the afternoon when he was condemned, he was carried in a cart that very day to Tyburn, and there executed, lest he should have evaded the sentence of the law, by dying in Newgate.

The next companion Mul-Sack entered into articles with was one Mr Horne, a very bold man, and a pewterer by trade, though he had been formerly a captain in Colonel Downe's regiment of foot. Their engagement was to act in concert, offensively and defensively, like generous highwaymen. But neither did this partnership subsist long; for the first considerable action they ventured on was fatal to the poor captain, he being taken in the pursuit, while Mul-Sack had still the good fortune to escape. The captain's fate was the same as Cheney's, saving that he continued in good health till the hour of his execution, when he behaved with so much bravery and gallantry that his death drew tears from a great part of the spectators, particularly from that sex who know the value of a brave man so well as always to be grieved when such a one dies, especially at Tyburn.

His companions having such ill success, Mul-Sack was resolved to try his fortune alone, and he several times practised his calling upon committee-men, sequestrators, Members of Parliament, etc., who were then almost the only men in the nation worth robbing, they having plundered everybody else, and gotten the wealth of England into their own hands. In all these adventures he was as fortunate as he could wish, which prompted him forwards to attempt still greater things. Being informed that four thousand pounds were coming from London to pay the regiments quartered at Oxford and Gloucester, he resolved to venture his life for so considerable a sum, though two or three men well armed were appointed for a convoy.

Just at the close of day, when the wagon was past Wheatley, and at the foot of a hill, he started from an ambuscade, presented his pistol, and bid the carrier stand. He would have certainly now gone to pot if the guard had not thought it impossible he should attempt such an action without company, but the apprehension of more behind the hedge made these sturdy fellows ride for their lives, and leave our adventurer to secure the booty; which he spent with as much mirth as he had obtained it with danger.

There were also two or three passengers in this wagon who were frightened terribly; but Mul-Sack generously told them he had no design upon what they had.

"This," says he, "that I have taken, is as much mine as theirs who own it; being all extorted from the public by the rapacious members of our Commonwealth, to enrich themselves, maintain their janizaries, and keep honest people in subjection; the most effectual way to do which is to keep them very poor."

It is said that Mul-Sack got more money than any highwayman of his time, though no man was less suspected than he by his acquaintance in town. When out of his calling he appeared like a merchant, talked always about business, and was seen on 'Change very often, these being the methods he used to conceal his trade; for nothing betrays a man so soon as endeavouring to hide himself.

One time, having notice that the Receiver-General at Reading was to send up six thousand pounds to London by an ammunition wagon, he immediately contrived to save that trouble, and bring it up to town himself on his own horse. An accomplice was necessary in this undertaking, and he soon found one, by whose assistance he scaled the receiver's house the night before the money was to be carted. The window they got in at was next to the garden, where they left the ladder standing, and came off at the present very well, having bound all the family, to prevent any alarm whereby they might be discovered.

But an affair of this kind, as might very well be expected, made a great noise, and Mul-Sack was apprehended in town by some who had seen him in Reading the evening the fact was committed. Upon this he was sent down to Reading, and tried at the next assizes for Berkshire before Judge Jermyn, who did all he could  to hang him. Nevertheless, by his cunning, he found means either to baffle the evidence or to corrupt the jury by his money, so far that he was acquitted, the proofs against him being only circumstantial.

Not long after this narrow escape our offender, growing in wickedness, added murder to his former crimes. The person on whom it was committed was one John Bridges, with whose wife he had before contracted a familiarity. On this account he fled beyond the sea, and got himself introduced at the Court of King Charles II., who was then in exile.

He got so much intelligence here, that he ventured home again, upon a presumption of obtaining his pardon from Oliver Cromwell, as a reward for what he could discover of affairs amongst the King's friends. Accordingly, he applied himself to the usurper, confessed his crime, and made very large promises, upon the performance of which Cromwell assured him of his life. But whether he could not be as good as his word, or whether the Protector thought such an abandoned wretch utterly unfit to live, so it was that he was apprehended, condemned, and executed in Smithfield Rounds, in April, 1685, being forty-five years of age.

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3: Edward And Joan Bracey

Who robbed on the Highway together, the Woman being executed in 1685 and the Man being killed by a Gunshot Wound

THESE two criminals flourished from the year 1680 to 1684, during which time they committed a great number of robberies and frauds. Their natural inclinations to such a manner of living first brought them together, and kept up the union between them till they were separated by justice, though we cannot learn that they were ever married, Joan only assuming the name of her companion, as is common in such cases, the better to colour their living together, and impose on the world.

Edward Bracey had been a highwayman before he fell into company with his pretended wife, who was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in Northamptonshire, named John Phillips. The beginning of their acquaintance was Bracey's making love to her in hopes of getting a large sum of money out of the old man for a marriage portion, and then leaving both wife and father-in-law. But he was very agreeably deceived; for Joan was as good as he. She suffered herself to be first debauched by him, and then consented to rob her father, and go along with him on the pad; all which she accordingly accomplished. They now passed for husband and wife wheresoever they went, frequently robbed together on the highway, and as often united in picking of pockets and shoplifting at all the country fairs and markets round about.

It was next to impossible that they should continue this course of life long together without coming into trouble. One or the other of them was often in danger of the gallows, but they had both the good fortune to escape till they had got a large quantity of money. The dread of justice more than a desire to live honestly now prevailed upon them to quit their vocation and take to some creditable business, in which they might spend the remainder of their days in quiet, and live comfortably upon what they had acquired by their industry. In order to do this they took an inn in the suburbs of Bristol, where they met with success, having a large trade in particular for wine, which was occasioned by the beauty of our landlady. It is no uncommon thing for a husband to get money by his having a handsome wife, especially if they have both art enough to manage an intrigue, which was the present case. All the gay young fellows of the place came to drink with Madam Bracey, purely for the sake of having an opportunity to discover their love. She gave them all encouragement so long as they could spend a great deal of money, and then took care not only to turn them out of doors, but to expose them sufficiently.  It may not be amiss to give an instance of this her manner of using her suitors.

One Mr Day, an eminent citizen of Bristol, was among the number of her humble servants. He made her a great many fine proposals, and she received them all with abundance of complaisance, consenting at last that he should make use of the first opportunity that offered to take a night's lodging with her. In a little time Mr Day was informed that his landlord, Bracey, was to be abroad on such a night, and that nothing could happen more favourably to his wishes. He went at the time appointed with all the ardour of a lover, and was received by a maidservant, who told him her mistress had gone to bed, and waited impatiently for him; but desiring him however to pull off his clothes, and leave them in another room, where he might be concealed, and have time to dress himself again, in case any surprise should happen. The innocent Mr Day thanked her for the contrivance, and hugged himself in the thought of the mistress's sincere affection, because the maid was so careful for his safety.  Mrs Abigail led him to the room appointed, put out the candle on account of mere modesty, and stayed at the door while Mr Day undressed himself; which he did in two minutes.

Now the best of the comedy was to be played: our tractable maid conducted the gallant to a door, which she told him opened into her mistress's chamber, bid him enter softly, and immediately turned the key upon him. Here Mr Day wandered about to find the bed, and pronounced the name of Mrs Bracey as loud as he dared, that she might give him directions; but no Mrs Bracey answered. He was sufficiently amazed at the oddness of the scene, but was yet more surprised when he tumbled down a pair of stairs against the back door of the house. The contrivance was now plain; he saw that mistress and maid were agreed not only to balk his passion, but to strip him of his clothes also. It was in vain to call and make protestations; he received no other answer than that the back door was only bolted, and he might open if he pleased, and go about his business.

This door opened into a narrow dirty lane, down which the common sewer ran; and there was no going out at it unless you got into a coach, or upon a horse, directly off the steps, which was the only use made of it, and that not often, especially in the winter-time, as it was at present.

Mr Day knew all these inconveniences; but the terrible pinching cold, and the shame of being discovered if he stayed till broad daylight, made him go out, wade through the mud, and make the best of his way home, where he was heartily laughed at by those friends to whom he told the story; which were only such as he could not conceal it from, and even upon these he laid the severest injunctions imaginable never to divulge a word of it. They kept the secret from everybody else, but diverted themselves privately with poor Mr Day all his life afterwards.

Everyone whom our honest innkeepers imposed on were not, however, so easy as Mr Day; so that in less than a twelvemonth's time their house became so scandalous that they were obliged to leave it, and then they had nothing to do but to take to their old courses again, being by this time pretty well got over the apprehensions they were under of a halter. At their first setting out again they played such a trick as was hardly ever matched, which was the woman's contrivance as well as Bracey's. We shall relate this also, in as few words as we can conveniently.

A young gentleman who had spent his fortune had used their house all the time they had been at Bristol, and got a pretty deal into their debt. They knew he was heir to an estate of about a hundred pounds a year, which was kept from him only by the life of an old distempered uncle, and they had a mighty itching to get this reversion into their hands. In order to this, Joan threatened him grievously with a prison for what he owed them, till she perceived he was heartily frightened, and would do anything to keep his liberty. She knew besides that he was viciously inclined, and only wanted a little introduction to be made anything of that they could wish. Upon this she told him what she and her husband were going upon, and prevailed with him to join them. In a day or two after she informed him that a rich tradesman was coming to Bristol with a large quantity of money, and that he must accompany her husband to-morrow to take it from him. Accordingly Bracey and the young man set out, stopped a person on the road, and took from him above a hundred pounds, with which they returned home together. The man that was robbed had been sent out with the money in his pocket for that very purpose.

As soon as the fact was over, and they had got their dupe safe, madam told him plainly that he must make over the reversion of his estate to them, or her husband should immediately swear the robbery upon him, and get him hanged for it. The terror he was under, and the promise of liberty upon complying, made him do all they desired. After which they still kept him in their house till they had sold it again, obliging him to assure the purchaser that he had received a valuable consideration of Mr Bracey; which was readily enough believed, because everybody knew the young gentleman's extravagances. They got fourteen hundred pounds by this bargain, with which they immediately made off, leaving the unfortunate spark to lament his folly. The name of this young man was Rumbald.

Joan after this usually dressed herself in men's apparel, and she and her fellow-adventurer committed a great many robberies together on the highway. At last, however, fortune put an end to their progress in iniquity; for as they were robbing a person of quality's coach together in Nottinghamshire, madam was apprehended, and carried to Nottingham Jail. At the next assizes she was condemned by the name of Joan Bracey, and in April, 1685, she was executed, aged twenty-nine years.

Her pretended husband got off at the time she was taken, and concealed himself for some time after by skulking about the country. One day, being at a public inn, he was seen by somebody whom he had robbed, who immediately got assistance, and came to take him, being at the stair-foot with armed men before Bracey knew anything of the matter. It happened that in the room where he was, one of the drawers had left his cap and apron, which Bracey in a moment snatched up and put on, running downstairs ready to break his neck, and crying out as he ran, "Coming, gentlemen, coming," as if he were waiting upon company above. This stratagem preserved his life a little longer, for the gentleman who came to secure him, not apprehending anything, let him pass as a drawer, though he had taken so much notice of his face before; so that he got his horse out of the stable and rode off while they were searching the house for him.

Two or three of his companions, who were with him in the inn, and knew nothing of the occasion of his running down so, were apprehended and brought to justice.

This escape, however, did him but little service; for about three or four days after, stopping at a little house to drink, and leaving his white mare, on which he usually robbed, at the door, another gentleman who had suffered by him came by, alarmed the neighbourhood upon his knowledge of the beast, and beset the house before he had the least notice. As soon as he heard a noise of men at the door he ran out, and attempted to mount; but two or three pieces were instantly discharged at him, one of them killing his mare, and another taking off several of his fingers. He then endeavoured to leap over some pales, and get off by the back side of the house, when another discharge was made at him from a fowling- piece, which lodged several great goose-shot in his guts, and wounded him so that he dropped down on the place and died in three days afterwards.

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1686

4: Jonathan Simpson

A Highwayman who was witty with a Halter round his Neck and, being reprieved, found that Newgate would not have him. Executed 8th of September, 1686

JONATHAN SIMPSON was the son of a very wealthy inhabitant of Launceston, in Cornwall, and his father put him apprentice to a linen-draper in Bristol when he was about fourteen years of age. When he had served out his time, which he did with reputation, the same indulgent father gave him fifteen hundred pounds to set up with in the city, where he was free, and where he soon fell into great business and got money apace.  In less than a year after he had kept shop he married a merchant's daughter of the same place, who brought him a fortune of two thousand pounds.

This was a great addition to his wealth; but the union proved unhappy, because the young lady was before engaged in affection to a gentleman of less fortune in the neighbourhood, whom her father hindered her from having, and with whom she continued a familiarity that soon displeased her husband.

Such a crisis as this must be a great trial for any man; but there can be no excuse sufficient to defend a person that invades the property of another. Almost any man in such a case would have run into extravagances; but none but a man who was viciously inclined would have turned highwayman, as Simpson now did. He had above five thousand pounds of his own, but his expenses were of a piece with the rest of his actions; for at the end of eighteen months he had not a penny left of all this large sum, or of all the money he had during that time taken on the road.

While his money lasted he played with the law; for though he was once or twice discovered, he made up the matter, and prevented a prosecution.

No sooner had Simpson wasted all his substance but he was apprehended and condemned at the Old Bailey for a robbery on the highway, and he must certainly have swung for it if some of his rich relations had not procured him a reprieve from above. It came when he was at Tyburn, with the halter about his neck, and just ready to be turned off in company with several others. As he was riding back to Newgate behind one of the sheriff's officers, the officer asked him if he thought anything of a reprieve when he came to the gallows.

"No more," said Simpson, "than I thought of my dying day." A very pretty expression at that time.

When he was brought to the prison door, the turnkey refused to receive him, telling the officer that, as he was sent to be executed, they were discharged of him, and would not have anything to do with him again, unless there was a fresh warrant for his commitment; whereupon Simpson made this reflection:

"What an unhappy cast-off dog am I, that both Tyburn and Newgate should in one day refuse to entertain me! Well, I'll mend my manners for the future, and try whether I can't merit a reception at them both the next time I am brought hither."

He was as good as his word; for it was believed he committed above forty robberies in the county of Middlesex within six weeks after his discharge.

He was a very good skater, and made a practice of robbing people on the ice between Fulham and Kingston Bridge, in the great frost of 1689, which held thirteen weeks. He used to kick up their heels and then search their pockets.  One time a gentleman whom he stopped gave him a fine silk purse full of counters, which he took for gold, and so did not examine them till he came to his inn at night. When he found himself outwitted he made no words of it, but kept the brass booty in his pocket, looking out frequently for his benefactor, whom he knew to be often on the road. At the end of about four months he met his worship again, on Bagshot Heath, when, riding up to the coach―

"Sir, ' says he, "I believe you made a mistake the last time I had the happiness to see you, in giving me these pieces; I have been troubled ever since for fear you should have wanted them at cards, and am glad of this opportunity to return them. Only for my care I require you to come this moment out of your coach and give me your breeches, that I may search them at leisure, and not trust any more to your generosity, lest you should mistake again."

The gentleman was obliged to comply by a pistol, and Simpson found at night that the freight of his breeches was a gold watch, a gold snuff-box, and a purse containing ninety-eight guineas and five jacobuses.

Another time he robbed the Lord Delamere on Dunmoor Heath of three hundred and fifty guineas, persuading his lordship first to send away all his attendants, on a sham pretence of two highwaymen that were just before who had robbed him of forty pounds. This action made his lordship swear never to do a good-natured deed again to a stranger.

The robberies he committed on drovers, pedlars, market-people, etc., were almost innumerable. He stopped in one day nineteen of those people between London and Barnet, and took from them above two hundred pounds. He even ventured to attack the Duke of Berwick, natural son to King James II., and take from him his watch, rings and money, amounting in all to a great value.

This great malefactor was at last apprehended near Acton, by means of two captains of the Foot Guards, whom he attempted to rob both together. There was an obstinate fight between them, and Simpson behaved himself with so much bravery that in all probability he would not have been taken if one of the officers had not shot his horse under him, though he was before that wounded in both his arms and one of his legs. Nay, even when he was dismounted he defended himself till other passengers came up and secured him, which his adversaries were scarce able to do, they being also both very much hurt. When he was sent to Newgate he now found the keeper so much his friend as to receive him; neither did Tyburn this time refuse to bear his burden. He was hanged on Wednesday, the 8th of September, 1686, aged thirty-two years.

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1687

5: William Cady

A Highwayman who shot a Woman before the Eyes of her Husband for the Wedding-Ring she had swallowed. Executed in 1687

THIS unhappy gentleman was born at Thetford, in the county of Norfolk. His father was an eminent surgeon in that place, and very careful of his son's education. After a course of grammar learning, Will was sent to the University of Cambridge, where he was servitor to the father of the present Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Townshend, at that time a student in Trinity College. He profited so well as in time to be made Bachelor of Arts, and continued at his studies till the death of his father. The decease of a parent to a young gentleman, as Cady was, is often the crisis of fortune and the time that fixes his future fate. When a man becomes his own master, we learn in what he places his happiness, and what has before given a prevailing turn to his thoughts then influences his actions. Will, immediately upon the news, withdrew from the Muses and went up to London, where he professed physic; for his father made so good use of what he had in his lifetime, that he left nothing behind him. The first patient he had was his own uncle, who was dangerously ill of an imposthume; and the manner how he cured him is very well worth relating in this place.

When he came into his uncle's chamber, the first thing he did was to examine the state of the old gentleman's stomach. To this purpose he hunted the room all over, moved every dish, plate and basin he could see, all under a pretence of finding out what they gave him to eat, though in reality to find a proper occasion for the experiment he afterwards tried. At last he spied an old saddle under the bed. Upon which he seemed to start, crying out:

"Uncle, your case is very desperate."

"Not so bad, I hope," says the uncle, "as to make me past recovery."

"Heaven knows that!" cried Cady; "but a surfeit is a terrible thing, and I perceive you have got a violent one."

"A surfeit!" replied the old gentleman. "You mistake, nephew; it is an imposthume that I am afflicted with."

"The devil it is!" quoth Cady. "Why, I could have sworn it was a surfeit; for I perceive you have eaten a whole horse, and left us only the saddle!"

At this he held up the saddle in his hands, and the old gentleman fell into such a fit of laughing that instantly his imposthume broke; so that he became a well man again in less than a fortnight.

Cady's uncle gave him fifty guineas for performing so speedy and unexpected a cure; all which he spent in less than a month. It was not long after that he bid adieu to Galen and Hippocrates, and betook himself to the highway for a livelihood. The first exploit which he performed was on Hounslow Heath, where, meeting with Monsieur Chevalier, Captain of Grenadiers in the first regiment of Foot Guards -- afterwards killed in the West in the engagement against the Duke of Monmouth -- and another gentleman, he rode boldly up to them and inquired the way to Staines, telling them he was a stranger in the country. They courteously told him they were going thither themselves, and that they should be very glad of his company, if he pleased to keep pace with them. Will thanked them for their civility and accepted of their proffer, riding and talking by the side of them for about a mile. At last seeing the coast clear, he without ceremony shot one of the good-natured guides through the head; then turning upon Chevalier, he told him if he did not deliver his money he should suffer the same fate with his companion. Chevalier said he was a captain of the Guards, and therefore he must fight if he got anything from him.

"If you are a soldier, sir," quoth Cady, "you ought to obey the word of command, other wise you know the sentence: I have nothing to do but to tie you neck and heels."

"You are an unconscionable son of a b―h," says Monsieur, "to demand money of me, who never owed you any."

"Sir," replied Cady, "there's not a man travels the road but what owes me money, if he has any about him. Therefore, as you are one of my debtors, if you do not pay me instantly, your blood shall satisfy my demands."

The noble captain exchanged a shot or two with our highwayman, but had the misfortune at last to have his horse killed; upon which, seeing it was in vain to make any more resistance, he surrendered his gold watch, a diamond ring, and a purse of twenty-six guineas. Will, having collected all he could, tied the Frenchman neck and heels, nailed the hind lappets of his coat to a tree, and then rode off with his booty.

The next person he robbed was on Bagshot Heath. It was Lord Viscount Dundee, who was killed at the fight of Killiecrankie in Scotland, after the revolution. His honour was on horseback, attended only by a couple of footmen. Cady rode up to them full speed, inquiring if they did not see a single man ride that way harder than ordinary. Being told Yes, he presently added:

"He has robbed me of twenty pounds, which I was going to pay my landlord, and I am utterly ruined."

The man who had rode by was a confederate of Cady's, who had parted from him for that very purpose. My lord was touched with compassion at Will's complaint, and immediately ordered his footmen to pursue the villain. The servants rode away full stretch, and Cady after them some distance, till he thought they were far enough; then he turned back on his lordship, and robbed him of a gold watch, a gold snuff-box and sixty guineas in money. To make all safe, he shot the Viscount's horse, and then rode after the footmen, whom he found a mile off, with his comrade between them, prisoner. The fellows were surprised when Will bid them let the man go and seemed to laugh at them for what they had done, till at last they absolutely refused to part with their prize. Cady, upon that, swore they should, and a warm engagement ensued, continuing till one of the footmen was killed and the other was obliged to fly, who found his lord dismounted and robbed.

Dundee complained at Court of this abuse, and a reward of one hundred pounds was promised in the London Gazette to anyone who should apprehend Cady or his comrade, who were both very particularly described. Our adventurer now thought it safest to get out of the reach of justice; and to that end made the best of his way to Douay, in Flanders, where was an English seminary. As he was a scholar, he was easily admitted, upon the superior's examination, into the fraternity of Benedictine Friars, among whom he behaved with a great deal of seeming devotion and piety; so that he shortly attained a very extraordinary character. The natural result of this was his having a great number of penitents continually resorting to him to make a confession of their sins. Cady's piety, however, at last began to sit very uneasy upon him, and he was afraid his hypocrisy would in time be found out, for he looked upon himself as incapable of keeping the vows of poverty and chastity which he had made. This made him resolve to return to England again at all hazards, choosing to enjoy a merry though but a short life, rather than drag out many years under the strictness of ecclesiastical discipline. But there was money wanting before this could be done, and now his invention was racked for some method of raising a sufficient quantity.

He feigned himself indisposed, and kept his chamber several days, during which time he received visits from abundance of people, and, among others, from all of the fair sex who usually made him their confessor. He had singled out in his mind a couple of young gentlewomen who commonly came together, and were both very rich and very handsome. A brace of pistols he had also found means to procure. At last the ladies came, and when they had made their confession, he desired them to hear his. In short, he told them he was in great want of money, and if they did not instantly supply him, they should never depart alive. At the same time he held the pistols to their breasts, and commanded them not to make the least noise. The poor gentlewomen were almost out of their wits with fear, and trembled like aspen leaves while Cady made inquiry into their pockets, and found them lined with about fifty pistoles. To this he compelled them to make an offering of two diamond rings, which were on their fingers, and then laying them both on the bed, he gave them, after one another, a taste of his manhood, and robbed them of their virginity into the bargain. Next he gagged and tied them neck and heels, and then went out, pretending to the father of the convent that he would only take the air in the fields a little. But he went much farther afield than they expected; for he never returned again, but changed his canonical habit, and returned to England.

Even before he arrived at London he fell again into his old courses, though he had been two years out of his native country; for as he rode over Blackheath he met with one Sandal, a great hop merchant, and his wife, whom he commanded to "Stand and deliver." Sandal stood up smartly in his own defence, and fired two pistols without success; after which he was obliged to lie at the mercy of the enemy, who presently dismounted them both, and killed their horse (for they had but one), and then fell to rifling their pockets. He found about twenty-eight pounds upon the husband, but the wife had no more than half-a-crown.

"Is this your way of travelling?" says Cady. "What! carry but half-a-crown in your pocket, when you are to meet a gentleman collector on the highway! I assure you, madam, I shall be even with you; therefore off with that ring on your finger."

Mrs Sandal begged him to spare her wedding-ring, because she would not lose it for double the value, as she had kept and worn it above twenty years.

"You whining bitch!" quoth Will. "Marriage may be d―d and you too. What, because you are a whore by licence, I must be more favourable to you than another woman I'll warrant! Give me the ring in a moment without any more cant, or I shall make bold to cut off your finger with it for dispatch, as I have served several of your sex before."

The good woman, finding all entreaties were in vain, pulled off her ring; but instead of giving it to Cady, instantly clapped it into her mouth and swallowed it, in hopes, by that means, of preserving what she so superstitiously prized. Cady fell to swearing and stamping like a madman, telling her that all her tricks were in vain; for he would that moment send her to the devil without her wedding-ring. Accordingly he shot her through the head, ripped her open, and took the ring out of her body in the presence of her husband, whom he had before bound, and who was in capable of uttering a word at the sight of such an unheard-of piece of barbarity.

"Your wife's a bite, Sir," says the butcherly villain, "but I think I have bit the biter."

And remounting his horse, he rode away with as little concern as if he had done no crime, leaving the sorrowful widower bound by his wife's body till some passengers came by and loosed him, and then carried the mangled corpse to the next inn.

The same night Cady came straight to London, but was afraid that even that great city was not large enough to conceal him from the inquiry which such a horrid action would naturally occasion. He did not stay therefore above an hour before he took horse for Scotland, where he arrived and stayed about a month, without any notice being taken of him. After this he came into England again, and as he was making towards London, between Ferry Bridge and Doncaster in Yorkshire, he overtook Dr Moreton, a prebendary of Durham. It would not be more strange to see a horse refuse oats than to hear that such a gentleman as Cady would let a plump, sleek clergyman pass unmolested, when he was in his power.

"Stand and deliver" was the precept, with the addition of "D―n you are a dead man if you hesitate." The clergyman had never been used to such language before, and began to give him good advice, counselling him very gravely to refrain from such ill courses, and telling him the hazard he ran, both with respect to his soul and his body. But all his preaching was in vain; for Cady looked upon him with all the moroseness he could collect in his countenance, and told him that his doctrine had no effect, and the pretence of religion was framed only to preserve what he had before got in the same way. Adding, that if he did not speedily deliver what he had, he should send him out of the world.

"But that," quoth he with a sneer, "is nothing to a man of your cloth; for doubtless all the clergymen are prepared for death at any time, and certain of eternal happiness."

While Cady was uttering these words, a stone-horse in an adjacent field, smelling his mare, leaped over the hedge, and came snorting and neighing to her like a mad creature. Will was so busy with Mr Doctor that he took no notice of the stallion till his mare was covered and he dismounted. The poor parson was glad of an opportunity to save his bacon; so as soon as he saw Cady on the ground he rode off as fast as he could.

"The devil take all whoring," cried Will, "if horses must practise it too! However, Mr Mettle, I shall go nigh to spoil your sport before the game be over."

He was as good as his word, for instantly pulling out a pistol he shot the horse, and then remounted his mare and rode after divinity.

In three quarters of a. mile he overtook poor Moreton, and accosted him with "You unreasonable unmannerly dog! what do you mean to leave a man in the midst of his journey, without giving him anything to pay his charges?"

The doctor had taken care, as he rode off, to hide his money in a hedge, so that when Cady searched him he found never a farthing. He could not, however, think that a man of his figure would travel on horseback without any money in his breeches; so that he swore the reverend priest should never go home alive if he did not inform him what he had done with his mammon. The doctor standing to it that he had none, our bloody wretch instantly shot him through the heart, which to him was no more than making a good meal when he was hungry.

After this he took a journey into Norfolk with an intent to see his friends and relations at Thetford, but meeting a coach within two or three miles of that town, with three gentlemen and a gentlewoman in it, could not forbear riding up to it and making the usual compliment. The gentlemen were resolved to dispute a point with him, and stood bravely upon their guard, one of them firing off a blunderbuss without doing him any other damage than just grazing across his left arm, and tearing his coat, waistcoat and shirt. This put him into a violent passion, so that after he had taken about one hundred and thirty pounds from them all, he swore that the loss of his money should not entitle him that had shot him to any quarter. He was always as good as his word in these cases― the poor gentleman was left dead in the coach; and then, cutting the reins and traces off the horses, he rode off, without going to Thetford to see his acquaintance.

Now he steers his course towards London as fast as he can; and coming over Finchley Common attacks a lady, who was riding there for the air, attended by a single footman. He fell upon her in a very rude manner, pulling a diamond ring from her finger and a gold watch from her side; taking a purse with eighty guineas in it out of her pocket, and giving her a great deal of ill language. The honest footman, though the lady had commanded him not to meddle, could not forbear showing his resentment at Cady's unmanly behaviour. He returned his foul words with others of the same kind, calling him villain, rascal, thief, and other names of the same import, which were suitable to his character.

Will Cady, without speaking a word, answered the poor fellow by sending a brace of balls through his head; then he cut the girths of the lady's saddle, and was going to make off, but the time which Providence had fixed for a period to his wicked actions was now come. Two gentlemen, who had seen the transaction at a distance, intercepted him, just as he put spurs to his horse, with pistols in their hands. Cady was very desperate when he saw his own danger. He fired as fast as he was able, and they as nimbly returned the same compliment, till a lucky ball lodged in his horse, and made him fall under him.

After this he resolutely maintained his ground on foot for a considerable time, even till he had discharged all his pistols and entirely wearied himself. He was then apprehended and carried before a Justice of the Peace at Highgate, who committed him under a strong guard to Newgate, where he continued till the next sessions without any signs of remorse for the blood he had so plentifully shed within four years before.

When his trial came on at the Old Bailey he behaved agreeably to his character before that venerable court. The Lord Mayor and Recorder, he said, were a couple of old almswomen, and the jurymen were treated in the same manner.

The matter of fact which he was indicted for was proved so plainly against him that he received sentence of death, and was put into the condemned hold; but even this place of horror and darkness had no effect upon his mind, for he continued to swear, curse, sing, roar, and get drunk, as he had always done before. What hardened him the more, was the dependence he had on some friends at Court, who had given him room to hope for a reprieve from King James II. who then reigned; but the many murders he had committed put a stop to the mercy which he might otherwise have obtained.

His day of execution being come, and the cart stopping as usual under St Sepulchre's church wall, whilst the bellman rang his bell and repeated his exhortatory lines, instead of being affected with the admonition, he fell to swearing at the sheriff's officers, asking them why they detained him there to hear an old puppy chatter nonsense.

At Tyburn he was just the same, being turned off without either conversing with the ordinary, praying by himself, or making any speech to the people. His exit was in 1687 when he was just twenty-five years of age.

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1688

6: Philip Stansfield, Son of Sir James Stansfield

Executed 15th of February, 1688, for the Murder of his Father and
for High Treason

SIR JAMES STANSFIELD held the rank of colonel in the Parliamentary army. After Cromwell's victory at Dunbar he went to Scotland and established a woollen manufactory at Newmilns (now Amisfield) in the neighbourhood of Haddington, under the patronage of the Protectorate. At the Restoration, Parliament granted certain annuities and privileges to Colonel Stansfield, on whom Charles II. conferred the honour of knighthood. His prospects were, however, soon blasted, for in 1687 he was found murdered, as was supposed, by his eldest son, Philip, whom he had disinherited for his debauchery.

This unfortunate man was brought up for trial, 6th of February, 1688, the indictment stating that, although his father had given him a liberal education, he had taken ill courses, and been detained prisoner in the Marshalsea, in Southwark, and in the public prisons of Antwerp, Orleans, and other places, from whence his said father had released him; and that notwithstanding, he fell to his debauched and villainous courses again. Whereupon, his father signifying his intentions to disinherit him and settle his estate upon John Stansfield, his second son, the said Philip Stansfield did declare he would cut his father's throat, and did attempt to assassinate his father by pursuing him in the highway, etc., and firing pistols upon him; which the said Sir James, his father, had declared to several persons of honour in his lifetime.

The court at Edinburgh, the 7th of February, 1688, met, and the assize, consisting of fifteen merchants and tradesmen, being sworn without any challenge or exception to any of them, his Majesty's advocate produced his witnesses.

After evidence as to prisoner having drunk confusion to the King, and made others drink likewise, Agnes Bruce further deposed that she had often heard the prisoner vow and swear he would kill any person that offended him. That he conversed much with Janet Johnston, George Thomson and his wife (charged with being concerned in this murder), and used after supper at his father's to go to these persons. That she had frequently heard the prisoner curse his father, and express his hatred and abhorrence of him, and say he had hated his father these seven years; and this in his mother's presence. That the Friday before Sir James's death, Janet Johnston was a considerable time with the prisoner in his chamber. That she thought Sir James not so merry as usual the night before his death. That on the Saturday night when Sir James came home he went to his lady's chamber, where he did not stay a quarter of an hour; and that his lady fell a-quarrelling with him for going to another house before he came there. That the next morning, when Sir James was missed, the deponent went into his chamber to make a fire, and found the bed in better order than usual, and the candle at the bed's foot which used to be at the head. That the deponent desiring the body might be brought up to the chamber, the prisoner answered it should not enter there, for he had died more like a beast than a man; and that it was brought to a cellar within the close, where was very little light. That she heard the prisoner cry and lament when his father's body was found, but saw no tears. That he would have forced his father's chamber door open, but the key being found he entered, and took the gold and money out of his pocket, and then searched the cabinet; that within an hour after his father was brought from the water he got the buckles off his shoes and put them on his own. That a short time before Sir James died, his lady having fallen into a swoon, and afterwards telling the prisoner he was likely in a short time to lose his mother, he answered in the deponent's hearing that his father should be dead first. That two nights after Sir James's death the lady told this deponent that she heard the prisoner had vowed his brother's death, and little less as to his father, upon his hearing Sir James was about to settle his estate upon his brother; and that the lady renewed the same expression to this deponent at Edinburgh, and added, what if they should put her bairn in prison.

James Murehead, surgeon, deposed that upon the prisoner's assisting to lift the body, after it had been sewed up, and clean linen put on, it darted out blood through the linen, from the left side of the neck, which the prisoner touched; but that when the deponent and the other surgeon put on the linen, and stirred and moved the head and neck before, he saw no blood at all. (Sir Patrick Hume, in the prisoner's defence, said that this was a superstitious observation, founded neither upon law nor reason.) His Majesty's advocate desired that James Thomson, son to George Thomson, and Anna, daughter to Janet Johnston, spouse to the said James Thomson, might be examined as witnesses against the prisoner; but the prisoner's counsel opposed it, for that they were but children, the boy being about thirteen, and the girl about ten years of age. Whereupon the Court refused to admit them, but the jury desired that they be permitted to declare what they knew -- viz.  The said James Thomson declared that Janet Johnston came to George Thomson's (his father's) house between nine and ten o'clock that night Sir James was killed, and the prisoner came thither soon after. His mother ordered him to go to bed, which was in the same room, and beat him because he did not go presently.

Anna Mark, the said Janet's daughter, came for her to give her child suck, but Janet stayed a considerable time after, and whispered with the said George Thomson, and he heard the prisoner complain that his father would not give him money, and prayed the devil might take his father, and God d --n his own soul if he should not make an end of his father, and then all would be his, and he would be kind to them. Philip Stansfield and Janet Johnston went away about eleven o'clock, and soon after his father and mother came to bed. But his father and mother rose afterwards in the night and went out of the house, and stayed away an hour and a half or two hours. His mother came in first, and he pretended to be asleep when they returned, and he heard his father say the deed was done; that the prisoner guarded the door with a drawn sword and a bended pistol; that he never thought a man would have died so soon; that they carried him out to the water-side and tied a stone about his neck, and leaving him there, they came back to the little kiln, and considered if they should cast him in the water with the stone about his neck or not, and whether they should cast him in far, or near the side; and that at length they returned and took away the stone from about his neck, and threw him in the water. His father said he was afraid, for all that, that the murder would come out. And his mother said, "Hout, fool, there is no fear of that; it will be thought he has drowned himself."

When Sir James was found in the morning his mother said to his father: "Rise quickly, for if you be found in your bed, they will say that you have had a hand in the murder."

The coat and waistcoat Sir James had on in the water being sent to their house, his mother said she was frightened at it, and desired his father to send it away. His mother said she was afraid to stay in the house in the evening, and therefore went out with his father, if he went out, ever since Sir James died, which she did not use to do before.

Anna  Mark, daughter of Janet Johnston, declared that on the Saturday night Sir James was killed the prisoner came to her mother's house and sent for George Thomson and his wife, and then sent her to see if Sir James was come home. Upon her bringing word that Sir James was come the prisoner ran down to Newmilns. About eleven o'clock the same night her father sent her to find her mother, and she found her with the prisoner at George Thomson's house, but her mother did not come home till two in the morning. Whereupon her father said: "B―, w―, where have you been so long?"

She answered, "Wherever I have been, the deed is done," and then went to bed.

Her mother, ever after that, was afraid to be alone.

The jury found the prisoner guilty of all the facts laid in the indictment -- viz. of treason, cursing his father, and being accessory to his murder.

The assize finding him guilty, the Lords of Justiciary ordered him to be hanged on the 15th of February, at the Cross of Edinburgh, and his tongue to be cut out for cursing his father, and his right hand to be cut off for the parricide, and his head to be put upon the East Port of Haddington, as nearest to the place of murder, and his body to be hung up in chains betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, and his lands and goods to be confiscated for the treason.  All this was rigorously put into execution.

"Some thought," says Lord Fontainhall, a contemporary judge, "if not a miraculous, yet an extraordinary return of the imprecations was the accident of the slipping of the knots on the cross, whereby his feet and knees were on the scaffold, which necessitated them to strangle him, bearing therein a near resemblance to his father's death; and a new application having been made that they might be allowed to bury him, Duke Hamilton was for it, but the Chancellor would not consent, because he had mocked his religion. So his body was hung up, and some days after being stolen down, it was found lying in a ditch among some water, as his father's was; and by order was hung up again, and then a second time was taken down."

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1689

7: John Chislie Of Dalry

Hanged 3rd of April, 1689, for the Murder of the Right Hon. Sir George Lockhart, of Cornwath, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, after being tortured under a Special Act

JOHN CHISLIE of Dalry was brought before the Lord Provost on the 1st of April, 1689, to be examined concerning the murder of Sir George Lockhart, committed on the day preceding. Sir John Lockhart of Castlehill, brother, and Cromwell Lockhart of Lee, nephew, of the deceased, appeared in court; and in their own name, and in that of the children of the deceased, gave an Act of the meeting of Estates of Parliament, passed that day, of the following purport: --

That the Estates having considered the supplication of the friends of the deceased Sir George Lockhart, for granting warrant to the magistrates of Edinburgh to torture John Chislie of Dalry, perpetrator of the murder, and William Calderwood, writer in Edinburgh, an accomplice; therefore, in respect of the notoriety of the murder, and of the extraordinary circumstances attending it, the Estates appoint and authorise the Provost, and two of the bailies of Edinburgh, and likewise the Earl of Errol, Lord High Constable, and his deputies, not only to judge of the murder, but to proceed to torture Chislie, to discover if he had any accomplices in the crime.

[Note: By the Act and declaration which the Estates of Parliament passed, just ten days after this trial, declaring King James to have forfaulted the crown, by illegal assumption and exercise of power, they declared, "That the use of torture, without evidence, and in ordinary crimes, is contrary to law."-Act of Estates, 11th of April, 1684.]

The Estates at the same time declare that this extraordinary case shall be no precedent to warrant torture in time coming, nor argument to ratify it as to the time past.

The prisoner was then put to the torture, and declared that he was not advised to the assassination of Sir George Lockhart by any person whatever. That when at London he told James Stewart, advocate, that if he got no satisfaction from the President, he would assassinate him; and told the same to a person there of the name of Callender, and to Mr William Chislie, his uncle. He confessed that he charged his pistol on Sunday morning, and went to the new kirk, and having seen the President coming from the church, he went to the close where the

President lodged, followed him, and when just behind his back shot him. That he was satisfied when he heard of the President's being dead; and on hearing it he said he was not used to doing things by halves. He also confessed that when at London he walked up and down Pall Mall with a pistol beneath his coat, lying in wait for the President.

The prisoner judicially confessed the crime libelled, and declared that he committed the murder because he thought the deceased had given an unjust sentence against him. Being asked if it was not a sentence pronounced in favour of his wife and children for their aliment, he declared he would not answer to that point, nor give any account thereof. Among other witnesses, Mr William Chislie, Writer to the Signet, deposed that he had not seen the prisoner since April, 1688, who then expressed his resentment against Sir George Lockhart, threatening to assassinate him for having decreed an aliment of seventeen hundred merks [about £93 sterling] yearly to the prisoner's wife and ten children. The witness told the President of it, but he despised the threat. The jury all in one voice, by the mouth of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston, their chancellor (i.e. foreman), found, by the prisoner's judicial confession, that he was guilty of the murder of Sir George Lockhart, etc.; and by the deposition of witnesses, that he was guilty of "murder, out of forethought felony."

The verdict was subscribed by the whole jury. The Lord Provost and bailies of Edinburgh sentenced the prisoner as follows:―

"That he be carried on a hurdle from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh to the Market Cross on Wednesday, the 3rd of April, inst.; and there, between the hours of two and four of the afternoon, to have his right hand cut off alive, and then to be hanged upon a gibbet, with the pistol about his neck with which he committed the murder. His body to be hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh; his right hand fixed on the West Port; and his movable goods to be confiscated."

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8: William Bew

Who practised the Art of Flattery on the Highway. Executed 17th of April, 1689

WE have little more to say of this fellow than that he was the brother of Captain Bew, the notorious highwayman who was killed some years ago at Knightsbridge by one Figg and some thief-takers, and that he was himself as great an offender in that way as his said brother for most of his time; only his reign was shorter than that of some others, he being apprehended at Brainford before he had pursued the course many years, brought from thence to Newgate, and at the next execution tucked up at Tyburn. This fatal day to him was Wednesday, the 17th of April, in the year 1689.

The following story, which Bew himself used to tell, is of an adventure of Bew with a young lady, whom he overtook on the road, with her footman behind her. He made bold to keep them company a pretty way, talking all along of the lady's extraordinary beauty, and carrying his compliments to her to an unreasonable height. Madam was not at all displeased with what he said, for she looked upon herself to be every bit as handsome as he made her. However, she seemed to contradict all he told her, and professed with a mighty formal air that she had none of the perfections he mentioned, and was therefore highly obliged to him for his good opinion of a woman who deserved it so little. They went on in this manner, Bew still protesting that she was the most agreeable lady he ever saw, and she declaring that he was the most complaisant gentleman she ever met with. This was the discourse till they came to a convenient place, when Bew took an opportunity to knock the footman off his horse; and then addressing himself to the lady,

"Madam," says he, "I have been a great while disputing with you about the beauty of your person; but you insist so strongly on my being mistaken, that I cannot in good manners contradict you any longer. However, I am not satisfied yet that you have nothing handsome about you, and therefore I must beg leave to examine your pocket, and see what charms are contained there."

Having delivered his speech he made no more ceremony, but thrust his hand into her pocket and pulled out a purse with fifty guineas in it. "These are the charms I mean," says he; and away he rode, leaving her to meditate a little upon the nature of flattery, which commonly picks the pocket of the person it is most busy about.

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9: Patrick O'Bryan

Hanged once for Highway Robbery, but lived to rob and murder the Man for whom he had been executed. Finally hanged 30th of April, 1689

THE parents of Patrick O'Bryan were very poor; they lived at Loughrea, a market-town in the county of Galway and province of Connaught in Ireland. Patrick came over into England in the reign of King Charles II., and listed himself into his Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Guards, so called from their being first raised at a place in Scotland which bears that name.

But the small allowance of a private sentinel was far too little for him. The first thing he did was to run into debt at all the public-houses and shops that would trust him; and when his credit would maintain him no longer, he had recourse to borrowing of all he knew, being pretty well furnished with the common defence of his countrymen― a front that would brazen out anything, and even laugh at the persons whom he had imposed on to their very faces. By such means as these he subsisted for some time.

At last, when he found fraud would no longer support him, he went out upon the footpad. Dr Clewer, the parson of Croydon, was one of those whom he stopped. This man had in his youth been tried at the Old Bailey, and burnt in the hand, for stealing a silver cup. Patrick knew him very well, and greeted him upon their lucky meeting; telling him that he could not refuse lending a little assistance to one of his old profession. The doctor assured him that he had not made a word if he had had any money about him, but he had not so much as a single farthing.

"Then," says Patrick, "I must have your gown, sir."

"If you can win it," quoth the doctor, "so you shall; but let me have the chance of a game at cards."

To this O'Bryan consented, and the reverend gentleman pulled out a pack of the devil's books; with which they fairly played at all-fours, to decide who should have the black robe. Patrick had the fortune to win, and the other went home very contentedly, as he had lost his divinity in such an equitable manner.

There was in Patrick's time a famous posture master in Pall Mall; his name was Clark. Our adventurer met him one day on Primrose Hill, and saluted him with "Stand and deliver." But he was mightily disappointed, for the nimble harlequin jumped over his head, and instead of reviving his heart with a few guineas, made it sink into his breeches for fear, he imagining the devil was come to be merry with him before his time, for no human creature, he thought, could do the like. This belief was a little mortification to him at first; but he soon saw the truth of the story in the public prints, where Mr Clark's friends took care to put it, and then our Teague's qualm of conscience was changed into a vow of revenge if ever he met with his tumblership again; which, however, he never did.

O'Bryan at last entirely deserted from his regiment, and got a horse, on which he robbed on the highway a long time. One day in particular he met Nell Gwyn in her coach on the road to Winchester, and addressed himself to her in the following manner:―

"Madam, I am a gentleman, and, as you may see, a very able one. I have done a great many signal services to the fair sex, and have in return been all my life long maintained by them. Now, as I know you are a charitable w―e, and have a great value for men of my abilities, I make bold to ask you for a little money, though I never have had the honour of serving you in particular. However, if an opportunity should ever fall in my way, you may depend upon it I will exert myself to the uttermost, for I scorn to be ungrateful."

Nell seemed very well pleased with what he had said, and made him a present of ten guineas. However, whether she wished for the opportunity he spoke of, or no, cannot be determined, because she did not explain herself; but if a person may guess from her general character, she never was afraid of a man in her life.

When Patrick robbed on the highway he perverted several young men to the same bad course of life. One Claudius Wilt in particular was hanged at Worcester for a robbery committed in his company, though it was the first he was ever concerned in. Several others came to the same end through his seducements; and he himself was at last executed at Gloucester for a fact committed within two miles of that city. When he had hung the usual time, his body was cut down and delivered to his acquaintance, that they might bury him as they pleased. But being carried home to one of their houses, somebody imagined they perceived life in him; whereupon an able surgeon was privately procured to bleed him, who by that and other means which he used brought him again to his senses.

The thing was kept an entire secret from the world, and it was hoped by his friends that he would spend the remainder of his forfeited life, which he had so surprisingly retrieved, to a much better purpose than he had employed the former part of it. These friends offered to contribute in any manner he should desire towards his living privately and honestly. He promised them very fairly, and for some time kept within due bounds, while the sense of what he had escaped remained fresh in his mind; but the time was not long before, in spite of all the admonitions and assistance he received, he returned again to his villainies like a dog to his vomit, leaving his kind benefactors, stealing a fresh horse, and taking once more to the highway, where he grew as audacious as ever.

It was not above a year after his former execution before he met with the gentleman again who had convicted him before, and attacked him in the same manner. The poor gentleman was not so much surprised at being stopped on the road as he was at seeing the person who did it, being certain it was the very man whom he had seen executed. This consternation was so great that he could not help discovering it, by saying:

"How comes this to pass? I thought you had been hanged a twelvemonth ago."

"So I was," says Patrick," and therefore you ought to imagine that what you see now is only my ghost. However, lest you should be so uncivil as to hang my ghost too, I think it my best way to secure you."

Upon this he discharged a pistol through the gentleman's head; and, not content with that, dismounting from his horse, he drew out a sharp hanger from his side and cut the dead carcass into several pieces. This piece of barbarity was followed by another, which was rather more horrible yet. Patrick, with four more as bad as himself, having intelligence that Lancelot Wilmot, Esq., of Wiltshire, had a great deal of money and plate in his house which stood in a lonely place about a mile and a half from Trowbridge, they beset it one night and got in.

When they were entered they tied and gagged the three servants, and then proceeded to the old gentleman's room, where he was in bed with his lady. They served both these in the same manner, and then went into the daughter's chamber. This young lady they severally forced one after another to their brutal pleasure, and when they had done, most inhumanly stabbed her, because she endeavoured to get from their arms. They next acted the same tragedy on the father and mother, which, they told them, was because they did not breed up their daughter to better manners. Then they rifled the house of everything valuable which they could find in it that was fit to be carried off, to the value in all of two thousand five hundred pounds, After which they set the building on fire, and left it to consume, with the unhappy servants who were in it.

Patrick continued above two years after this before he was apprehended, and possibly might never have been suspected of this fact if one of his bloody accomplices had not been hanged for another crime at Bedford. This wretch at the gallows confessed all the particulars, and discovered the persons concerned with him; a little while after which, O'Bryan was seized at his lodging in Little Suffolk Street, near the Haymarket, and committed to Newgate; from whence before the next assizes he was conveyed to Salisbury, where he owned the fact himself, and all the other particulars of his wicked actions that have been here related. He was now a second time executed, and great care was taken to do it effectually. There was not, indeed, much danger of his recovering any more, because his body was immediately hung in chains near the place where the barbarous deed was perpetrated. He was in the thirty-first year of his age at the time of his execution, which was on Tuesday, the 30th of April, in the year 1689.

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10: Thomas Rumbold

Who, if all the Stories about him be true, was a very notable Cheat.

Executed in 1689

THIS Thomas Rumbold was descended from honest and creditable parents at Ipswich, in Suffolk. In his youth he was put apprentice to a bricklayer, but evil inclinations having an ascendant over his mind, he went from his master before he had well served two-thirds of his time.

This elopement obliged him to pursue some irregularities to support himself. He absconded from his father's house, and having a desire to see London, he came up to town, where, getting into the company of a notorious gang of robbers, he went on the highway, and frequently took a purse. This course he continued some time, in conjunction with confederates; but having a mind to make prizes by himself, he ventured by himself, committing several depredations on his countrymen, the following whereof have come to our hands.

One time, being informed that the Most Reverend Dr William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of King James II., was to make a journey from Lambeth Palace to the city of Canterbury, he was determined to waylay him; and accordingly, getting sight of him between Rochester and Sittingbourne, in Kent, he gets into a field, and spreading a large tablecloth on the grass, on which he had placed several handfuls of gold, he then takes a box and dice out of his pocket, and falls a-playing at hazard by himself. His Grace riding by that place, and espying a man shaking his elbows by himself, sent one of his footmen to know the meaning of it. The man was no sooner come up to Rumbold, who was still laying very eagerly, swearing and staring like a fury at his losses, but he returns to the reverend prelate, and telling him what he had seen, his Grace stepped out of his coach to him, and seeing none but him, asked him who he was to play with?

"Damn it," said Rumbold, "there's five hundred pounds gone. Pray, sir, be silent."

His Grace going to speak again:

"Aye," said Rumbold, "there's a hundred pounds more lost."

"Prithee," said the Archbishop, "who art thou to play with?"

Rumbold replied, "With ―"

"And how will you send the money to him?"

"By," said Rumbold, "his ambassadors; and therefore, looking upon your Grace to be one of them extraordinary, I shall beg the favour of you to carry it him."

Accordingly, giving his Grace  about six hundred pounds in gold and silver, he put it into the seat of his coach, and away he rode to Sittingbourne to bait. Rumbold rode thither also to bait in another inn; and riding some short while before his Grace, as soon as he had sight of him again, he planted himself in another field in the same playing posture as he had before; which his Grace seeing, when riding by, went again to see this strange gamester, whom he then took to be really a madman. No sooner was his Grace approaching Rumbold, who then had little or no money upon his cloth, than he cried out:

"Six hundred pounds."

"What!" said the Archbishop, "lost again?"

"No," replied Rumbold; "I won, by gad! I'll play this hand out, and then leave off. So, eight hundred pounds more, sir, won, I'll leave off while I'm well."

"And whom have you won off?" said his Grace. "Off the same person," replied Rumbold, "that I left the six hundred pounds with you for before you went to dinner."

"And how," said his Grace, "will you get your winnings?"

Says Rumbold, "Off his ambassador too."

So, riding up with sword and pistol in hand to his Grace's coach, he took fourteen hundred pounds out of the seat thereof above his own money, which he had entrusted in his hands to give to ―, and rode off.

One day, at Colebrook, being informed that a couple of travellers lay at a certain inn in the abovesaid town he rose early the next morning to waylay them in their journey to Reading, so went before them to surprise them at Maidenhead Thicket; but the travellers being cunning, they had given out in public the wrong road they were to go, for instead of riding to Reading, they went to Windsor, so that Rumbold, missing his prey, rode back again very melancholy, when meeting with the Earl of Oxford, who was attended only with one groom and a footman, he clapped his hair into his mouth to disguise himself for his intended design, and attacked his lordship with the terrifying words "Stand and deliver," withal swearing that if he made any resistance he was a dead man. The expostulations the Earl used to save what he had were as much in vain as to pretend to wash a blackamoor white; however he swore too that, since he must lose what he had, Rumbold should search his pockets himself, for he would not be at that trouble.

Upon this, our adventurer, commanding his lordship's servants to keep at above a hundred-foot distance upon pain of death, took the pains of searching the Earl, when, finding nothing but boxes and dice in the pockets of his coat and waistcoat, he began to rend the skies with many first-rate oaths, swearing also that he believed he was the groom-porter, or else some gaming sharper going to bite the poor country people at their fairs and  markets, till searching his breeches, he found within a good gold watch and six guineas. He changed his angry countenance into smiling features, and giving his lordship eighteen-pence, bade him be of good cheer, go up to his regiment then at London as fast as he could, and do his duty as he ought, and when he next met with him he would give him better encouragement.

Rumbold having a long time observed a goldsmith in Lombard Street to be very intent in counting several bags of money was resolved to have a share out of some of them; but having tried several essays, still came off disappointed. He had several rings about him which he had got by robbing, one of which had a very fine diamond set in it. Money being wanting, and so many disappointments crossing his desires, he went to the goldsmith's to sell him the ring, in company with a servant he kept. On entering the shop he pulled the ring off his finger and asked him what it was worth. The goldsmith, looking on him, and then on the ring, hoped to make the ring his own for a small matter; and seeing our adventurer (who had disguised himself in a plain country dress), believed that he had little skill in diamonds, and that this came accidentally into his possession, and that he might purchase it very easily. Wherefore being doubtful what to answer as to the price, he told the countryman that the worth of it was uncertain, for he could not directly tell whether it was a right or a counterfeit one. As for that, said our pretended countryman,

"I believe it is a right one, and dare warrant it; and indeed I intend to sell it, and therefore would know what you intend to give me for it."

"Truly," replied the goldsmith," it may be worth ten pounds."

"Yes, and more money," said the countryman.

"Not much more," answered the goldsmith; "for look you here," said he, "here is a ring which I will warrant is much better than yours, and I will also warrant it to be a good diamond, and I will sell it you for twenty pounds."

This the goldsmith said, supposing that the countryman, who came to sell, had no skill, inclination or money to buy. But our pretended countryman, believing that the goldsmith only said this thinking to draw him on to part with his own ring the more easily, and by that means cheat him, resolved, if he could, to be too wise for the goldsmith; wherefore, taking both the rings into his hands, through a pretence of comparing them together, he thus said:

"I am sure mine is a right diamond."

"And so is mine," replied the goldsmith.

"And," said the countryman, "shall I have it for twenty pounds?

"Yes," replied the goldsmith. "But," said he, "I suppose you came to sell and not to buy; and since you shall see I will be a good customer, I will give you fifteen pounds for yours."

"Nay," replied the countryman, "since I have the choice to buy or sell, I will never refuse a good pennyworth, as I think this is; therefore Master Goldsmith, I will keep my own, and give you money for yours."

"Where is it?" said the goldsmith hastily. And endeavouring then to seize on his ring― "Hold a blow there," said Rumbold; "here's your money, but the ring I will keep."

The goldsmith, seeing himself thus caught, fluttered and bounced like a madman, and Rumbold, pulling out a little purse, tolled down twenty pieces of gold, and said: "Here, shopkeeper, here's your money, but I hope you will allow the eighteen-pence apiece in exchange for my gold."

"Tell me not of exchange, but give me my ring," said the goldsmith.

"It is mine," said the countryman, "for I have bought it, and paid for it, and have witness of my bargain."

All this would not serve the goldsmith's turn, but he cursed and swore that Rumbold, the pretended countryman, came to cheat him, and the ring he would have; and at the noise several people came about the shop, but he was so perplexed he could not tell his tale. At length a constable came, and although the goldsmith knew not to what purpose, yet before a justice he would go. Rumbold seemed content, and therefore before a justice they went together. When they came there, the goldsmith, who was the plaintiff, began his tale, and said that the countryman had taken a diamond ring from him worth one hundred pounds, and would give him but twenty pounds for it.

"Have a care," replied Rumbold, "for if you charge me with taking a ring from you, I suppose that is stealing, and if you say so, I shall vex you more than I have yet done"; and then he told the justice the whole story as here related, which was then a very plain case, and for the proof of the matter our pretended country gentleman's man was a witness. The goldsmith, hearing this, alleged that he believed the country gentleman and his man were both impostors and cheats. To this our adventurer replied, as before, that he had better have a care he did not make his case worse, and bring an old house over his head by slandering him thus; for it was well known that he was a gentleman of three hundred pounds per annum, and lived at a place not above twenty miles from London, and that he, being desirous to sell a ring, came to his shop for that purpose; and he would have cheated him, but it proved that he only made a rod for his own breech, and what he intended for him had fallen upon himself. Thus did our adventurer make good his case; and the justice, seeing there was no injustice done, dismissed him, and ordered that his neighbour the goldsmith should have the twenty pieces of gold for twenty pounds, though they were worth more in exchange, and this was all the satisfaction he had.

Rumbold had a mighty itching after the goldsmiths' money in Lombard Street; he could not pass through that street and hear those tradesmen telling their sums but his hands longed to be feeling them. He had a boy who constantly attended him, who, every time his master had a mind to make some advantage to himself, went into a gold- smith's shop, took up a handful of money, and then, letting it all fall down on the counter, ran out. One time the boy performed this trick the servants in the shop ran after him and taxed him with stealing some of the money. Rumbold, who always vindicated his youngster, bade them take care what they said, and positively affirmed that his boy had not taken a farthing, and must be so plain with them as to tell them that the goldsmith should pay for it. Hereupon they fell to hot words, and the goldsmith, calling our adventurer a shirking fellow, said he would have both him and the boy sent to Newgate for robbing him, and that in conclusion he must and should pay for it. At first our adventurer desired to know with what sum they pretended to charge the boy; they said they knew not, but that he had taken money from a heap they were telling, and which was a hundred pounds. Rumbold, hearing them say thus, told them that he would stay the telling of it, and then they might judge who had the abuse. They were content with it, and accordingly went to telling. Half-an-hour had dispatched that matter, and then they found all their money was right to a farthing. The goldsmith, seeing this, asked our adventurer's pardon for the affront they had done him, saying it was a mistake. Rumbold answered to this that he must pay for his prating; and that being a person of quality, he would not put up with the affront, and that he must expect to hear further from him. The goldsmith, seeing our adventurer hot, was as choleric as he, and so they parted for that time. Rumbold the next day got the goldsmith to be arrested in an action of defamation, and the serjeant who arrested him, being well fed by our adventurer, told the goldsmith that he had better by far compound the matter, for the gentleman he had injured was a person of quality, and would not put it up, but make him pay soundly for it if he proceeded any further.

The goldsmith, being desirous of quiet, hearkened to his counsel, and agreed to give ten pounds; but that would not be taken, so twenty pounds was given to our adventurer, and the business was made up for the present.  Rumbold having got some of the goldsmith's money was determined to have more, or venture hard for it; wherefore having again given instructions to his boy what to do, he made several journeys to the goldsmith's, walking by his door to watch an opportunity. At length he found one; for seeing the servants tell a considerable quantity of gold, he gave the sign to his boy, who presently went in and, clapping his hand on the heap, took up and brought away a full handful, and coming to his master gave it him. Neither did the boy make so much haste out of the shop but that he could hear a stranger, who was in the shop receiving of money, say to the apprentice:

"Why, do not you stop the boy?"

"No," said the apprentice, "I do not mean to; I know him well enough. My master paid sauce lately for stopping of him."

And so they continued telling of their money.

Rumbold being intimately acquainted with a jeweller in Foster Lane, whom he had often helped to the sale of rings and jewels, which made his credit good with him, went one time into his workroom, and chancing to spy a very rich jewel he told him that he could help him to the sale thereof, my lady such-an-one having spoken to him about such a thing. The jeweller, glad of the opportunity, delivered it to our adventurer at such a price to sell for him. But Rumbold only carried it to another workman to have another made like it with counterfeit stones. Before he went, he asked if the lady disliked it whether he might leave it with his wife or servant.

"Aye, aye," says he, "either will be sufficient."

Rumbold was forced to watch a whole day to see when he went out, and being gone, presently went to the shop and inquired of his wife for her husband. She answered him that he was but just gone.

"Well, madam," said he, "you can do my business as well as he; it is only to deliver these stones into your custody"; and so he went his way.

Not long after, Rumbold met the jeweller in the street with displeasing looks.

"Sir," said he, "I thought a friend would not have served me so."

But our adventurer denied it stiffly; whereupon he was very angry, and told him he would prosecute him. Rumbold seemed not to value his threats, and so left him. Rumbold was not gone many paces before he met with a friend who complained to him that he had lost a very valuable locket of his wife's, it being stolen from her. Rumbold was glad to hear of such a circumstance that had fallen out so favourably to his present purpose; he asked him to give him a description of it, which he did punctually.

"Now," said Rumbold, "what will you give me if I tell you where it is?" "Anything in reason."

"Then go to such a shop in Foster Lane" (the same shop where he had cheated the man of his ring) "and there ask peremptorily for it, for I was there at such a time and saw it -- nay, he would have had me help him to a customer for it; meantime I'll stay at the Star Tavern for you"

Away he went and demanded his locket. The jeweller denied he had any such thing (as well he might). Upon this, Rumbold advised him to have a warrant for him, and to fetch him before a Justice of the Peace; and that he and the person who was with him would swear it. The goldsmith was instantly seized on by a constable, and as soon as he saw who they were that would swear against him, desired the gentleman to drink a glass of wine, and then ordered him satisfaction. But Rumbold had so ordered the business that it would not be taken unless he would give all three general releases. The goldsmith, knowing the danger that might ensue to life and estate if he persisted, consented to the proposal.

Rumbold walking one time in the fields with an attendant or two, who should be constantly bare before him if in company with any person of quality, but otherwise kind- fellow-well-met, he was got as far as Hackney before he knew he was, for his thoughts were busied in forming designs, and his wit was contriving how to put them into execution. Casting his eye on one side of him, he saw the prettiest-built and well-situated house that ever his eyes beheld. He had immediately a covetous desire to be master thereof. He was then, as fortune would have it, in a very handsome dress. He walked but a little way farther before he found out a plot to accomplish his desires. And thus it was. He returned and knocked at the gate, and demanded of the servant whether his master was within. He understood he was, and thereupon desired to speak with him. The gentleman came out to him himself, and desired him to walk in.

After Rumbold had made a general apology, he told him his business, which was only to request the favour of him that he might have the privilege to bring a workman to survey his house and to take his dimensions thereof, because he was so well pleased with the building that he earnestly desired to have another built exactly after that pattern. The gentleman could do no less than grant him so much civility. Coming home, he went to a carpenter, telling him he was about to buy a house at Hackney, and that he would have him go along with him, to give him (in private) the estimate. Accordingly they went, and found the gentleman at home, who entertained our adventurer kindly as a stranger. In the meantime the carpenter took an exact account of the buts and bounds of the house on paper, which was as much as he desired at that time. Paying the carpenter well, he dismissed him, and by that paper had a lease drawn with a very great fine (mentioned to have been paid) at a small rent. Witnesses he did not want to his deed, and shortly after he demanded possession. The gentleman, thinking our adventurer out of his wits, only laughed at him. Rumbold commenced a suit of law against him, and produced his creatures to swear to his sealing and delivery of the lease, and the carpenter's evidence, with many other probable circumstances to corroborate his cause; whereupon he had a verdict. The gentleman, by this time understanding who our adventurer was thought it safer to compound with him and lose something rather than all.

Another time, Rumbold, coming early one morning to an inn in the country, called for a flagon of beer, and desired a private room -- "For," said he, "I have company coming to me, and we have business together."

The tapster accordingly showed him a room, and brought him a flagon of beer, and with it a silver cup worth three pounds. Rumbold drank off his beer and called for another flagon, and at the same time desired the landlord to bear him company. The landlord, seeing him alone, sat and talked with him about State affairs till they were both weary and the landlord was ready to leave him.

"Well," said our adventurer," I see my company will not come, and therefore I will not stay any longer."

Neither did he; but having drank up his beer, he called to pay. "Fourpence," said the tapster. "There it is," answered our adventurer, laying it down, and so he went out of the room. The tapster stayed behind to bring away the flagon and silver cup, yet though he found the flagon, the cup was not to be found; wherefore, running hastily out of the room, he cried: "Stop the man!" Rumbold was not in such haste but that he quickly stopped of himself; he was not quite gone out of the doors, and therefore soon returned to the bar; where, when he was come --

"Well," said he, what is the matter? What would you have?"

"The cup," answered the tapster, "that I brought to you."

"I left it in the room," replied Rumbold.

"I cannot find it," answered the tapster; and at this noise the landlord appeared, who, hearing what was the matter, said: "I am sure the cup was there but just now, for I drank out of it."

"Aye, and it is there for me," replied our adventurer.

"Look then further," said the landlord. The tapster did so, but neither high nor low could he find the cup. "Well, then," said the landlord, "if it be gone you must pay for it, countryman, for you must either have it or know of its going, and therefore you must pay for it."

"Not I, indeed," replied our adventurer; "you see I have none of it. I have not been out of your house, nor nobody has been with me, how then can I have it? You may search me."

The landord immediately caused him to be searched, but there was no cup to be found. However, the landlord was resolved not to lose his cup so, and therefore he sent for a constable, and charged him with our adventurer, and threatened him with the justice. All this would not do, and Rumbold told him that threatened folks live long, and if he would go before a justice, he was ready to bear him company to him. The landlord was more and more perplexed at this, and seeing he could not have his cup, nor nothing confessed, before the justice they went. When they came, the landlord told the story as truly as it was, and our pretended countryman made the same answer there as he had done before to the landlord. The justice was perplexed, not knowing how to do justice. Here was a cup lost, and Rumbold did not deny but he had it; but gone it was, and although Rumbold was pursued, yet he did not fly; he had nobody with him, and therefore it could not be conveyed away by confederacy; and for his own part he had been and was again searched, but no such thing found about him, and he in all respects pleaded innocence. This though considered, and weighed in the balance of justice, he could not think that our adventurer had it, and therefore to commit him would be injustice. He considered all he could, and was inclined to favour the countryman, who was altogether a stranger, and he believed innocent, especially when he considered what kind of person the landlord was, of whose life and conversation he had both heard and known enough to cause him to believe that it might be possible that all this might be a trick of the landlord's to cheat our adventurer; and therefore he gave his judgment that he did not believe by the evidence that was given that the countryman had the cup, and that he would not commit him unless the landlord would lay and swear point-blank felony to his charge, and of that he desired the landlord to beware.

The landlord, seeing how the affair was likely to go, said no more, but he left it to Mr Justice, who, being of the opinion above-mentioned, discharged Rumbold, and advised the landlord to let him hear no more of such matters, and if he could not secure his plate, and know what company he had delivered it to, then to keep it up. The landlord thanked the justice for his advice, and so departed, our pretended countryman going about his business, and he returning home, being heartily vexed at his loss and the carriage of the whole affair, which was neither for his profit nor credit; but he was forced to sit down with the loss, being extremely uneasy at thinking which way he had lost the cup. He threw away some money upon a cunning man to know what was become of it, but all he could tell him was that he would hear of it again; and so he did shortly after, though it was to his further cost, and to little purpose.  He had some occasion to go to the market-town during the time of the assizes, and there seeing the prisoners brought to their trials, among others he espied Rumbold, whom he had charged with the silver cup. He inquired what was his crime, and was told it was for picking of a pocket.

"Nay, then," said the landlord, "probably I may hear of my cup again."

And therefore, when the trial was over and the prisoners carried back to the jail, he went and inquired for our adventurer, to whose presence he was soon brought. "O Lord, master! how do you do? Who thought to have seen you here? I believe you have not met with so good friends in this country as you did at our town of our justice; but let that pass. Come, let us drink together."

Hereupon a jug of ale was called for and some tobacco which they very lovingly drank off, and smoked together; which done, said the landlord to our adventurer:

"I would gladly be resolved in one point, which I question not but you can do."

"I suppose you mean," said Rumbold, "about the old business of the silver cup you lost?"

"Yes," said the landlord;" and the losing of it does not so much vex me as the manner how it was lost, and therefore," continued he, "if you would do me the kindness to give me the satisfaction how you came by it, I do protest I will acquit you although you are directly guilty."

"No, that will not do," replied Rumbold; "there is somewhat else in the case."

"Well, then," said the landlord, "if you will tell me, I will give you ten shillings to drink."

"Ready money does very well in a prison," said our adventurer, "and will prevail much; but how shall I be assured that you will not prosecute me if I should chance to be concerned?"

"For that ," replied the landlord, "I can give you no other warrant than my oath, which I will inviolably keep."

"Well, then," said Rumbold, "down with the merry grigs; let me handle the money, and I'll be very true to you, and as for your charging me with it I fear you not."

The landlord, being big with expectation to know how this clean conveyance was wrought, soon laid down the ten shillings, and then our countryman thus proceeded: "I must confess that I know which way your cup went, but when you charged me with it I had it not, neither was it out of the room, and I must tell you this, that if you had sought narrowly you might have found it, but it was not there long after. We who live by our wits must act by policy more than downright strength, and this cannot be done without confederates, and I had such in the management of this affair, for I left the cup fastened with soft wax under the middle of the board of the table where I drank; which place of the table, by reason it was covered with a cloth, as you may remember it was, it could not well be seen, and therefore you and your servants missed it. You know that very willingly I went with you to the justice; and whilst we were gone, those friends and confederates of mine, whom I had appointed, and who knew the room and everything else, went into the house, and into the same room, where they found the silver cup, and without the least suspicion went fairly off with it; and at a place appointed we met, and there acquainted one another with our adventures; and what purchases we had made we equally shared them between us."

The landlord, at hearing this discourse, was extremely surprised, although fully satisfied.

"But yet," said he, "I would be resolved one question, which is this: How if we had found it where you had put it whilst you were there?"

"Why, truly," said Rumbold, "then you would have charged me with nothing, and I would have put it off with a jest; and if that would not have done, the most you could have done would have been only to have kicked and beaten me, and those things we of our quality must venture. You know the old proverbs, ' Nothing venture, nothing have '; and 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' And we have this other proverb to help us: 'Fortune favours the bold,' as it commonly does those of our quality, and she did me, I thank her, in that attempt."

Rumbold thus descanted upon his actions, and the landlord, finding no likelihood of getting his cup, or anything else, from our adventurer, returned home.

We shall give our readers now the last adventure of Rumbold which he performed upon this mortal stage. It is this: Our adventurer, in company with two or three more cheats going together, saw a countryman who had a purse of money in his hand; they had observed him draw it to pay for some gingerbread he had bought on the road, wherefore they closed with him and endeavoured to nip his bung -- pick his pocket -- but could not, for he, knowing he was in a dangerous place, and among as dangerous company, put his purse of money into his breeches, which being close at the knees secured it from falling out, and besides he was very sly in having anybody come too near him. Our practitioners in the art of thieving, seeing this would not do, set their wits to working further, and having all their tools ready about them, and taking a convenient time and place, one of them goes before and drops a letter. Another of our adventurers, who had joined himself to the countryman, seeing it lie fairly for the purpose, says to him:

"Look you, what is here!" But although the countryman did stoop to take it up, yet our adventurer was too nimble for him in that, and having it in hand, said:

"Here is somewhat else besides a letter."

"I cry half," said the countryman.

"Well," said Rumbold,

"you stooped indeed as well as I, but I have it; however I'll be fair with you. Let us see what it is, and whether it is worth the dividing." And thereupon he breaks open the letter and there sees a fair chain or necklace of gold.

"Good fortune," says Rumbold, "if this be right gold."

"How shall we know that?" replied the countryman. "Let us see what the letter says." Which being short, and to the purpose, spoke thus:

BROTHER JOHN,―

I have here sent you back this necklace of gold you have sent me, not for any dislike I have to it, but my wife is covetous and would have a bigger; this comes not to above seven pounds, and she would have one of ten pounds; therefore pray get it changed for one of that price, and send it by the bearer to your loving brother, JACOB THORNTON.

"Nay, then, we have good luck," said the cheating dog, our adventurer; "but I hope," continued he to the countryman, "you will not expect a full share, for you know I found it, and besides, if we should divide it, I know not how to break it in pieces, but I doubt it would spoil it, therefore I had rather have my share in money."

"Well," said the countryman, "I'll give you your share in money, provided I may have a full share."

"That you shall," said Rumbold, "and therefore I must have of you three pounds ten shillings, the price in all being as you see seven pounds."

"Aye," said the countryman (thinking to be too cunning for our adventurer)," it may be worth seven pounds in money in all, fashion and all, but we must not value that, but only the gold; therefore I think three pounds in money is better than half the chain, and so much I'll give you if you'll let me have it ."

"Well, I'm contented," said Rumbold, "but then you shall give me a pint of wine over and above."

To this the countryman also agreed, and to a tavern they went, where Rumbold received the three pounds, and the countryman the chain, who believed he had met with good fortune. They drank off their wine and were going away, but Rumbold, having not yet done with him, intending to get the rest of the money from him, offered him his pint of wine, which the countryman accepted of; but before they had drank it off, in comes another of the same tribe, who asked whether such a man, naming one, were there.

"No," said the bar-keeper. Rumbold -- the countryman sitting near the other cheat all the while -- asked of the inquirer: "Did not you inquire for such a man?"

"Yes," said the inquirer. "Why," said Rumbold, "I can tell you this news of him, that it will not be long before he comes hither, for I met him as I came in, and he appointed me to come in here and stay with him."

"Well then, it is best for me to stay," said the inquirer; "but," continued he, "it would be more proper for us to take a larger room, for we cannot stir ourselves in this."

"Agreed," said Rumbold. So the reckoning was paid, and they agreed to take a larger room, leaving word at the bar that if any inquiry should be made for them, there they should find them. Accordingly they went into another room, and the countryman, having done his business, gave signs of going away.

"No," said Rumbold, "I beg you would stay and keep us company; it shall not cost you anything."

"Well then," said the countryman, "I am content to stay a little."

Being now in the room they called for a quart of wine, and drank it off. "What shall we do to spend time?" said the last cheat, "for I am weary of staying for this man. Are you sure you are not mistaken?"

"No," said the other. One of them upon this pretended to walk a turn round the room and, coming to the window, behind a cushion finds a pack of cards, which indeed he himself had laid there.

"Look you here," said he to the countryman and the other, "I have found some tools; now we may go to work and spend our time, if you will play." "Not I," said the countryman, "I'll not play."

"Then I will," said Rumbold; "but not for money."

"Why then," said the other, "for sixpence to be spent, and the game shall be putt." They being agreed, and the countryman being made overseer of the game, fell to playing, and the countryman's first acquaintance had the better of it, winning twelve games to the other's four.

"Come," said he, "what shall we do with all this drink? We will play twopence wet and fourpence dry."

To this the other agreed, and so they played; and at this low gaming Rumbold had, in short, won off his confederate ten shillings in money. The loser seemed to be angry, and therefore proposed to play for all money, hoping to make himself whole again.

"Nay," said the other, "I shall not refuse your proposition, because I have won your money." And therefore to it they went, and Rumbold had still the same luck, and won ten shillings more. Then the other would play for twelve-pence a game.

"No," said Rumbold, "I am not willing to exceed sixpence a game; I will not alter what I have begun, lest I change my fortune, unless this honest countryman will go my halves."

"I have no mind to gaming," replied the countryman.

"You need not play," said the other; "I'll do that, and you see my fortune is good. Venture a crown with me; you know we have both had fortune, which I hope will continue propitious to us still."

"Well content," said the countryman, and so they proceeded. Still Rumbold had good fortune, and he and the countryman won ten shillings apiece more off the other, which made them merry, and the other was extremely enraged; he therefore told them he would either win the horse or lose the saddle, and venture all now; and drawing out about thirty shillings, "Come, take it all, win it and wear it," and so they played. But they had now drawn the countryman in sufficiently, and he was flush, but it lasted not long thus before he was taken down a buttonhole lower, for the fortune changed, and what he had won was lost, and forty shillings more. He was now angry, but to no purpose, for he did not discover their foul play; and he, in hopes of his good fortune, ventured and lost the other forty shillings. And then he said he would go halves no longer, for he thought he would be merry and wise, and if he could not make a winning, he would be sure to make a secure bargain; which he reckoned he should do, because although he had lost four pounds in money, and given Rumbold three pounds for his share of the chain, that yet he should make seven pounds off the chain, and so be no loser.

They seeing he would not play, left off, and he that had won the money was content to give a collation, which was called for; but Rumbold, pretending much anger at his loss, was resolved to venture more, and to playing again he went, and in a short time he recovered a great deal of his losses. This vexed the countryman that he had not joined with him, and in the end, seeing his good fortune continue, and that he won, he again went halves, but it was not long that they thrived. The countryman was obliged to draw his purse, and in the end lost all his money, which was near twenty pounds. He did not think his condition to be so bad as it was, because he believed he had a chain worth seven pounds in his pocket, and therefore he reckoned he had not lost all.

By this time several other confederates (having been abroad, employed on the same account, cozening and cheating of others) came into the tavern, which was the place appointed for their rendezvous then they acquainted one another of their several gains and prizes, and afterwards fell to drinking, which they did very plentifully, and the countryman for anger called up the landlord to make one of the company. He soon understood what kind of guests he had in his house, and how they had cheated the poor countryman, and therefore he was resolved to serve them in the same sort. Accordingly he put forward the affair of drinking; and some, being hungered, called for victuals. He told them he would get them what they pleased, and they being determined to take up their quarters there for that night, a supper was bespoke for all the company, such as the master of the house in his discretion should think fit. He told them they should have it, and accordingly went down to provide supper. He soon returned and helped them off with their liquor till supper-time: by this time they were all perfectly drunk. He then commanded up supper, and they fell to with a shoulder of mutton and two capons. After supper, and having consumed more liquor, they went to bed, and it was time, for it was past midnight. They all slept better than the countryman, who could hardly sleep a wink for thinking on his misfortunes, and having such good fortune in the morning it should prove so bad before night.

But morning being come, he and they all arose, and the countryman's money being all spent he knew it was to no purpose for him to stay there; wherefore he resolved to go to a goldsmith in the city and sell or pawn his chain, that he might have some money to carry him home. Being come to the goldsmith's he produced the chain, which though at first sight he took to be gold, yet upon trial he found it otherwise, and that it was but brass gilt. He told the countryman the same, who at this heavy news was like to break his heart. The goldsmith, seeing the countryman in such a melancholy taking, inquired of him how he came by it. He soon acquainted him with the manner, and every circumstance. The goldsmith, as soon as he understood the cheat, advised him to go to a justice and get a warrant for him that had thus cheated him; and the countryman telling him he had no money nor friend, being a stranger, he himself went with him to the justice, who soon understood the matter, and granted his warrant.

The goldsmith procured a constable to go with him to the tavern, or night-house, where Rumbold was apprehended; but he found means some way or other to make his escape out of the house, as did the rest by main force.

Rumbold was not, as men of his profession generally are, very lavish with his money, for he had got above six hundred pounds, which he put into a friend's hands, with a resolution to improve it to the best advantage, without venturing his neck any more by robbing; but his banker (which makes good the old proverb, "To deceive the deceiver is no deceit ") running off with his cash, he was forced to take to the old trade of padding again, till he was like to have
been taken at a lodging in Golden Lane, at the end of Red Cross Street, by Barbican, but by a very narrow escape getting free of his pursuers, he still followed his wicked course of life, till he was at last apprehended and sent to Newgate. Being afterwards brought to his trial at the sessions-house in the Old Bailey, he was condemned, and whilst under sentence of death was particularly visited by one Mr Downs, formerly a factor at Virginia and Maryland in America. Whilst Rumbold was in the condemned hold he began to have serious meditations of his former ill-spent life; and through the great pains Mr Downs took with him in his melancholy moments he entertained good thoughts about preparing himself for his latter end, earnestly requiring him that he would vouchsafe the favour of seeing him ride up Holborn to make his last exit at Tyburn.

Accordingly Mr Downs granted his request, by not only standing in an ale-house to see him go by, but also charitably calling out to him, saying, "Dear friend Rumbold, I wish you a good journey," which he took so kindly at his hands that he went with a great deal of joy to the gallows, saying that now he plainly saw, to his great consolation, that his old acquaintance would not forget him to the last. So he ended his wicked life, aged about forty-six years, in 1689.

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11: William Davis, The Golden Farmer

Who was Farmer and Highwayman for Forty-two Years without his Neighbours suspecting. Executed 20th of December, 1689

THE Golden Farmer was so called from his occupation and from paying people, if it was any considerable sum, always in gold; but his real name was William Davis, born at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, in North Wales, from whence he removed, in his younger years, to Salisbury,in Gloucestershire, where he married the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper, by whom he had eighteen children, and followed the farmer's business to the day of his death, to shroud his robbing on the highway, which irregular practice he had followed for forty-two years without any suspicion among his neighbours.

He generally robbed alone, and one day, meeting three or four stage-coaches going to Salisbury, he stopped one of them which was full of gentlewomen, one of whom was a Quaker. All of them satisfied the Golden Farmer's desire excepting this precisian, with whom he had a long argument to no purpose, for upon her solemn vow and affirmation she told him she had no money, nor anything valuable about her; whereupon, fearing he should lose the booty of the other coaches, he told her he would go and see what they had to afford him, and he would wait on her again. So having robbed the other three coaches he returned, according to his word, and the Quaker persisting still in her old tone of having nothing for him it put the Golden Farmer into a rage, and taking hold of her shoulder, shaking her as a mastiff does a bull, he cried: "You canting bitch! if you dally with me at this rate, you'll certainly provoke my spirit to be damnably rude with you. You see these good women here were so tender-hearted as to be charitable to me, and you, you whining whore, are so covetous as to lose your life for the sake of mammon. Come, come, you hollow-hearted bitch, unpin your purse-string quickly, or else I shall send you out of the land of the living."

Now the poor Quaker, being frightened out of her wits at the bullying expressions of the wicked one, gave him a purse of guineas, a gold watch and a diamond ring, and they parted then as good friends as if they had never fallen out at all.

Another time this desperado, meeting with the Duchess of Albemarle in her coach, riding over Salisbury Plain, was put to his trumps before he could assault her Grace, by reason he had a long engagement with a postilion, a coachman and two footmen before he could proceed in his robbery; but having wounded them all, by the discharging of several pistols, he then approached to his prey, whom he found more refractory than his female Quaker had been, which made him very saucy, and more eager for fear of any passengers coming by in the meanwhile; but still her Grace would not part with anything.

Whereupon by main violence he pulled three diamond rings off her fingers, and snatched a rich gold watch from her side, crying to her at the same time, because he saw her face painted: "You bitch incarnate, you had rather read over your face in the glass every moment, and blot out pale to put in red, than give an honest man, as I am, a small matter to support him on his lawful occasions on the road," and then rode away as fast as he could, without searching her Grace for any money, because he perceived another person of quality's coach making towards them, with a good retinue of servants belonging to it.

Not long after this exploit, the Golden Farmer meeting with Sir Thomas Day, a Justice of Peace living at Bristol, on the road betwixt Gloucester and Worcester, they fell into discourse together, and riding along he told Sir Thomas, whom he knew, though the other did not know him, how he was like to have been robbed but a little before by a couple of highwaymen; but as good luck would have it, his horse having better heels than theirs, he got clear of them, or else, if they had robbed him of his money, which was about forty pounds, they would certainly have undone him for ever. "Truly," quoth Sir Thomas Day," that would have been very hard; but nevertheless, as you would have been robbed between sun and sun, the county, upon your suing it, would have been obliged to have made your loss good again." But not long after this chatting together, coming to a convenient place, the Golden Farmer, shooting Sir Thomas's man's horse under him, and obliging him to retire some distance from it, that he might not make use of the pistols that were in his holsters, presented a pistol to Sir Thomas's breast, and demanded his money of him. Quoth Sir Thomas: "I thought, sir, that you had been an honest man."

The Golden Farmer replied: "You see your Worship's mistaken, and had you had any guts in your brains you might have perceived by my face that my countenance was the very picture of mere necessity; therefore deliver presently, for I am in haste."

Then, Sir Thomas Day giving the Golden Farmer what money he had, which was about sixty pounds in gold and silver, he humbly thanked his Worship, and told him, that what he had parted with was not lost, because he was robbed betwixt sun and sun, therefore the county, as he told him, must pay it again.

One Mr Hart, a young gentleman of Enfield, who had a good estate, but was not overburdened with wit, and therefore could sooner change a piece of gold than a piece of sense, riding one day over Finchley Common, where the Golden Farmer had been hunting about four or five hours for a prey, he rides up to him and, giving the gentleman a slap with the flat of his drawn hanger over his shoulders, quoth he: "A plague on you! How slow you are, to make a man wait on you all this morning. Come, deliver what you have, and be poxed to you, and go to hell for orders!"

The gentleman, who was wont to find a more agreeable entertainment betwixt his mistress and his snuff-box, being surprised at the rustical sort of greeting, began to make several sorts of excuses, and say he had no money about him; but his antagonist, not believing him, made bold to search his pockets himself, and finding in them above a hundred guineas, besides a gold watch, he gave him two or three slaps over the shoulder again with his hanger; and at the same time bade him not give his mind to lying any more, when an honest gentleman desired a small boon of him.

Another time this notorious robber had paid his landlord above forty pounds for rent, who going home with it, the goodly tenant, disguising himself, met the grave old gentleman, and bidding him stand, quoth he: "Come, Mr Gravity from head to foot, but from neither head nor foot to the heart, deliver what you have in a trice." The old man, fetching a deep sigh, to the hazard of losing several buttons of his waistcoat, said that he had not above two shillings about him; therefore he thought he was more of a gentleman than to take a small matter from a poor man. Quoth the Golden Farmer: "I have not the faith to believe you; for you seem by your mien and habit to be a man of better circumstance than you pretend; therefore open your budget or else I shall fall foul about your house.

"Dear sir," replied his landlord, "you cannot be so barbarous to an old man. What! Have you no religion, pity or compassion in you? Have you no conscience? Have you no respect for your own body and soul, which must be certainly in a miserable condition, if you follow unlawful courses?"

"Damn you!" said the tenant to him, "don't talk of age and barbarity to me; for I show neither pity nor compassion to any. Damn you, don't talk of conscience to me! I have no more of that dull commodity than you have; nor do I allow my soul and body to be governed by religion, but interest; therefore, deliver what you have, before this pistol makes you repent your obstinacy."

So, delivering his money to the Golden Farmer, he received it without giving the landlord any receipt for it, as his landlord had him. Not long after committing this robbery, overtaking an old grazier at Putney Heath, in a very ordinary attire, but yet very rich, he takes half-a-score guineas out of his pocket, and giving them to the old man he said there were three or four persons behind them who looked very suspicious, therefore he desired the favour of him to put that gold into his pocket; for in case they were highwaymen, his indifferent apparel would make them believe he had no such charge about him.

The old grazier, looking upon his intentions to be honest, quoth: "I have fifty guineas tied up in the fore-lappet of my shirt, and I'll put it to that for security." So riding along, both of them check by jowl, for above half-a-mile, and the coast being clear, the Golden Farmer said to the old man: "I believe there's nobody will take the pains of robbing you or me today; therefore, I think I had as good take the trouble of robbing you myself; so instead of delivering your purse, pray give me the lappet of your shirt."

The old grazier was horridly startled at these words, and began to beseech him not to be so cruel in robbing a poor old man.

"Prithee," quoth the Golden Farmer, "don't tell me of cruelty; for who can be more cruel than men of your age, whose pride it is to teach their servants their duties with as much cruelty as some people teach their dogs to fetch and carry?"

So being obliged to cut off the lappet of the old man's shirt himself, for he would not, he rode away to seek out another booty.

Another time this bold robber, lying at an inn in Uxbridge, happened into company with one Squire Broughton, a barrister of the Middle Temple, which he understanding, pretended to him that he was going up to London to advise with a lawyer about some business; wherefore, he should be much obliged to him if he could recommend him to a good one. Counsellor Broughton, thinking he might be a good client, bespoke him for himself. Then, the Golden Farmer telling his business was about several of his neighbours' cattle breaking into his grounds and doing a great deal of mischief, the barrister told him that was very actionable, as being damage feasant.

"Damage feasant," said the Golden Farmer; "what's that, pray, sir?"

He told him that it was an action brought against persons when their cattle broke through hedges, or other fences, into other people's grounds, and did them damage. Next morning, as they both were riding toward London, says the Golden Farmer to the barrister: "If I may be so bold as to ask you, sir, what is that you call 'trover' and 'conversion'?" He told him it signified in our common law an action which a man has against another that, having found any of his goods, refuses to deliver them upon demand, and perhaps converts them to his own use also.

The Golden Farmer being now at a place convenient for his purpose -- "Very well, sir," says he, "and so, if I should find any money about you, and convert it to my use, why then that is only actionable, I find."

"That's a robbery," said the barrister, "which requires no less satisfaction than a man's life."

"A robbery!" replied the Golden Farmer. "Why then, I must e'en commit one for once and not use it; therefore deliver your money, or else behold this pistol shall prevent you from ever reading Coke upon Littleton any more."

The barrister, strangely surprised at his client's rough behaviour, asked him if he thought there was neither heaven nor hell, that he could be guilty of such wicked actions. Quoth the Golden Farmer:

"Why, you son of a whore, thy impudence is very great, to talk of heaven or hell to me, when you think there's no way to heaven but through Westminster Hall. Come, come, down with your rhino this minute; for I have other guess customers to mind, than to wait on you all day."

The barrister was very loath to part with his money, still insisting on the injustice of the action, saying it was against law and conscience to rob any man. However the Golden Farmer, heeding not his pleading, swore he was not to be guided by law and conscience any more than any of his profession, whose law is always furnished with a commission to arraign their consciences; but upon judgment given they usually had the knack of setting it at large. So putting a pistol to the barrister's breast, he quickly delivered his money, amounting to about thirty guineas, and eleven broad-pieces of gold, besides some silver, and a gold watch.

Thus the Golden Farmer, having run a long course in wickedness, was at last discovered in Salisbury Court; but as he was running along, a butcher, endeavouring to stop him, was shot dead by him with a pistol; being apprehended nevertheless, he was committed to Newgate, and shortly after executed, at the end of Salisbury Court, in Fleet Street, on Friday the 20th of December, 1689; and afterwards was hanged in chains, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, on Bagshot Heath.

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1690

12: Jack Bird

A Highwayman who boxed an Earl's Chaplain for Twenty Guineas. Executed 12th of March, 1690

THIS notorious malefactor was born at Stainford in Lincolnshire, of very honest parents, by whom, after he had been at school to learn reading, writing and accounts, he was put apprentice to a baker at Godmanchester, near Huntington. He had not served three years before he ran away from his master, came to Lincoln, and enlisted in the foot-guards. While he was in the army he was at the Siege of Maestricht, under the command of the Duke of Monmouth, who was General of the English Forces in the Low Countries.

Here he was reduced to such necessities as are common to men who engage themselves to kill one another for a groat or fivepence a day. This occasioned him to run away from his colours, and fly to Amsterdam, where he stole a piece of silk off a stall; for which fact he was apprehended and dragged before a magistrate. The effect of this was a commitment to the rasp-house, where he was put to hard labour, such as rasping logwood, and other drudgeries, for a twelvemonth.

As Jack had never been used to work, he fainted under the sentence, though to little purpose; for his taskmasters, imputing it to a stubborn laziness, inflicted a severer punishment upon him, the manner of which was as follows. He was chained down to the bottom of a dry cistern by one foot; immediately upon which, several cocks were set a-running into it, and he was obliged to pump for his life. The cistern was much deeper than he was high; so that if the water had prevailed he must inevitably have been drowned, without relief or pity. Jack was very sensible of his danger, which occasioned him to labour with all his might for an hour, which was as long as the sentence was to continue. Having overcome this difficulty, he plied his business very well the remaining part of the year, when being released he returned into England, with a resolution to try his fortune on the highway.

Near St Edmundsbury he stole a horse, and he had before provided half-a-dozen good pistols and a sword. Success attended him in his three or four first robberies, but an unlucky adventure soon brought about a turn in his affairs.  In the road between Gravesend and Chatham he met with one Mr Joseph Pinnis, a pilot of Dover, who had lost both his hands in an engagement. He had been at London to receive ten or twelve pounds for carrying a Dutch ship up the river. When Bird accosted him with the salutation common to gentlemen of his profession, "You see, sir," quoth Pinnis, "that I have never a hand; so that I am not able to take my money out of my pocket myself. Be so kind, therefore, as to take the trouble of searching me."

Jack soon consented to this very reasonable request; but while he was very busy in examining the contents of the pilot's purse the boisterous old tar suddenly clapped his arms about his neck, and spurring his own horse pulled our adventurer from his; then falling directly upon him, and being a very strong man, he kept him under, and mauled him with his stirrups, which were plated. In the midst of the scuffle some passengers came by, and inquired the occasion of it. Mr Pinnis replied with telling them the particulars and desiring them to supply his place, and give the villain a little more of the same, adding that he was almost out of breath with what he had done already. When the company understood what was the reason of the pilot's labouring so hard upon the bones of our ruffian they apprehended him, and carried him before a justice, who committed him to Maidstone jail, where he continued till the assizes, and then was condemned to be hanged.

This time Jack had the good fortune to receive mercy, and afterwards to obtain his liberty. The remembrance of his being so heartily thumped by a man without hands stuck so much in his stomach that he had almost a mind to grow honest; and indeed he continued pretty orderly till he was again reduced to necessitous circumstances for want of employment. He had no trade that he was master of, nor learning enough to secure him a maintenance in a genteel way; so that when he found himself in the utmost straits, he could see no other method of supporting himself than what he had formerly followed. The first that he met with, after he had resolved to set out in pursuit of new enterprises, was a Welsh drover, about a mile beyond Acton. The fellow, being almost as stout as Mr Pinnis, would not obey the usual precept, but began to lay about him with a good quarter-staff, which he had in his hands. Jack, when he saw Taffy's courage, leaped nimbly out of the way of his staff, and told him that he had been taken once by a son of a whore without hands; "and for that trick," says he, "I shall not venture my carcass within reach of one that has hands, for fear of something worse." While he was speaking he pulled out a pistol, and instantly shot him through the head. Rifling his pockets, and finding but eighteen-pence, he said ironically: "This is a prize worth killing a man for at any time." He then rode away about his business, as little concerned as if he had done no mischief at all.

Being again encouraged by a series of successful adventures, and having remounted himself on a very good horse, he was resolved to venture on higher exploits. An opportunity for putting this resolution into practice soon fell in his way, by his meeting the mad Earl of P―, and his chaplain, who was little better than himself, in a coach, with no more attendants than the coachman and one footman. "Stand and deliver!" was the word. His lordship told him that he did not trouble himself about losing the small matter he had about him.

"But then," says he, "I hope you will fight for it."

Jack, upon this, pulled out a brace of pistols, and let off a volley of imprecations. "Don't put yourself into a passion, friend," says his honour, "but lay down your pistols, and I will box you fairly for all the money I have, against nothing."

"That's an honourable challenge, my Lord," quoth Jack, "provided none of your servants be near us." The Earl immediately ordered them to keep at a distance.

The chaplain, like Withrington in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, could not bear to see an earl fight on foot while he stood looking on; so he desired the honour of espousing the cause of his lordship. To which both parties readily agreeing, off went the divinity in a minute, and to blows and bloody noses they came.

Though Jack had once the ill-fortune to be stumped out of his liberty by a sturdy old sailor, he was nevertheless too hard for his Reverence in less than a quarter of an hour. He beat him in such a manner that he could not see, and had but just breath enough to cry: "I'll fight no more." About two minutes after this victory (which he took for a breathing time) Jack told his lordship that now, if he pleased, he would take a turn with him.

"By no means," quoth the Earl, "for if you beat my chaplain, you will beat me, he and I having tried our manhood before."

So giving our hero twenty guineas, his honour rode off in a whole skin.

While Jack resided in town he married a young woman who had been servant to a dyer near Exeter Exchange, in the Strand. But though Bird was married, he did not confine himself to any one woman; for we are told that he was continually. in company with whores and bawds. One night in particular, having a woman with him, he knocked down a man, between Dutchy Lane and the Great Savoy Gate in the Strand, and, having robbed him, made off safely; but the woman was apprehended, and sent to Newgate. Jack went to her, in hopes to make up the affair with the prosecutor, and was thereupon taken, on suspicion, and confined with her.

At his trial he confessed the fact, and took it wholly upon himself; so that the woman was acquitted, and he condemned to suffer death; which sentence was inflicted on him at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 12th of March, 1690, he being forty-two years of age. After execution his body was conveyed to Surgeons' Hall, and there anatomised. He spoke but very little at the gallows; what he did say consisted chiefly of invectives against lewd women, and advice to young men not to be seduced by their conversation from the rules of virtue and morality.

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13: Old Mobb

A Highwayman who took to cheating the Citizens of London. Executed

30th of May, 1690

THIS man was born at Ramsey, in Hampshire, which continued to be the place of his habitation, when he resided anywhere under his right name, till the day of his apprehending; and he had a wife and five children, besides grandchildren, living there at the time of his shameful death.  We have no particular account of his education and private life, from whence we may conclude there was nothing remarkable in either. His adventures on the road we shall relate in the order which we have received them, which is the only method we can follow.

Riding one time between Honiton and Exeter, he met with Sir Bartholomew Shower, whom he immediately called to account for the money he had about him. Sir Bartholomew gave him all he had without any words, which proved to be but a very little. Old Mobb looked upon his prize, and finding it infinitely short of his expectations readily told him that there was not enough to answer his present demands, which were very large, and very pressing.

"And therefore, sir," says he, "as you are my banker in general, you must instantly draw a bill upon somebody at Exeter for one hundred and fifty pounds, and remain in the next field, as security for the payment, till I have received it."

The Knight would fain have made some evasion, and protested that there was nobody in Exeter who would pay such a sum at a moment's warning; but Old Mobb so terrified him with holding a pistol to his breast that his worship at last consented, and drew upon a rich goldsmith.

As soon as Old Mobb had got the note, he made Sir Bartholomew dismount, and walk far enough from the road to be out of everybody's hearing, then bound him hand and foot and left him under a hedge, while he rode to Exeter, and received the money, which was paid without any scruple, the goldsmith knowing the handwriting perfectly well. When he returned, he found the poor Knight where he left him.

"Sir," says he, "I am come with a Habeas Corpus to remove you out of your present captivity "; which he accordingly did by untying him and sending him about his business. But Sir Bartholomew was obliged to walk home, which was fully three miles, for our adventurer had cut the girths and bridle of his horse, and turned him stray, ever since he went to Exeter with the note.

Mr John Gadbury, the astrologer, was another who fell into the hands of Old Mobb, who, notwithstanding his familiarity with the stars, was not wise enough to foresee his own misfortune, which has been a common case with men of his profession. This rencounter was on the road between Winchester and London. Poor Gadbury trembled, and turned as white as a clout, when Old Mobb told him what he wanted, professing that he had no more money about him than just enough to bear his expenses to London; but our highwayman was not at all moved with compassion at what he said.

"Are not you a lying son of a whore," quoth he, "to pretend you want money when you hold twelve large houses of the planets by lease parole, which you let out again to the Stationers' Company at so much per annum? You must not sham poverty upon me, sir, who know as good things as yourself, and who have a pistol that may prove as fatal as Sirius in the dog days, if you stand trifling with me."

Mr Gadbury was at this time, indeed, more apprehensive of Old Mobb's pistol than of any star in the firmament; for he was sensible the influence of it, if discharged, would be much more violent and sudden; so that he looked like one out of his senses. He was now even afraid to deliver his money, lest he should suffer for telling a lie. However, as he saw there was no remedy, he pulled out a bag, in which was about nine pounds in gold and silver, which he gave with a few grumbling expressions. Old Mobb told him he should take no exception at what he said, for it was but just that the loser should have leave to speak, so, setting spurs to his horse, he left the star-gazer to curse the disastrous constellations.

One day Old Mobb overtook the stage-coach going for Bath, with only one gentlewoman in it. When he had commanded the coachman to stop, and was come to the door to raise contribution after his usual manner, the passenger made a great many excuses, and wept very plentifully, in order to move him to pity; she told him she was a poor widow, who had lately lost her husband, and therefore she hoped he would have some compassion on her.

"And is your losing your husband then," says he, "an argument that I must lose my booty? I know your sex too well, madam, to suffer myself to be prevailed on by a woman's tears. Those crocodile drops are always at your command; and no doubt but that dear cuckold of yours, whom you have lately buried, has frequently been persuaded out of his reason by their interposition in your domestic debates. Weeping is so customary to you, that everybody would be disappointed if a woman was to bury her husband and not weep for him; but you would be more disappointed if nobody was to take notice of your crying; for according to the old proverb, the end of a husband is a widow's tears; and the end of those tears is another husband."

The poor gentlewoman upon this ran out into an extravagant detail of her deceased husband's virtues, solemnly protesting that she would never be married again to the best man that wore a head, for she should not expect a blessing to attend her afterwards; with a thousand other things of the same kind. Old Mobb at last interrupted her, and told her he would repeat a pleasant story in verse which he had learned by heart, so, first looking round him to see that the coast was clear on every side, he began as follows:

"A widow prude had often swore

No bracelet should approach her more;

Had often proved that second marriage

Was ten times worse than maid's miscarriage,

And always told them of their sin,

When widows would be wives agen:

Women who'd thus themselves abuse,

Should die, she thought, like honest Jews

Let her alone to throw the stones;

If 'twere but law, she'd make no bones.

Thus long she led a life demure;

But not with character secure:

For people said (what won't folks say?)

That she with Edward went astray:

(This Edward was her servant-man)

The rumour through the parish ran,

She heard, she wept, she called up Ned,

Wiped her eyes dry, sighed, sobbed, and said:

'Alas! what sland'rous times are these!

What shall we come to by degrees!

This wicked world! I quite abhor it!

The Lord give me a better for it!

On me this scandal do they fix?

On me? who, God knows, hate such tricks!

Have mercy, Heaven, upon mankind,

And grant us all a better mind!

My husband― Ah that dearest man!

Forget his love I never can;

He took such care of my good name,

And put all sland'rous tongues to shame.―

But, ah! he's dead―' Here grief amain,

Came bubbling up, and stopped the strain.

Ned was no fool; he saw his cue,

And how to use good fortune knew:

Old Opportunity at hand,

He seized the lock, and bid him stand;

Urged of what use a husband was

To vindicate a woman's cause,

Exclaimed against the sland'rous age;

And swore he could his soul engage

That madam was so free from fault

She ne'er so much as sinned in thought;

Vowing he'd lose each drop of blood

To make that just assertion good.

This logic, which well pleased the dame,

At the same time eludes her shame:

A husband, for a husband's sake,

Was what she'd ne'er consent to take.

Yet, as the age was so censorious,

And Ned's proposals were so glorious,

She thought 'twas best to take upon her,

A second guardian of her honour."

"This," says Old Mobb, "is an exact picture of woman-kind, and as such I committed it to memory; you are very much obliged to me for the recital, which has taken me up more time than I usually spend in taking a purse; let us now pass from the dead to the living, for it is these that I live by. I am in a pretty good humour, and so will not deal rudely by you. Be so kind, therefore, as to search yourself, and use me as honestly as you are able; you know I can examine afterwards, if I am not satisfied with what you give me."

The gentlewoman found he was resolute, and so thought it the best way to keep him in temper, which she did by pulling out forty guineas in a silk purse, and presented them to him. It is fifty to one but Old Mobb got more by repeating the verses above than the poor poet that wrote them ever made of his copy. Such is the fate of the sons of Apollo.

Scarce was Old Mobb parted from this gentlewoman before he saw the appearance of another prize at some distance. Who should it be but the famous Lincoln's Inn Fields mountebank, Cornelius a Tilburgh, who was going to set up a stage at Wells. Our adventurer knew him very well, as indeed did almost everyone at that time, which occasioned his demanding his money in a little rougher language than usual. The poor quacksalver was willing to preserve what he had; and to that end used a great many fruitless expostulations, pretending that he had expended all the money he had brought out with him, and was himself in necessity. But Old Mobb soon gave him to understand that he would not be put off with fine words; and that he had more wit than to believe a mountebank, whose profession is lying.

"You get your money," says he, "as easily as I do, and it is only fulfilling an old proverb if you give me all you have: 'Lightly come, lightly go.' Next market-day, doctor, will make up all, if you have any luck. It will excite people to buy your packets if, as an instance of your great desire to serve them, you tell them what you suffered upon your journey, which nevertheless could not hinder your coming to exercise your bowels of compassion among them, and to restore such as are in a languishing condition."

The empiric could scarce forbear laughing to hear Old Mobb hold forth so excellently well, and lay open the craft of his occupation with so much dexterity. He was, notwithstanding, very unwilling to part with his money, and began to read a lecture of morality to our desperado, upon the unlawfulness of his actions, telling him that what he did might frequently be the ruin of poor families, and oblige them afterwards to follow irregular courses, in order to make up what they had lost.

"And then," says he, "you are answerable for the sins of such people."

"This is the devil correcting sin with a witness," quoth Old Mobb. "Can I ruin more people than you, dear Mr Theophrastus Bombastus? You are a scrupulous, conscientious son of a whore, indeed, to tell me of ruining people. I only take their money away from them; but you frequently take away their lives: and what makes it the worse you do it safely, under a pretence of restoring them to health; whereas I should be hanged for killing a man, or even robbing him, if I were taken. You have put out more eyes than the smallpox, made more deaf than the cataracts of Nile; in a word, destroyed more than the pestilence. It is in vain to trifle with me, doctor, unless you have a remedy against the force of gunpowder and lead. If you have any such excellent specific, make use of it instantly, or else deliver your money."

Our itinerant quack still continuing his delays, Old Mobb made bold to take a portmanteau from his horse, and put it upon his own, riding off with it, till he came to a convenient place for opening it. Upon examining the inside, he found five and twenty pounds in money and a large golden medal, which King Charles II. had given him for poisoning himself in his Majesty's presence; besides all his instruments and implements of quackery.

Another time Old Mobb met with the Duchess of Portsmouth, on the road between Newmarket and London, attended with a very small retinue. He made bold to stop the coach, and ask her Grace for what she had about her; but madam, who had been long used to command a monarch, did not understand the meaning of being spoken to in this manner by a common man. Whereupon she briskly demanded if he knew who she was.

"Yes, madam," replied Old Mobb, "I know you to be the greatest whore in the kingdom; and that you are maintained at the public charge. I know that all the courtiers depend on your smiles, and that even the K― himself is your slave. But what of all that? A gentleman collector is a greater man upon the road, and much more absolute than his Majesty is at Court. You may now say, madam, that a single highwayman has exercised his authority where Charles II. of England has often begged a favour, and thought himself happy to obtain it at the expense of his treasure, as well as his breath."

Her Grace continued to look upon him with a superior lofty air, and told him he was a very insolent fellow; that she would give him nothing, and that he should severely suffer for this affront. Adding that he might touch her if he durst.

"Madam," says Old Mobb, "that haughty French spirit will do you no good here. I am an English freebooter; and insist upon it as my native privilege to seize all foreign commodities. Your money indeed is English, and the prodigious sums that have been lavished on you will be a lasting proof of English folly; nevertheless, all you have is confiscated to me by being bestowed on such a worthless b―h. I am king here, madam, and I have a whore to keep on the public contributions as well as King Charles. It is for this that I collect of all that pass, and you shall have no favour from me."

As soon as he had spoken he fell on board her in a very boisterous manner, so that her Grace cry out for quarter, telling him she would deliver all she had. She was as good as her word; for she surrendered two hundred pounds in money, which was in the seat of the coach, besides a very rich necklace, which her royal cully had lately given her, a gold watch and two diamond rings.

Not long after the committing of this robbery, Old Mobb met with Sir George Jeffreys, at that time Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, as he was going to his country seat. My Lord Chief Justice upon the road was no more than another man; for Old Mobb disabled two servants that attended him, by shooting one through the arm, and the other through the thigh, and then stopped the coach, and demanded his Lordship's money. Jeffreys had before this made himself sufficiently famous, by his Western Assizes, and other very severe proceedings, so that he imagined his name carried terror enough in it to intimidate any man; but he was mistaken in Old Mobb, who had courage to speak his mind without any respect to persons, and when his Lordship told him his name only said he was glad he could be revenged on him in any manner for putting him in bodily fear at Hertford Assizes a few months before.

"According to law, my Lord," says he, "I might charge a constable with you, and bind you over to the Quarterly Sessions, for threatening to take away my life. However, if you please, as I don't love to be spiteful, I will make up the matter with you for what money you have in the coach, which, I think, is as easy as you can desire, and easier than you deserve."

Jeffreys expostulated with him upon the great hazard he ran, both of soul and body, by following such wicked courses, telling him that he must expect justice to follow his crimes if he believed there was any such thing as a Providence that governed the world.

"I don't doubt," says Old Mobb, "but that when justice has overtaken us both, I shall stand at least as good a chance as your Lordship; who have already written your name in indelible characters of blood, by putting to death so many hundred innocent men, for only standing up in defence of our common liberties, that you might secure the favour of your Prince. It is enough for you to preach morality upon the Bench, where nobody dares to contradict you; but your lessons can have no effect upon me at this time; for I know you too well not to see that they are only calculated to preserve money."

This speech of Old Mobb was followed with fifty oaths and imprecations against the poor Judge, which threatened him with nothing but immediate death if he did not deliver his money. Jeffreys saw his authority would now stand him in no stead; so he gave what money he had, which amounted to about fifty-six guineas.

We took notice at the beginning of this life of Old Mobb that he sometimes was engaged with the Golden Farmer; the reader may therefore justly expect an account of some of their actions in concert; two stories, the most remarkable and diverting that we have seen concerning them, now follow. Having both of them a pretty deal of ready cash, and being willing to retire a little while from the highway, where they had lately made a great noise, and were now very much sought after, they came to London, in order to make use of their wits, of which they had both as great shares as they had of strength and courage. Here their first work was to observe the humours and manners of the citizens, which neither of them was well acquainted with before, that they might know the better how to proceed, and impose upon them in their own way.

Everyone knows that London is all hurry and noise; every man there is a man of business, and those who make good appearances never want credit. All people there live by mutual dependence upon one another, and he who has dealt for two or three hundred pounds, and made good his payments, may afterwards be trusted for five. Our adventurers soon perceived all this, and what advantages many designing men made of the general confidence that people reposed in each other. They saw that nobody could teach them how to cheat a citizen so well as a citizen himself, and thereupon they concluded that the best way they could take was, to both turn tradesmen.

Each of them now takes a large handsome house, hires two or three servants, and sets up for a great dealer. The Golden Farmer's habitation was in Thames Street, where he passed for a corn chandler, which occupation he had the most knowledge in of any. Old Mobb took up his residence somewhere near the Tower, and called himself a Holland trader, he having been abroad when a boy, and knowing pretty well what commodities were exported to that country, of the language of which he had also a small smattering. They went for near relations, of the name of Bryan, and said they were North Country men.

They now employ all their time in inquiring after goods in their several ways, buying whatever comes to their hands, and either paying ready money themselves, or drawing upon each other for one, two or three days; at which time payment was always punctually made. This constant tide of money was kept up by their continually selling privately what they bought (sometimes, perhaps, not a little to loss) to such persons as are glad to make use of their cash in this manner; and always wink at things which they can't comprehend, while they find their interest in it. As they dealt in very different ways, the chapmen of the one had no knowledge of those of the other; so that though every one of them had been sent at one time or another, by his respective customer, to receive money off his kinsman, none of them had any notion that the correspondence was mutual, and consequently no suspicion of a fraud at the bottom.

Thus they continued till they both found their characters thoroughly established. Perhaps in this time they may each of them have lost a hundred or two pounds, but they very well knew that this loss would get them as many thousands. When they saw that all who dealt with them were ready to send in what goods they required, and not in the least care about their money, they thought their project ripe for execution. Accordingly a day was appointed for that purpose.

They now ordered all their customers to bring them in goods on such a day, as much, at least, in quantity, as they had ever before received at one time of the respective sorts, confining them all to particular hours for the delivery of what they brought, that they might not interfere with one another, and so suspect that some unfair design was on foot. At the same time they informed those who usually bought everything off their hands that they should have such-and-such quantities of so many sorts to dispose of, naming the next day to that when they were to receive them; that they would sell them cheap, because they were obliged to make up a large sum of ready money; that therefore they desired them to be punctual, and bring only cash for what they designed to buy. The whole scheme succeeded as well as they could wish: on one side there was no suspicion; and on the other, if there was any, it was not the interest of the parties to discover what they thought, because every one of them promised himself some advantage.

The goods were all delivered according to order, at the day and hour appointed, and notes were mutually drawn by the kinsman in Thames Street upon him by the Tower, and by the kinsman by the Tower upon him in Thames Street, for the several sums, to be paid at three days after date. Never were men better satisfied than these poor dupes, not one of them doubting but he should have all his money the moment he went for it, as usual. They went home and slept soundly that night, and the two nights succeeding. Next day came the buyers, and entirely cleared both houses, paying down ready money for all they carried off. These too were as well pleased as the rest, and with much better reason. They imagined indeed that their chapmen were going to break, but what was that to them? No matter how the poor men were to live for the future, so long as they could have good bargains at present.

There was now time enough before the day of payment for our two merchants to take care of themselves, and the money they had raised, which they did very effectually. When they came to computation they found that by this one bold stroke they had got clear into their pockets about sixteen hundred and thirty pounds― a pretty considerable sum for three months, which was the longest time they were in trade. When the creditors came to receive their money they were surprised at both places to see the doors fast, and the windows shut, till they were informed by the neighbours that the birds were flown the day before, and that all their furniture was either carried off in the night, or seized for rent. How the men now looked upon one another! Every one began to suspect that the rest who were attending came about the same business as himself, and indeed, when they came to examine the matter, they found themselves not mistaken. Those who were earliest in Thames Street, and had heard the melancholy news, went forthwith to the Tower to complain that Mr Cousin was gone; and those at the Tower set out for Thames Street. Now was the whole plot unravelled, when they saw both were departed quietly, and had learned of each other how they had been mutually imposed upon by the pretended relations, when they told their several cases.

One such trick as this is enough for a man's whole life, and as much as he can safely play in the same kingdom. Our two Bryans now, therefore, resumed their old names and habits, taking to the highway again for some time, till fresh danger of being apprehended put them once more to their shifts. There was not less art in what they now did than in what we have just related, only they acted in a lower sphere, not daring to aspire so high as to be merchants, after they had brought so much scandal upon the name. Men whose thoughts are all turned upon money have no regard to the manner in which they get what they desire― nor need they, provided they come off with impunity; for all people honour the rich, without inquiring how they came to be so.  There were two wealthy brothers of the name of Seals, Philip and Charles, both jewellers. Philip lived in London, and Charles resided at Bristol. The Golden Farmer and Old Mobb knew every circumstance of the family from which these men were descended, and were moreover particularly instructed in the private history of our brothers. This made our desperadoes fix on them for their next prize, now they were again reduced to extremity. The brothers were sickly, consumptive men, which inclined these arch-villains to undertake and perform what will be as diverting in the relation as it was unparalleled in itself, and worthy of the men who acted in it. Having contrived and ordered the whole affair, the first step they took towards executing it was writing, and copying, the following letter, making only the alteration of the place and name, as they saw necessary:―

March 26,1686.

Dear Brother,―

This comes to bring you the sorrowful news that you have lost the best of brothers, and I the kindest of husbands, at a time when we were in hopes of his growing better, as the spring advanced, and continuing with us at least one summer longer. He died this morning, about eleven of the clock, after he had kept his bed only three days. I send so hastily to you, that you may be here before we prepare for the funeral, which was the desire of my dear husband, who informed me that he had made you joint-executor with me. The will is in my hands, and I shall defer opening it till you arrive here. I am too full of grief to add any more; the messenger, who is a very honest man, and a neighbour of mine, shall inform you of such particulars as are needful from, your sorrowful sister,

― Seals.

P.S.―I employed a friend to write for me, which I desire you to excuse; for I was not able to do it myself, nor indeed to dictate any more.

These letters being sealed and properly directed, our two adventurers dressed themselves according to the characters they were to bear, and parted from each other; one of them riding towards London, and the other towards Bristol, having so ordered it beforehand that they might both come to the end of their journey at the same time. They arrived, they delivered their credentials, and were kindly received. It is not to our purpose to declare how many tears were shed upon opening the letters, and how many eulogies each of the living brothers bestowed upon him whom he supposed to be dead. Much less shall we pretend to describe the secret joy which they both concealed under a sorrowful countenance; but which naturally arose in their breasts when they understood that an addition would now accrue to their fortunes by the death of a brother. It is true they both loved one another; but of all love, self-love is the strongest.

The evening at each place was spent in talking over several particulars of the family, subjects that at such a time as this always come in the way. Our messengers were both very expert, and each brother was convinced that the man whom his sister had sent had been long conversant in the family, by the exact account which he gave of things. They moreover added of their own heads a great deal of stuff concerning the manner of the respected Mr Seals' death, and what he said in his last moments, which at this time was doubtless very moving. In a word, the best bed in both houses was made ready for our two sharpers, who were to depart the next morning, and tell the sisters-in-law that their brothers would come two days after, which was as soon as their mourning could be made, and other things prepared for the journey.  It may be proper to observe that Old Mobb went to Bristol, and the Golden Farmer to London. The first of these found means in the evening to secure jewels to the value of two hundred pounds, which was all the booty he had any opportunity to make. But the Golden Farmer, having well observed the position of Mr Philip Seals' shop, arose in the night, came silently downstairs, and took to a much greater value; among other things a diamond necklace― which was just made for a lady of the first quality, but not to be delivered till some days after― three very large diamond rings, and five small ones. In the morning both our adventurers set out, one from Bristol, and the other from London. They met at a place before appointed, and congratulated one another upon their success.

But we must leave them together, and return to the brothers, who were both getting ready for their journey. Such was the hurry and confusion which our messengers had put the two families in, that nobody in either of them took any notice of the shops, so that nothing of the robberies was discovered in time enough to prevent the masters setting out, and let them see that they were imposed on.

The shops were well furnished out, and what was carried off took up but little room; wherefore it was not surprising that such a thing should be overlooked, at a time when no business was thought of but the preparations for travelling, and appearing decently at the funeral.

The merriest part of the whole story was our two brothers setting out the same morning, and coming the same evening to Newbury, where they took up their lodging also at the same inn. He from London came in first, and being fatigued went to bed before the other arrived. The Bristol man, about two hours after, passed through his brother's room, and a companion with him, whom he had engaged to attend him, and reposed themselves where but a thin partition was between the two chambers. Philip, the Londoner, was asleep when his brother went by him, but the discourse between Charles and his friend surprised him; he could not tell what they talked off; but was certain one of the tongues was his brother's, whom he was going to see buried. By and by Charles had occasion to go to the necessary house; upon which he rises, and attempts to go through Philip's chamber again, who by the moonlight was still more convinced that he had not been deceived in the voice. Upon this he screamed out, and Charles was now as much surprised as his brother; so that he ran back to bed half dead with fear. In a word, they both continued sweating, and frightening themselves, till morning, when they arose and dressed themselves in their mourning apparel. Below stairs for some time they shunned one another, till they were taken notice of by the people of the house, who with some difficulty brought them together, after they had heard both their stories. They now saw themselves imposed on, but could not imagine the reason of it, till, after spending two days together at the inn, they both returned, and found themselves robbed. Now was the plot unravelled.

Old Mobb was at last apprehended in Tothill Street, Westminster, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey, on thirty-six indictments, of thirty-two of which he was found guilty.

On Friday, the 30th of May, 1690, he was executed at Tyburn, without making any speech or confession, but continuing to act with his usual intrepidity.

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14: Tom Kelsey

An audacious young Thief who robbed the Tent of King William in Flanders and stabbed a Newgate Turnkey. Executed 13th of June, 1690

THOMAS KELSEY was born in Leather Lane, in the parish of St Andrew, Holborn; but his mother being a Welsh woman, and she having an estate of about forty pounds per annum, left her by an uncle at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, the whole family― which consisted only of the two old people, and this their son― went down thither to live upon it.

Tom was from his infancy a stubborn, untoward brat, and this temper increased as he grew up; so that at fourteen years of age he was prevailed on by one Jones, who has since been a victualler in London, to leave his father and come up to town, in order to seek his fortune. Having neither of them any money, they were obliged to beg their way along in the best English they were masters of. Going one day to a gentleman's house with their complaint, he took a liking to the boys, and received them both into his house: Kelsey in the quality of a horsekeeper and Jones as a falconer. It may be supposed they were both awkward enough in their callings, but Tom's place was the least difficult, so that he kept it the longest, the gentleman being soon weary of his falconer, and glad to send him about his business again.

It was not a great while after, before Tom Kelsey was detected in some little pilfering tricks, and turned out of doors after his companion, whom he could not find when he came to London. His being out of place till he could subsist no longer, and his natural inclination to dishonesty, soon brought him forward in the course of life for which he was afterwards so infamous. He fell into company with thieves, and was as bold and as dexterous in a little time as the best of them, if not even beyond them all.

Going one day by the house of Mr Norton, a silversmith in Burleigh Street, near Exeter 'Change, a couple of his companions came by him like strangers, and one of them snatched off his hat, and flung it into the goldsmith's chamber window, which stood open, running away as fast as they could. Tom, who had a look innocent enough to deceive anybody, made a sad complaint to Mr Norton, who stood at his door and saw all that passed. It happened that at that time there was nobody at home but himself, of which Tom had got intelligence before.

"Poor lad!" says Mr Norton, "you shall not lose your hat; go upstairs and fetch it yourself, for I cannot leave the shop."

This was just what Tom wanted; he went up and took his hat, and with it a dozen of silver spoons that lay in his way, coming down in a minute, and making a very submissive bow to Mr Norton for his civility, who let him go without suspicion. This prize was divided between him and his two associates, as is common in such-like cases.

Tom was not, however, so successful in his villainies but that he was condemned to be hanged before he was sixteen years of age. The fact was breaking open the house of one Mr Johnson, a grocer in the Strand, and stealing from thence two silver tankards, a silver cup, six silver spoons, a silver porringer, and forty pounds in money. But he got off this time on account of his youth, and the interest his father made at court; for, hearing of his son's condemnation, the old gentleman came directly up to town, and arrived before the day appointed for his execution, procuring a full pardon by the mediation of some powerful friends.

To prevent his following the same courses again, and exposing himself afresh to the sentence of the law, the old gentleman put his son apprentice to a weaver, but before he had served half-a-year of his time he ran away from his master, and took to his old courses again. It was his pride to make all whom he conversed with as bad as himself, an instance of which appeared in what he did by one David Hughes, a cousin of his by the mother's side. This youth, going to Kingston Assizes along with Tom a few days after he came to town, was prevailed upon by him to pick a pocket in the court; in which action being apprehended, he was immediately tried, and condemned to be hanged upon a gibbet within sight of the Bench, as a terror to others. This week was fatal enough to young Hughes; for he came to London on the Monday, on Tuesday and Wednesday spent and lost ten pounds, which was all the money he had, along with whores and sharpers, on Thursday in the evening picked a pocket, was condemned on Friday morning, and hanged on Saturday. This was the end of one of Kelsey's hopeful pupils, who had the impudence to boast of it.

Another of the actions of this extravagant was his robbing the Earl of Feversham's lodgings. This nobleman was General of the Forces in the reign of King James II., and consequently had a sentinel always at his door. Tom dressed himself in a foot-soldier's habit one evening, and went up to the fellow who was then on duty, asking him a great many questions, and offering at last to stand a drink, if he knew where to get a couple of pots of good beer. The soldier told him there was very good a little beyond Catherine Street, but he durst not leave his post so long as to fetch it.

"Can't I take your place, brother soldier?" quoth Tom. "I am sure if somebody be at the post there can be no danger."

The soldier thanked him, took the sixpence, and went his way; meanwhile Tom's associates got into the house, and were rifling it as fast as they could. They had not quite done when the soldier came back; whereupon Tom gave him twopence more, and desired him to get a little tobacco also. While the poor fellow was gone for this the villains came out, and Tom went with them, carrying off not only above two hundred pounds worth of plate, but even the soldier's musket. The next day the sentinel was called to account, and committed to prison. At the ensuing court martial he was ordered to run the gauntlet for losing his piece, and then was sent to Newgate, and loaded with irons, on suspicion of being privy to the robbery, where, after nine months' confinement, he miserably perished. Kelsey, after this, broke open the house of the Lady Grace Pierpont, at Thistleworth, and stole from thence a great many valuable things. But soon after one of his companions impeached him for this fact; whereupon, being informed that the officers were in search after him, he fled to the camp of King William in Flanders. Here he got a considerable booty out of his Majesty's tent, and from other general officers, with which he got to Amsterdam, and sold it to a Jew; whom he also robbed afterwards, and sold what he had gotten to another Jew at Rotterdam, from whence he re-embarked for England.

He had not been long returned to his native country before he was detected in breaking open the house of a linen-draper in Cheapside, which put a final end to his liberty, though not to his villainy, for, being sent to Newgate, and having no hopes of ever getting out any more, unless to go to Tyburn, he grew desperate, and resolved to do all the mischief he could there. Mr Goodman, one of the turnkeys of that jail, being one day drinking in the common-side cellar, Kelsey privately stabbed him in the belly with a knife, of which wound he instantly died.

For this murder he received sentence of death at the next session in the Old Bailey, and a gibbet being erected in Newgate Street, near the prison, he was thereon executed, on Friday, the 13th of June, 1690, being then no more than twenty years of age. As a terror to the other prisoners who were then in confinement, his body was suffered to hang on the gibbet the space of three hours.

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15: Sir John Johnston

Executed at Tyburn, 23rd of December, 1690 , for assisting to steal an Heiress

SIR JOHN JOHNSTON was born at Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire. His father had had a good estate, but had diminished it by extravagant living, so Sir John went young into the army to improve his fortune.

He went over to Ireland, where he thought to better his circumstances by marriage; and getting into the acquaintance of a Mr Magrath, in the county of Clare, he, by his urbane conversation, so gained his good opinion, that he frequently invited him to dinner. Mr Magrath having a daughter, with ten thousand pounds as her portion, Sir John took every opportunity to insinuate himself into her company, and so far gained upon her affections as to obtain her consent to elope with him; but the father, having some hints given him of their private courtship, kept a very watchful eye over their actions, and at last, being confirmed in his suspicions, forbade Sir John his house, and kept his daughter close.

Miss Magrath being uneasy under her confinement, and deprived of the company of Sir John, whom she loved to distraction, made a kinswoman her confidante, and entrusted her with a letter to Sir John, to let him know how uneasy her life was, and that if he would come to such a place, at a stated time, she would endeavour to make her escape, and meet him. But the lady, thinking she should gain most by obliging her uncle, delivered the letter to him, instead of Sir John. Mr Magrath, having read it, sealed it up again, and sent it to Sir John, who received it with a great deal of satisfaction, and immediately wrote an answer, and returned it by the same messenger. But, repairing to the place of rendezvous, instead of meeting the lady, he fell into an ambuscade of fellows with sticks and clubs, who beat him so unmercifully that he promised to relinquish his pursuit.

Having been in London some time, and spent his money, he was obliged to apply to some of his countrymen for support; and Captain James Campbell, brother of the Earl of Argyll, having a design to steal an heiress, one Miss Mary Wharton, he and Mr Montgomery were assistants in the affair. Miss Wharton was the daughter of Philip Wharton, Esq., and at the age of thirteen, by his death, inherited fifteen hundred pounds per annum, besides a personal property to the amount of one thousand pounds. This young lady resided with her mother in Great Queen Street, and Captain James Campbell, brother of the Earl of Argyll, wishing to possess so rich a prize, determined to marry her perforce, and for that purpose prevailed upon Sir John Johnston and Archibald Montgomery to assist him in conveying Miss Wharton from her home, which being done, and a reward of a hundred pounds offered for the apprehension of Captain Campbell, and fifty pounds a-piece for him and Mr Montgomery. Sir John, being betrayed by his landlord, was apprehended and indicted for it, the 11th of December, 1690.

The evidence was, in substance, that Miss Mary Wharton, being an heiress of considerable fortune, and under the care of her guardian (Mr Bierly), was decoyed out on the 10th of November, and being met with by Sir John Johnston, Captain Campbell and Mr Montgomery, in Queen Street, was forced into a coach with six horses (appointed to wait there by Captain Campbell) and carried to the coachman's house, and there married to Captain Campbell, against the consent of herself, or knowledge of her guardian. The jury having found the prisoner guilty, he received sentence of death.

The enterprise succeeded but too well to Johnston's cost. Campbell, who was the real culprit, escaped punishment, and married Margaret Leslie, daughter of David Lord Newark, after Parliament had dissolved his first marriage; but every effort to save Johnston proved ineffectual. Miss Wharton afterwards married Colonel Bierly, who commanded a regiment of horse in the service of William III.

At the place of execution, Sir John addressed the spectators in a long speech, in which he not only endeavoured to make it appear he was blameless in the transaction for which he suffered, but that he had been greatly wronged by printed papers, in which he was charged with a rape at Chester, and a similar crime at Utrecht, in Holland. He was executed at Tyburn, the 23rd of December, 1690.

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1691

16: Jack Withrington

One of five Brothers, all of whom were hanged. He earned Fame for his Courage, challenged the Captain of his Regiment; turned Gamester, Thief and Highwayman. Executed 1st of April, 1691

THIS fellow was the youngest of five brothers, who were all born at Blandford, in Dorsetshire. The other four were all hanged in the country, but Jack had the good fortune to be reserved for Tyburn, and by that means to have his name transmitted to posterity.

He was bound to a tanner in Shaftesbury, a town in his native county, with whom he served about three years. Then he entered into the Earl of Oxford's Regiment of Horse, in which, when Monmouth's rebellion was suppressed in the West of England, he came up to London, where he soon met with opportunities of discovering his valour to the world. These occasions were two quarrels in which he was engaged: the first with a man famous for fighting, against whom he behaved with so much bravery and skill that it won him a vast reputation; the second with a person of great estate, but a noted coward, when he showed himself a gentleman by his adherence to the point of honour and good breeding. By these duels he won abundance of applause, so as thereby to contract a familiarity with all the greatest fighting men of the time, especially those in his own regiment. Withrington however carried his manhood so far as to get himself turned out of the regiment within a year after, for challenging his captain.

He then became a perfect bully and gamester; and, being fortunate, in a little time by these means saw himself master of a considerable sum of money. Notwithstanding all this good luck at first, he found himself afterwards subject to the fate of gamesters -- viz. to be frequently without money in spite of his large winnings. This brought him at last to consider the uncertainty of Fortune and endeavour to make himself master of her, by supplying with fraud what he might want in plain open skill. But this also did not continue long; for everyone began to be aware of him as a common sharper, and none who knew him would venture to play with him.

In the common scale of knavery the next step above a sharper is a downright thief. Withrington made bold to ascend this degree, and was resolved to take the most honourable station thereon, that of a highwayman. He had money enough to buy him a good horse and accoutrements, so that the resolution and the real attempt were not long asunder. His first adventure was with a farmer, from whom he took forty pounds, giving him in return only an impudent harangue, occasioned by the countryman's reproaching him with the robbery.

The next that fell in Withrington's way was Mr Edward Clark, gentleman usher to the Duchess of Mazarin. They met in Devonshire, on the road between Chudleigh and Ashburton. Mr Clark made some resistance, so that in the scuffle Withrington's mask fell off and discovered his face, which Mr Clark knowing, he called him by his name, and said he hoped he would not rob an old acquaintance.

"Indeed I shall, sir," quoth Withrington, "for you get your money much easier than I do, who am forced to venture my life for a maintenance; you have so much a year for eating, drinking and entertaining your lady with scandal and nonsense. What I shall take from you will do you little harm; it is only putting a higher price upon half-a-score reputations, which you know how to do as well as any coxcomb in England. Ladies never let such faithful servants go unrewarded, nor will yours suffer your loss to fall on yourself."

He got about eight guineas out of this gentleman's pocket, and for old acquaintance sake bade him "Good-b'w'ye" very heartily.

Withrington's robberies in less than a year and a half were talked of almost all over the kingdom. But alas! he met with a diversion, common to mankind, that draws even the most stupid into the rank of polite persons. The poor man was in love; and with whom but a rich widow inn-keeper in Bristol! Farewell to the highway: Withrington has another scent to pursue. No more robberies to be thought of from a man who was himself robbed of his heart! He employed an old bawd in the affair, who was intimately acquainted with our hostess, and by this flesh-broker's mediation things had like to have come to an issue, and Jack to have been master of the Swan Inn. In short, there was nothing prevented it but the accidental coming of a certain gentleman, who knew our highwayman, and informed his mistress what he was. The effects of this discovery were Jack's being kicked out of doors by the ostler and chamberlain, and the commitment of madam the negotiatress to Bridewell, in order to mill Dolly.

After his return to the highway he and one of his companions met with Mr Thompson, a noted tailor, in a part of Hertfordshire that was convenient for robbing. They took from him about thirty pounds in silver, and then, dismounting him, they ordered him to stay where he was till they brought him more company. As soon as they were gone from him he remounted his horse and attempted to ride off as fast as he could; but our highwaymen perceiving what he was at, and having the best horses, they fetched him back, and mistrusting he had more money, by his being in so much haste, they searched him afresh, he protesting all the while that he had not so much as a farthing left if it were to save his soul. In a literal sense he might be right; but they made a shift to find forty guineas, which they thought better than farthings. Withrington upon this exclaimed that it was a sad thing that one Christian could not believe another! They then shot his horse, to put a stop to his speed, and so rode away and left him.

The last robbery Withrington committed was alone. He stopped a nobleman on Hounslow Heath attended by two footmen. There was a short dispute, but Withrington having the best of it, he took a portmanteau in which were two hundred and eighty guineas, sixty pounds in silver, and a parcel of fine linen. A hue and cry was soon issued out after him, and he was apprehended by means of it at Malmesbury, in Wiltshire, from whence he was removed to London, where he was condemned for this fact.

The sentence of death seemed to have no effect on his temper, for he was as gay and humorous under that circumstance as ever he had been before. When he was riding up Holborn Hill he ordered the cart to stop, and calling up the Sheriff's deputy, "Sir," said he, "I owe a small matter at the Three Cups, a little farther on, for which I am afraid of being arrested as I go by the door; therefore I shall be much obliged to you if you will be pleased to carry me down Shoe Lane and bring me up Drury Lane again into the road by which I am to travel this devilish long journey."

The deputy informed him that if such a mischance should happen he should come to no damage. "For," says he, "I'll be bail for you myself, rather than you shall go back to prison again."

"Thank you heartily, sir," quoth Jack; "I protest I could not have thought that I had a friend in the world who would have stood by me so in such a time of need."

After this he rode very contentedly to the place of execution, where he was tucked up with as little ceremony as usual. This fatal day was Wednesday, the 1st of April, in the year 1691.

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17: Jacob Halsey

The Quaker Highwayman, who after being fooled by a "Spirit" led a Life of Crime, and was executed at Maidstone in April, 1691

JACOB HALSEY was born in Bedford, the chief town in Bedfordshire, of very wealthy parents, who were Quakers, and accordingly bred him up in that persuasion from his infancy.

When he was arrived at man's estate he pretended to be wonderfully gifted, and the spirit abounded so powerfully in him that he frequently held forth in the meetings of the Friends twice or thrice a week. Nay, he either pretended to be, or was, so very enthusiastically given, that he affirmed, with all the gravity imaginable, that he nightly dreamed dreams and saw visions, and had sundry comfortable and enlightening revelations.

Hereupon one of his neighbours, an arch unlucky weed, resolved to put Halsey's faith, or rather folly, to the test whether he really believed what he pretended to affirm and preach to others; which brought poor Jacob into a very ugly scrape, as we shall see in the sequel; for this neighbour, getting upon the house one night when it was very late, called out twice or thrice, with a loud voice, to Halsey:

"Jacob, where art thou?"

Halsey, at last hearing
the voice, starts out of his bed naked, and, running to the window whence the voice seemed to come, cries out:

"Here am I! Oh, what is thy will?"

Quoth the wag in the same voice, who could hardly forbear laughing: "Arise presently, Jacob, my beloved, my chosen one, and go to the church, or rather steeple-house, and break all the windows."

Immediately Halsey hurries on his clothes, gets a long pole, runs to
the church, and demolishes all the windows, lead and all; zeal being
never so well pleased as when it is set a-tearing and doing mischief. But poor Yea-and-Nay suffered severely in the flesh for this zealous fit; for, being taken in the fact, he was committed to Bedford jail, and before the matter was made up it cost him above four hundred pounds, between the charges of the Spiritual Court and at common law. He was above three months under confinement, during which time, being a facetious sort of a fellow― what we call a "wet Quaker"― he would drink and keep company, notwithstanding his persuasion, with the felons in Bedford Jail, asking them several questions, and being very inquisitive in examining into the art and mystery of thieving. There was one rogue more acute than the rest, with whom he would daily converse, and one time, as the were drinking together, he acquainted him with the several lays which the thieves went upon, and amongst the rest informed him of a set of rascals who wore cloaks and hats cocked up on one side, with a plume of feathers on the other, whence their fraternity received the name of "Plumers."

The exercise of these gentry by daytime was to stroll about the streets and create quarrels upon nothing, only to draw a crowd together, that they might twitch a cloak, or pick a pocket, among the confused multitude. But in the night they had recourse to a different method of practice. Some of them had the industry to insinuate themselves into gentlemen's company and, enticing them to play, pick their pockets of their money by new-invented cheats.

These had the policy to keep so fair a correspondence with the constables and justices' clerks that they very seldom underwent any disgrace or punishment, unless they encountered some very powerful adversary, whose purse was not only better lined than theirs, but who had interest enough to make even the justices' commission shake if they offered to protect or screen them, as those trading justices always do who go snacks with their clerks.

In short, after this thief had acquainted Halsey with the chief secrets of his calling and profession, he took the liberty of asking him if none of them apprehended hanging. "Scarce any of us," answered he, "ever suffer such a thing to enter into our thoughts; so far from it that we frequently are present at the execution of our comrades, without the least fear or terror; for nothing dazzles our eyes or is capable of moving our hearts like the insatiate thirst of invaluable gold."

As soon as he was set at liberty, Halsey, being sensible how he had been imposed upon in the affair of the voice which commanded him to break the church windows, was very much ashamed of his ridiculous folly, and would willingly have had it forgotten; but the people flouted him, and jeered him continually, throughout the town of Bedford. Nay, what was worst of all, he could never appear in the streets or go about his business without having a whole tribe of boys and girls hollowing and hooting after him. This exasperated him so much at last, that, being weary of his life, he was resolved to quit the country, and be revenged of all the churchmen that fell into his clutches, though it were at the hazard of his own neck. He resolved then upon following the road; and, in order thereunto, metamorphosed his cropped hair into a peruke, his formal hat to one pinched and cocked, his diminutive cravat to a ranting neck-cloth, and his precise coat, without plaits, to one more fashionable, designing to hide his knavery as much as he possibly could by such an alteration. But nevertheless, even under this disguise, he would always rob in the language of the lambs.

Accordingly, one day, meeting with an old wicked usurer of Bedford, between Barnet and St Albans, he rode on with him very peaceably for three or four miles; when, coming to a convenient place for his intended purpose,

"Look thee, friend," says he, "I am not like one of those profane ones, who spoil men in the terrifying words of 'Stand and deliver.' No, I say again, I am not one of that wicked stamp, but an Israelite that spoils an Egyptian with all the good humour, peace and quietness in the world; so open thy purse-strings straight, and lend what thou hast, without any grumbling."

The old usurer, not liking this mild way of parting with his mammon any more than that of being more roughly handled, refused Jacob his money, and made great resistance; whereupon Halsey shot his horse, and after taking from him about sixty pounds, resolving to punish him yet further, for moving his righteous spirit to wrath, made him cast his arms about a large elm-tree, and bound them fast together with a strong cord. This done, he left him to stretch out his neck like the cock of a conduit, whose head, not being fixed to the body, may be set higher or lower at pleasure, and look out to see when some good person would come by and deliver him.

Another time, Jacob, overtaking a country curate between Abingdon and Oxford, accosts him in this manner:

"Friend, imagining thee to be some Philistine going to spoil an honest Israelite for tithes, I must make bold to spoil thee first; wherefore, thou wicked one, deliver thy mammon to the righteous, that he may convert it to a better use than to exhaust it in gluttony and pride, otherwise I shall send thee to the bottomless pit before thy time is come by the course of nature."

The parson made several hums upon the matter, but finding the resolute Quaker would not be said nay, gave him a bag containing thirty-two pounds, after which they parted.

Jacob was at last apprehended in attempting to rob the Earl of Westmoreland, not far from his seat near Wateringbury, in Kent, and being committed to Maidstone jail, was condemned at the assizes held there in April, 1691, and executed a few days afterwards.

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17: Will Macqueer

Who stole the Lord Chancellor's Mace and delighted in robbing Army Officers on the Highway. Executed at Tyburn, 1st of May, 1691

THIS notorious offender was the bastard son of an Irish priest, and born at Athenrea, in the county of Galway and province of Connaught in Ireland. Coming young to England and not readily falling into any business was the occasion of his first taking to ill courses, he being exposed, as most idle fellows are, to bad company, which is the most common introduction to thieving, and as it were the first step towards Tyburn.

The first of William Macqueer's offences was a burglary committed at Brentwood, in Essex, in company with three more. They entered a gentleman's house there, stole four diamond rings, a very large quantity of plate, and six hundred pounds in money. Not long after this he and one more broke open the Lord Chancellor Jeffreys' house, in Duke Street, Westminster, whence they carried off the purse and mace belonging to his office. Macqueer has been often heard to boast how he made his companion carry the two prizes before him through the park in the same manner as they were carried before the Chancellor, while he walked in state behind them, and swelled as much as any country cobbler could do when he arises to the dignity of mayor of his borough.

The next morning early there was a terrible hue and cry after these ensigns of dignity, which Macqueer had secured in his closet at his lodgings, going out all day to hear what would be the event of the inquiry. The maid going up that day to clean his chamber found a small jewel on the floor, which had been dropped from the purse. This she instantly carried down to her master, who having heard the news that day, and not liking his lodger very well before, began to suspect what afterwards appeared to be the truth. For, sending for a constable and breaking open the door, they found both the mace and the purse, which were the same day restored to the Chancellor. Macqueer informed himself abroad of all that had happened, and never came near his landlord and house again till he broke it open about a quarter of a year after and stole away as many goods as were valued at eighty pounds, by way of revenge for what was done.

Nothing would serve him now but the highway, and he was resolved to be furnished with accoutrements at the expense of the public. He stole a good horse and saddle out of the stable of one Councillor Thursby, in Burleigh Street, in the Strand; and a pair of pistols he got from Mr Robert Williams, a gunsmith in George Yard, Westminster. Thus equipped he set out.

There was at that time a poet, whose name was Alexander Oldys, a man as deformed as AEsop, and so small that there was hardly such another to be seen. It was the fate of our bard to meet Macqueer between Hammersmith and Brentford, when he was accosted with the customary salutation. He now found he was got into other company than that of the Muses, and began to apprehend that his sword would do him small service against a pistol, upon which he gave Teague all the money he had, amounting in whole, as it is reported, to no more than threepence-farthing. We are certain the sum did not satisfy Macqueer, who deprived him of his sword also, in a most ungentlemanly manner; which loss was the cause of greater grief to our bard than any other affliction he could have suffered, except that of being obliged never to write any more verses.

Not long after, Macqueer met the Lady Alberquerque coming from the bath in a coach-and-six, stopped her, and desired her to lend him what money she had about her, because he had at that time great occasion; promising her to pay the whole again very honestly at their next encounter, and offering to give his bond if she demanded it.

"I believe," says the lady, "you had as good tell me at once you are come to rob me, for this is an odd way of borrowing. I am a stranger in this country," the Irishman said, "and so if I don't know the difference between robbing and borrowing, you must excuse me; for all I mean is, give me your money." The lady told him it was well he had explained himself at last, and so gave him her gold watch, two diamond rings and what money she had. He then shot two of the coach horses and the horses of two footmen that attended, and so rode off with his booty as fast as he could. Macqueer took a particular delight in robbing the officers of the army, because he imagined that in so doing he gave a greater proof of his valour than he could  by any other means.

The first he robbed was one Mr Adams, a lieutenant of the Second Regiment of Foot Guards, whom he met between Uxbridge and Beaconsfield. The lieutenant, being stopped before he was aware, gave our highwayman very good words; but perceiving that Macqueer was not to be talked out of his booty delivered six pounds to him, out of which Macqueer gave him back ten shillings to bear his charges.

Another officer whom he robbed was Captain Shooter, a man of bravery and resolution, who would not tamely part with what he had, and had like to have made our highwayman pay dearly for his affected courage. Their meeting was on Hampstead Heath, where they fired several pistols at each other without doing any damage on either side. They then rode up together, with their swords drawn, and made a great many pushes. Macqueer had certainly been worsted at this exercise if he had not bethought himself of another pistol in his breeches' pocket, which he pulled out and discharged suddenly through the captain's head, when he apprehended nothing but the sword. He got at least fifty guineas and a silver watch by this murder.

The last robbery he was concerned in was in company with William Selwood, alias Jenkins, another old offender. They took two hundred and fifty guineas from one Mr Benjamin Watts on Hounslow Heath. For this fact they were both taken, condemned, and on Friday, the 1st of May, 1691, executed together at Tyburn, Macqueer being in the twenty-eighth year of his age.

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18: Tom Cox

A Handsome Highwayman who robbed the King's Jester and even held up men of his own Trade. Executed 3rd of June, 1691

THOMAS COX was born at Blandford, in Dorsetshire. He was the youngest son of a gentleman, so that, having but a small patrimony, he soon consumed it in riotous living. Upon the decay of his fortune he came up to London, where he fell in with a gang of highwaymen, and easily complied with their measures in order to support himself in his dissolute course of life. He was three times tried for his life before the last fatal trial, and had, after all these imputations, a prospect once more of making himself a gentleman, so indulgent was Providence to him.

A young lady fell in love with him at Worcester, he being a very handsome man, and she went so far as to communicate her passion, and almost make him a direct offer of herself and fifteen hundred pounds. Cox married her; but instead of settling himself in the world, and improving her fortune, he spent it all in less than two years, broke the poor gentlewoman's heart with his ill-usage, and then took to his old courses again.

The robberies he committed after this were almost innumerable. One day he met with Killigrew, who had been jester to King Charles II., and ordered him to deliver.

"Are you in earnest, friend?" said the buffoon.

Tom replied: "Yes, by G―d am I! for though you live by jesting, I can't."

Killigrew found he spoke truth; for well as he loved jesting, he could not conceive that to be a jest which cost him twenty-five guineas; for so much Tom took from him.

Another time he robbed Mr Hitchcock, an attorney of New Inn, of three hundred and fifty guineas, on the road between Midhurst and Tetworth, in the county of Sussex, giving him in return a lesson on the corruption of his practice, and throwing him a single guinea to bear his charges. Mr Hitchcock was a little surprised at the highwayman's generosity, but more at his morality, imagining the world must needs be near its end when the devil undertook to reform it.

Our offender was at last apprehended for a robbery on the highway, committed near Chard, in Somersetshire. But he had not been long confined in Ilchester jail before he found an opportunity of escaping. He broke out of his ward into the keeper's apartment, who, as good luck would have it, had been drunk overnight, and was now in a profound sleep. It was a moonlight night, and Cox could see a silver tankard on a table in the room, which he secured, and then let himself out with authority into the street, by the help of the keys, leaving the doors all unlocked as he passed. The tankard he had stolen was worth ten pounds, and besides that he got into a stable just by and took a good horse, with proper furniture, to carry him off.  It is reported of Tom Cox that he more than once robbed persons of his own trade. Indeed there is an old proverb that "Two of a trade can't agree"; but it must certainly be a very dangerous thing for highwaymen to make so bold one with another, because every one of them is so much exposed to the revenge of the rest; and as Cox sometimes robbed in company, it discovers that he was not an unsociable thief.

Tom's last robbery was on a farmer, from whom he took about twenty pounds. It was not above a week after the fact before the said farmer came to London on business and saw Tom come out of his lodgings in Essex Street, in the Strand; whereupon crying out "Stop, thief," he was immediately apprehended in St Clement's Churchyard, and committed by a neighbouring magistrate to Newgate, where he lived till the sessions in an extravagant manner, being very full of money.

Receiving sentence of death on the farmer's deposition at justice Hall on Wednesday, the 3rd day of June, 1691, he was hanged at Tyburn, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He was so resolute to the last that when Mr Smith, the ordinary, asked him, a few moments before he was turned off, whether he would join with his fellow-sufferers in prayer―

"D―n you, no!" says he, and kicked both ordinary and executioner out of the cart.

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19: Jack Collet alias Cole

Highwayman, who robbed in the Habit of a Bishop. Executed at Tyburn, 5th of July, 1691, for Sacrilegious Burglary

THIS unfortunate person was the son of a grocer in the borough of Southwark, where he was born, and from whence, at fifteen years of age, he was put out apprentice to an upholsterer in Cheapside. He did not serve above four years of his time before he ran away from his master and took to the highway.

We have not an account of abundance of his robberies, though it is said he committed a great many; but there is this remarkable particular recorded of him, that he frequently robbed in the habit of a bishop, with four or five of his companions at his heels in the quality of servants, who were ready to assist him on occasion. Collet had once the ill fortune to lose his canonical habit at dice, so that he was forced to take a turn or two on the road to supply his present necessities in unsanctifying garments. But it was not long before he met with a good opportunity of taking orders again and becoming as holy as ever.

Riding from London down into Surrey, a little on this side of Farnham, he met with Dr Mew, Bishop of Winchester, and commanded his coachman to stop. The Bishop was not at all surprised at being asked for his money, because when he saw his coach stopped he expected that would follow. But when Collet told him he must have his robes too, his lordship thought him a madman. There was no resisting, however; the old doctor was obliged to strip into his waistcoat, besides giving him about fifty guineas, which Collet told him he had now a right to demand, by having the sacerdotal habit in his possession.

Collet followed this trade till he was about thirty-two years of age, and, as if he had been determined to live by the Church, he was at last apprehended for sacrilege and burglary, in breaking open the vestry of Great St Bartholomew's, in London, in company with one Christopher Ashley, alias Brown, and stealing from thence the pulpit cloth and all the communion plate. For this fact he received sentence of death, and was executed at Tyburn on Friday, the 5th of July, in the year 1691. This Brown and Collet had before robbed St Saviour's Church, in Southwark, in conjunction

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20: Tom Waters

Highwayman, who held up Gipsies, robbed a Vice-Admiral, and was executed on 17th of July, 1691

THOMAS WATERS was born of very reputable parents at Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire. His father and mother both died when he was very young, and left him to the care of an uncle, who put him apprentice to a Notary-Public behind the Royal Exchange. But business was what his mind was not turned for, and the servitude of seven years appeared to him a grievous thing; whereupon he gave himself a discharge without the leave of his master before he had served half the term. What little money he had was soon expended, and he was exposed to the wide world, without any visible way of getting a living in it. These circumstances soon inclined him to apply himself to the highway, as the only method he could see of supporting himself.

His first exploit was on about twenty or thirty gipsies, whom he saw near Bromley, in Kent, as they were coming one morning early out of a barn, where they had lain all night. He rode up to them and commanded them to stand, threatening to shoot half-a-score of them through the head if they did not obey his command instantly. These strollers were pretty patient thus far; but when he ordered them to draw their purse-strings they set up an outcry as terrible as the "Hololoo" of the wild Irish when they lose a cock or a hen.

The being robbed on the highway was something new to them, who had all their lives long been used to defraud everyone they met with. Some of them entreated his pity and compassion in a miserable tone. Others began to tell his fortune, promising him abundance of riches, and everything else they could think of that was desirable, and bestowing on him more blessings than the Pope would have sold for all the wealth they had to lose. Tom was not so superstitious at this time as to take notice either of their predictions or their blessings; he wanted the ready money, for the old proverb that "One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" was one of his darling maxims.

When our tribe of jugglers found he was resolutely bent upon taking what they had, they began to empty their pockets of a large quantity of silver spoons, tasters, gold rings, etc., which they either stole or persuaded some of the silly country people to give them for having their fortunes told. These movables, together with what money they produced, amounted in all to sixty pounds.

One time he met with an ostler on the road from Yorkshire to London, who was once like to have betrayed him at an inn in Doncaster. This fellow had saved together forty pounds and was coming to town in order to improve it, either by jockeying or keeping an ale-house― the two ways his countrymen commonly apply themselves to. Tom knew him again, and the remembrance of such a gross affront was enough to make him a little rough; however, he promised to spare his life, though he did not deserve such a favour, if he delivered what he had without words. The ostler was conscious of what he had done and so he surrendered.

Another of Waters's adventures was with Sir Ralph Delaval, at that time Vice-Admiral of the English Fleet, whom he knew very well. The meeting was on the road between Portsmouth and Petersfield.

"Well overtaken, Brother Tar," quoth Tom; "pray what religion are you of?"

Sir Ralph stared at him, and seemed astonished at his impudence.

"What business have you," says he, "to inquire about my religion?"

"Nay, Sir Ralph," Waters replied, "I had only a mind to ask a civil question, because I have been informed that you sailors have no religion at all. But since you are so crusty upon this head, give me leave to ask you another thing. Pray do you apprehend you shall be robbed before you come to the end of your journey?"

"Not at all," quoth the Admiral," I have my footman behind me."

"Now there you and I are of two opinions," says Tom, "for I believe you will be robbed very quickly."

While he was speaking his pistols were out, and master and man were threatened with death if they offered to stir hand or foot. In this condition the Knight thought it his best way to save his life by delivering his money; which he did, to the tune of ninety guineas, besides a gold watch.

For the space of five years and upwards Tom continued his robberies, during which time he committed an almost incredible number. His last robbery was on Hounslow Heath, a place where almost all of them at one time or another try their fortunes. He took from one John Hosey, a Bristol carrier, above fourteen hundred pounds in money and plate, some of which latter was found on him when he was apprehended. For this fact he received sentence of death; and being conveyed to Tyburn in a coach, on Friday, the 17th day of July, in the year 1691, he was there executed, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, going off the stage in a very resolute manner.

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21: Moll Jones

Who became a Shoplifter for Love of her Husband. Executed at Tyburn 18th of December, 1691

MARY JONES was born in Chancery Lane, where her parents lived in a great deal of credit. She was brought up to the making of hoods and scarves at the New Exchange in the Strand. She married an apprentice, whom she loved extremely, and whose extravagances were thought to be the first occasion of her taking to a dishonest course of life; for as he was not in a capacity to get any money himself, she was willing to do anything in order to furnish him with whatever he wanted, being fond of having him always appear like a gentleman. The first species of thieving she took to was picking pockets.

One day, meeting near Rosamond's Pond, in St James's Park, with one Mr Price, a milliner, keeping shop in the same Exchange in which she was bred, Moll pretended to ask him some questions about Mrs Zouch, a servant of his, who had murdered her bastard child; whereupon he pulled out a tin trumpet, which he usually carried in his pocket to hold to his ear, being so very deaf that he could not hear otherwise. Whilst he was earnestly hearkening to what Moll said to him through this vehicle, she picked a purse out of his breeches in which were fifteen guineas and a broad-piece. Mr Price never missed it till he came home, and then where to find her he could not tell.

Shortly after this she was apprehended for picking the pocket of one Mr Jacob Delafay, a Jew, who was chocolate-maker to King James II. and King William III., and lived over against York Buildings in the Strand. For this fact she was committed to Newgate and burned in the hand; which punishment making her out of conceit with the trade of diving or filing, she turned shoplifter, in which she was very successful for three or four years; at the end of which, privately stealing half-a-dozen pairs of silk stockings from one Mr Wansel, a hosier in Exeter 'Change, she was detected actually committing the theft by one Smith, a victualler, at the Rose and Crown ale-house, over against the little Savoy Gate in the Strand, who was buying a pair of stockings there at the same time.

This Smith, being a constable, seized her, and carrying her before Justice Brydal, he committed her to Newgate, after which she was burned in the hand again. Still following the art and mystery of shoplifting, she was apprehended for privately stealing a piece of satin out of a mercer's shop on Ludgate Hill, whither she went in a very splendid equipage and personated the late Duchess of Norfolk, to avoid suspicion of her dishonesty; but her graceless Grace being sent to Newgate, and condemned for her life at the Old Bailey, she was hanged at Tyburn in the twenty-fifth year of her age, on Friday, the 18th day of December, in the year 1691.

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22: Tom Taylor

Who, getting literally hooked as a Pickpocket, turned House-breaker. Executed 18th of December, 1691, for using Arson as a means to Theft

TOM TAYLOR, a parson's son, was born at Colchester, in Essex; who, accustoming himself to gaming from twelve years of age, was so addicted to idleness that he would not be brought up to any honest employment. Furthermore, rejecting the good counsel of his parents, and joining himself to bad company, he soon got into a gang of pick-pockets, with whom he often went out to learn their evil profession and find the ready way to the gallows. Going once, with three or four of these diving sparks, to Guildford, a market-town in Surrey, where there was next day a fair to be kept, and fearing to be discovered in that concourse of so many people, they resolved to do their business that very evening, when the people were very busy in fitting up their stalls, and some little trading was stirring besides.

Their first consultation was how to draw the folks together to make one job of it, which was agreed on in this manner. Tom Taylor, pretending to be an ignorant clown, got his head into the pillory, which was elevated near the market-house, as if he had only a mind to be laughed at. The noise thereof causing the whole town to run together to see this spectacle, his companions so plied their work, while the people gazed, laughed and stared, that they left but few of them any money in their pockets. Nay, the very keeper of the pillory, who was as well pleased at this curious sight as anybody, was served in the same manner with the rest.

Tom seeing the work was done, and having the sign given him that his comrades were departing, came down from his wooden machine; whereupon the company dispersed themselves. A little while after, some of them clapping their hands into their pockets, they cried out with one voice that their pockets were picked, while in the confusion Tom slunk away to his companions, who were out of the reach of apprehension.

At last, Taylor being pretty expert at picking of pockets, he set up for himself; and one day going to the playhouse in Drury Lane, very well dressed, he seated himself by a gentleman in the pit, whose pocket he picked of about forty guineas, and went clean off. This good uccess tempted Tom to go thither the next day in a different suit of clothes, when, perceiving the same gentleman in the pit whose pocket he had picked but the day before, he takes his seat by him again. The gentleman was so sharp as to know his face again, for all his change of apparel, though he seemed to take no notice of him; whereupon putting a great quantity of guineas into the pocket next Tom, it was not long before he fell to diving for them. The gentleman had sewed fishing-hooks all round the mouth of that pocket, and our gudgeon venturing too deep, by unconscionably plunging down to the very bottom, his hand was caught and held so fast that he could in no manner of way disentangle it.

Tom angled up and down in the pocket for nearly a quarter of an hour; the gentleman, all the while feeling his struggling to get his hand out, took no notice, till at last Tom, very courteously pulling off his hat, quoth: "Sir, by a mistake, I have somehow put my hand into your pocket instead of my own."

The gentleman, without making any noise, arose and went to the Rose Tavern at the corner of Bridget Street, and Tom along with him, with his hand in his pocket, where it remained till he had sent for some of his cronies, who paid down eighty guineas to get the gudgeon out of this dry pond. However, the gentleman, being not altogether contented with this double satisfaction for his loss, most unmercifully caned him, and then turning him over to the mob, they as unmercifully pumped him and ducked him in a horse-pond, and after that so cruelly used him that they broke one of his legs and an arm.

Tom meeting with such bad usage in his first setting up for himself, he was so much out of conceit with the trade of picking pockets that he left it quite off and followed house-breaking; in which kind of villainy he was so notorious that he had committed above sixty felonies and burglaries in the county of Middlesex only in less than fourteen months. He reigned eight years in his crimes; but at length, setting a barn on fire betwixt Brentford and Austirly, a little village lying about a mile north from that town, while the servants came from the dwelling-house to quench it he ran up into a chamber, pretending to help to preserve the goods, but ran away with a trunk in which was a great deal of plate and a hundred and forty pounds in money. He was apprehended before he got to Hammersmith, where, being carried before a magistrate, he was committed to Newgate; and receiving sentence of death at the Old Bailey, when about twenty-nine years of age, he was hanged at Tyburn on Friday, the 18 th day of December, in the year 1691.

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1692

23: Henry Harrison, Gent.

Sentenced to Death 6th of April, 1692, for strangling Dr Clenche in a Coach

HENRY HARRISON, gent., appeared at the Old Bailey on 6th of April, 1692, charged with murdering (with the assistance of some person unknown) Dr Andrew Clenche, by strangling him in a coach.

According to witnesses Dr Clenche had advanced one hundred and twenty pounds to Mrs Vanwicke, a widow, on a mortgage, and when a trustee for her and her children, named Rowe was unable to meet his covenants, the doctor served an ejectment order on the tenant of the house under mortgage. This incensed Harrison, who was a friend of Mrs Vanwicke. Mrs Mary Sheriff deposed that Mrs Vanwicke and Mr Harrison came to her house; and Mrs Vanwicke desired the deponent to go with her to Dr Clenche, which she did; and Mrs Vanwicke desiring the doctor to let her have twenty pounds more, he said he would lend her no more so long as she kept company with Harrison, for he would spend it; and told her he would recommend her to be some gentleman's housekeeper, and that though she owed him one hundred and twenty pounds he would take one hundred pounds. That when they returned to the deponent's house, Mrs Vanwicke told Mr Harrison what the doctor said; and Mr Harrison answered: "God d --n him! Would he have a person of your quality go to service? He deserves to have his throat cut"; and added: "Let me alone; I'll manage him as never man was managed," and then Mrs Vanwicke and Harrison went away together. That Mr Harrison was always talking against the doctor, and said he was an old rogue, and Mrs Vanwicke was almost starved to death.

John Giles, coachman, deposed that on Monday, the 4th of January, he set down a fare at the Green Dragon in Fleet Street about nine in the evening, and was driving from thence towards the Temple, when two men, who stood about Fetter Lane end, asked him if he knew Dr Clenche, who lived in Brownlow Street, in Holborn.

And the deponent saying he knew the street, they came into his coach, and he drove them to the end of Brownlow Street; and one of them bade him go and tell the doctor two gentlemen in a coach desired him to go with them to see one who was not well. That the doctor asked the deponent if he knew them, but he said he did not; and the doctor dressed himself (being before in his gown and slippers); and when he came to the coach, one of the men removed and gave him the hinder part of the coach, and bade the deponent drive to Leadenhall Market: and when he came about Holborn Bars, one of them bade him drive faster, which he did, and came to Leadenhall. Then one of them bade him drive to the Pye Tavern without Aldgate, where they bade him ask for one Hunt, a surgeon; but no such person was there. Then one of them bade him drive back to Leaden- hall, and Aldgate being shut they gave the watch sixpence to open it; and when he stopped again at Leadenhall Gate one of them gave him three shillings and sixpence and bade him buy a couple of fowls of Hunt, the poulterer; but not being able to find such a man, he bought them of another; and coming back to his coach he found Dr Clenche (as he thought). sitting against the fore-seat, with his head against the cushion: that he pulled him and called to him, but could not get a word from him; and, calling the watch, he found he was strangled with a handkerchief about his neck, and a coal in it, placed just upon his windpipe; but the other two men were gone. That he could not tell what clothes the prisoner had on, but one of them had a light wig, and he verily believed it was the prisoner, and that the other person was taller, and wore his own hair.

Mrs Ashbolt deposed that, being sent out on an errand the night Dr Clenche was murdered, she saw a coach stop at Brownlow Street end between nine and ten o'clock, and one in the coach bade the coachman go and tell Dr Clenche that two gentlemen waited for him in a coach, and one of them leaned out of the coach and swore at the coachman as he was going that he made no more haste. That the deponent went round the coach and could discern Mr Harrison's face, and she saw Dr Clenche go into the coach, and one of them gave his place to the doctor.

MR DARNEL (prosecuting): Tell us how you came to be so curious, and what you observed further.

MRS ASHBOLT: I thought they would give the coachman the slip; and I clearly observed Mr Harrison, there being a lamp burning on each side the coach, which lighted quite through; and when the men saw me look at them they pulled themselves back. Afterwards, when Madam Clenche desired me to go see Mr Harrison in Newgate, I knew the voice to be one of those who were in the coach, as he was talking very loud, before I came into the room, and I told the company so that were with me. And I knew the prisoner to be one of those who were in the coach as soon as I saw him.  But

Mr Darnel produced a record to prove that Baker, one of the prisoner's witnesses, was convicted of cheating the parish of St Giles's when he was a scavenger, by altering the figures in the book and then extorting greater sums from the parishioners than they ought to pay, and he called two other witnesses, who deposed that Maccaffee, another of Harrison's witnesses, kept a very disorderly house, where thieves and housebreakers and lewd women resorted.

The Lord Chief justice summed up the evidence very impartially, and the jury withdrew to consider of their verdict; and, after retiring half-an-hour, they brought the prisoner in guilty of wilful murder; and the last day of the sessions the prisoner received sentence of death.

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24: Jocelin Harwood

Highwayman, who committed such Barbarous Murders that his Associates gave him up to Justice. Executed in 1692

JOCELIN HARWOOD was a degenerate plant from a good tree. His father was honest― moderately rich, and of undoubted reputation; and the greatest misfortune of his life was his having a child so unworthy of him. Jocelin was born in the year 1669, at Wateringbury, in Kent, where he was educated with all the caution necessary in such cases. When he grew towards seventeen years of age he ran away from his father, carrying off with him about sixty pounds. When he had wasted what he took from his father in luxury and wantonness he made no scruple of getting more in the same dishonest way.

Being now in London, also, he had every disadvantage that a young man can have who has given way a little to the allurements of vice. His money brought him into bad company, and then that bad company persuaded him to seek for more money. He submitted at first only to pilfering and picking of pockets, which he followed for about three years, and then he resolved to move in a higher sphere, make a greater blaze in the world for a time, and receive his fate, when it came, with more honour.

The ill success of his first adventure on the highway was enough to have reformed him, and deterred him from ever attempting the like again. He had stolen a horse, bridle, saddle, holsters and pistols, with which he set out on Black-Heath, and was so hardy as to order two men at once to stand and deliver. The gentlemen engaged him, shot his new horse, and had certainly taken him, if the wounds they had received in the encounter had not disabled them fromexerting themselves. Harwood was terribly frightened at the bravery of his antagonists, and was glad he could get off with only the loss of a horse.

Jocelin continued to rob on the highway for about two or three years, during which time he lived in all manner of excess, passing from county to county as it suited either his pleasure or his safety.

The last and worst action of his life was committed at the house of Sir Nehemiah Burroughs, in Shropshire, where he was informed of an immense treasure in plate and money. In company with two more he went one night and broke open this house, gagging and binding all the servants as fast as they could get into their chambers. When the rest of the family was secure he went to the knight and bound him and his lady; then going into his daughters' room, one of the young ladies said to Harwood: "Pray, sir, use us civilly; which if you do, we will use you in the same manner, in case you and your companions should be taken; for I am sure we shall know you again."

"Shall you so?" said the inhuman wretch. "I'll take care then to prevent your doing any mischief."; Upon this he cut them both in pieces with his hanger, and then running into the old people's room again --

"What," says he, "and do you know me too?"

They told him no.

"D ---n you," said he, "you are only a little more artful than your daughters, but I shan't trust you." Then he run them both through, and left them wallowing in their blood, seeming as well satisfied as if he had done a meritorious deed.

His companions were so astonished at the barbarity of this fellow that they stood like stocks, unable either to prevent him in his bloody attempts, or to apprehend him for them on the place, which latter they had most mind to. But the horror continued so strong on their minds that, though they were both old offenders themselves, they could not help exposing him to justice as soon as they had left the house of this unhappy family. Being on the road, one of them by agreement shot his horse, and then they joined to bind him hand and foot, and leave him on the ground, with a piece of the knight's plate by his side, telling him it was but a just requital for his inhumanity.

The next day, an inquiry being made all over the country, he was found in the condition he had been left by his  companions. He was sent under a strong guard to Shrewsbury jail, where he behaved very audaciously. At his trial he was even so impudent as to spit in the faces of the judge and jury, and talk to them without any regard to decency.

The matter of fact being plainly proved against him, he was condemned to be first hanged on the gallows till he was dead, and then to have his body hanged in chains on a gibbet for a public spectacle. This sentence made no impression on him; so that he continued the same horrid course of oaths, profaneness and blasphemies till his death. When he was at the gallows, with a steady countenance he said that he should act the same murder again, in the same case. This was all he would say to anybody. It is shocking to think that such a wretch should be but twenty-three years of age at the time of his death, which was in the year 1692.

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25: Simon Fletcher

A most expert Pickpocket, who captained the Thieves of London. Executed in 1692

THIS offender was the son of a baker in Rosemary Lane, to which trade he served about four years with his father; but happening several times to fall into bad company, and being of a vicious inclination, he was prevailed on, without much difficulty, to run away from his servitude, and enter with a gang of thieves.

The chief sort of thieving at that time was cutting off people's purses or pockets, which was in use long before the modern and more dexterous practice of picking out the money and leaving the case behind. The latter, however, must be allowed to be only an improvement of the former, and therefore the performances of any of our pickpockets cannot be said to derogate from the merit of those gentlemen of the last age; for the inventors of all sciences have generally been looked upon to deserve a greater share of praise than they that have brought those sciences to perfection, because it is much easier to refine upon the thought of another person than to start any new thought of our own.

Simon Fletcher was looked upon to be the greatest artist of his age by all his contemporaries of the same trade; and it is affirmed that he was constituted captain of all the thieves, in and about London, by general consent. All that we know more of him is that he was at last taken, committed to Newgate, and hanged at Tyburn. His exit was in 1692, when he was about fifty-three years of age.

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26: Madam Mary Butler

Mistress of the Duke of Buckingham, fined Five Hundred Pounds for forging a Bond for Forty Thousand Pounds, and died in Newgate Prison in 1692

MADAM MARY BUTLER, alias Strickland, mistress to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, on the 13th of October, the year after his death, was indicted at Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey, for a misdemeanour in forging a bond in the name of the Worshipful Sir Robert Clayton, knight and alderman of the City of London, for forty thousand pounds, with a condition to pay twelve hundred pounds per annum, with interest, and that after the decease of the said Sir Robert Clayton there should be twenty thousand pounds paid her within six months; which bond had a seal, and was witnessed by four persons.

The first evidence was Mr Woodward, an eminent attorney in the city, who deposed that Mary Butler had been his client for several years; and that about two or three years before that time she came to him and brought him a bond to look over, and desired him that another should be drawn by it, which bond was signed Robert Clayton, and had a seal affixed to it, and the names of four persons subscribed to the same, and was of the penalty of forty thousand pounds, and dated in the year 1687, or thereabouts, to pay twelve hundred pounds yearly so long as Sir Robert should live, and after his decease to pay the sum of twenty thousand pounds; and that she desired it might be kept a secret, and that his servants should not know anything of it, for that it was to be delivered up to Sir Robert, and she was to disclaim her interest by a bill in Chancery.

And she told him she had received money upon the said bond, and desired him to cast up what was in arrears; which he did, and then took a copy of the bond to draw the other by, by reason it was a special condition (which copy he produced in court, and said that he did believe it to be a true copy of the same); and that afterwards he drew a bond of the penalty of fifty-four thousand pounds for the payment of twenty-seven thousand pounds; upon which he told Mrs Butler it was a great sum, and required people of credit to see it executed, and offered her to be one of the witnesses to see it done himself. Upon which she replied that Sir Robert knew him very well, and did not desire him to be a witness, and that she then took away the bond and the draft from him; and he did not know what she did with it afterwards.

The next evidence was a very worthy gentleman, who deposed that he was present when she was brought before the Lord Chief Justice Holt, and that she did then acknowledge that she did cause the bond to be made by one Lucas, a scrivener in Bishopsgate Street, and owned that she did it herself and directed him to make it by her order.

Mrs Butler denied the fact upon her trial, and called persons to her reputation; but that did not avail her: the jury found her guilty of a misdemeanour, and the Court fined her five hundred pounds, and ordered her to remain in prison till it was paid. But she never paid it, for after four years' imprisonment she died, in the common side of Newgate

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1693

27: William Jones (alias Goodwin) and John Barber

Two Highwaymen caught at the same Robbery and & executed together on 26th of July, 1693

THESE two malefactors were executed at Tyburn on Wednesday, the 26th of July, 1693, for the same fact, which was robbing one Mr Salter, of Stoke, in Buckinghamshire. They had both been great offenders before, according to their age, though abundance of their robberies are not recorded.

William Jones, alias Goodwin (which latter was said to be his right name, though he went by the former), was born in Gloucestershire, at a village near Campden, called Weston Subedge. He was kept at school till sixteen years of age, with one Mr Taylor, whom he was like to have killed with a pistol. At their breaking up at Christmas the boys had shut their master out of the school in the midst of their diversion, and refused him entrance. Mr Taylor upon this endeavouring to force open the door upon them, Jones discharged a bullet through the keyhole and narrowly missed his breast.

Complaint being made to his father of this misdemeanour, he was severely corrected and removed to another school, the master of which was called Bedford, with whom he continued about two years more. He now thought himself too old to be restrained, and requested his parents to take him home; which was done, according to his desire.

Some time after this he had a small estate left him by his grandfather, which made him still more desirous of being fully his own master; to which also his indulgent father consented, and promoted his liberty (if marriage may not rather be called a slavery) by matching him to a fortune as good as his own. The woman, however, not proving so good as she should do, a sense of her ill-usage made him extravagant.

He now abandoned himself wholly to excesses. He had one night a small quarrel in company, when he made no more to-do but pull out his sword and stab the person who gave the affront to the very heart. A dread of the consequences of this murder made him get off as fast as he could, and the want he was in of a maintenance, when he was from home, and durst not send to his friends, made him take to the highway, where he committed a great many robberies.

In particular, he robbed the Worcester and Bridgnorth stage-coaches several times over, and within the compass of a few days stopped a great number of passengers, horse and foot, upon Sarney Downs, near Winchester. His reign was not very long, but no man ever was more industrious to improve the little time that his fortune permitted him to go on in his villainies.

John Barber was born at Chard, in Somersetshire, from whence, coming up to London when he was very young, he got into a gentleman's service, and lived, among others, with Dr Boorne, at the Two Twins, in Moorfields, where he was detected in cheating his master of small sums of money, and turned out of doors for the knavery.

When he was out of place he took to gaming, at which he soon lost all his unjust gains, and whatever else he had saved. The same persons that won his money put him into a way to get more, by going out with them on the footpad. He was concerned in all the robberies that were committed by this gang from the time of his entering among them till he joined himself with Jones, and had more than once been guilty of murder, particularly at a gardener's at Fulham, whose house he broke open.

Jones and Barber had not been long united before they came to the fatal union at Tyburn already mentioned. The only facts they had been concerned in together, that we have heard of, were the breaking open the houses of four or five farmers about Eversley and Blackwater, out of one of which they took a hundred and thirty pounds in gold and silver, and in another took away the life of one who attempted to resist them in their enterprise.

When they were under sentence of death for Mr Salter's robbery they both behaved in a very indecent, or rather impudent, manner. At the place of execution they gave a great many ill words to the ordinary, who desired them to be serious in their last moments, and consider that they were going to appear before God to give an account of their actions. Just as they were going to be turned off Jones cried out:

"What a sad, wicked, silly dog have I been to bring myself into this devilish scrape! Well, it is a dismal thing, for all our jesting, to be hanged up by the neck, and not to know where we are to be the next quarter of an hour!"

Jones was twenty-six and Barber twenty-four years of age.

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28: James Leonard

Eighteen-year-old Highwayman, who tried to cut the Fatal Rope, and died with a Laugh in 1693

JAMES LEONARD, a youth of no more than eighteen years old, who had been at the reduction of Ireland, and afterwards in Flanders, under the late King William (we may suppose only in the quality of a waiting-boy at first), was but just returned to England when he was apprehended, condemned and executed, for a robbery on the highway.

He was so little concerned at the gallows that he smiled at his misfortune, and pulling a knife out of his pocket attempted to cut the rope. When he was asked the reason of his so doing―

"Nothing more" says he, "than that I should have given you the trouble of buying a new rope, if my knife had been good."

Leaning his back against his coffin as it stood on the cope of the cart, he laughed out heartily and spoke as follows:―

GOOD PEOPLE,―I am a Roman Catholic, and so I die. You see I am but very young; however I have made good use of my time, for I have been as great a rogue as those that are older. Methinks 'tis a plaguey cold morning; they need not have brought one to be hanged in such weather as will freeze a body before the job's over.

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1694

29: Edward Hinton

Highwayman, who was such a Danger to Society that he was condemned and executed on the same Day, in 1694

EDWARD HINTON was born in London, in the year 1673, of very reputable parents. In his younger years he discovered a strong bent to learning, which his father cherished by putting him to St Paul's School, that celebrated seminary for youth. This good turn of mind was, however, soon overcome by a vicious one, which seemed also to be innate, and grew stronger as he grew older. Even at nine years of age, it is said, he robbed one of his sisters of sixpences and other small pieces to the value of thirty shillings, and kept abroad in company with boys like himself till he had spent and lost it all.

After a little correction young Hinton was sent to school again, upon his promising to be a better boy for the future. But in vain, alas, were his promises. Thieving soon grew into a habit with him, and there was no opportunity of getting money, or anything else, clandestinely that ever escaped him. He went so far at last as to rob his father's counting-house of a considerable sum of money, which he carried to a lewd woman, with whom he was soon after taken on Cambridge Heath.

The first action which he performed in conjunction with others was the robbing of Admiral Carter's country house. Soon after this he and his comrades broke open the Lady Dartmouth's house on Black Heath, and stole plate to a great value, which they sold to a refiner near Cripplegate. Hinton was some time after apprehended for this robbery, and condemned at Maidstone Assizes; but his youth, and the intercession of his friends, procured him a pardon.

He was again taken up for breaking open and robbing the house of Sir John Friend, at Hackney, for which he also received sentence of death; but was a second time so far indulged as to have a halter transmuted into transportation, in order to which he was soon after put aboard with other convicts. One would have thought he had now been safe enough; however those who thought so were mistaken, for he drew the rest of the convicts into a conspiracy to get the ship's company under the hatches, and make their escape in the long boat, which they effected near the Isle of Wight, Hinton having first beat the captain with a rope's end, as a return for being served so himself.

He was no sooner ashore than he left his company and travelled alone through the woods and byways, being in a very torn and rusty habit. This distress obliged him to sink from stealing to begging, which he practised all the way to Hounslow Heath, telling the people a lamentable story of his having been shipwrecked. But he soon altered his tone when he saw a convenient opportunity; for on Hounslow Heath he unhorsed a country farmer and mounted in his place. Nor was it long after before he changed this horse for a better, and his own ragged suit for a very genteel one, with a gentleman he met.

Being now got among some of his old gang, they continued some months to rob on the highway almost every day that passed. The Buckinghamshire lacemen and stage- coaches in particular were afraid to travel for them. Hinton by himself, at two several times, robbed a Dutch colonel of his money, horse, arms and cloak; and another gentleman, who had courage enough to exchange a pistol with him. This gentleman was wounded in the leg by Hinton's fire, and our young highwayman, perceiving it, was so generous as to lend him his assistance, and accompany him as far as within a little way of Epsom; when he left him in order to take care of himself.

One day, after robbing the passengers in the Southampton coach, they were so closely pursued that some of the gang were taken; and though Hinton had the good fortune this time to escape, yet the society being broken, he did not care to venture any more on the highway alone; whereupon he returned to his old vocation of housebreaking, picking of pockets, etc.

At length several bills were presented against him for robberies committed in the counties of Surrey and Hertford, to answer which he was detained a prisoner. One of his own gang had made himself an evidence against him, which made the case look very doubtful; yet even here he had again hopes of escaping, by stopping the mouth of this fellow. Some of Hinton's friends undertook to manage the matter, and they threatened to bring in several indictments against their false brother if he did not retract in court what he had before sworn; which for his own safety he did, pretending that he had recollected himself, and that Mr Hinton was never concerned with him in any robbery whatsoever.

This, and the other assistances he received from his old friends, brought him off with honour at the Surrey Assizes, and he did not at all doubt but that he should escape as well at Hertford, there being no evidence against him that he knew of; so that he went thither with abundance of confidence.

But when his trial came on, in spite of all that could be deposed in his favour, one of the gentlemen whom he had robbed, and whom he did not expect to appear, swore so positively that he was the very person who unhorsed him and took away his watch that the Court believed him. It is true they had begun to imagine that Hinton really must be concerned in some of those things that he had been acquitted of, because it is unprecedented for a man to be so often accused and not be at all guilty. Besides, Hinton was known to be an old offender, which gave room both to suspect the evidences he brought and to believe that he had not perfectly left off his trade, though he had art enough to make himself seem innocent.

In a word, where Hinton fancied himself safest he met with his deserved fate, being convicted, condemned and executed the same day― a thing seldom heard of, but at this time occasioned by the judge's being informed what a dangerous person he was on account of his interest among the thieves, and how proper it would be to take him out of the way as soon as they possibly could; the jailer protesting that he was afraid he could not keep him a week in custody.

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30: Tom Austin

Highwayman, guilty of unparalleled Butchery. He murdered his Aunt, Wife and Seven Children. Executed in August, 1694

THOMAS Austin was born at Columpton, in Devonshire, of very honest parents, who at their death left him a farm of their own, worth about eighty pounds per annum, which is a pretty estate in that country; and as his land was without encumbrances, and he had a good character at that time, he soon got a wife with a suitable fortune, she having no less than eight hundred pounds to her portion.

But this increase of his riches, and the thought of having so much ready money by him, made him neglect the improvement of his living and take to an idle, extravagant course, by means of which, in less than four years' time, he had consumed all that his wife had brought him and mortgaged his own estate.

Being now reduced to pinching circumstances, and not knowing which way to turn himself for a livelihood, the devil so far got the upper hand of him as to excite him to the commission of all manner of unlawful actions for the support of himself and his family. Several frauds he was detected in, which his neighbours were so good as to forgive, out of respect to his family and to what he had once been. At last he was so desperate as to venture on the highway, where, assaulting Sir Zachary Wilmot on the road between Wellington and Taunton Dean, that unfortunate gentleman was murdered by him for making some attempts to save his money.

The booty he got from Sir Zachary was forty-six guineas and a silver-hilted sword, with which he got home undiscovered and unsuspected. This did not, however, last him long, for he followed his old riotous course. When it was all spent he pretended a visit to an uncle of his, who lived at about a mile from his own habitation, and it was one of the bloodiest visits that ever was made.

When he came to the house he found nobody at home but his aunt and five small children, who informed him that his uncle was gone out on business and would not be at home till evening, and desired him to stay a little and keep them company. He seemingly consented to stay; but had not sat many minutes before he snatched up a hatchet that was at hand and cleaved the skull of his aunt intwo; after which he cut the throats of all the children and laid the dead bodies in a heap, all weltering in their gore. Then he went upstairs and robbed the house of sixty pounds. He made all the haste he could home to his wife, who, perceiving some drops of blood on his clothes, asked him how they came there.

"You bitch," says he, "I'll soon show you the manner of it!" pulling at the same time the bloody razor which he had before used out of his pocket and cutting her throat from ear to ear. When he had gone thus far, to complete the tragedy he ripped out the bowels of his own two children, the elder of whom was not three years of age.

Scarcely had he finished all his butcheries before his uncle, whom he had been to visit, came accidentally to pay him the same compliment on the way home; when, entering the house, and beholding the horrid spectacle, he was almost thunderstruck with the sight, though as yet he little thought the same tragedy had been acted on all his family too, as he soon after fatally found. What he saw, however, was enough to point out the offender, whom he immediately laid hold of, and carried him before a magistrate, who sent him to Exeter Jail.  In the month of August, 1694, this inhuman wretch suffered the punishment provided by the law, which appears much too mild for such a black unnatural monster.

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31: James Whitney

Notorious Highwayman, who believed in dressing well. Executed at Smithfield, 19th of December, 1694

THIS notorious malefactor was born at Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, where he was put apprentice to a butcher as soon as he was fit for servitude. He served his time, as far as we have heard, very faithfully; but was not long his own master before he took to the irregular courses that brought destruction upon him and branded his name with infamy.

He took the George Inn, at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, where he entertained all sorts of bad company; but not thriving in this way he was in a little time obliged to shut up his doors and entirely give over the occupation. He now came up to London, the common sanctuary of such men, where he lived very irregularly, and at last, when necessitous circumstances came on him apace, wholly gave himself up to villainy.

It was still some time before he took to the highway, following only the common tricks practised by the sharpers of the town, in which he was the more successful as he always went dressed like a gentleman, it being easier to impose upon mankind with a good suit of clothes than any other way whatsoever.

When Whitney was grown a confirmed highwayman he one day met a gentleman on Bagshot Heath, whom he commanded to stand and deliver. To which the gentleman replied: "Sir, 'tis well you spoke first, for I was just going to say the same thing to you."

"Why, are you a gentleman thief then?" quoth Whitney.

"Yes," said the stranger; but I have had very bad success to-day; for I have been riding up and down all this morning without meeting with any prize."

Whitney, upon this, wished him better luck and took his leave, really supposing him to be what he pretended.

At night it was the fortune of Whitney and this impostor to put up at the same inn, when our gentleman told some other travellers by what a stratagem he had escaped being robbed on the road. Whitney had so altered his habit and speech that the gentleman did not know him again; so that he heard all the story without being taken any notice of. Among other things he heard him tell one of the company, softly, that he had saved a hundred pounds by his contrivance. The person to whom he whispered this was going the same way the next morning, and said he also had a considerable sum about him, and, if he pleased, should be glad to travel with him for security. It was agreed between them, and Whitney at the same time resolved to make one with them.

When morning came our fellow-travellers set out, and Whitney about a quarter of an hour after them. All the discourse of the gentlemen was about cheating the highwaymen, if they should meet with any, and all Whitney's thoughts were upon being revenged for the abuse which was put on him the day before.

At a convenient place he got before them and bade them stand. The gentleman whom he had met before, not knowing him, he having disguised himself after another manner, briskly cried out: "We were going to say the same to you, sir."

"Were you so?" quoth Whitney. "And are you of my profession then?"

"Yes," said they both.

"If you are," replied Whitney, "I suppose you remember the old proverb, 'Two of a trade can never agree,' so that you must not expect any favour on that score. But to be plain, gentlemen, the trick will do no longer. I know you very well, and must have your hundred pounds, sir; and your considerable sum, sir," turning to the other, "let it be what it will, or I shall make bold to send a brace of bullets through each of your heads. You, Mr Highwayman, should have kept your secret a little longer, and not have boasted so soon of having outwitted a thief. There is now nothing for you to do but deliver, or die."

These terrible words put them both into a sad consternation. They were loath to lose their money, but more loath to lose their lives; so of two evils they chose the least, the tell-tale coxcomb disbursing his hundred pounds, and the other a somewhat larger sum, professing that they would be careful for the future not to count without their host.

Whitney, like a great many others of the same profession, affected always to appear generous and noble. There is one instance of this temper in him which it may not be amiss to relate. Meeting one day with a gentleman on Newmarket Heath, whose name was Long, and having robbed him of a hundred pounds in silver, which was in his portmanteau tied up in a great bag, the gentleman told him that he had a great way to go, and as he was unknown upon the road should meet with many difficulties if he did not restore as much as would bear his expenses. Whitney upon this opened the mouth of the bag, and held it out to Mr Long. "Here," says he, "take what you have occasion for." Mr Long put in his hand and took out as much as he could hold. To which Whitney made no opposition, but only said with a smile: "I thought you would have had more conscience, sir."

Not long after his arrival in town, after a series of other adventures in the country, he was apprehended in Whitefriars, upon the information of one Mother Cosens, who kept a house in Milford Lane, over against St Clement's Church. The magistrate who took the information committed him to Newgate, where he remained till the next sessions at the Old Bailey.  After his conviction, Sir S―l L―e, Knight, Recorder of London, made an excellent speech before he passed sentence of death, and on Wednesday, the 19th of December, 1694, Whitney was carried to the place of execution, which was at Porter's Block, near Smithfield. When he came there, and saw no hopes of any favour, he addressed these few words to the people:

"I have been a very great offender, both against God and my country, by transgressing all laws, both human and divine. The sentence passed on me is just, and I can see the footsteps of a Providence, which I had before profanely laughed at, in my apprehending and conviction. I hope the sense which I have of these things has enabled me to make my peace with Heaven, the only thing that is now of any concern to me. join in your prayers with me, my dear countrymen, that God will not forsake me in my last moments."  Having spoken thus, and afterwards spent a few moments in private devotion, he was turned off, being about thirty-four years of age.

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1696

32: George Seager

A Rogue of a Soldier, who deserted from Johnny Gibson's Regiment and turned Burglar. Executed 27th of January, 1697

GEORGE SEAGER, aged twenty-six years at the time of his death, was born at Portsmouth, in Hampshire, where, his father and mother dying, his sister took care of him for a while; but she, not being able to support herself, left it to the parish to keep him, the overseers whereof placed him out to spin packthread.

After two years he left that employment and went to a silk-throwster for a year and a half, when, running away from his master, he took to bad courses, being addicted to gaming, swearing, drunkenness and theft; but a gang of the Ruby man-of-war pressing him, he went on board that ship to sea, where, robbing the seamen's chests, he was often whipped at the capstan, put in the bilboes, and once keel-hauled. Keel-hauling a man is tying a rope round his middle, to which two other ropes are so fastened that, carrying him to the end of the main-yardarm on the starboard-side of the ship, he is flung from thence into the water and hauled under the ship by a man standing on the main-yardarm on the larboard-side, where a gun is fired over the criminal's head as he is drawn up.

However, as no punishment would deter him from pilfering, the captain of the ship, rather than be plagued with him, put him ashore at Plymouth, from whence he begged his way to Portsmouth, where he enlisted himself into Johnny Gibson's Regiment, to whom he was a continual plague. The first time he mounted the guard, being put sentry on the ramparts and ordered by the corporal not to let the grand rounds pass without challenging, he said he would take care of them, imagining that if he challenged them he must fight them too. So the grand rounds going about at twelve at night, with Johnny Gibson at the head of them, Seager, who had got a whole hatful of stones by him, because he chose to fight at a distance, cries out: "Who comes there?"

Being told they were the grand rounds―

"Oh, d―n ye!" quoth George, "the grand rounds, are ye? Have at you then; for I have waited for you this hour and above."

So pelting them with stones as fast as he could fling, the grand rounds could not pass any farther till they called out to the captain of Lamport Guard, who sent the corporal to relieve him, in order to his being examined; but Johnny Gibson finding him to be a raw soldier, who had never been on duty before, he escaped any punishment inflicted on offenders by martial law.

After this George also ran the gauntlet several times for robbing the soldiers' barracks of victuals, linen or anything else that he could find; but no punishment deterring him from his pilfering tricks, he was in a draft sent over to Flanders, where, going one day into a great church in Brussels, he espied a Capuchin friar confessing a young woman in a very private place; and as soon as the good old Father had given absolution to his penitentiary, he made up to him, under pretence of confessing his sins, for, as it happened, the friar was an Englishman. But, instead of confessing his manifold crimes, his intention was to commit more; for, pulling a pistol out of his pocket and clapping it to his breast, quoth he: "Reverend Father, I perceived the young gentlewoman, whom you just now confessed, gave you something; but, let it be more or less, unless you surrender it to me, who have most need of it, I will shoot you through the heart, although I were sure to be hanged this very moment for it."

The friar, being much surprised at these dangerous words, and deeming life sweet, gave him what he had got from his female penitentiary, which was two louis d'or; then binding him hand and foot, in a corner adjacent to his confession box, he went away; and that same day, deserting his regiment, he made the best of his way to England, where he committed several most notorious burglaries in the cities of London and Westminster, and the outparts thereof. But at last being apprehended, and sent to Newgate, for breaking open the house of the Lord Cutts and taking from thence plate and fine linen valued at two hundred and forty pounds, he was hanged at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 27th day of January, in the year 1697.

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33: William Joyce

A Chawbacon who, coming to London, was fleeced, so took to fleecing Others. Executed in July, 1696

THIS unhappy criminal was the son of an honest farmer, born at Nantwich, in Cheshire, and brought up to his father's occupation; but at about twenty years of age, being very desirous to see London, he having scarce ever been ten miles from home, his father, who was a wealthy man, put twenty-five guineas into his pockets, and he set out to visit the metropolis of the nation. The father and son might have now taken their last farewell of each other, for they never saw one another any more.

The very first day he came into London, which was in the forenoon, taking, after dinner, a walk into Moorfields to see the lunatics in Bedlam, a couple of women of the town, perceiving by his garb and mien that he was no small country fool, picked him up, and carrying him to a vaulting school they there had a very pretty collation both of eating and drinking; after which sweet William, being a brisk young fellow, had a game at hey grammar-cook with them both, in which he lost all the money he had in his breeches. He began to be uneasy at his loss, but they coaxing him up with promises of his having or finding his money again, then drank him to a pitch of being non compos mentis, when, falling asleep, they left him to pay the reckoning of four pounds odd money.

Then he roved down to the waterside, where, seeing a waterman taking a good heavy trunk into his boat to carry to Fulham, without any company, he told the waterman, whose name was William Bennet, that he had business at Fulham too, and asked what he must have to carry him thither. The waterman demanded a shilling, to which he consented; so into the boat he steps. It being night before they arrived within a mile of the place, what does Joyce do but, with a good oaken plant he had in his hand, give the waterman such a shrewd blow under the ear that, being stunned, he fell all along backwards. Joyce followed it with another sharp blow on the head, then presently tied his hands and feet with his garters, crammed a handkerchief into his mouth, and rowing the boat to Barn Elms there breaks open the trunk. He found a great deal of good clothes, which he would not meddle with; but searching to the bottom, he found a hundred pounds in silver in a bag, forty guineas in a green purse, a gold watch, and a silver box in which were four rich diamond rings.

With this booty he went ashore, and lived riotously up and down the country till it was almost consumed; and being then at Chatham, he there happened into the company of one James Corbet, a young reformade, just come ashore from on board the Royal Oak. Now, understanding that he had about fifty or sixty guineas about him, and that he was to ride post to London next morning, Joyce was resolved to make himself master of this money that night. In order thereto, pretending that he was invited to one Captain Mosely's house, about a mile off, to supper, where they should have also a most noble bowl of punch, he told the poor sailor that he should be very glad of his good company, and would undertake for his being as welcome as himself.

Corbet knowing there was such a captain, and Joyce seeming a man of fashion (for he was well clothed, had a good watch in his fob, a diamond ring on his finger, and five or six guineas in his pockets, out of which he paid his own and Corbet's reckoning too), he condescended to go along with him. Over the fields they went, but were not got above half-a-mile out of Chatham ere a convenient place offered for Joyce to execute his design; so pulling out a couple of pistols he demanded Corbet's money, who, knowing it was impossible to parry bullets with a sword (which he also lost as it was a silver-hilted one), complied with his demands, and also suffered himself to be tied neck and heels.

One time Joyce, meeting with one John Hicks on Putney Heath, commanded him to stand and deliver; but he being as stout a fellow as the highwayman a fight ensued betwixt them, in which they discharged several shots at one another without doing any damage. Joyce, admiring the courage of Hicks, said that if he could put so much confidence in him to think he would not betray him he should be very glad to drink a glass of wine with him in the town of Putney. Hicks being a generous-spirited man promised upon honour he would not discover him. To the tavern they went, and having passed the time away for an hour or two in chat, the highwayman paid the reckoning, presented Hicks with five guineas, and then they parted.

But ere Joyce went far, meeting with one Robert Williams, a goldsmith, living in George Yard at Westminster, and one Samuel Winfield) a blacksmith, living in Southwark, he took from them four pounds towards defraying the charges of his late conversation with John Hicks.

Afterwards he went to Bristol, where, marrying a citizen's daughter, with whom he had about five hundred pounds, he was by marrying her made (according to the custom of that city) free thereof.

Now pretending he was a linen-draper by trade, and had fifteen hundred pounds to receive of his own father, he takes the lease of a great house next to an eminent goldsmith in the High Street. The key being delivered to him, he took some of his accomplices with him the same night into this house, which yet was empty, and with iron instruments forcing a hole through the party wall of the goldsmith's shop, they cleared, without going into it, all the plate off the shelves quite along that side they had made an entrance.

They were carrying off their prize in hampers on a couple of horses when, being stopped by the watch at Laifford's Gate, he and two others were apprehended and sent to Newgate, and in some short time after, being tried and condemned for this fact, they were sentenced to be hanged. Accordingly they were executed (though great intercession in particular was made for Joyce) in July, 1696.

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34: Dr Francis Salisbury and Thomas Houghton

Executed at Tyburn, 3rd of November, 1697, for forging a Sixpenny Stamp

FRANCIS SALISBURY was born in the city of Worcester, had a good education, was a student in divinity, and a man of an excellent acquired knowledge, as well as a quick natural understanding. Thomas Houghton, his brother offender, was a tallow-chandler, of St Margaret's, Westminster.

These two were indicted at the sessions-house in the Old Bailey, the 15th day of October, 1697, for felony, in forging a counterfeit sixpenny stamp to stamp vellum, paper and parchment; and that after the 12th of September they did stamp five hundred sheets of paper with the said stamp, and did utter and sell a hundred sheets of the said paper, they knowing it to be false and counterfeit.

The first evidence declared that he met Dr Salisbury at the Physic Garden in Westminster, who told him he could put him in a way to make up his losses, and this way was by stamped paper; that he (the evidence) waited on the doctor the next day, and then he told him the rest would not entrust him with the secret till he came out of the country. That some time after he heard that the doctor was at the Fountain Tavern, in High Holborn, whither he went to him and spoke with him, and that he bade him come to him the next morning and he would let him have some. That this evidence accordingly went, and the doctor took him into a stable, and in a hole from under the manger he took out five quires, and gave them to him, and asked him whether it was well done. And then he let him out of the back door. That he met with him at another time after that, and he delivered him fifteen quires more, which made it up a ream, and that he gave him five pounds for it.

Another evidence deposed that he met Dr Salisbury at the Thatched House, by Charing Cross, to buy some counterfeit stamped paper of him, and that he desired him to go into the next room, which he did, and believed that Houghton brought it in; and he gave Salisbury six pounds for it; and that they were to get him some more against the next night at the Goat Tavern, where they were to meet, and that Houghton told him they could not get so much done by that time, for the old man was sick; telling him likewise that the old man was as ingenious a man as any was in England; and that if they would put down thirty shillings apiece, they would make such a die as Captain Harris, who made the true die, should not discover it. And that afterwards they went to Houghton's lodgings in Westminster, where they found in a chest a quantity of counterfeit stamped paper.

Salisbury altogether denied the fact, and Houghton said he had taken the paper for a debt; but the fact being plainly proved upon them, the jury found them both guilty of the indictment.

On the day of his execution at Tyburn, after the other criminals who then suffered (on the 3rd of November, 1697) were tied up, Dr Salisbury came in a mourning-coach attended by two ministers, and being brought into the cart, he fell upon his knees, and, praying a considerable time by himself, he afterwards joined with the ordinary in the usual offices performed on such melancholy occasions, and then was turned off.

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35: Will Hollyday

Captain of the Ragged Regiment of the Black Guards, which Commission he threw up to take to the Highway. Executed 22nd of December, 1697

WILLIAM HOLLYDAY was born of very poor parents, in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields, who dying when he was very young, he was forced to shift for himself. Entering himself upon this in the ragged regiment of the Black Guards, which in the reign of King Charles II. was in as great estimation as the janizaries in the Ottoman Court, his acute genius and prompt wit, without the advantage of any education, soon made him be taken notice of by the superiors of his tattered fraternity.

But that which gained Hollyday most reputation was his being chosen Lord High Steward in a mock trial of the Viscount Stafford, held in the Mews at Charing Cross; in which, though he had not consulted Fortescue, Fleta, Plowden, Coke upon Littleton, or any other ancient law author, his natural parts most floridly set forth the heinousness of that peer's crime, whose person was represented by one of their tatterdermalions. But instead of executing the poor boy in jest, he was hanged in earnest, and in that pendent posture left till next morning; when one of the king's grooms, finding his lordship hanging in the stable, cut him down and delivered his dead body to his friends to be decently interred.

A little after this piece of mock justice was over, Will's credit increasing more and more, by reason his ingenuity was attended with a great deal of courage, he was, by the unanimous consent of the whole regiment of the Black Guards, chosen their captain; in which post he behaved himself with a great deal of prudence and circumspection, and by virtue of the great authority he bore among them he brought them, nemine contradicente, to be conformable to the following orders:―

1. That none of the Black Guards should presume to wear a shirt upon pain of being cashiered out of the regiment for ever.

2. That none of them should reside, either by day or night,
in any other places than stables, empty houses or under bulks.

3. That they should eat no victuals but what was given them; therefore what money they got by cleaning Life Guardsmen's boots or shoes, and rubbing down horses, should either be lost or increased by gaming among their own fraternity.

4. That if any of them could read or write they should, by not practising either, forget both, like the Czar of Muscovy, for their captain would not have any under his command more learned than himself.

5. That they should daily appear every morning by nine of the clock on the parade in St James's Park, provided they were not letted by sickness, or upon any extraordinary duty, to receive the necessary orders which the present exigency of affairs then required.

6. That none shall presume to follow the King and Court to Windsor, or upon any Royal progress whatever, but such as were commanded to go on that party. VII. That if any charitable person bestowed a pair of old shoes or stockings upon any one of their ragged society, he should presently convert the same into money to play.

8. That they should not steal anything which lay out of their reach, for fear of bringing a scandal on their regiment.

9. That they should not endeavour to clear themselves of vermin, by killing or eating them; nor for profit dispose of them to any apothecary that might now and then want a quillful or two to cure some lady's gentlewoman or chambermaid of the yellow jaundice.

10. That they should cant better than the best proficients of that language in Newgate; pick pockets without bungling; outlie a Quaker; outswear a losing lord at the Groom Porter's; and brazen out all their villainies with the unparalleled impudence of an Irishman.

In this employment Will Hollyday remained till he was near twenty years of age, when looking upon himself as too old to continue longer in that station, wherein he had behaved himself with a great deal of bravery, candour and justice, he surrendered his commission and turned highwayman; which profession he followed till the hangman provided for him, on Wednesday, the 22nd of December, 1697.

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36: John Shorter

Highwayman, who conspired a Revolt in Newgate and saw the Ghost of another Malefactor there. Executed 22nd of December, 1697

EXECUTED on 22nd of December, 1697, was a highwayman named John Shorter, of about thirty years of age. Whilst this fellow was in Newgate, about two years before, he had designed with some other malefactors to have seized on the waiters of Newgate, and to have burnt Mr Tofield's papers, the notary then in the lodge of that prison; withal designing to wrest the officers' arms from them, and to fire upon them if they opposed. They further designed to have bound the officers as they came one day from the chapel, and if they made the least opposition to have cut their throats; and that after their escape they would go on the highways, take travellers' horses, and, mounting them, would ride off. Moreover they had agreed that if anyone knocked at the lodge under the gate they would let them in and bind them also, and then lock them up with the officers in the dungeon or condemned hold. One of these confederates being a smith, he was to have been employed in knocking off the others' fetters; and if the turnkeys had any money in their pockets they would take it from them, to carry themselves off and buy provisions. And if the trained bands, or the mob, should come to seize them, they would fire upon them with the officers' blunderbusses, and would be masters of the prison till the King should send them a pardon, or else they would be starved or shot to death.

Shorter not only confessed this crime, but also owned that he knew of the murder of one Lorimer, in Newgate, but was prevailed upon by one Tokefield, and John Hart, not to discover it; he further said that the latter of these persons carried the bloody knife three days in his pocket; and he verily believed that the day before he suffered death himself at the gallows he saw Lorimer's ghost as he was at prayers in the chapel of Newgate, which put him into a great consternation, as was visibly observed by Mr Smith, the ordinary. Thomas Randol was one of the persons concerned with Shorter in this conspiracy. This offender was executed on Wednesday, the 22nd of January, 1695, for the murder of Robert Stevens, a Quaker. He was conveyed in a cart to the deceased's door, in Whitechapel, and from thence to Stone Bridge, by Kingsland, where, after he was dead, his body was hanged in chains on the gibbet he suffered on, and continued there till it was consumed by the weather.

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1699

37: Spencer Cowper, Esq.; John Marson, Ellis Stevens And William Rogers,  Gents.

Tried for murder at Hertford Assizes and acquitted, 16th of July, 1699

THE prisoners being severally arraigned, and pleading not guilty, it was demanded if they would join in their challenges, or challenge separately. To which Mr Cowper answered, if they should challenge separately, there must be so many separate trials; and therefore, to prevent the trouble of the Court, they were content there should be but one challenge for all. Then the panel was called over, and there being so many challenged for the King and the prisoners that there was not a full jury on the principal panel, Mr Cowper moved that the counsel for the King might show their cause of challenge, now the panel was gone through: to which Mr Jones, counsel for the King, answered that it never was put upon the King's Counsel to show cause; and insisting upon it, though the judge was of another opinion, Mr Cowper gave it up, and others were added to the principal panel, till twelve were sworn.

Then the Clerk of the Arraigns read the indictment to the prisoners, which set forth:

That Spencer Cowper, late of the parish of St John's, in the town of Hertford, in the county of Hertford, Esq.; John Marson, late of the parish and county aforesaid, gent.; Ellis Stevens and William Rogers, of the said parish and county, gents., not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., did, on the 13th day of March, in the eleventh year of the King, at the parish of St John's aforesaid, make an assault upon Sarah Stout, spinster, and a certain rope about the neck of the said Sarah Stout did fix and bind, and the neck and throat of the said Sarah did hold, squeeze and grip, and thereby the said Sarah Stout did choke and strangle, of which choking and strangling she instantly died; and so the said Spencer Cowper, John Marson, Ellis Stevens and William Rogers did kill and murder her; and the said Sarah Stout being so choked and strangled, they the said Spencer Cowper, etc., in order to conceal the said murder, did afterwards throw her into a certain river, called the Priory river, against the King's peace, etc.

Mr Jones afterwards opened the indictment and the evidence in the following manner:―

"May it please your Lordship, and you gentlemen that are sworn, I am of counsel for the King in this cause, and it is upon an indictment by which the gentlemen at the bar stand accused for one of the foulest and most wicked crimes almost that any age can remember. I believe in your county you never knew a fact of this nature; for here is a young gentlewoman of this county murdered and strangled in the night-time. The thing was done in the dark, therefore the evidence cannot be so plain as otherwise might be. After she was strangled and murdered she was carried and thrown into a river to stifle the fact and to make it be supposed she had murdered herself; so that it may indeed be called a double murder, a murder accompanied with all the circumstances of wickedness and villainy that I can remember in all my practice, or ever read of.

"This fact being committed in the night-time, it was carried on very secretly. We have here in a manner two trials, one to acquit the party that is dead, and to satisfy the world and vindicate her reputation that she did not murder herself, but was murdered by other hands. For my part, I shall never, as counsel in the case of blood, aggravate; I will not improve or enlarge the evidence at all: it shall be only my business to set the fact as it is, and to give the evidence, and state it as it stands here in my instructions. My Lord, in order to lead to the fact, it will be necessary to inform you that upon Monday, the 13th of March, the first day of the last assizes here, Mr Cowper, one of the gentlemen at the bar, came to this town, and alighted at Mr Barefoot's house, and stayed there some time, I suppose to dry himself, the weather being dirty, but sent his horse to Mrs Stout's, the mother of this gentlewoman. Some time after he came thither himself and dined there, and stayed till four in the afternoon; and when he went away he told them he would come and lodge there that night, and sup. According to his word he came there, and had the supper he desired. After supper, Sarah Stout, the young gentlewoman, and he, sat together till near eleven o'clock. At eleven o'clock there were orders given to warm his bed, openly, in his hearing.

The maid of the house, gentlemen, upon this, went upstairs to warm his bed, expecting the gentleman would have come up and followed her before she had done; but it seems, while she was warming the bed, she heard the door clap together; and that door is such that it makes a great noise at the clapping of it to, so that any person in the house may be sensible of another's going out. The maid, upon this, was concerned, and wondered at the meaning of it, as he promised to sleep there that night. She came down, but there was neither Mr Cowper nor Sarah Stout; so that we suppose they must have gone out together. After this the maid and mother came into the room, and, neither the young gentlewoman nor Mr Cowper returning, they sat up all night in the house, expecting the young gentlewoman would return.

The next morning the first news of this lady was that she lay floating and swimming in the water by the mill dam. Upon that there were several persons called; for it was a wonder how this should come to pass. When her body came to be viewed, it was very much wondered at; for, in the first place, it is contrary to nature that any persons that drown themselves should float upon the water. We have sufficient evidence that it is a thing that never was. If persons go alive into the water, then they sink; if dead, then they float: that made some more curious to look into this matter. At first it was thought that such an accident might happen, though they could not imagine any cause for this woman to do so, who had so great prosperity, had so good an estate and had no occasion to do an action upon herself so wicked and so barbarous; nor can they learn she had any reason to induce her to such a thing. Upon viewing the body it did appear there had been violence used to the woman: there was a crease round her neck, and she was bruised about her ear, so that it seemed as if she had been strangled, either by hands or a rope. Gentlemen, upon the examination it was wondered how this matter came about; it was dark and obscure. The coroner at that time, nor these people, had no evidence given but the ordinary evidence, and it passed in a day.

"We must call our witnesses to this fact, that of necessity you must conclude she was strangled, and did not drown herself. If we give you as strong a proof as can be upon the nature of the fact that she was strangled, then the second matter under your inquiry will be to know who or what persons should be the men that did the fact. Truly, gentlemen, as to the persons at the bar, the evidence of the fact will be very short, and will be to this purpose. Mr Cowper was the last man, unfortunately, in her company; I could wish he had not been so with all my heart. Here happens to be three gentlemen, Mr Marson, Mr Rogers and Mr Stevens. As to these three men, my Lord, I do not hear of any business they had here, unless it was to do this matter to serve some interest or friend that sent them upon this message; for, my Lord, these persons, Mr Stevens, Mr Rogers and Mr Marson, came to town here on the 13th of March last, the assize day. My Lord, when they came to town they went to a house and took lodging at one Gurrey's, having hired a room with a large bed in it; and afterwards they went to the Glove and Dolphin, and then, about eight o'clock, one Marson came to them there.

"They stayed there, my Lord, from eight o'clock till eleven, as they say. At eleven these three gentlemen came all in to their lodging together at this Gurrey's. My Lord, when they came in, it was very remarkable, just as if there had been a sort of fate in it, for, my Lord, they called for fire, and the fire was made them; and while the people of the house were going about they observed and heard these gentlemen talk of Sarah Stout: that happened to be their discourse. One said to the other:

"Marson, she was an old sweetheart of yours."

"Aye," said he, "but she cast me off; but I reckon by this time a friend of mine has done her business."

Another piece of discourse was:

"I believe a friend of mine is even with her by this time."

They had a bundle of linen with them, but what it was is not known; and one takes the bundle and throws it upon the bed.

"Well," said he, "her business is done. Mrs Sarah Stout's courting days are over"; and they sent for wine, my Lord. So, after they had drunk of the wine, they talked, and one pulled out a great deal of money.

Said one to the other: "What money have you spent to-day?"

Said the other: "Thou hast had forty or fifty pounds for thy share."

Said the other: "I will spend all the money I have, for joy the business is done."

My Lord, this discourse happened to be among them, which made people of the house consider and bethink themselves, when the next day they heard of Sarah Stout's being found in the river."

After witnesses for the Crown had been called, Mr Cowper spoke in his own defence, saying:

"It is utterly impossible I could be concerned in this fact, if I had had all the motives and provocations in the world to have done it. The maid, Sarah Walker, who is the single witness, I take it, that says anything in the least relating to me, said but now the clock had struck eleven before she carried up the coals, and about a quarter of an hour after, while she was warming the bed, she heard the door clap, and some time after she came down and found that I and her mistress were gone. Now, in point of time, I shall prove it utterly impossible I could be guilty of the fact I am accused of, being seen to come into the Glove Inn as the clock struck eleven, and staying there more than a quarter of an hour was, after several things done at my lodging, in bed before twelve o'clock, and went no more out that night, as I shall prove."

After Mr Cowper the other prisoners entered upon their defence, which was that they did not murder Sarah Stout, and knew nothing whatever about her death. Medical witnesses were called, and several of the dead woman's friends testified to her being of a melancholy disposition. The jury, withdrawing for about half-an-hour, returned with their verdict that neither Mr Cowper nor any one of the other three prisoners was guilty; and thereupon they were all discharged.

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38: Tom Rowland

Who worked the Highway disguised as a Woman for Eighteen Years. Executed 24th of October, 1699

TOM ROWLAND was born at Ware, in Hertfordshire, and by his parents was put an apprentice to a bricklayer; but after he had served his time, being then of a slothful, idle disposition, he kept such company as soon brought him to follow evil courses; and, to support his extravagancy in a most riotous way of living, he stole a horse out of the Duke of Beaufort's stables, at his seat at Badminton, in Gloucestershire; and then, going on the highway, committed several most notorious robberies, for above eighteen years; but he always robbed in women's apparel, which disguise was the means of his reigning so long in his villainy. Whenever he was pursued he then rode astride; but at last, being apprehended in this unlawful habit for robbing a person on Hounslow Heath of a quantity of bone-lace, to the value of twelve hundred pounds sterling, he was condemned for this fact, and found guilty also upon another indictment preferred against him for robbing another person, near Barnet, of eighty-four pounds, nine shillings.

However, whilst he lay under sentence of death he was very refractory, and was so abominably wicked that the very morning on which he died, lying in the Press Yard, for he wanted for no money whilst under confinement, a common woman coming to visit him, he had the unparalleled audaciousness to act carnally with her, and gloried in the sin as he was going to execution, which was at Tyburn, on Friday, the 24th of October, 1699, aged forty years.

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39: John Bellingham

Son of a Justice, who took to the Highway, and was executed 27th of October, 1699, for Forgery

JOHN BELLINGHAM, after having been concerned with one John Arthur in several highway robberies, was indicted at the Old Bailey, the 13th of October, 1699, upon two indictments for forgery. The first was for altering the endorsement of a bank note and taking out the name of Sir John Ellwell and putting in the name of Mr James Carr; but the evidence to this indictment being not sufficient to convict him, the jury acquitted him. The second indictment was for altering an Exchequer bill of five pounds, with a farthing a day interest, and making it a bill of forty pounds, with twopence a day interest for the same, and likewise altering the endorsement; and that he, after the 6th of August, 1699, knowing the same to be falsified, did offer the same in payment with an intent to cheat his Majesty's subjects.

The first evidence deposed that, about the 18th or 19th of July last, he met Mr Bellingham in Lincoln's Inn Walks, who told him he had a business would do him a kindness; and that he had a bank bill, but it was not fairly come by; and that thereupon he (the witness) asked him whether it was one of Arthur's bills. To which Bellingham replied: "No"; and told him if he could get him some Exchequer bills, he had a friend could make a five-pound a ten-pound one, and he would have thirty shillings for his pains. With that they parted, and he communicated the matter to the trustees of the Exchequer and got a five-pound bill, and carried it to Bellingham, and they agreed together, and he was to have ten pounds for his share, which he afterwards received of Bellingham.

Another evidence deposed that Bellingham's wife and one Mrs Easton came with the Exchequer bills, the first by the name of Hill, and the other by the name of Holmes, and bought as much linen as came to twenty pounds odd money, and offered the bill in payment which was made forty pounds; upon which he went out to advise with some acquaintance whether it was a good bill or no, who told him that it was a good bill; and then he held it up against the light, and could not see anything amiss in it, upon which he paid them the rest of the money, and they went away. However, being not thoroughly satisfied, he goes to the Exchequer, and there found it to be only a five-pound bill altered, the same bill that the first evidence produced to the prisoner; that upon this he got Bellingham apprehended, and he was carried before Secretary Vernon, and, being examined about it, after an hour's hesitation he asked if there was any mercy. To which it was replied it was not long since he had received mercy. Whereupon he freely confessed the fact, and said that nobody did it but himself. It likewise appeared that he was in the robbery with John Arthur and his brother, who some time before robbed the western mail, and were executed the 23rd of March before, and by that means he got the bank bill.

The prisoner upon his trial objected against the first evidence, and would have the jury believe he had done it himself; and as for what he had confessed before Secretary Vernon, he said it was an old maxim in the law that what a prisoner should confess before a justice should not be given in evidence against him. But he was answered by the Court that, if there was such a maxim, it was so old it was forgotten. And they asked him if he could produce any such record. To which he answered, "No."

The jury found him guilty, and he received sentence of death.

On the morning of his execution, 27th of October, 1699, he declared that he was born in Surrey, son to Justice Bellingham, who kept a glasshouse at Vauxhall, by Lambeth; that he had a good education given him, but in his younger years hearkened to bad advice, and, having scarce attained to the age of thirteen years, joined with some persons who made it their practice to rob on the highway. He said he could not remember one half of the robberies that he had been concerned in, but that a great part of them were committed in company with Arthur, lately executed, as above-mentioned.

He said, also, that after so many robberies justice at last overtook him, for committing a robbery on Bristow Causey, in Surrey. He and his gang killed the person they robbed― he being something obstinate, though he had no great purchase about him― for which he was apprehended and committed to the Marshalsea, and tried for the crime, and convicted the next Surrey Assizes. But after condemnation he made use of several stratagems to make his escape, and among the rest he, feigning himself sick, so deceived the keepers that, by means of the liberty they allowed him, he got away in woman's clothes.

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1700

40: William Morell

A "Cavalier" Doctor and Fraudulent Impersonator, who continued his Cheats even after his Death in 1700

WILLIAM MORELL was born at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, of very reputable parents, in 1650. He was put apprentice to a surgeon as soon as his father thought him fit for servitude. He went through the usual time, with abundance of satisfaction to his master and honour to himself, having acquired a knowledge beyond what is commonly found in young theorists. He understood anatomy very well, and would reason finely upon all the systems of the human economy.

All this knowledge was afterwards confirmed and increased by practice when he came to set up at Banbury, on the death of his master, where he continued some time in very great reputation, which he really deserved both for his penetration and diligence. What put an end to his living here was his running beyond his income, though that was large, and exposing himself daily to vexatious suits and arrests, till at last he was obliged to leave the place and seek his fortune.

The first means that presented itself to his thought was turning quack and travelling the country as a mountebank; for which profession he was the more fit as he was very capable of performing such manual operations as these impostors generally pretend to, and of letting the judicious see that he understood something, if the family should ever challenge him to a trial of skill, as it frequently happened. He was resolved, however, not to do any hurt with the medicines he sold, as a great many ignorant fellows do, who destroy the lives of others purely to maintain their own. To this end he made up a quantity of very innocent pills with a little fine flour and treacle, making use of the same powder to roll them in as other physicians do. These pills were a sovereign remedy for all internal distempers whatsoever. They were the only specific under the sun, and took up, as he said, a great deal of time, as well as expense, in preparing. For all green wounds, bruises and pains he had a plaster altogether as harmless, having no other quality than that of sticking to the skin, wheresoever it was placed. He had, moreover, a little spring water, tinctured with something that changed the colour without altering the property in the least, and this was to cure all the blind people in the kingdom. For agues, colds and such diseases as are most common among the country people he had plenty of amulets, which were to be disposed of to those who had most faith and least reason; for such people prefer remedies of this kind to those that operate in a natural way and give some rational ground for our expecting a good effect from them.

Being thus prepared he set out, without any retinue at all, designing to be only a "cavalier" doctor, which was far less expensive than keeping a stage would be, and far more honourable than travelling on foot. He had still two or three good suits of clothes left, in all of which he appeared at several times in every place he came to. By  his rhetoric he prevailed upon the poor ignorant country people, so that they bought up his remedies as fast as he could wish. It was not, however, to his interest to appear above two or three times in a place, which he was sensible of; and therefore he shifted his ground very often, living all the time in splendour, admired and even adored by his deluded patients.

Besides what he professed to do by his medicines already named he also had a great deal of practice in surgery, in which he was really expert, as has been before noted, and this served to raise his character upon other accounts, as his operations were skilful and worthy of the best surgeons.  Being in the north of England, and having quacked it from town to town as long as he could with safety, he had a mighty inclination to come up to London, but had not at that time money enough to pay the expense of such a journey, nor even to discharge his lodging where he now resided.

How to get out of this scrape he could not for some days tell; for it was impossible to come at his horse without money, unless he broke open the stable, which was a remedy worse than the disease. What did he do at last but take several sheets of clean paper, folded them up, and sealed them very carefully in the form of letters, directing one to my Lord Middleton, another to another nobleman, and so on to all the officers of King James's Court at St Germains. Everyone knows that in the reign of King William it was high treason to hold any correspondence with the abdicated monarch, and consequently with any in trust under him. These blank letters, if I may so call them, he laid carefully on one corner of a table in the room where he lay, and went out, as about business,

While he was gone, the maid went, according to custom, to make his bed, and being able to read writing she had the curiosity to look on our gentleman's letters, when she was surprised to see so many great names upon the outside of them. Downstairs she runs as soon as ever she had done her work and tells her master what great men the doctor was acquainted with. Our host was like his servant, and, indeed, like all of the same profession― very inquisitive. He was, moreover, pretty well acquainted with the national affairs of that time, by reading the news and hearing the conversation of gentlemen; all which Morell had before noted, and concluded from it that the consequence of what he had done would be as he desired it.

The landlord goes up as fast as he could and takes hold of the papers; but what a consternation was he in when he beheld to whom they were directed! Treason with- out dispute! "Oh, Mr Doctor, we see now what you are; you don't travel to heal the bodies of people only, but to corrupt their minds and converse with the enemies of the nation. These shall all be opened, my boy, and I warrant I shall lose nothing by making such a discovery. My Lord Middleton and my Lord Middleton's master may wait long enough before they have any news from you. 'Tis like indeed that they may hear of you soon, when you are drawn in state up Holborn Hill on a sledge."

The next thing was to apply to the chief magistrate of the city (for it was at Carlisle) for a warrant to secure the person of William Morell as a dangerous man to the State. This, to be sure, was readily granted, and a messenger sent to the Secretary of State with an account of the whole affair, who immediately dispatched a proper officer, with orders to bring up both prisoner and papers to town, that they might be examined in form.

Now had Morell all he desired― the allowance of a State prisoner and a safe conduct up to town; where he was kept on his arrival at the house of a Messenger of State till next day, when he was carried to the Secretary's office. The secretaries were as much surprised at the inside of the letters as our landlord had been at the outside, when they saw nothing there but blank paper. All the ways they could think of to make the writing appear were made use of, for they imagined he had found out some art to conceal his business if the letters should happen to be intercepted. At last, when everything else was found in vain a free pardon was offered him upon condition that he should discover all the secrets of his correspondence, and tell the persons who were concerned in it here in England, that they might be apprehended.

To make short of the story, he now frankly confessed the whole truth, begging pardon of their honours for giving them so much trouble, and professing he was as loyal a subject of King William as anyone in the three kingdoms: adding, that he had been reduced to extreme necessity and could think of no other way of coming up to London. Those who examined him could see no reason for disbelieving what he said; and therefore, though they were a little offended that such an insignificant fellow should make free with men in their high station, yet, as there appeared something so masterly in the invention and execution of this piece of policy, they could not help forgiving him, and laughing at the affair among themselves, while they dismissed him with an air of severity and abundance of threatenings, which they were to execute if ever he did such a thing again. But Morell knew as well as they could tell him that once was enough to play such a trick as this upon secretaries of State.

This man was as great a gallant as anyone we have ever heard of, for his story informs us that he had no less than six wives living at one time in different parts of the kingdom, it being customary with him to marry for the sake of enjoying his desires when he could prevail upon the woman he had a fancy to no other way.

There was scarce a character to be thought of in which Morell did not at one time or other appear, and always with success; sometimes he was a fortune-teller and astrologer, sometimes a decayed gentleman, sometimes a clergyman, and sometimes a foreigner who left his own country for the sake of religion. There was no shape, no pretence that might move pity but he put on, and never failed of gaining belief. Not a few times he was a man of great fortune, and made love to the richest young ladies he could hear of, having his servants at his heels, like our modern Irish fortune hunters, there being always men wicked enough to assist in such enterprises, with a view to sharing in the booty. Two or three virtuous women he married and ruined by these means, besides making a great many cuckolds, and winning abundance to his desires who never submitted to the common ceremony, most of whom he wheedled out of a pretty deal of money and afterwards blasted their characters, taking care to let their husbands know their foibles, if they were married, or, if they were single, to send an account of his success to their friends or sweethearts, if they had any. He continued these practices so long in every part of the country that it was become dangerous for him to continue them any longer. Several gentlemen made inquiry after him, in order to have him punished for personating them in places where they had interest and were not personally known, by which means he imposed upon abundance of tradesmen and cheated them of their goods. In short, he had no hopes left of hiding himself anywhere but in London.

Being in town, and having got such information as was necessary for his proceeding, he applied himself for lodging to a rich baker in the Strand, telling him that his name was Humphry Wickham, Esq., of―.

The baker knew the family of the Wickhams very well, being their countryman, though he was not acquainted with the gentleman who at present enjoyed the estate, as he had not been in the country for a great many years. However he made no scruple of entertaining our sham esquire. Nay, he was so far from it that he caressed him, and returned him a thousand thanks for doing him so much honour as to reside at his house. Morell told him that he had a private affair in town, which would detain him for some time, and that he came in such an obscure manner because he was not willing to be known; his own family, all but his steward and the man who waited on him, being ignorant of the place of his residence. He added that when the business was over he would inform him of the particulars, and take him down to his country seat with him for a month or two.

Several days passed, and still our baker was satisfied, never mentioning a word to any of his friends concerning Mr Wickham, lest he should injure him in the business of which he spoke. A fellow in a livery came every morning, cap in hand, to receive his worship's commands, and was very diligent in dispatching everything he set him about. After about a week our good-natured host heard Mr Wickham talk aloud to his man about the steward's neglect in not sending up the linen and money which he had written for. Proud to make a merit of this carelessness of the servant, he took the first opportunity to tell his worship in a very submissive manner what he had overheard, desiring him to make use of what he had till his own box came, and complaining that he did not honour him so far as to let him know his necessity.

Our pretended esquire protested he was ashamed to abuse his generosity. However, as he had understood how things were, he would accept of his love. Upon this the baker in a minute fetches down half-a-dozen of his best holland shirts, one of which Mr Wickham put on, and prevailed on his worship further to accept of fifty guineas till his money arrived.

The next day after this Morell fell sick, and now is the time that we are to see him play such a farce as was never before heard of. As soon as his illness was known, a doctor was sent for, who found him in a high fever, and wrote a prescription to the apothecary, in conjunction with whom he waited on him every day afterwards. The baker asked him if he should write into the country, but Mr Wickham said no, for he had never a wife, and servants would but disturb him, so that he had rather they should know nothing of the matter till he saw how it was like to go with him. The fever began to increase, and after a few days his life was thought in danger. The doctor told him his sentiments freely, and he desired Mr Baker to send for an attorney to make his will, which was accordingly done, and the writing lodged in the hands of our landlord, whom he enjoined to open it as soon as he was dead, which was no longer than the next day.

Now the neighbours are sent for and the will is unsealed. The baker is constituted one of the executors; a considerable estate is given him, besides abundance of plate, linen and jewels to his wife, and large legacies to all his children; several sums are allotted to charitable uses; all the servants are rewarded according to their places and merit. He is to be interred in town, and the whole management of the funeral is left to the care of his good friend the baker, who is over and over again mentioned with a good deal of respect. To complete all, the lawyer is named who has all the writings of his estates, and who is to produce the several sums of money at the time specified.

The baker knew the lawyer whom he mentioned, and was certain that he used to do business for the family. He did not, however, go to him directly, as he had money in the house to defray necessary expenses, and as he was willing to show as much respect as possible to the deceased. His house is hung with mourning, a leaden coffin is made, the body is embowelled, and laid in state. The best of cloth and silk is bought for himself and family, besides rings and other particulars. An undertaker is agreed with, and in short everything is got ready for solemnising the obsequies on such a day, till when wax tapers are continually burning in the room where the corpse lies.

The day before the interment was to be, our baker goes to the lawyer and invites him, telling him the particulars of Mr Wickham's will, and desiring he would let him have some money in a few days to pay such things as were not paid, because he had exhausted all his cash. The lawyer was startled to hear him talk of Mr Wickham's death, he having received a letter from him but the day before on some special business. It was a pretty while before they could come to a right understanding. At last all was found to be an imposture, and confirmed by a letter from the fellow who had waited upon Morell, and who was willing to make some merit of discovering a cheat which he could no longer carry on. The body was now stripped of all its finery and thrown with little ceremony into a common grave in St Clement's Churchyard.

This was the end of Morell, in the year 1700. An account of the affair was soon sent to the real Mr Wickham, who, being a man of honour and generosity, made up the baker's loss, telling him that though he had been thus imposed on, he looked on the deed as though it really had been done to himself. The undertaker and all who had furnished anything towards the funeral considered the case, and took their goods again as they were.

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41: John Larkin

Who committed so many Forgeries and Cheats that he had not Time to confess them all before he died, on 19th of April, 1700

JOHN LARKIN was born at Antrim, in Ireland, of very creditable parents, who, observing that their son possessed a very considerable share of genius, took some pains to cultivate it by a liberal education.

When he had been some years at school, and obtained a competent knowledge of several arts and sciences, he was entered as a student in the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, where he went through his studies with applause, and then, returning to Ireland, commenced as schoolmaster, in which station he behaved himself so well that he met with the greatest success; but being of an unsettled disposition he left his school, and taking upon him the gown visited the remotest parts of the kingdom and officiated in several places as a clergyman.

After some time he came to England, and was made master of a free school in Lancashire, where he had about a hundred scholars under his care; but he was so bad an economist that he could by no means live within the bounds of his income, and was therefore frequently contriving some new methods by which he might support his extravagance. At length he came to a resolution to forge bonds and other papers, in which pernicious practices he became so great a proficient that he said he could forge almost any hand so artfully that it would be difficult for a person to know his own handwriting from the forgery. He acknowledged that he had frequently affixed the hand of a bishop and several other eminent divines to letters-testimonial, by which he had collected considerable sums of money, under pretence of redeeming poor Christian captives who were in slavery.

He used also to forge goldsmiths' notes and bills of exchange, and continued these practices for a considerable time, but being at length detected he was pilloried, and committed to prison till such time as he should discharge a fine which was imposed on him, and which was so large that he had little or no hopes of regaining his liberty. While he remained in prison some persons, who were afterwards evidences against him at his trial, used to coin money, and endeavoured to prevail upon him to assist them; but he declared that he constantly refused to do it, that he never shared any money with them, and had no further concern than merely as a spectator. But as the contrary to this had been so positively sworn, the ordinary of Newgate suspected his sincerity, and urged him to make an ingenuous confession. To which he replied that he knew his duty extremely well, though he had acted contrary to it; but if it should be his fate to die, he would, at the place of execution, discover something which might be a warning to several persons who had been concerned in the like wicked practices with himself.

At the place of execution he informed the ordinary that being confined in Newgate with one Charles Newey, who was convicted of felony, and had been fined and pilloried for suborning an evidence to swear falsely, he was prevailed upon by Newey, in consideration of a sum of money, to write a scurrilous libel, called The Case of Captain Charles Newey, containing very notorious falsehoods and scandalous reflections on the Lord Chief Baron, the Recorder, and other judges who tried the said Newey; for which he now sincerely begged pardon of those gentlemen.

He took a decent leave of the spectators, and having returned thanks to the ordinary for his charitable visits to him while under condemnation, he delivered him a paper in which he said that though he was not guilty of the crime of coining (for which he died), yet that he had committed so many forgeries, cheats, etc., that it was almost impossible to recount them.

He thought it his duty to make all the reparation in his power, by leaving the world a true narrative of all his irregular proceedings, but not having sufficient time to complete such a work, he mentioned only certain circumstances, which included a pretended plot, supposed to have been carried on by the Earls of Marlborough (whose hand he counterfeited with so much dexterity that it was very difficult to discern the true from the false) and Salisbury, the Bishop of Rochester, and several others. This malefactor was executed at Tyburn, on the 19th of April, 1700.

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42: Michael Van Berghen, Catherine Van Berghen and Dromelius, Their Servant, Publicans

Executed 10th of July, 1700, for the Murder of their Guest, Mr Oliver Norris

THESE criminals were natives of Holland, who, having settled in England, kept a public-house in East Smithfield in 1700, and where Geraldius Dromelius acted as their servant.

Mr Oliver Norris was a country gentleman who lodged at an inn near Aldgate, and who went into the house of Van Berghen about eight o'clock in the evening, and continued to drink there till about eleven. Finding himself rather intoxicated, he desired the maidservant to call a coach to carry him home. As she was going to do so her mistress whispered to her, and bade her return in a little time and say that a coach was not to be procured. These directions being observed, Norris, on the maid's return, resolved to go without a coach, and accordingly took his leave of the family; but he had not gone far before he discovered that he had been robbed of a purse containing a sum of money; whereupon he returned and charged Van Berghen and his wife with having been guilty of the robbery.

This they positively denied, and threatened to turn him out of the house; but he refused to go, and resolutely went into a room where the cloth was laid for supper. At this time Dromelius entered the room, and threatening Mr Norris in a cavalier manner, the latter resented the insult, and at length a quarrel ensued. At this juncture, Van Berghen seized a poker, with which he fractured Mr Norris's skull, and in the meantime Dromelius stabbed him in different parts of the body, Mrs Van Berghen being present during the perpetration of the horrid act.

When Mr Norris was dead they stripped him of his coat, waistcoat, hat, wig, etc., and then Van Berghen and Dromelius carried the body and threw it into a ditch which communicated with the Thames; and in the meantime Mrs Van Berghen washed the blood of the deceased from the floor of the room. The clothes which had been stripped from the deceased were put up in a hamper and committed to the care of Dromelius, who took a boat and carried them over to Rotherhithe, where he employed the waterman to carry the hamper to lodgings which he had taken, and in which he proposed to remain until he could find a favourable opportunity of embarking for Holland.

The next morning, at low water, the body of a man was found, and several of the neighbours went to take a view of it, and endeavoured to try if they could trace any blood to the place where the murder might have been committed; but not succeeding in this, some of them who were up at a very early hour recollected that they had seen Van Berghen and Dromelius coming almost from the spot where the body was found, and remarked that a light had been carried backwards and forwards in Van Berghen's house. Upon this the house was searched; but no discovery was made, except that a little blood was found behind the door of a room which appeared to have been lately mopped. Inquiry was made after Dromelius, but Van Berghen and his wife would give no other account than that he had left their service. On which they were taken into custody, with the servant-maid, who was the principal evidence against them. At this time the waterman who had carried Dromelius to Rotherhithe, and who knew him very well, appeared, and he was likewise taken into custody.

The prisoners were tried by a jury of half Englishmen and half foreigners, to circumstances above mentioned appeared so striking that they did not hesitate to find the prisoners guilty, and accordingly they received sentence of death. They were executed near the Hartshorn brewhouse, East Smithfield, being the nearest convenient spot to the place where the murder was committed, on the 10th of July, in the year 1700. The bodies of the men were hung in chains between Bow and Mile End, but the woman was buried.

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43: George Caddell

Executed for the Cruel Murder of Miss Price, Whom he had Seduced and Promised Marriage

George Caddell was a native of the town of Broomsgrove, in Worcestershire, where he was articled to an apothecary, with whom he served his time, and then repaired to London, where he attended several of the hospitals to obtain an insight into the art of surgery. As soon as he became tolerably acquainted with the profession he went to Worcester, and lived with Mr. Randall, a capital surgeon of that city: in this situation he was equally admired for the depth of his abilities and amiableness of his temper. Here he married the daughter of Mr. Randall, who died in labour of her first child.

After this melancholy event he went to reside at Litchfield, and continued upwards of two years with Mr. Dean, a surgeon of that place. During his residence here, he courted Mr. Dean's daughter, to whom he would probably have been married but for the commission of the following crime, which cost him his life:

A young lady, named Elizabeth Price, who had been seduced by an officer in the army, lived near Mr. Caddell's place of residence, and, after her misfortune, supported herself by her skill in needle-work. Caddell becoming acquainted with her, a considerable degree of intimacy subsisted between them; and Miss Price, degraded as she was by the unfortunate step she had taken, still thought herself an equal match for one of Mr. Caddell's rank of life.

As pregnancy was shortly the consequence of their intimacy, she repeatedly urged him to marry her, but Mr. Caddell resisted her importunities for a considerable time: at last Miss Price heard of his paying his addresses to Miss Dean; she then became more importunate than ever, and threatened, in case of his non- compliance, to put an end to all his prospects with that young lady, by discovering every thing that had passed between them. Hereupon Caddell formed the horrible resolution of murdering Miss Price; for he could neither bear the thought of forfeiting the esteem of a woman that he courted, nor of marrying her who had been as condescending to another as to himself.

This dreadful scheme having entered his head, he called on Miss Price on a Saturday evening, and requested that she would walk in the fields with him on the afternoon of the following day, in order to adjust the plan of their intended marriage. Miss Price, thus deluded, met him at the time appointed, on the road leading towards Burton-upon-Trent, at a house known by the sign of the Nag's Head. Having accompanied her supposed lover into the fields, and walked about till towards evening, they then sat down under the hedge, where, after a little conversation, Caddell suddenly pulled out a knife, cut her throat, and made his escape. In the distraction of his mind, he left behind him the knife with which he had perpetrated the deed, together with his case of instruments.

When he came home it was observed that he appeared exceedingly confused, though the reason of the perturbation of his mind could not even be guessed at. But, on the following morning, Miss Price  being found murdered in the field, great numbers of people went to take a view of the body, among whom was the woman of the house where she lodged, who recollected that she had said she was going to walk with Mr. Caddell; on which the instruments were examined, and known to have belonged to him. He was accordingly taken into custody, and committed to the gaol of Stafford; and, being soon afterwards tried, was found guilty, condemned, and executed at Stafford on the 21st of July, 1700.

We have no particular account of the behaviour of this malefactor while under sentence of death, or at the place of execution; yet his fate will afford an instructive lesson to youth. Let no young man, who has connexions of any kind with one woman, think of paying his addresses to another. There can be no such thing as honourable courtship while dishonourable love subsists. Mr. Caddell might have lived a credit to himself, and an ornament to his profession, if he had not held a criminal connexion with Miss Price. Her fate ought to impress on the mind of our female readers the importance of modest reserve to a woman. We would not be severe on the failings of the sex; but we cannot help observing, that a woman who has fallen a sacrifice to the arts of one man should be very cautious in yielding to the addresses of another. One false step may be recovered; but the progress of vice is a downhill road; and the farther we depart from the paths of virtue, still the faster we run. On the contrary, the ways of Virtue are pleasant; and "all her paths are paths of peace." From this story likewise the young officers of our army may learn an useful lesson: for, if Miss Price had not been debauched by one of that profession, the fatal catastrophe above-mentioned had never happened.

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44: John Holliday or Simpson

Housebreaker and Highwayman, who robbed a King at Hertford, and a Church, and was hanged at Tyburn in 1700

THIS man, whose career of villainy in England was not long, had committed a variety of depredations in Flanders, where he served as a soldier under King William III. On the Peace of Ryswick he received his discharge, and with several of his confederates in acts of villainy repaired to London, where they formed themselves into a gang of robbers, of which Holliday, under the name of Simpson, was appointed their captain. They were alternately highwaymen and housebreakers.

In the year 1700 Holliday was indicted in the name of Simpson for a burglary in the house of Elizabeth Gawden, of stealing thereout two feather beds and other articles; to which he pleaded guilty, and was, for that offence, hanged at Tyburn.

While under sentence of death he said that his name was not Simpson, but Holliday, and that during a great part of the war in the reign of King William he was a soldier in Flanders, where he used to take frequent opportunities of robbing the tents of the officers; and once, when the army lay before Mons, and his Majesty commanded in person, Simpson happened to be one of those who were selected to guard the Royal tent. On an evening when the King, accompanied by the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Marlborough and Lord Cutts, went out to take a view of the situation of the army, Simpson, with a degree of impudence peculiar to himself, went into his Majesty's tent and stole about a thousand pounds. It was some days before this money was missed, and when the robbery was discovered, Simpson escaped all suspicion. He said he had committed more robberies than he could possibly recollect, having been a highwayman as well as a housebreaker.

He committed numerous robberies in Flanders as well as in England, and he affirmed that the gates of the city of Ghent had been twice shut up within a fortnight to prevent his escape; and that when he was taken, his arms, legs, back and neck were secured with irons; in which condition he was carried through the streets, that he might be seen by the crowd.  Simpson and two of his companions used frequently to stop and rob the Roman Catholics at five o'clock in the morning as they were going to Mass; he repeatedly broke into the churches of Brussels, Mechlin and Antwerp, and stole the silver plate from the altar.

This offender further acknowledged that, having killed one of his companions in a quarrel, he was apprehended, tried and condemned for the fact by a court martial of officers, and sentenced to be executed on the following day, in sight of the army, which was to be drawn up to see the execution.

During the night, however, he found means to escape, and took refuge in the Church of St Peter, in Ghent, where the army then lay. Being thus in a place of sanctuary, he applied to the priests, who made interest with Prince Eugene; and their joint intercession with King William, who arrived in the city about four days afterwards, obtained his full pardon, and he was permitted immediately to join the army.

A few days after he had obtained his pardon he broke into the church and robbed it of plate to the value of twelve hundred pounds; which he was the better enabled to do as he was acquainted with the avenues of the church and knew where the plate was deposited. He was apprehended on suspicion of this sacrilege; for as a crime of this kind is seldom committed by the natives of the country it was conjectured that it must have been perpetrated by some one at least of the soldiers. And information being given that two Jews had embarked in a boat on the Scheldt for Middleburg, on the day succeeding the robbery, and that Simpson had been seen in company with these Jews, this occasioned his being taken into custody. But as no proof arose that he had sold any plate to these men, it was thought necessary to dismiss him.

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45: George Griffiths

Who courted his Master's Daughter and then robbed him. Hanged at Tyburn on 1st of August, 1700 .

THIS young man received the education of a gentleman, was articled as clerk to an attorney of high repute, and enjoyed the utmost latitude of confidence in his master: but which a course of dissipation destroyed, and finally brought him to an untimely fate. His misfortunes may prove a lesson to young gentlemen intended for the learned professions, while the danger into which a young lady, his master's daughter, had through him nearly fallen into, will, we trust, be a caution to females against engaging their affections without the sanction of their parents.

He was born at Thetford, in the county of Norfolk, and was the son of an eminent apothecary of that town. On the expiration of the term of his clerkship he was retained by his master, on a handsome salary, to manage his business, and he discharged his duty for a considerable time with great regularity; but unhappily, becoming acquainted with some young lawyers who possessed more money than discretion, he soon spent the little fortune which his father had bequeathed to him, and also became indebted to several of his master's employers.

During a great part of Griffiths's servitude the only daughter of his employer had been at a boarding-school at Windsor for the advantage of education; and now returning home, her father, who was uncommonly tender of her, requested that she would take his domestic affairs under her own management.

This old gentleman being frequently from home, the business of the office was committed to the care of Mr Griffiths; and an intimacy soon ensued between him and the young lady, in whose company he spent all those evenings in which he had not particular engagements with his old associates. The consequence was that their acquaintance ripened into esteem; their esteem into love. The reciprocal declaration soon took place, and the young lady considered Mr Griffiths as the man who was to be her future husband. Some short time after this attachment Griffiths was under the necessity of attending his master on the Norfolk Circuit, and while he was in the country he held a constant correspondence with the young lady; but the father was totally unacquainted with all that had passed, and had not formed the least idea that his daughter had any kind of connection with his clerk. But at length the circumstance of the affair transpired in the following manner.

The daughter having gone to Windsor for a few days, on a visit to her former acquaintance, continued to correspond with Mr Griffiths. On a particular day, when Griffiths was not at home, it happened that a letter was brought to the office, directed to this unfortunate man; when one of the clerks, imagining that it might be of consequence, carried it to the master, at an adjacent coffee-house. It is impossible that any language could express the surprise of the old gentleman when he saw the name of his daughter subscribed to a letter in which she acknowledged herself as the future wife of the clerk.

The father knew that Griffiths had no fortune, but he soon found that he had been master of sufficient art to prevail on the daughter to believe that he was possessed of considerable property. Hereupon he represented to his daughter the great impropriety of her conduct; in answer to which she said that Mr Griffiths was a man of fortune, though he had hitherto carefully concealed this circumstance from her father. However, it was not long before a discovery was made which presented Mr Griffiths's situation in a light equally new and contemptible.

His master, for a considerable time past, had acted as the solicitor in a capital cause depending in Chancery; but the determination respecting it had been put off on account of Lord Somers being removed from the office of Chancellor and the Great Seal given in commission to Sir Nathan Wright. The solicitor had received immense sums while the cause was depending, which he had committed to the care of his clerk; but the latter, pressed for cash to supply his extravagance, purloined some of this money. At length the cause was determined, and Griffiths was called upon to account to his master for the money in his hands.

Alarmed at this sudden demand, he knew not what course to take. He came to the resolution of breaking open his master's bureau, which he did while the family were asleep, and stole a considerable sum of money. At this time the old gentleman and his daughter went to Tunbridge; and during their residence at that place of amusement Griffiths procured a key that would unlock his master's bureau, from whence again he took money to a considerable amount. On the master's return he missed this sum, but still he did not suspect Griffiths, as the drawer was found locked; but hereupon he deposited his jewels in the bureau, and locked up his money in another place.

The amour betwixt Griffiths and the young lady still continued, and they would soon have been married at the Fleet, but that a fatal circumstance now arose, which (happily for her) brought their connection to a period. Griffiths being (as already observed) possessed of a key that would open his master's bureau, and disposed to go out and spend a cheerful evening with his old associates, now, during their absence, opened the drawer, but was greatly disappointed in not meeting with the money that was usually left there: finding, however, jewels in its stead, he stole a diamond ring, which he carried to a jeweller and sold for twelve pounds, and then went to spend his evening as he had intended. The old lawyer came home about ten o'clock at night, and casually looking into his drawer found the ring was gone; and, being enraged at this renewed robbery, he had every person in the house carefully searched, but no discovery was made.  Griffiths did not return until a late hour, and on the following day his employer told him what had happened, and requested that he would go to the several jeweller's shops, and make enquiry for the lost ring. Griffiths pretended obedience, and when he returned, acquainted his master that all his enquiries respecting it had been ineffectual.

However, a discovery of the party who had been guilty of the robbery was made in the following singular manner. The jeweller who had bought the ring frequented the same coffee-house with the gentleman who had lost it, and was intimately acquainted with him, though he knew nothing of Griffiths. Now the jeweller, having carefully examined the ring after he had bought it, concluded that it had been obtained in an illegal manner, and, being a man who was much above the idea of having his integrity suspected, he related the particulars of his purchase at the coffee-house, which the person who had lost the ring hearing, desired to have a sight of it; and on the first inspection knew it to be that which he had lost.

The person of Griffiths was now so exactly described by the jeweller that there could be little doubt but that he was the thief; wherefore he was desired to go to the chambers with a constable, and take him into custody. He was carried before a Justice of the Peace and accused of the crime, which he immediately confessed, and likewise that he had robbed his master of money. Griffiths was committed to Newgate, and being arraigned at the next sessions at the Old Bailey he pleaded guilty to the indictment, and sentence of death was passed on him accordingly.

As in his situation it was natural to suppose that he would attempt to correspond with the young lady to whom he had aspired as a wife, a proper person was employed by her father to intercept her letters, a service that was performed with such care, that not one reached her hands, though a considerable number were written.

When Mr Griffiths found that he had nothing to hope from the intervention of the royal mercy, and consequently that all the views with which he had flattered himself in wedlock were vanished, he began seriously to prepare himself for that state in which persons "neither marry, nor are given in marriage," he very justly attributed his misfortunes to the associating with persons who were his superiors in point of circumstances, and the making of an appearance which he was unable to support, in order to secure the object of his wishes. He died a penitent, at Tyburn, the 1st of August, 1700.

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46: The Rev. Thomas Hunter, M.A.

Executed on 22nd of August, 1700, near Edinburgh, for the diabolical Murder out of Revenge of the Two Children of Mr Gordon

IT IS WITH deep regret that we are compelled to bring before the reader a murderer, in a character which ever should be held most sacred. A crime more premeditated, and more fraught with cruelty, never stained the annals of history. Ambition has often impelled tyrants to shed innocent blood; revenge has stimulated men to kill each other; jealousy with 'jaundiced eye' destroys the object of its love; but God forbid that we should ever again have to record the fact of a tutor, a minister of the Gospel, premeditatedly murdering his pupils!― the sons of his benefactor. When we add, that this most miserable sinner expiated his offence in avowing himself an atheist, we arrive, at once, at the very depth of human depravity.

This detestable culprit was born in the county of Fife, in Scotland, and was the son of a rich farmer, who sent him to the University of St Andrews for education. When he had acquired a sufficient share of classical learning he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts, and began to prosecute his studies in divinity with no small degree of success. Several of the younger clergymen act as tutors to wealthy and distinguished families till a proper period arrives for their entering into orders, which they never do till they obtain a benefice. While in this rank of life they bear the name of chaplains; and in this station Hunter lived about two years in the house of Mr Gordon, a very eminent merchant, and one of the bailies of Edinburgh, which is a rank equal to that of alderman of London.

Mr Gordon's family consisted of himself, his lady, two sons and a daughter, a young woman who attended Mrs Gordon and her daughter, the malefactor in question, some clerks and menial servants. To the care of Hunter was committed the education of the two sons; and for a considerable time he discharged his duty in a manner highly satisfactory to the parents, who considered him as a youth of superior genius and great goodness of heart. Unfortunately a connection took place between Hunter and the young woman, which soon increased to a criminal degree, and was maintained for a considerable time without the knowledge of the family. One day, however, when Mr and Mrs Gordon were on a visit, Hunter and his girl met in their chamber as usual; but, having been so incautious as not to make their door fast, the children went into the room and found them in such a situation as could not admit of any doubt of the nature of their intercourse.

No suspicion was entertained that these children would mention to their parents what had happened, the eldest boy being not quite ten years of age; but when the children were at supper with their parents they disclosed so much as left no room to doubt of what had passed. Hereupon the female servant was directed to quit the house on the following day; but Hunter was continued in the family, after making a proper apology for the crime of which he had been guilty, attributing it to the thoughtlessness of youth, and promising never to offend in the same way again.

From this period he entertained the most inveterate hatred to all the children, on whom he determined in his own mind to wreak the most diabolical vengeance. Nothing less than murder was his intention; but it was a considerable time after he had formed this horrid plan before he had an opportunity of carrying it into execution. Whenever it was a fine day he was accustomed to walk in the fields with his pupils for an hour before dinner, and in these excursions the young lady generally attended her brothers.

At the period immediately preceding the commission of the fatal act Mr Gordon and his family were at their country retreat, very near Edinburgh; and having received an invitation to dine in that city, he and his lady proposed to go thither about the time that Hunter usually took his noontide walk with the children. Mrs Gordon was very anxious for all the children to accompany them on this visit, but this was strenuously opposed by her husband, who would consent that only the little girl should attend them. By this circumstance Hunter's intention of murdering all the three children was frustrated; but he held the resolution of destroying the boys while they were yet in his power.

With this view he took them into the fields and sat down as if to repose himself on the grass. This event took place soon after the middle of the month of August, 1700 and Hunter was preparing his knife to put a period to the lives of the children at the very moment they were busied in catching butterflies and gathering wild flowers. Having sharpened his knife, he called the lads to him, and when he had reprimanded them for acquainting their father and mother to the scene to which they had been witnesses, said that he would immediately put them to death. Terrified by this threat, the children ran from him; but he immediately followed and brought them back. He then placed his knee on the body of the one while he cut the throat of the other with his penknife, and then treated the second in the same inhuman manner that he had done the first.

These horrid murders were committed within half-a-mile of the Castle of Edinburgh; and as the deed was perpetrated in the middle of the day, and in the open fields, it would have been very wonderful indeed if the murderer had not been immediately taken into custody. At the very time a gentleman was walking on the Castle hill of Edinburgh, who had a tolerably perfect view of what passed. Alarmed by the incident, he called some people, who ran with him to the place where the children were lying dead.

Hunter now had advanced towards a river, with a view to drown himself. Those who pursued came up with him just as he reached the brink of the river; and his person being immediately known to them, a messenger was instantly dispatched to Mr and Mrs Gordon, who were at that moment going to dinner with their friend, to inform them of the horrid murder of their sons. Language is too weak to describe the effects resulting from the communication of this dreadful news; the astonishment of the afflicted father, the agony of the frantic mother, may possibly be conceived, though it cannot be painted.

According to an old Scottish law it was decreed that "if a murderer should be taken with the blood of the murdered person on his clothes, he should be prosecuted in the Sheriff's Court, and executed within three days after the commission of the fact." It was not common to execute this sentence with rigour; but this offender's crime was of so aggravated a nature, that it was not thought proper to remit anything of the utmost severity of the law. The prisoner was therefore committed to jail and chained down to the floor all night, and on the following day the sheriff issued his precept for the jury to meet; and in consequence of their verdict Hunter was brought to his trial, when he pleaded guilty, and added to the offence he had already committed the horrid crime of declaring that he only lamented not having murdered Mr Gordon's daughter as well as his sons.

The sheriff now passed sentence on the convict, which was to the following purpose: that "on the succeeding day he should be executed on a gibbet, erected for that purpose on the spot where he had committed the murders; but that, previous to his execution, his right hand should be cut off with a hatchet, near the wrist; that then he should be drawn up to the gibbet by a rope, and when he was dead, hung in chains between Edinburgh and Leith, the knife with which he committed the murders being stuck through his hand, which should be advanced over his head and fixed therewith to the top of the gibbet."

Mr Hunter was executed in strict conformity to the above sentence on the 22nd of August, 1700. But Mr Gordon soon afterwards petitioned the sheriff that the body might be removed to a more distant spot, as its hanging on the side of the highway, through which he frequently passed, tended to re-excite his grief for the occasion that had first given rise to it. This requisition was immediately complied with, and in a few days the body was removed to the skirts of a small village near Edinburgh, named Broughton. It is equally true and horrid to relate, that, at the place of execution, Hunter closed his life with the following shocking declaration:

"There is no God -- I do not believe there is any or if there is, I hold him in defiance."

Yet this infidel had professed himself to be a minister of the Gospel!

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47: John Cowland, Gentleman

Who suffered Death on 20th of December, 1700, for stabbing Sir Andrew Slanning, Baronet, near Drury Lane Theatre

THE crime for which this man suffered will show the danger ever to be apprehended from indiscriminate connexion with females, and a caution against intemperance.

John Cowland was the son of reputable parents, who apprenticed him to a goldsmith, but of a vicious irascible disposition. He and some other bon-vivants had followed Sir Andrew Slanning, Bart., who had made a temporary acquaintance with an orange-woman, while in the pit at Drury Lane playhouse, and retired with her as soon as the play was ended. They had gone but a few yards before Mr Cowland put his arm round the woman's neck; on which Sir Andrew desired he would desist, as she was his wife. Cowland, knowing that Sir Andrew was married to a woman of honour, gave him the lie, and swords were drawn on both sides; but some gentlemen coming up at this juncture, no immediate ill consequences ensued.

They all now agreed to adjourn to the Rose Tavern, and Captain Waggett having there used his utmost endeavours to reconcile the offended parties, it appeared that his mediation was attended with success; but as they were going upstairs to drink a glass of wine, Mr Cowland drew his sword and stabbed Sir Andrew in the belly, who, finding himself wounded, cried out "Murder!"

Hereupon one of Lord Warwick's servants and two other persons who were in the house ran up and disarmed Cowland of his sword, which was bloody to the depth of five inches, and took him into custody. Cowland now desired to see Sir Andrew, which being granted, he jumped down the stairs and endeavoured to make his escape, but being pursued he was easily retaken.

He was instantly conducted before a Justice of the Peace, who committed him; and on the 5th of December, 1700, he was tried at the Old Bailey on three indictments: the first at common law, the second on the statute of stabbing, and the third on the coroner's inquest for the murder. The facts above mentioned were fully proved on the trial, and among other things it was deposed that the deceased had possessed an estate of twenty thousand pounds a year, that his family became extinct by his death, and that he had been a gentleman of great good nature, and by no means disposed to quarrel.

Mr Cowland being found guilty on the clearest evidence received sentence of death, and, though great efforts were made to obtain a pardon for him, he was executed at Tyburn, on the 20th of December, 1700.

From the moment of his imprisonment to the day of his death, his behaviour was truly contrite and penitent; he professed the most unfeigned sorrow for all his sins, and gave the following account of himself: that he was the son of reputable parents, who apprenticed him to a goldsmith; that in the early part of his life he was sober and religious, studying the scriptures, giving a regular attendance on divine worship, and devoutly reflecting on his duty towards God; but that, abandoning this course of life, he became an easy prey to his own intemperate passions, and proceeded from one degree of vice to another, till at length he committed the horrid crime for which he was justly doomed to fall a sacrifice to the violated laws of God and his Country.

On a retrospect of this melancholy narrative, some reflections will occur, that, if properly attended to, may be of singular use to the reader. The dispute which cost Sir Andrew Slanning his life took its rise from his having associated himself with a woman of light character, with whom Cowland thought he had as much right to make free as the baronet: but Sir Andrew was originally to blame; for, as he was a married man, there was a great impropriety in the connexion he had formed: this, however, was no kind of justification of the conduct of Cowland, who could have no business to interfere; and his crime is greatly enhanced by his having committed the murder after an apparent reconciliation had taken place. To sum up our observations in a few words, from this sad tale let married men be taught the danger that may ensue from the slightest criminal connexion, and let young gentlemen learn to govern and moderate their passions: so may all parties live an honour to themselves, and a credit to their families and connexions.

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1701

48: Captain John Kidd

Known as the "Wizard of the Seas," who suffered for Piracy, at Execution Dock, 23rd of May, 1701

PIRACY is an offence committed on the high seas, by villains who man and arm a vessel for the purpose of robbing fair traders. It is also piracy to rob a vessel lying in shore at anchor, or at a wharf. The river Thames, until the excellent establishment of a marine police, was infested by gangs of fresh-water pirates, who were continually rowing about, watching the homeward-bound vessels; which, whenever an opportunity offered, they boarded, and stole whatever part of their cargo they could hoist into their boats. But, of late years, the shipping there, collected from every part of the habitable globe, have lain in tolerable security against such disgraceful depredations, and the introduction of the dock system has further increased this security.

Piracy is a capital offence by civil law, although by Act of Parliament it may be heard and determined according to the rules of common law, as if the offence had been committed on land.

Captain John Kidd was born at Greenock, in Scotland, and being bred as a sailor he eventually became known as the "Wizard of the Seas." Having quitted his native country, he resided at New York, where he became owner of a small vessel, with which he traded among the pirates, obtained a thorough knowledge of their haunts, and could give a better account of them than any other person whatever. While in their company he used to converse and act as they did; yet at other times he would make singular professions of honesty, and intimate how easy a matter it would be to extirpate these abandoned people, and prevent their future depredations. His frequent remarks of this kind engaged the notice of several considerable planters, who, forming a more favourable idea of him than his true character would warrant, procured him the patronage with which he was afterwards honoured. For a series of years great complaints had been made of the piracies committed in the West Indies, which had been greatly encouraged by some of the inhabitants of North America, on account of the advantage they derived from purchasing effects thus fraudulently obtained.

This coming to the knowledge of King William III., he, in the year 1695, bestowed the government of New England and New York on the Earl of Bellamont, an Irish nobleman of distinguished character and abilities, who immediately began to consider the most effectual method to redress the evils complained of, and consulted with Colonel Levingston, a gentleman who had great property in New York, on the most feasible steps to obviate the evils. At this juncture Captain Kidd had arrived from New York in a sloop of his own; him, therefore, the Colonel mentioned to Lord Bellamont as a bold and daring man, who was very fit to be employed against the pirates, as he was perfectly well acquainted with the places which they resorted to. This plan met with the fullest approbation of his lordship, who mentioned the affair to his Majesty, and recommended it to the notice of the Board of Admiralty.

But such were then the hurry and confusion of public affairs that, though the design was approved, no steps were taken towards carrying it into execution. Accordingly Colonel Levingston made application to Lord Bellamont that as the affair would not well admit of delay it was worthy of being undertaken by some private persons of rank and distinction, and carried into execution at their own expense, notwithstanding public encouragement was denied it. His lordship approved of this project, but it was attended with considerable difficulty. At length, however, Lord Chancellor Somers, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Romney, the Earl of Oxford and some other persons, with Colonel Levingston and Captain Kidd, agreed to raise six thousand pounds for the expense of the voyage; and the Colonel and Captain were to have a fifth of the profits of the whole undertaking. Matters being thus far adjusted, a commission in the usual form was granted to Captain Kidd to take and seize pirates, and bring them to justice.

Accordingly a vessel was purchased and manned, and received the name of the Adventure galley; and in this Captain Kidd sailed for New York towards the close of the year 1695, and in his passage made prize of a French ship. From New York he sailed to the Madeira Islands, thence to Bonavista and St Jago, and from this last place to Madagascar. He now began to cruise at the entrance of the Red Sea, but not being successful in those latitudes he sailed to Calicut, and there took a ship of one hundred and fifty tons' burthen, which he carried to Madagascar and disposed of there. Having sold his prize he again put to sea, and at the expiration of five weeks took the Quedah merchant, a ship of above four hundred tons' burthen, the master of which was an Englishman named Wright, who had two Dutch mates on board and a French gunner, but the crew consisted of Moors, natives of Africa, and were about ninety in number.

He carried the ship to St Mary's, near Madagascar, where he burned the Adventure galley, belonging to his owners, and divided the lading of the Quedah merchant with his crew, taking forty shares to himself. They then went on board the last-mentioned ship and sailed for the West Indies. It is uncertain whether the inhabitants of the West India Islands knew that Kidd was a pirate, but he was refused refreshments at Anguilla and St Thomas's, and therefore sailed to Mona, between Porto Rico and Hispaniola, where, through the management of an Englishman named Bolton, he obtained a supply of provisions from Curassoa. He now bought a sloop of Bolton, in which he stowed great part of his ill-gotten effects, and left the Quedah merchant, with eighteen of the ship's company, in Bolton's care.

While at St Mary's, ninety men of Kidd's crew left him and went on board the Mocha merchant, an East India ship, which had just then commenced as pirate. Kidd now sailed in the sloop, and touched at several places, where he disposed of a great part of his cargo, and then steered for Boston, in New England.

In the interim Bolton sold the Quedah merchant to the Spaniards, and immediately sailed as a passenger in a ship for Boston, where he arrived a considerable time before Kidd, and gave information of what had happened to Lord Bellamont. Kidd, therefore, on his arrival, was seized, by order of his lordship; when all he had to urge in his defence was that he thought the Quedah merchant was a lawful prize, as she was manned with Moors, though there was no kind of proof that this vessel had committed any act of piracy. Upon this, the Earl of Bellamont immediately dispatched an account to England of the circumstances that had arisen, and requested that a ship be sent for Kidd, who had committed several other notorious acts of piracy.

The ship Rochester was accordingly sent to bring him to England; but this vessel, happening to be disabled, was obliged to return -- a circumstance that greatly increased a public clamour which had for some time subsisted respecting this affair, and which, no doubt, took its rise from party prejudice. It was carried to such a height that the Members of Parliament for several places were instructed to move the House for an inquiry into the affair; and accordingly it was moved in the House of Commons that "The letters-patent granted to the Earl of Bellamont and others respecting the goods taken from pirates were dishonourable to the King, against the law of nations, contrary to the laws and statutes of this realm, an invasion of property, and destructive to commerce."

Though a negative was put on this motion, yet the enemies of Lord Somers and the Earl of Oxford continued to charge those noblemen with giving countenance to pirates; and it was even insinuated that the Earl of Bellamont was not less culpable than the actual offenders. As soon as Kidd arrived in England he was sent for, and examined at the bar of the House of Commons, with a view to fix part of his guilt on the parties who had been concerned in sending him on the expedition; but nothing arose to incriminate any of those distinguished persons. Kidd, who was in some degree intoxicated, made a very contemptible appearance at the bar of the House; on which a member, who had been one of the most earnest to have him examined, violently exclaimed: "D―n this fellow, I thought he had been only a knave, but unfortunately he happens to be a fool likewise."

Kidd was at length tried at the Old Bailey, and was convicted on the clearest evidence; but neither at that time nor afterwards charged any of his employers with being privy to his infamous proceedings. He suffered, with one of his companions (Darby Mullins), at Execution Dock, on the 23rd day of May 1701. After Kidd had been tied up to the gallows the rope broke and he fell to the ground; but being immediately tied up again, the ordinary, who had before exhorted him, desired to speak with him once more; and on this second application entreated him to make the most careful use of the few further moments thus providentially allotted him for the final preparation of his soul to meet its important change. These exhortations appeared to have the wished-for effect; and he was left, professing his charity to all the world, and his hopes of salvation through the merits of his Redeemer.

Thus ended the life of captain Kidd, a man, who, if he had entertained a proper regard to the welfare of the public, or even to his own advantage, might have become an useful member of society, instead of a disgrace to it. The opportunities he had obtained of acquiring a complete knowledge of the haunts of the pirates, rendered him one of the most proper men in the world to have extirpated this nest of villains; but his own avarice defeated the generous views of some of the greatest and most distinguished men of the age in which he lived. Hence we may learn the destructive nature of avarice, which generally counteracts all its own purposes. Captain Kidd might have acquired a fortune, and rendered a capital service to his country, in a point the most essential to its interests; but he appeared to be dead to all those generous sensations which do honour to humanity, and materially injured his country, while he was bringing final disgrace on himself.

The story of this wretched malefactor will effectually impress on the mind of the reader the truth of the old observation, that "Honesty is the best policy."

Henceforth let honour's paths be trod,

Nor villains seek in vain

To mock the sacred laws of God,

To give their neighbours pain.

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49: Herman Strodtman

Executed at Tyburn, 18th of June, 1701, for the Murder of Peter Wolter, his Fellow-Apprentice

HERMAN STRODTMAN was a German, being born of a respectable family at Revel, in Lisland, who gave him a good education and brought him up strictly in the tenets of the Protestant religion.

About the year 1694 young Strodtman, with a friend and school-fellow, named Peter Wolter, were, by their respective parents, sent in company to London, where they were both bound apprentices to the then eminent Dutch house of Stein & Dorien. They served their masters some time with diligence, and lived together in great harmony until a sister of Wolter married very advantageously, which so buoyed up the brother with pride that he assumed a superiority over his fellow- apprentice, and this led to the fatal catastrophe. This arrogance produced quarrelling, and from words they proceeded to blows, and Wolter beat Strodtman twice, at one time in the counting-house, and at another before the servant-girls in the kitchen. Wolter likewise traduced Strodtman to his masters, who thereupon denied him the liberty and other gratifications that were allowed to his fellow-apprentice.

Hereupon Strodtman conceived an implacable hatred against him, and resolved to murder him, in some way or other. His first intention was to have poisoned him, and with this view he mixed some white mercury with a white powder which Wolter used to keep in a glass in his bedroom as a remedy for the scurvy; but this happening to be done in the midst of winter, Wolter had declined taking the powder; so that the other thought of destroying him by the more expeditious method of stabbing.

This scheme, however, he delayed from time to time, while Wolter's pride and arrogance increased to such a degree that the other thought he should at length be tempted to murder him in sight of the family. Hereupon Strodtman desired one of the maids to intimate to his masters his inclination to be sent to the West Indies; but no answer being given to this request, Strodtman grew again uneasy, and his enmity to his fellow-apprentice increased to such a degree that the Dutch maid, observing the agitation of his mind, advised him to a patient submission of his situation, as the most probable method of securing his future peace. Unfortunately he paid no regard to this good advice; but determined on the execution of the fatal plan which afterwards led to his destruction.

On the morning of Good Friday, Strodtman was sent out on business, but instead of transacting it he went to Greenwich, with an intention of returning on Saturday to perpetrate the murder; but reflecting that his fellow-apprentice was to receive the Sacrament on Easter Sunday, he abhorred the thought of taking away his life before he had partaken of the Lord's Supper. Wherefore he sent a letter to his masters on the Saturday, in which he asserted that he had been impressed, and was to be sent to Chatham on Easter Monday and put on board a ship in the Royal Navy; but while he was at Greenwich he was met by a young gentleman who knew him, and who, returning to London, told Messrs Stein & Dorien he believed that the story of his being impressed was all invention. Hereupon Mr Stein went to Chatham to inquire into the real state of the case, when he discovered that the young gentleman's suspicions were but too well founded.

Strodtman went to the church at Greenwich twice on Easter Sunday, and on the approach of evening came to London and slept at the Dolphin Inn, in Bishopsgate Street. On the following day he returned to Greenwich, and continued either at that place or at Woolwich and the neighbourhood till Tuesday, when he went to London, lodged in Lombard Street, and returned to Greenwich on the Wednesday. Coming again to London on the evening of the succeeding day, he did not return any more to Greenwich; but going to the house of his masters, he told them that what he had written was true, for that he had been pressed.

They gave no credit to this tale, but told him they had inquired into the affair, and bid him quit their house. This he did, and took lodgings in Moorfields, where he lay on that and the following night, and on the Saturday he took other lodgings at the Sun, in Queen Street, London.

Before the preceding Christmas he had procured a key on the model of that belonging to his masters' house, that he might go in and out at his pleasure. Originally he intended to have made no worse use of this key; but, it being still in his possession, he let himself into the house between eight and nine o'clock on the evening of the Saturday last mentioned, and hearing the footsteps of some persons going upstairs he concealed himself behind a door in the passage. As soon as the noise arising from this circumstance was over, he went up one pair of stairs to a room adjoining the counting-house, where he used to sleep, and, having found a tinder-box, he lighted a candle and put it into his masters' dark lantern, which he carried upstairs to an empty room, next to that in which Peter Wolter used to lie. Here he continued a short time, when, hearing somebody coming upstairs, he put out his candle, and fell asleep soon afterwards.

Awaking about twelve o'clock he listened for a while, and hearing no noise he imagined that the whole family were fast asleep. Hereupon he descended to the room on the first floor where the tinder-box lay; and having lighted his candle he went to the counting-house, and took a sum of money and several notes and bills. This being done, he took a piece of wood, with which they used to beat tobacco, and going upstairs again he hastily entered the room where Peter Wolter was asleep, and advancing to his bedside struck him violently on the head; and though his heart in some degree failed him, yet he continued his strokes. As the wounded youth groaned much, he took the pillow and, laying it on his mouth, sat down on the side of the bed and pressed it hard with his elbow, till no appearance of life remained.

Perceiving Wolter to be dead, he searched his chest of drawers and pockets, and took as much money as, with what he had taken from his masters, amounted to above eight pounds. He then packed up some linen and woollen clothes, and going down one pair of stairs threw his bundle into a house that was uninhabited.  He then went upstairs again, and having cut his candle, lighted both pieces, one of which he placed on a chair close to the bed-curtains, and the other on a chest of drawers, with a view to setting the house on fire, to conceal the robbery and murder of which he had been guilty. This being done, he went through a window into the house where he had thrown his bundle, and in this place he stayed till five in the morning, when he took the bundle with him to his lodgings in Queen Street, where he shifted his apparel, and went to the Swedish church in Trinity Lane.

After the worship of the congregation was ended he heard a bill of thanks read, which his masters had sent in devout acknowledgment of the narrow escape that they and their neighbours had experienced from the fire. Struck by this circumstance, Strodtman burst into tears; but he endeavoured as much as possible to conceal his emotion from a gentleman who sat in the same pew with him, and who, on their coming out of the church, informed him that the house of Messrs Stein & Dorien narrowly escaped being burned the preceding night, by an accident then unknown, but that the destruction was providentially prevented by the Dutch maid smelling the fire and seeing the smoke, so that on her alarming her master the flames were extinguished by a pail of water.

Strodtman made an appointment to meet the gentleman who gave him this information on the outer walks of the Royal Exchange in the afternoon, to go to the Dutch church in the Savoy; but, the gentleman not coming to his time, he went alone to Stepney church, and after service was ended he walked towards Mile End, where he saw the bodies of Michael Van Berghen and Dromelius, who had been hung in chains, as before mentioned. This sight gave him a shocking idea of the crime of which he had been guilty, and he reflected that he might soon become a like horrid spectacle to mankind. Hence he proceeded to Blackwall, where he saw the captain of a French pirate hanging in chains, which gave fresh force to the gloomy feelings of his mind, and again taught him to dread a similar fate.

After having been thus providentially led to the sight of objects which he would otherwise rather have avoided, he returned to his lodgings in great dejection of mind, but far from repenting, or even being properly sensible of the crime he had committed; for, as he himself said, his heart did not yet relent for what he had done, and if he had failed in murdering his fellow-apprentice in his bed, he would have destroyed him some other way.

On his return to his lodgings he ate his supper, said his prayers, and went to bed. On the following morning he went to the White Horse Inn without Cripplegate to receive cash for a bill of twenty pounds, which he had stolen from his masters' house; but the person who was to have paid it being out he was desired to call again about twelve o'clock. In the interim he went to the house of a banker in Lombard Street, who requested him to carry some money to his (the banker's) sister, who was at a boarding-school at Greenwich. Strodtman said he could not go till the following day, when he would execute the commission; but before he left the house the banker told him that a young man, named Green, had been to inquire for him; on which Strodtman said that if Mr Green returned he should be informed that he would be back at one o'clock. Hence he went again to the White Horse inn, where he found the party, who told him that he had no orders to pay the money for the bill.  Having received this answer he went to his lodgings, where he dined, and then went to the banker's in Lombard Street, where his master, Stein, with Mr Green and another gentleman, were waiting for him. Mr Stein asked him if he would go willingly to his house, or be carried by porters; and he replied that he would go of his own accord.

When he came there he was asked some questions respecting the atrocious crimes of which he had been guilty; but persisting that he was innocent he was searched, and the twenty-pound bill found in his possession. They then inquired where he lodged; to which he answered: "In Moorfields"; whereupon they all went thither together, but the people denied his lodging there at that time. Mr Stein, finding him unwilling to speak the truth, told him that if he would make a full discovery he should be sent abroad out of the reach of justice. Hereupon he mentioned his real lodgings; on which they went thither in a coach, and finding the bills, and other stolen effects, Strodtman was carried before Sir Humphrey Edwin, who committed him to Newgate, on his own confession.

He was not tried at the first sessions after his commitment, and in the interval that he lay in prison some bad people who were confined there trumped up an idle tale for him to tell when he came to trial, and prevailed on him to plead not guilty -- a circumstance which he afterwards sincerely repented of.

On his trial, however, there were so many corroborative proofs of his guilt that the jury could not hesitate to convict him, and he received the sentence awarded by law.  He died full of contrition, penitence and hope, and suffered at Tyburn, on the 18th of June, 1701; and it was remarked that he kept his hand lifted up for a considerable time after the cart was drawn away.

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1702

50: Mary Adams

Executed for privately stealing, 16th June, 1702

THIS unhappy woman was born at Reading, in Berkshire, and, when she was old enough to go to service, went to live with a grocer in that town. Mary being a girl of vivacity and genteel figure, she unfortunately attracted the regard of the grocer's son, and the consequence of their connexion became very conspicuous in a short time.

As soon as it was evident that she was pregnant, she was dismissed from her master's service, on which she immediately made oath that his son was the father of the child thereafter to be born -- a circumstance that compelled the old gentleman to support her till she was brought to bed.

She had not been delivered long before she went to London, and entered into the service of a mercer in Cheapside, where, by prudent conduct, she might have retrieved the character she had forfeited in the country; but, though she had already suffered by her indiscretion, an intimacy soon subsisted between her master and herself; but, as their interviews could not conveniently be held at home, they contrived to meet on evenings at other places, when the mistress of the house was gone to the theatre, or out on a visit.

This connexion continued till the girl was far advanced in her pregnancy, when the master, apprehensive of disagreeable consequences at home, advised the girl to quarrel with her mistress, in order that she might be dismissed, and then took a lodging for her at Hackney, where she remained till she was delivered; and in the meantime the connexion between her and her master continued as before. Being brought to bed of a child that died in a few hours after its birth, the master thought himself happy, supposing he could easily free himself from the incumbrance of the mother, of whom he now became heartily tired.

When the girl recovered from her lying-in, he told her that she must go to service, as it did not suit him to maintain her any longer; but this enraged her to the highest degree, and she threatened to discover the nature of their connexion to his wife, unless he would make her a present of twenty guineas; and with this demand he thought it prudent to comply, happy to get rid of her even on such terms.

Being now in possession of money, and in no want of clothes in which to make a genteel appearance, she removed from Hackney to Wych Street, without Temple Bar, but was scarcely settled in her new lodgings before she sent a letter to the mercer's wife, whom she acquainted with the nature of the connexion that had subsisted between her late master and herself; but she did not mention her place of abode in this letter.

The consequence was, that the mercer was obliged to acknowledge the crime of which he had been guilty, and solicit his wife's pardon in terms of the utmost humiliation. This pardon was promised, but whether it was ever ratified remains a doubt.

Mrs. Adams had the advantage of an engaging figure, and, passing as a young woman in her new lodgings, she was soon married to a young fellow in the neighbourhood; but it was not long before he discovered the imposition that had been practised on him, on which he embarked on board a ship in the royal navy.

By this time Mrs. Adams's money was almost expended; but, as her clothes were yet good, an attorney of Clement's Inn took her into keeping; and, after she had lived a short time with him, she went to another of the same profession, with whom she cohabited above two years; but on his marriage she was once more abandoned to the world.

Fertile of invention, and too proud to condescend to accept of a common service, she became connected with a notorious bawd of Drury Lane, who was very glad of her assistance, and promised herself considerable advantage from the association. In this situation Mrs. Adams displayed her charms to considerable advantage, and was as happy as any common prostitute can expect to be: but alas! what is this happiness but a prelude to the extremity of misery and distress? Such indeed it was found by Mrs. Adams, who having been gratified by a gentleman with a considerable sum of money, the bawd quarrelled with her respecting the dividing of it, and, a battle ensuing, our heroine was turned out of the house, after she had got a black eye in the contest.

After this she used to parade the Park in the day-time, and walk the streets in the evening, in search of casual lovers; at length she joined the practice of theft to that of incontinence, and few of her chance acquaintance escaped being robbed. She was often taken into custody for these practices, but continually escaped through defect of evidence.

But an end was soon put to her depredations; for, having enticed a gentleman to a bagnio near Covent Garden, she picked his pocket of all his money, and a bank note of a large amount, and left him while he was asleep. When he awoke, he sent immediate notice to the Bank to stop payment; and, as Mrs. Adams came soon after to receive the money for the note, she was taken into custody, and lodged in prison; and, being in a short time tried at the Old Bailey, she was convicted, received sentence of death, and was executed at Tyburn, on the 16th of June, 1702.

After her conviction she lived in the same gay and dissipated manner that she had done before, and was visited by many of her former acquaintance, who supplied her with money to support her extravagance. Agreeable to her own request, too, their mistaken bounty contributed to purchase her a suit of mourning, in which she was executed; and they buried her in as handsome a manner as if her life had been conducted by the rules of virtue, and she had likewise been a woman of fortune.

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1703

51: Mary Channel

Famous for her Wit and Beauty, compelled to marry a Man she detested, poisoned him, and was executed in 1703, at the age of 18

MARY CHANNEL was the daughter of one Mr Woods, a person of good repute, who resided in a little village near Dorchester, in the county of Dorset. He was a person of known wealth and good credit, who, by his industry and diligence, daily increased his riches.

Perceiving his daughter to be of a promising disposition, and amiable both in body and mind, he gave her a liberal education, to improve and refine those good qualifications by art and study wherewith she was liberally endowed by the bounty of nature. She made so speedy a progress in her learning that she soon outvied her schoolfellows; and the strong imagination, polite behaviour and majestic graces in her carriage so lively displayed themselves that she became the mirror and discourse of all who knew her. Though her birth gave place to those of the highest rank and quality, yet her education was not inferior to them; and her incomparable wit, united with her beautiful presence, rendered her so agreeable that she was to be preferred even to many of a superior rank.

Her charms did not consist in adorning and dressing herself in magnificent and gay attire, decked with pearls and diamonds, which gives a false gloss of beauty to persons whose natures are opposite, and only serve to brighten the lustre of their pretended fine qualities. In a word, she was generally esteemed the most celebrated wit and accomplished beauty of her age.

Being now in the flower of her youth and bloom of her beauty, she had several suitors of good repute, who all became captives to her beauty, and hardly did they find themselves ensnared but they had the boldness to flatter themselves with the hopes of one day possessing such a charming object. Amongst the rest, one Mr Channel, a wealthy grocer of Dorchester, came to pay his respects to her, who, for the great riches he enjoyed, was gratefully accepted by her parents, though by her altogether contemned and slighted. He had nothing to recommend him but his wealth, which was as much superior to the rest of her suitors as his person was inferior to them: his limbs and body were in some measure ill proportioned, and his features in no wise agreeable; but what rendered him the more detestable and ridiculous in her sight was his splay-foot, which did not in the least concur with her sublime and lofty temper.

Her father, evidently perceiving the addresses of Mr Channel were received and accepted by her with scorn and reproofs, entreated her to receive him with less disdain and listen to his  respectful addresses. Being weary, however, of his fond familiarities, she determined to abandon herself from him, and never more admit him into her presence or society. She had no sooner put her design into execution but it reached her father's ears, who kept a more strict guard and watchful eye over her behaviour and conduct, and forthwith continued his absurd and unreasonable expostulations and imprudent menaces to enforce and augment her love.

She in vain endeavoured to excuse herself, by disputing the most solid and rational arguments; but how much the more she persisted, by so much the more her parents' resolution was incensed and irritated, pressing her to consent to a speedy marriage, and telling her she would discharge the duty under which she was obligated to them by assenting to and complying with their commands. At length, being continually fatigued and importuned by her parents to have the marriage solemnised, she consented, though with the greatest reluctance.

And on the day appointed the ceremony was ordained. Having now gratified her parents' desire, and yielded to their compulsions, by putting the finishing stroke to her marriage, she still continued her slights and contempts towards her husband, and he became the entire object of her scorn. Soon after the solemnisation of the marriage she began to plot and contrive new scenes of tragedies, and her thoughts were chiefly employed and taken up in studying what measures to take to get rid of her husband, and set herself at liberty.

Nothing would satisfy her enormous desires but his death, which she determined to bring about by poison. And, in order thereto, she sent her maid to the apothecary's for some white mercury, telling her it was to kill rats and mice; though it is certain her design was reverse, which she intended to fulfil as soon as opportunity would give reins to her vicious inclinations. A little after she gave orders for rice milk to be made for breakfast. That morning, particularly, she was observed to demonstrate a seeming diligence in procuring everyone their proper messes; and no one was permitted to serve her husband but herself. Accordingly she prepared and gave him the poisonous draught, mixed and infused with the mercury, which she had reserved for this desperate use, and which proved his fatal dish. After he had eaten somewhat liberally he discovered an ill savour in his milk, and said it tasted amiss. Hereupon he offered his wife's brother (a youth who boarded with him) to taste it; but she would by no means permit her brother to comply with this reasonable request, which caused a strong suspicion throughout the family.

Then Mr Channel required the maid to taste it; but she had no sooner taken it into her hands than her mistress in a violent passion caught it from her, and forthwith conveyed it away. It was now too late to recall what had passed, or to seek for refuge; for his body presently began to swell vehemently, perceiving which, the domestics immediately sent for a doctor. But the infused mercury had so great an effect upon him that no remedy could expel it, and he expired before the physicians came to his assistance. Having thus resigned his breath, and there being visible proofs of his being poisoned, it was not without reason she was suspected to be the principal and only actress and procurer thereof.

Thereupon she was immediately seized and conveyed before a justice, before whom she entirely denied the fact; nevertheless, on her servants' information he committed her to Dorchester jail.

At the assizes ensuing at Dorchester the defence she made (whether it was real or pretended) was so full of wit and ingenuity, and uttered with such an extraordinary courage and humility, that it caused admiration in the judges, and pity and compassion in all who heard her trial. But this availed nothing; for the evidences appearing plain against her, and the friends of her deceased husband being very substantial people,  she received sentence to be burned at the stake till she was dead.

The day whereon she was to suffer being come, she was guarded by proper officers to the place of execution, with her hood veiled over her face. After she had uttered some private ejaculations she pulled off her gown and white silk hood and delivered them to her maid -- who accompanied her to the stake -- and then suffered death, according to the sentence before pronounced against her, declaring her faith in Christ; and to the last continued to exclaim against her parents' constraints, which had been the sole cause of her torturing death.

Thus at a small distance from the town of Dorchester she yielded her breath, in or about the month of April, Anno Domini 1703, in the eighteenth year of her age, being greatly bewailed and lamented, though the sentence was acknowledged to be just and lawful.

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52: Tim Buckley

Highwayman, who fell after a hot Battle, and was hanged in 1701

TIMOTHY BUCKLEY was as unparalleled a villain as ever lived in this kingdom. He was born of very honest parents at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, where he served three years to a shoemaker; but then, running away from his master, he came up to London, and soon became acquainted with ill company, whose vices he followed to support him in a most scandalous and infamous course of life.

Having spent a great deal of his ill-gotten money at a blind ale-house in Wapping, he once asked the victualler to lend him ten shillings, which favour he denied him; and Tim so highly resented his ingratitude that he left frequenting his house. Not long after, Tim and some of his thieving companions, breaking in by night, bound the victualler, his wife and maid, both hand and foot, and robbed the house, taking thence forty pounds laid by for the brewer, three silver tankards, a silver watch and eight gold rings.

Another time, on Tim taking a walk towards Hyde Park Corner, the air of which place is generally very unwholesome for a thief to take, it was his fortune to meet with that famous merry-andrew and mountebank, Dr Cately. He commanded that illiterately learned gentleman to stand and deliver. Our doctor, preferring his own welfare before what he had about him, humbly presented Tim with six guineas and a very good watch, that he might keep time in spending the gold.

An informing constable, who was a baker in St Giles-in-the-Fields parish, once took up Tim, sending him as a soldier into Flanders. He had not been long there before he deserted and came to London again; and one day meeting this baker's wife coming alone from Hampstead he forced her into a private place, and presenting a pistol to her breast swore he would shoot her dead on the spot if she refused his request, he being bent upon it to be revenged on her husband, who had impressed him a little while ago. The baker's wife being no Lucretia, to value her chastity at the loss of her life, was forced to submit, and Tim then commanded her to deliver her money and such other things of worth as she had about her. So taking from her a couple of gold rings and eleven shillings he sent her home to tell her husband of this adventure.

Afterwards, Tim Buckley, stealing a very good horse in Buckinghamshire, turned highwayman, and riding up to London met on the road a certain pawnbroker living in Drury Lane. Tim having been the loser in pawning some things to him, which were lost for want of redeeming, was resolved to have his pennyworth out of him now, so commanded him to stand and deliver. The pawnbroker, being very loath to go to the devil before his time, ransomed himself for twenty-eight guineas, a gold watch, a silver tobacco-box and a couple of gold rings.  Another time, Tim Buckley, meeting a stock-jobber on the road who had formerly prosecuted him for felony, upon conviction whereof he was burned in the hand, was resolved to be revenged on him, by robbing him of forty-eight guineas.

Not long after, this same stock-jobber, accidentally meeting Tim Buckley in London, caused him to be apprehended, and committed to Newgate, and convicting him of this robbery, he received sentence of death. But obtaining a reprieve, and afterwards pleading for a free pardon, as soon as he was at liberty, resolving to be further revenged on this adversary who had twice sat very close on his skirts, he went to Hackney, where this stock-jobber had a country house within a mile of that village, and one night set fire to it; but a timely discovery thereof preventing it from doing much damage, it was quickly quenched. However, Tim made his escape, and flying into Leicestershire he broke open a house at a place called Ashby-de-la- Zouch, and from thence took above eighty pounds.

He then went to a fair at Derby, where he bought a good horse, and went on the highway again. Being thus mounted again to rob on the road, within two miles of Nottingham he attempted to stop a coach in which were three gentlemen, besides a couple of footmen riding a little behind; but they being resolved not to be robbed of what they had by one villain, one of them fired a blunderbuss out of the coach, which killed Tim's horse, and then, all the gentlemen alighting, and the footmen having by this time also come up to their assistance, a bloody and obstinate engagement began between them, wherein Tim killed one of the gentlemen and a footman; but being overpowered nevertheless, after he had discharged eight pistols, and also grown faint through the loss of much blood (for he had received eleven wounds in his arms, thighs and legs), he was seized and committed to jail in Nottingham, where he was executed, in 1701, aged twenty-nine years, and afterwards hanged in chains at the place where he perpetrated the two murders aforesaid.

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52: Tom Jones

Highwayman, executed at Launceston, 25th of April, 1702, for robbing a Farmer's Wife

TOM JONES was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the county of Northumberland, where his father, being a clothier, brought him up to the same trade. He followed this calling till he was two-and-twenty years of age, though not without discovering his vicious inclinations many years before, by running into debt and taking to all manner of irregular courses. At last, being reduced to extremity, he resolved at once to apply himself to the highway, as the only way left to retrieve his fortune. To make a beginning, he robbed his father of eighty pounds and a good horse, upon which he rode across the country with all speed, for fear of being pursued, galloping forty miles before he stopped; all which way he was afraid of everyone he saw and every noise he heard.

After this, riding into Staffordshire, and meeting a stage-coach with several passengers in it, he commanded the coachman to stop, and the people within to deliver. Some of the gentlemen were resolute, and refused to comply with his demand; upon which he fired several pistols, taking care to do no hurt, and still preserving three or four well-loaded for his defence, if he should have occasion of them. The fright which the gunpowder put a couple of ladies into, who were in the coach, obliged the gentlemen to surrender before there was any mischief done, and Tom rode off with a considerable booty.

It was after this that he met the late Lord Wharton and his lady on the road, stopped their coach and demanded their money, though they had three men on horseback to attend them. His lordship at first made some hesitation, and asked him if he understood what he was about.

"Do you know me, sir," says he, "that you dare be so bold as to stop me on the road?"

"Not I," replied Jones very readily; "I neither know nor care who you are, though, before you spoke, I took you for a brewer, because you carry your cooler by your side. Now, indeed, I am apt to imagine you are some great man, because you speak so big. But be as great as you will, sir, I must have you to know that there is no man upon this road so great as myself; therefore pray be quick in answering my demands, for delays may prove dangerous."

His honour now saw our gentleman was resolute, so he and his lady even delivered up what they had about them without more words.

The whole prize consisted of two hundred pounds in money, three diamond rings and two gold watches. All this being secured, Jones commanded his lordship to bid his servants ride on some distance before, threatening him with death if he refused; which being done, and the servants obeying, he had a fair opportunity of riding off without being pursued.  Tom received intelligence one day that a certain gentleman was on the road with two hundred pounds in his coach. This, to be sure, was a sufficient invitation for him. He got upon a hill to wait for his customers coming, who spied him afar off without apprehending anything. But a steward of the gentleman, observing the behaviour of our chapman at a distance, told his master that he believed the man on the hill was a highwayman.

"If you please, sir," quoth he, "to trust me with your money I'll ride by him, which I may do unsuspected, for he certainly waits for you."

The gentleman was pleased at his servant's care, and liked his proposal very well. So giving him the bag, the steward rode on as fast as he could, and passed by Jones without being examined, getting out of sight before the coach came up.  In short, the coach was stopped and the money demanded, when our gentleman gave him about ten guineas, assuring him that he had no more. Jones boldly named the sum he wanted, and swore it was in the coach, the traveller as often asserting that he was mistaken.

At last the real state of the case came into our adventurer's head; whereupon, without taking his leave of the gentleman, he set spurs to his horse and rode after the steward full speed, who had by this time got at least a mile and a half from the place. Jones was well mounted, and it was five miles from the next town, so that he came in sight of the steward before he could get into any inn; but the steward saw him, mended his pace, and saved the money. This disappointment vexed poor Tom to the heart, but there was no remedy. As to the gentleman, he gave his servant a handsome gratuity for what he had done― as he deserved.  After many adventures, most of them of a piece with the foregoing, Tom was apprehended, in Cornwall, for robbing a farmer's wife, and afterwards ravishing her. For this fact he was tried, and condemned, the assizes following, and about ten days afterwards executed at Launceston, on Saturday, the 25th of April, 1702, being thirty-two years of age.

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53: Dick Bauf

Who executed his own Parents, and from a Pickpocket became a Cat Burglar, and then a Highwayman. Executed at Dublin, 15th of May, 1702

THIS insolent offender was born in the kingdom of Ireland. At twelve years of age he had the wide world to shift for himself in, his parents being then forced to swing for their lives on a piece of cross timber, where they had the misfortune to have their breath stopped. Their crime was only breaking open and rifling a house, and murdering most of the family.

Dick was present at the action, and contributed towards it as much as he was able, but found mercy at the assizes on account of his youth. Some say he was pardoned only on the hard condition of being executioner to his own parents, and that he was at first very unwilling to take away the lives of those who gave him his, but consented at last, when he found that there was no excuse that such a worthy family might not be entirely cut off by one single act of justice. It is added that on the same consideration his father and mother persuaded him to the action, and gave him their blessing at the hour of their departure, assuring him that they had much rather die by his hands than by the hands of a stranger, since they were sure of his prayers in their last moments. These words afforded great consolation to young Richard, and enabled him to get through the work with a Christian fortitude.

Being now left an orphan, young, helpless and alone, he determined to look out for some gentleman whom he might serve in the quality of a skip-kennel, or some handicraftsman of whom he might learn a trade, for his support in an honest way. But all his inquiry was in vain; for the lamentable exit of his parents, and the occasion of it, being fresh in everyone's memory, their infamy rested on him, and there was no man to be found who would receive him into his house.

Being as yet unfit to engage in any great and hazardous enterprise, he took up the decent occupation of a pick-pocket, at which he soon became very dexterous, haunting all the fairs, markets, and even churches, round the country, and in this manner picking up a very good living; till, being often detected, and obliged to go through the discipline of the horse-pond, he was obliged to think of some other order of sharpers in which to get himself entered.

There is  in Ireland a sort of men whom we may properly enough call satyrs, from their living in woods and desert places; among these Dick Bauf was next enrolled. These people never came to any towns, but continued in their private holds, stealing horses, kine, sheep and all sorts of cattle that came in their way, on which they subsisted. But all these inferior orders soon became tiresome to our adventurer, the more on account of the bad success he met with whilst he was in them. The next, then, therefore, was to get acquainted with a gang of Grumeis, who take their name from the similitude of their practice to that of the young boys who climb up to the tops of the masts at sea with great activity, and are called cats, or Grumeis, by the sailors. The thieves that bear this name are housebreakers who make use of a ladder of ropes, with hooks in one end of it, by which they easily ascend to the chamber windows, having fastened their ladders with a long pole. These robbers were very common in Dick Bauf's time, and did a world of mischief both in town and country, doing all with so much expedition that they more frequently escaped than other housebreakers, yet commonly with as large booties of gold, silver, linen and everything that came to hand as anybody at all. When they had done their work their method was to pull a string which was fastened to the end of the hooks, and so raise them, upon which the ladder fell without leaving any marks behind it.

Next he got into a crew of wool-drawers, whose trade is to snatch away cloaks, hats or perukes from towners― a very sly sort of theft, practised only in the night, the greatest part of their cunning lying in the choice of a proper opportunity. They go always in companies, three or four together, about nine or ten at night, most commonly on dark rainy evenings, which are generally the most favourable to their practice. The places they choose are dark alleys and passages where a great many people come along, and there is a facility of escaping by a great many ways; which they do to prevent their being surprised by the neighbours if those that are robbed should cry out, as they frequently do. But Dick Bauf was at last taken in one of these pranks also, and burned in the hand for it at Galway; upon which he grew weary of the lay. He was, moreover, now a man full grown, very lusty and able-bodied; which determined him to take to the highway.

He was not long in making provision for this new course; and, being in every particular well accoutred for it, he proceeded in as intrepid and insolent a manner as ever fellow did. All the four provinces of Ireland were scarce large enough for him to range in, and hardly afforded occasions enough for him to make proof of his courage as much as he desired. Night and day he pursued his villainies, and practised them on all ranks and degrees -- rich and poor, old and young, man, woman and child were all the same to him. For he was as impartial as Death, and altogether as inexorable, being never softened to pity.  He was so notoriously remarkable for the daily robberies he committed on the Mount of Barnsmoor that no person of quality would venture to travel that way without a very large retinue.

In a word, he kept his residence in this place till, by an order of the Government, there was a guard-house built on the middle of it; and the regiments lying at Coleraine, Londonderry, Belfast and other garrisons in the north of Ireland were obliged to detach thirty or forty men thither, under a sergeant and a corporal, and to relieve them monthly, on purpose to secure the passengers who travelled that way from being interrupted by this audacious robber. These measures obliged him to shift his quarters and reside about Lorras. In the end, such grievous complaints of his frequent outrages were made to the Government by so many people that a proclamation was issued for the apprehending of him, with the promise of five hundred pounds' reward to him who could do the State this signal piece of service; for, in short, he began to be looked upon as a dangerous person to the whole kingdom. This great sum caused abundance of people to look out for him, and among others were several who had often had a fellow-feeling with him, by being employed to dispose of what he stole.

Bauf was so enraged when he heard of this that he vowed revenge; which he thus executed.  Some of these persons daily travelled a by-road about business. As he knew their time of passing, he one day waylaid them and stopped them singly as they came, tying them neck and heels and putting them into an old barn by the roadside. When he had by this means got nine or ten together, he set the barn on fire and left them to be consumed with it; which they all were, without remedy.

This inhuman action was soon discovered by the persons being missed and the bones that were found in the rubbish; whereupon, finding the country too hot to hold him, he fled in disguise to Donaghadee, took shipping, and escaped to Portpatrick, in Scotland, from whence he designed to have gone to France. But lighting on a public-house where there was a handsome landlady he got familiar with her, which occasioned him to stay longer than he intended, and, indeed, too long for him; for the husband, at last observing the freedom that our rover took with his wife, caused him to be apprehended, in a fit of jealousy, having before a suspicion who he was.

When he was carried before a magistrate all circumstances appeared against him; so that he was sent back under a strong guard to Ireland, where he was soon known. Being committed to Newgate, in Dublin, and shortly afterwards condemned, it is said he offered five thousand pounds for a pardon, being worth twice the sum. But all proving ineffectual, he was executed at Dublin, on Friday, the 15th of May, 1702, aged twenty-nine years. His body was afterwards hanged in chains on Barnsmoor Mount, in the province of Ulster.

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54: Thomas Estrick

Executed for housebreaking on the 10th of March, 1703.

THOMAS ESTRICK was born in the Borough of Southwark, in the year 1676. His father was a currier, and instructed him in his own business; but the boy shewed a very early attachment to pleasures and ratifications above his age, and incompatible with his situation.

When the time of his apprenticeship was expired, he was of too unsettled a disposition to follow his business, and therefore engaged in the service of a gentleman of fortune at Hackney; but he had not been long in this new place before his master was robbed of plate, and other valuable effects, to the amount of above eighty pounds.

The fact was, that Estrick had stolen these effects; but such was the ascendency that he had obtained over his master, and such the baseness of his own disposition, that he had art enough to impute the crime to one of the servant maids, who was turned out of the house with every circumstance of unmerited disgrace.

Estrick, having quitted this service, took a shop in Cock-alley, near Cripplegate church, where he carried on the business to which he was bred; and while in this station he courted a girl of reputation, to whom he was soon afterwards married. It should be remarked, that he had been instigated to rob his master, at Hackney, by some young fellows of a profligate disposition; and he had not been married more than half a year when these dissolute companions threatened to give him up to justice, if he refused to bribe them to keep the secret.

Estrick, terrified at the thoughts of a prosecution, gave them his note of hand for the sum they demanded; but when the note became due he was unable to pay it; on which he was arrested, and lay some time in prison, but at length obtained his liberty in defect of the prosecution of the suit.

As soon as he was at large, he went to lodge with a person who kept his former house in Cock-Alley; but, on taking possession of his lodgings, he found that a woman who lodged and died in the room during his absence had left a box containing cash to the amount of about ninety pounds.

Having possessed himself of this sum, he opened a shop in Long-alley, Moorfields; but, his old associates having propagated a report to the prejudice of his character, he thought he should not be safe in that situation; and therefore took shipping for Holland, having previously disposed of his effects. On his arrival in Holland he found no opportunity of employing his little money to any advantage; and therefore spent the greater part of it, and then returned to his native country.

It was not long after his return before he found himself reduced to great distress; on which he had recourse to a variety of illegal methods to supply his necessities. He was guilty of privately stealing, was a housebreaker, a street-robber, and a highwayman. In a short time, however, the career of his wickedness was at an end. He was apprehended, tried, and convicted; and, in consequence thereof, was executed at Tyburn on the 10th of March, 1703, before he had attained the age of twenty-seven years.

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55: Alexander Balfour

A Man of noble Family, who was convicted for the Murder of Mr Syme, escaped from Prison, and lived Fifty Years after the Day fixed for his Execution by the "Maiden" or Guillotine

THIS man was born in the year 1687, at the seat of his father, Lord Burleigh, near Kinross. He was first sent for education to a village called Orwell, near the place of his birth, and thence to the University of St Andrews, where he pursued his studies with a diligence and success that greatly distinguished him. His father, Lord Burleigh, had intended to have sent him into the army in Flanders, under the command of the Duke of Marlborough, in which he had rational expectation of his rising to preferment, as he was related to the Duke of Argyll and the Earl of Stair, who were major-generals in the army; but this scheme unhappily did not take place.

Mr Balfour, going to his father's house during the vacation at the university, became enamoured of Miss Anne Robertson, who officiated as teacher to his sisters. This young lady was possessed of considerable talents, improved by a fine education; but Lord Burleigh being apprised of the connection between her and his son, she was discharged and the young gentleman sent to make the tour of France and Italy. Before he went abroad he sent the young lady a letter, informing her that if she married before his return he would murder her husband. Notwithstanding this threat, which she might presume had its origin in ungovernable passion, she married Mr Syme, a schoolmaster, at Inverkeithing, in the county of Fife.

When Balfour returned from his travels, his first business was to inquire for Miss Robertson; and learning that she was married he proceeded immediately to Inverkeithing, when he saw Mrs Syme sitting at her window nursing the first child of her marriage. Recollecting his former threatenings, she now screamed with terror, and called to her husband to consult his safety. Mr Syme, unconscious of offence, paid no regard to what she said; but in the interim Balfour entered the schoolroom, and finding the husband shot him through the heart. The confusion consequent on this scene favoured his escape; but he was taken into custody, within a few days, at a public-house in a village four miles from Edinburgh, and, being brought to trial, was sentenced to die, but ordered to be beheaded by the "maiden," in respect to the nobility of his family.

The scaffold was actually erected for the purpose; but on the preceding day his sister went to visit him, and, being very much like him in face and stature, they changed clothes, and he made his escape from the prison. His friends having provided horses for him, and a servant, at the west gate of Edinburgh, they rode to a distant village, where he changed his clothes again, and afterwards left the kingdom. Lord Burleigh, the father, died in the reign of Queen Anne; but had first obtained a pardon for his son, who succeeded to the family title and honours, and who lived near fifty years after his escape, having died, in 1752, a sincere penitent for the murder he had committed.

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56: Jack Withers

A sacrilegious Villain who murdered a Footman and was executed on the 16th of April, 1703

JACK WITHERS was the son of a butcher, born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, where he served an apprenticeship with his own father. Want of business when he was out of his time made him come up to London, and his evil genius, when he was there, soon threw him into the way of destruction, for he engaged himself with a society of thieves, by a conversation he got into, from whence he was sent into Flanders for a soldier, as was then the custom of dealing with offenders who were not judged worthy of death.

While he was abroad he could very indifferently brook the being obliged to live on a foot soldier's pay, which bore no proportion to his late expenses. This put him on a great many shifts, and made him take all opportunities of making up the deficiency of his income.

Going into a church in Ghent, where the people were all at High Mass, and seeing most of them cast money into a box that stood under an image of the Virgin Mary, it made his fingers itch for the coin; so, watching for a fair opportunity, with a crooked nail he picked the lock, and crammed as much of the treasure as he could into his pockets. But doing it over-hastily, and dropping some of the pieces, they made such a jingling on the marble pavement that, as ill luck would have it, he was discovered, seized, and dragged before a great cardinal then in that town.

This arch-priest, examining the witnesses as to the fact, and finding it plain, exclaimed prodigiously against Withers, by the titles of rogue, rascal and sacrilegious villain; and was just going to condemn him to a severe punishment when Jack, falling on his knees, with uplifted hands and tears in his eyes, begged his Eminence to hear him. This, after much storming, was granted, and silence being made, Jack, in a piteous tone, told him that he was a vile, wicked wretch, bred up a Protestant and a heretic, and being in great distress he had made his prayers before the image of the Blessed Virgin to relieve him in his hard necessity, promising, in consideration thereof, to turn Roman Catholic, and ever be her votary; when all of a sudden the box under her image flew open, and she pointed with her finger to the money, making also a dumb show, with nodding her head, for him to supply his necessities out of it, which he had thankfully done, with a resolution of keeping his vow for ever.

This relation being heard with much patience and attention, the Cardinal cried out, "A miracle! A miracle!"― which all the rest rehearsed out aloud, concluding that none had more right to dispose of that money than the Virgin, to whom it was offered. Instead of being punished, Jack Withers was now carried back to the church in solemn procession on men's shoulders, and borne round it in triumph, whilst Ave Maria was sung by the priests, and he placed before the High Altar; after which he was dismissed with great applause.

Proving so fortunate in this cheat, he was thereby emboldened to commit another like it; for one day, going into a church in Antwerp, he perceived the priest put a silver crucifix of great value into a sepulchre, as their ceremony is in representing the Resurrection upon Easter Day; and whilst the spiritual juggled and the people were going round the church, Jack Withers was so dexterous as to convey the crucifix into his breeches and shuffle among the crowd; so that when the priest came back to it, saying these words in the Gospel, "Non est hic, surrexit enim"― that is, "He is not here, for He is risen"― he found it so indeed. For, after much fumbling, he perceived his graven god was gone― and Withers then made what haste he could away, for fear of a search.

But a little after the playing of this prank, Jack, running away from his colours, came into England again, where, preferring an idle course of life before any lawful employment, he took to the highway. One day meeting with an old miser upon the road, who was his father's neighbour, he commanded him to stand and deliver what he had, or otherwise he was a dead man. The old man, being surprised, pleaded great poverty, in hopes of saving about a hundred guineas and broad-pieces of gold, which he had in the pockets of his wide knee-breeches, containing cloth enough to make a gentlewoman a hooped petticoat; but all his whining prevailed nothing with Jack. He was then for coming to composition with him, by giving him one half of his money to save the other, but Withers swore a great oath of the first rate that he would not abate him a farthing of cent. per cent. The old man, fumbling a good while in his pocket, at length lugged out his purse and pair of spectacles, putting which on his nose, he gave his money to Jack Withers.

After this, Jack Withers, and one William Edwards, setting on a person of quality within a mile or two of Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, the lord that was assaulted, who had only one footman with him, had the courage to oppose them, and held so hot a dispute to save what he had that Withers's horse was shot, and Edwards was obliged to carry him off behind him; and, a close pursuit being made after them, they were forced to quit that horse and make their escape on foot through by-lanes and over fields, where none on horseback could ride after them.

Hiding themselves in a wood all night, the next morning they made the best of their way to London; but about a mile out of Uxbridge, meeting with a penny-post man, they assaulted him on the queen's highway, and having taken from him about eight shillings, Withers, to prevent his discovery of them (though much against the will of his comrade Edwards), took a butcher's knife out of his pocket, and with it not only cut the throat of the unhappy man, but ripped out his bowels, and filling the body full of stones threw it into a pond, where it was found the next day. None could tell the author of this inhuman murder till Withers and his companion were apprehended, about two months after, for a country robbery, when, being condemned at the Lent Assizes at Norfolk, on the 16th of April, 1703, the day of their execution, at Thetford, Withers confessed the fact.

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57: John Peter Dramatti

Executed at Tyburn, on 21st of July, 1703, for the Murder of his Wife, who said she was allied to the French Royal Family

THIS IS a case, though of the most heinous nature, yet the perpetrator is entitled to some commiseration. He was a foreigner, but had served the King of England with bravery as a soldier; and was inveigled by an artful female impostor into marriage. He did not seriously resent the trick played upon him, but continued his habits of industry and integrity, until, on being grossly assaulted by this woman who had led him a wretched life, he killed her in the scuffle which ensued.

JOHN PETER DRAMATTI was the son of Protestant parents, and was born at Saverdun, in the county of Foix, and province of Languedoc, in France. He received a religious education; but when he arrived at years of maturity he left his own country and went into Germany, where he served as a horse grenadier under the Elector of Brandenburg, who was afterwards King of Prussia. When he had been in this condition about a year he came over to England and entered into the service of Lord Haversham, and afterwards enlisted as a soldier in the regiment of Colonel de la Meloniere. Having made two campaigns in Flanders, the regiment was ordered into Ireland, where it was dismissed from further service; in consequence of which Dramatti obtained his discharge.

He now became acquainted with a widow, between fifty and sixty years of age, who pretended that she had a great fortune, and was allied to the Royal Family of France; and he soon married her, not only on account of her supposed wealth and rank, but also of her understanding English and Irish, thinking it prudent to have a wife who could speak the language of the country in which he proposed to spend the remainder of his life.

As soon as he discovered that his wife had no fortune he went to London and offered his services to Lord Haversham, and was again admitted as one of his domestics. His wife, unhappy on account of their separate residence, wished to live with him at Lord Haversham's, which he would not consent to, saying that his lordship did not know he was married.

The wife now began to evince the jealousy of her disposition, and frequent quarrels took place between them because he was unable to be with her so frequently as she desired.

At length, on the 9th of June, 1703, Dramatti was sent to London from his master's house at Kensington, and calling upon his wife at her lodgings near Soho Square, she endeavoured to prevail upon him to stay with her. This, however, he refused; and finding that he was going home she went before him, and stationed herself at the Park gate. On his coming up, she declared that he should go no farther unless she accompanied him; but he quitted her abruptly and went onwards to Chelsea. She pursued him to the Bloody Bridge, and there seized him by the neck-cloth, and would have strangled him, but that he beat her off with his cane. He then attacked her with his sword; and having wounded her in so many places as to conclude that he had killed her, his passion immediately began to subside, and, falling on his knees, he devoutly implored the pardon of God for the horrid sin of which he had been guilty.

He went on to Kensington, where his fellow servants observing that his clothes were bloody, he said he had been attacked by two men in Hyde Park, who would have robbed him of his clothes, but that he had defended himself, and broke the head of one of them.

The real fact, however, was subsequently discovered; and Dramatti being taken before a magistrate, to whom he confessed his crime, the body of his wife was found in a ditch between Hyde Park and Chelsea, and a track of blood was seen to thedistance of twenty yards, at the end of which a piece of a sword was found sticking in a bank which fitted the other part of the sword in the prisoner's possession.

The circumstances attending the murder being proved to the satisfaction of the jury, the culprit was found guilty, condemned, and on the 21st of July, 1703, was executed at Tyburn.

If ever a criminal possessed claim to royal mercy, surely this man's case should have been favoured. He sought not for blood; but, impelled by assaults of the most foul and aggravated nature, he killed an antagonist, who ought to have cheered him through life. He was an ill-treated stranger too; and therein he became doubly an object of compassion.

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58: Thomas Cook

Murdered a Constable during a Riot in Mayfair, and was executed on 11th of August, 1703

HOW FREQUENTLY do we find that the guilty, in the interval of time between the commission and discovery of a murder, are compelled by an irresistible infatuation to introduce the subject of their crime into conversation with strangers. Many years ago a mail robber was apprehended in a remote part of Cornwall, on suspicion, from his frequently speaking upon the nature and danger of plundering the public mail, and executed for that offence.

The subject of the present memoir was taken into custody at Chester for a crime committed in London, merely from his constant relation of the riot in which he had committed the murder. Thus, by a kind of mentalignis fatuus, the murderer was led on to his own detection. These are the workings of conscience, that earthly hell which torments those who with intentional malice have spilt the blood of their fellow-creatures How strongly did this mental agony appear in the conduct of Governor Wall; whose life shall hereafter be given. After 20 years had elapsed from the commission of the murder, and while he lived in personal security in a foreign country, his conscience afforded him no peace of mind. He voluntarily returned to London, sought his own apprehension, was convicted, and executed.

Thomas Cook was the son of a butcher, a man of reputation, at Gloucester. When he was about fifteen years of age his father put him apprentice to a barber surgeon in London, with whom he lived two years, and then, running away, engaged himself in the service of ― Needham, Esq., who was page-of-honour to King William III.; but his mother writing to him, and intimating in the vulgar phrase that "a gentleman's service was no inheritance," he quitted his place, and going to Gloucester engaged in the business of a butcher, being the profession of several of his ancestors. He followed this trade for some time, and served as master of the company of butchers in his native city; after which he abandoned that business and took an inn; but it does not appear that he was successful in it, since he soon afterwards turned grazier.

Restless, however, in every station of life, he repaired to London, where he commenced as prize-fighter, at Mayfair. At this time Mayfair was a place greatly frequented by prize-fighters, thieves and women of bad character. Here puppet shows were exhibited, and it was the favourite resort of all the profligate and abandoned. At length the nuisance increased to such a degree that Queen Anne issued her proclamation for the suppression of vice and immorality, with a particular view to this fair; in consequence of which the justices of Peace issued their warrant to the High Constable, who summoned all the inferior constables to his assistance.

When the constables came to suppress the fair, Cook, with a mob of about thirty soldiers and other persons, stood in defiance of the peace officers, at whom they threw brick bats, by which some of the latter were wounded. Cooper, the constable, being the most active Cook drew his sword and stabbed him in the belly, and he died of the wound at the expiration of four days. Thereupon Cook fled to Ireland, and (as it was deposed upon his trial) while he was in a public house there he swore in a profane manner, for which the landlord censured him, and told him there were persons in the house who would take him into custody for it; to which he answered:

"Are there any of the informing dogs in Ireland? We in London drive them; for at a fair called Mayfair there was a noise which I went out to see six soldiers and myself the constables played their parts with their staves, and I played mine; and when the man dropped I wiped my sword, put it up, and went away."

Cook, having repeatedly talked in this boasting and insolent manner, was at length taken into custody and sent to Chester, whence he was removed by writ of habeas corpus to London; and being tried at the Old Bailey was convicted, and received sentence of death. Having received the sacrament on the 21st Of July, 1703, he was taken from Newgate to be carried to Tyburn, but when he got to High Holborn, opposite Bloomsbury, a reprieve arrived for him till the following Friday. On his return to Newgate he was visited by numbers of his acquaintance, who rejoiced on his narrow escape, except those who would assist him in his devotions. On Friday he received another respite till the 11th of August, when he was executed.

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59: Moll Raby

Who robbed many Houses, and was hanged at Tyburn on 3rd of November, 1703

THIS offender had almost as many names as the fabulous hydra had heads. She was born in the parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, and took betimes to ill courses, in which she continued till her death. Madam Ogle was not more dexterous at bilking hackney coaches than Moll Raby at bilking her lodging, in which species of fraud her talent originally lay, and at which she had more success than at anything else she undertook.

One of her adventures was at a house in Great Russell Street, by Bloomsbury Square, where, passing for a great heiress, who was obliged to leave the country by reason of the importunate troublesomeness of a great many suitors, she was entertained with all the civility imaginable. This seemingly honest creature, who was a saint without but a devil within, continued there about a fortnight to increase her character, making a very good appearance as to her habit, for she had a tallyman in every quarter of the town. One day, when all the family were absent except the maid, she desired her to call a porter, and gave him a sham bill, drawn on a banker in Lombard Street, for one hundred and fifty pounds, which she desired might be all in gold; but fearing such a quantity of money might be a temptation to make the porter dishonest, she privately requested the maid to go along with him, and she, in the meantime, would take care of the house. The poor maid, thinking no harm, went with the porter to Lombard Street, where they were stopped for a couple of cheats; but they alleging their innocence, and proving from whence they came, a messenger was sent home with them, who found it to be a trick put upon the servant to rob the house; for before she came back, Moll Raby had gone off with above eighty pounds in money, one hundred and sixty pounds worth of plate, and several other things of a considerable value.

For offences of this nature she was thrice burned in the hand, after which she married one Humphry Jackson, a butcher, who was taught by her to leave off his trade and go upon the pad in the daytime, while she went upon the "buttock and twang" by night; which is picking up a cull or spark, whom, pretending she would not expose her face in a public-house, she takes into some dark alley, where she picks his fob or pocket of his watch or money, and giving a sort of "Ahem!" as a signal she has succeeded in her design, the fellow with whom she keeps company, blundering up in the dark, knocks down the gallant and carries of the prize.

But after the death of this husband Moll turned arrant thief, and in the first exploit she then went upon she was like to come scurvily off. The adventure was this. Going upon the night sneak (as the phrase of these people is), she found a door half open in Downing Street, at Westminster, where, stealing softly upstairs into a great bedchamber, she hid herself under the bed. She had not been there above an hour before a couple of footmen brought candles into the room, whilst the maid , with great diligence, was laying the cloth for supper. The table being furnished with two or three dishes of meat, five or six persons sat down, besides the children that were in the house; which so affrighted Moll that she verily thought that if their voices and the noise of the children had not hindered them they might have heard her very joints smite one against another and the teeth chatter in her head. At length supper was ended, and not long after they all withdrew themselves; when Moll, coming from under the bed, wrapped the sheets up in a quilt, and sneaking downstairs made off the ground as fast as she could.

Mary or Moll Raby, alias Rogers, alias Jackson, alias Brown, was at last condemned for a burglary committed in the house of Lady Cavendish, in Soho Square, the 3rd of March, 1703, upon the information of two villains -- namely, Arthur Chambers and Joseph Hatfield― who made themselves evidences against her. At the place of execution at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 3rd of November, 1703, she said she was thirty years of age, that she was well brought up at first, and knew good things, but did not practise them, having given herself up toall manner of wickedness and vice.

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60: Moll Hawkins

A "Question Lay" Thief, whose End was at Tyburn, on 22nd of December, 1703

MOLL HAWKINS was condemned on the 3rd of March, 1703, for privately stealing goods out of the shop of Mrs Hobday, in Paternoster Row. She having been reprieved for nine months, upon account of her being then alleged quick with child― though she was not― she was now called down to her former judgment.

When she came to the place of execution at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 22nd of December, 1703, she said she was about twenty-six years of age, born in the parish of St Giles- in-the-Fields; that she served three years' apprenticeship to a button-maker in Maiden Lane, by Covent Garden, and followed that employment for some years after, but withal gave way at the same time to those ill practices which were now the cause of her death.

Before this Moll Hawkins projected shoplifting she went upon the "question lay," which is putting herself into a good handsome dress, like some exchange girl, and then, taking an empty bandbox in her hand, and passing for a milliner's or sempstress's apprentice, she goes early to a person of quality's house and, knocking at the door, asks the servant if the lady is stirring yet, for if she is, she has brought home, according to order, the suit of knots (or what else the devil puts into her head) which her ladyship had bespoke overnight. While the servant goes upstairs to acquaint the lady with this message, the custom is in the meantime to rob the house, and go away without an answer. Thus she one day served the Lady Arabella Howard, living in Soho Square. When the maid went upstairs to acquaint her ladyship that a gentlewoman waited below with some gloves and fans, Moll Hawkins took the opportunity of carrying away above fifty pounds' worth of plate, which stood on a sideboard in the parlour to be cleaned against dinner-time.

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1704

61: Harvey Hutchins

Apprenticed as a Thief and became an expert Housebreaker. Executed at Tyburn in 1704

THIS malefactor, Harvey Hutchins, was born of honest parents, his father being a sword-blade maker by trade, who, when this unhappy son came to be about fourteen years of age, put him apprentice to a silversmith in Shrewsbury, but pilfering very often from his master, he had him sent at last to Shrewsbury Jail. In this prison the young lad became acquainted with some London thieves, who, following their calling in the county of Salop, were also committed to the same jail, and Hutchins, hearing them tell of the several notable and ingenious robberies that were committed in and about London by some of the chief masters of their profession, was resolved to make the best of his way thither after he obtained his liberty.

About three or four months after his confinement came the assizes, when, being tried, and whipped at the cart's tail, upon his friends paying his fees he got his enlargement and came up to Islington, where he lurked about the town, and took up his lodging in a barn. But his mind still ran upon the ingenuity of the topping thieves in London, particularly one Constantine, whom, for the fine stories he had heard told of him, he admired above the rest. At last he moved into the great metropolis, where, getting acquainted with some young pickpockets, he inquired among them for Constantine, who told him he might be found at one Snotty-nose Hill's, who kept the Dog Tavern in Newgate Street. The young Salopian, being overjoyed at finding out where Mr Constantine used, one evening goes to the Dog Tavern to inquire, saying, after his country dialect or tone, he had "vary ennest business wod him." The drawer presently went upstairs to Mr Constantine, who was then drinking with a great many of his thieving fraternity. Constantine ordered him to be brought up to the stair-head, where, coming out to him, quoth he:

"What is your business with me?"

He answered: "Vy, mester, I heve ben in Shrewsbury Joil, vere haring a grot monny vine stories of yoa, by zum gentlemen that vare prosnert with me, I am come up to London on porpus to beand myzelf prontice to yow."

Hereupon Constantine could not forbear smiling at the lad's fancy, and taking him into the room, where he repeated the story to his company, it caused a great deal of laughter among them.

He gave the boy sixpence and a glass or two of wine, and bade him be sure to come to him at the same place about seven the next night, and he would take him upon trial, and according as he found him tractable, diligent and acute in his business he would take him apprentice. The boy, overjoyed at this good fortune (as he unhappily thought it), took his leave, and, according to order, was next night at the Dog Tavern punctually at the hour appointed, where his master, Constantine, was ready to go with him upon a trial of skill; which was this. Constantine having stolen a silver tankard, about three months before, out of an ale-house in Cheapside, had, nevertheless, been there in disguise several times after; and observing much plate still in use about the house told the boy the story going along the street, and promised him that if he could carry off another clean, and bring it to him at a certain house in Whitechapel, he would certainly take him apprentice, and make a man of him when he was out of his apprenticeship, at the same time intimating to him that the house was just before him, where he was going to drink.

The boy took his story right, but just as his master was come to the house, pulling him by the sleeve, quoth he:

"Mester, Mester, can yow ran well?"

"Yes," replied his master, "as well as most men in England; I have often outran hundreds together before now."

"Weel then," said the boy, "if you can ran well, ne'er fear but we'll hove a tonkad."

Into the house Constantine goes first, calling for a room. The boy followed him to the bar, as his servant, and with a loud voice asked the man of the house if he did not lose a silver tankard about three months ago.

"Yes," replied he.

Constantine, overhearing this, took as fast as he could to his heels, the boy at the same time crying out: "That was the man that stole it." Upon which the victualler and the servants ran presently out in pursuit of him, but to no purpose, for he was out of sight in an instant, and in the meantime the boy took another silver tankard out of the bar, and got safely to the place appointed by his master; who no sooner saw him but he fell a-cursing and damning, and sinking at him like a madman, for putting him into such bodily fear, withal telling him that if he had been taken he should have been certainly hanged by the best neck he had.

"But," quoth he, "sirrah, have you got a tankard?"

"Yes," replied the boy, and taking it from under his coat gave it him, saying at the same time: "Mester, if yow hed not virst assored me thet yow cud ran well, I wud a gut et sum udder vay."

Harvey very truly and honestly served out his time with his master. Then, setting up for himself, he had very pretty business in housebreaking, and lived very creditably and handsomely among those of his profession for about nine years, in and about the cities of London and Westminster, and in that time had often paid scot-and-lot to Newgate and other jails about town; but at last, being apprehended for breaking open a Jew's house at Duke's Place, and robbing it of above four hundred pounds in money and plate, he was hanged at Tyburn, in 1704, aged twenty-six years.

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62: Tom Sharp

Resourceful Thief, Coiner and Trickster. Executed in Long Acre on 22nd September, 1704

THOMAS SHARP was born at Reigate, in Surrey, where he served his time to a glover. But he had not been long out of his apprenticeship ere, by the influence of bad company, he was so hardened in villainy as not to be reclaimed either by wholesome advice, threats, or the examples of his companions, who were executed before him. Nothing could put an end to his roguery but the halter that put an end to his life.

To prove that this fellow was not only Sharp by name but also sharp by nature, we need only relate the following adventure. Dressing himself one day in an old suit of black clothes and an old tattered canonical gown, he went to an eminent tavern in the city, where at that time was kept a great feast of the clergymen, and humbly begged one of the drawers to acquaint some of the ministers above-stairs that a poor scholar was waiting below who craved their charity. Accordingly the drawer acquainted one of the divines that there was a poor scholar below in a parson's habit. The gentleman going down, and commiserating his seeming poverty, introduced him into the company of all the clergymen, who made him eat and drink very plentifully, and gathered him betwixt four and five pounds, which he thankfully put into his pocket. One of the divines then, after asking pardon for making so free, desired to know of him at what university he was bred.

Tom Sharp told them he was never bred at any.

"Can you speak Greek?" the divine asked again.

"No," replied Tom.

"Nor Latin?" the divine asked.

"No, Sir," said Tom.

"Can you write then?" quoth the divine.

"No, nor read neither," replied Tom.

At which they fell a-laughing, and said he was a poor scholar indeed.

"Then I have not deceived you, gentlemen," quoth Tom, and so he brushed off with their charitable benevolence, thinking himself not fit company for such learned sophists.

This poor scholar afterwards used the Vine ale-house at Charing Cross, which was then kept by a rich old man, who knew not that he was a thief, and brought several of his gang there once a week, to keep a sort of a club, up one pair of stairs, with a design to rob the victualler. Accordingly they had several times struck all the doors above-stairs with a dub -- that is, a pick-lock -- but could never light on his mammon; whereupon one night Tom Sharp puts the candle to the old rotten hangings that were in the club-room and setting them in a blaze he and his company cries out "Fire!"

The alarm brings up the old man in a trice, who in a great fright runs up to secure his money. Tom runs softly after him at a distance to espy where his hoard is, and in the meantime his associates, with two or three pails of water, have quenched the flame, which has done no great damage. The old man, at the news, returned down with a great deal of joy, leaving his money where it was before. With this information, the night following, Tom and two of his companions, having a great supper there, each with his lass, took the opportunity of taking away five hundred pounds in money; which, when the old cove missed, he was ready to hang himself in his own garters.

Sharp's chiefest dexterity lay in robbing wagons, which in their canting language they call tumblers. They who follow this sort of thieving do generally wait on a dark morning in the roads betwixt London and Bow, Blackheath, Newington, Islington, Highgate, Kensington Gravel Pits or Knightsbridge, and going in at the tail of a wagon they take out packs of linen or woollen cloth, boxes, trunks or other goods.

One time, though, Tom Sharp and his accomplices, after following a wagon along Tyburn Road to St Giles's Pound, had no convenience at all of entering by reason a man drove the team before and the master and his son, a lad of about thirteen years of age, rode behind, on one horse. Still they followed the wagon till it came just under Newgate, when Tom Sharp, who was a lusty, hale fellow, snatching the boy off the horse, ran down the Old Bailey with him under his arm, at which the father cried out to his man to stop the wagon, for a rogue had stolen away his son. So whilst the master rode after Tom Sharp, and the man ran after his master, one of Tom's comrades slipped two pieces of woollen cloth out of the wagon. The old man got his son again, for Tom dropped him at the sessions-house gate.

Under this sort of thieving is also comprehended the robbing of coaches in the night-time in London, by cutting off trunks and boxes which are tied sometimes behind them; and also the chiving of bags or portmanteaux from behind horses― that is, cutting them off, for chive, among thieves, signifies a knife. For offences of this nature Tom Sharp was in Newgate no less than eighteen times before the last fatal time.

Among many other arts peculiar to persons of his profession Tom learned that of making "black dogs," which are shillings or other pieces of money made only of pewter, double-washed, by means of which he maintained himself for some time. It may not be amiss to observe here that what the professors of this hellish art call "George Plateroon" is all copper within, with only a thin plate about it; and what they call "Compositum" is a mixed metal, which will both touch and cut, but not endure the fiery test. Tom had not been a great while at the trade of coining before several of his gang were apprehended and sent post to the gallows for their wicked ingenuity, which obliged him to employ all the powers of his wit and invention in the search of something else that might conduce to supply him in his manifold extravagances.

In the next place he went to picking of pockets, being detected at which, he was committed to New Prison, where, having a great many loose women coming after him, who supplied him with a great deal of money, he had all the privileges imaginable in the jail; and going to take his trial at Hicks's Hall for his fact, one John Lee, a turnkey, conducting him thither, gave him the liberty of being shaved by the way in a barber's shop. The keeper also having a pretty long beard, quoth Tom Sharp:

"Come, we are time enough yet; sit down, and I'll pay for taking your beard off too."

Whilst he was being trimmed, Tom talked of one thing and another to hold him in discourse, till at last the barber cried:

"Shut your eyes or else my ball will offend them."

The man did as he was bid, and Tom took this occasion to slip out, the barber not taking him for a prisoner, and hid himself in an ale-house hard by. The turnkey, not hearing him talk, opened his eyes, and not seeing him in the shop rose up so hastily that he overthrew Cut-beard, basin, water, and all upon him, and ran out into the street with the barber's cloth about him, and the napkin on his head. The people seeing him thus, with the froth about his face, concluded him mad, and as he ran gave him the way. The barber, with his razor in his hand, ran after the turnkey, crying,  "Stop thief! Stop thief!" but he, never minding the outcry, still ran, staring up and down, as if his wits had lately stolen away from him and be was in pursuit of them. Some durst not stop him, and others would not; till the barber seized him at last, and getting his cloth and napkin from him, made him pay sixpence besides, for being but half shaved, while Tom, in the time of this hurly-burly, got clear off.

Tom's last fact was shooting a watchman who opposed him in breaking open a shoemaker's shop at the corner of Great Wild Street, facing up Great Queen Street. He was apprehended and condemned for this murder; but such was his impiety, whilst under sentence of death, that instead of thanking such as had so much Christianity in them as to bid him prepare for his latter end, he would bid them not to trouble his head with the idle whimsies of heaven and hell, for he was more a man than to dread or believe any such matter after this life. But when he came to the place of execution, which was at the end of Long Acre, in Drury Lane, and the halter was put about his neck, he then changed his tone, and began to call out for mercy with a sorrowful voice, which could not but awake the most lethargic conscience that ever the devil lulled asleep. In this manner he was turned off the cart on Friday, the 22nd day of September, 1704, aged twenty-nine years.

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63: John Smith

Who proved that a Peruke-Maker does not make a good Highwayman, for his Career lasted only a Week. Executed 20th of December, 1704

JOHN SMITH was born at Winchcomb, within ten miles of Gloucester. He was a peruke-maker by trade, about twenty-three years of age, and carefully educated by his parents, to whose kindness he made but an ungrateful return, being very disobedient to them, and falling into many extravagances and debaucheries.

He said that the ill habits he had contracted in his younger years were greatly confirmed by his being, though but a little while, at sea, and that when he returned from thence he became acquainted with a peruke-maker in Chancery Lane, who proposed to him to go and rob on the highway; which being soon agreed on, they went out with that intent on Sunday, the 29th of October, and as they were waiting about Paddington for a booty, Smith rested himself on a stile over against the gallows at Tyburn, at the sight of which his heart misgave him, and he could not help thinking that at one time or another he should end his days near the place where he was beginning to rob; which he mentioned to his companion, and would have persuaded him to go home. This the other refused to do, and encouraged him, saying: "What matters, it, Jack? It is but hanging, if thou shouldst come to that."  So they proceeded on their design, and stole Mr William Birch's grey mare, which was the first robbery they committed.

On the following day Smith set out alone upon the mare and robbed three stage-coaches near Epping Forest. On Wednesday, the 1st of November, he robbed three other stage-coaches and a hackney-coach on Hounslow Heath, and on the Saturday following he robbed three stage-coaches more near St Albans; in all which robberies he did not obtain more than twenty pounds. And lastly, he robbed Mr Thomas Woodcock's coach, on Finchley Common, on Monday, the 6th of November, taking from Mr Woodcock's lady four guineas, two keys and a silk purse; for which he was apprehended.

At the Old Bailey a gentleman deposed that, as he and his servant were riding along, hearing that a robbery had been committed, they pursued the thief till he took refuge in a wood called Colefall; and that he directed his servant to ride into the wood while he rode round it, to observe if the prisoner attempted to make his escape out of it. That in their search they found a grey mare tied to a bush, soon after which seven or eight people came to their assistance, and at length a huntsman espied the prisoner lyingunder a tree, and advanced towards him with a blunderbuss, whereupon Smith desired him not to shoot him, and immediately shot off his pistols into the air. Two men laying hold of him, he was conducted to Muswell Hill, where, being examined, there was found upon him the watch and purses mentioned in the indictment, a mask, some powder and shot, and some money; and that the prisoner then said he would have made his escape but that the mare was a jade.  The jury found him guilty, and he received sentence of death. He was executed at Tyburn, on the 20th of December, 1704.

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1705

64: Edward Jefferies

Murderer, executed at Tyburn, on the 21st Of September, 1705.

EDWARD JEFFERIES WAS a gentleman by birth and education; and as such, until the commission of the crime for which he suffered, ever deported himself. His crime affords a melancholy instance of the fatal effects of illicit love and jealousy. He was born about the year 1656, at Devizes in Wiltshire. He served his clerkship to an eminent attorney in London, and afterwards carried on business on his own account: but his father dying while he was yet young, and leaving him a considerable fortune, he entered into too profuse a way of living, and embarked in the debaucheries of the age, which dissipated his substance. Soon after, he had the good success to marry a young lady of St. Alban's, with whom he received a decent fortune, and might have lived in prosperity with her, but that he continued his former course of dissipation, which naturally occasioned a separation. He now associated with one Mrs. Elizabeth Torshell, with whom a Mr. Woodcock had likewise an illicit connection.

Jefferies and Woodcock had frequent debates respecting this woman, but at length appeared to be reconciled, and dined together at the Blue-posts, near Pall-Mall, on the day that the former committed the murder. After dinner they went into the fields near Chelsea, and a quarrel arising between them, respecting Mrs. Torshell, Jefferies drew his sword, and, before Woodcock, who was left-handed, could draw his, he received a wound, of which he almost immediately died. Woodcock had no sooner fallen, than Jefferies rubbed some of his blood upon his (the deceased's) sword, took something out of his pocket, and then went towards Chelsea, where he had appointed to meet Mrs. Torshell. There were some boys playing in the fields who saw the body of the deceased, and part of the transaction above-mentioned.

The body was removed to St. Martin's churchyard to be owned; and on the following day Mrs. Torshell came, among a crowd of other people, to see it; and was taken into custody, on her saying she knew the murdered party, and expressed great concern at his fate. Torshell's lodgings being searched, a number of articles were found, which she owned Mr. Jefferies had brought thither, though they appeared to belong to Woodcock. On this Jefferies was also taken into custody, and both of them were committed to Newgate.

Jefferies alleged, in his defence, that he was at another place at the time the murder was committed; he called several witnesses to prove an alibi; but as these did not agree in the circumstances, he was convicted, and received sentence of death. Mrs. Torshell was acquitted. All the while he lay under condemnation, he repeatedly denied having committed the murder, and exerted his utmost interest to obtain a reprieve, which he was at length promised, through the medium of the Duke of Ormond. September the 19th, 1705, when the procession towards Tyburn had got as far as St. Giles's, a respite met him, to defer his execution till the 21st of the same month; but on that day he was executed, his guilt being too apparent. At the place of execution he again denied the fact; but said he freely forgave those who had injured him, and died in charity with all men. He betrayed no symptoms of fear during the preparation for launching him into eternity.

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65: John Smith

Convicted of Robbery, reprieved while actually hanging upon the Scaffold, 24th of December, 1705, and afterwards had two other Escapes from Death

THOUGH the crimes committed by this man were not marked withparticular atrocity, nor his life sufficiently remarkable for a place in these volumes, yet the circumstances attending his fate at the place of execution are perhaps more singular than any we may have to record. He was the son of a farmer at Malton, about fifteen miles from the city of York, who bound him apprentice to a packer in London, with whom he served out his time, and afterwards worked as a journeyman. He then went to sea in a merchantman, after which he entered on board a man-of-war, and was at the famous expedition against Vigo; but on the return from that expedition he was discharged.

He had not been long disengaged from the naval service when he enlisted as a soldier in the regiment of guards commanded by Lord Cutts; but in this station he soon made bad connections, and engaged with some of his dissolute companions as a housebreaker.

On the 5th of December, 1705, he was arraigned on four different indictments, on two of which he was convicted, and received sentence of death. While he lay under sentence he seemed very little affected with his situation, absolutely depending on a reprieve, through the interest of his friends. However, an order came for his execution on the 24th day of the same month, in consequence of which he was carried to Tyburn, where he performed his devotions, and was turned off in the usual manner; but when he had hung nearly fifteen minutes the people present cried out: "A reprieve!"

On this the malefactor was cut down, and being conveyed to a house in the neighbourhood, soon recovered, in consequence of bleeding and other proper applications. When he had perfectly recovered his senses he was asked what were his feelings at the time of execution; to which he repeatedly replied, in substance, as follows. When he was turned off, he for some time was sensible of very great pain, occasioned by the weight of his body, and felt his spirits in a strange commotion, violently pressing upwards. That having forced their way to his head, he as it were saw a great blaze, or glaring light, which seemed to go out at his eyes with a flash, and then he lost all sense of pain. That after he was cut down, and began to come to himself, the blood and spirits, forcing themselves into their former channels, put him, by a sort of pricking or shooting, to such intolerable pain that he could have wished those hanged who had cut him down. From this circumstance he was called "Half-hanged Smith."

After this narrow escape from the grave, Smith pleaded to his pardon on the 20th of February; yet such was his propensity to evil deeds that he returned to his former practices, and, being again apprehended, was tried at the Old Bailey for housebreaking; but some difficulties arising in the case, the jury brought in a special verdict, in consequence of which the affair was left to the opinion of the twelve judges, who determined in favour of the prisoner.

After this second extraordinary escape he was a third time indicted; but the prosecutor happening to die before the day of trial, he once more obtained that liberty which his conduct showed he had not deserved. We have no account what became of this man after this third remarkable incident in his favour; but Christian charity  inclines us to hope that he made a proper use of the singular dispensations of Providence evidenced in his own person.  When once the mind has consented to the commission of sin, it is hard to be reclaimed. The memory of the pangs of an ignominious death could not deter this man from following the evil course he had begun. Thus, by giving way to small propensities, we imperceptibly go on to enormities: which lead us to a shameful fate. let us, therefore, at once resolve never to depart from the path of rectitude.

It was not unfrequently the case that, in Dublin, men were formerly seen walking about who, it was known, had been sentenced to suffer the extreme penalty of the law, and upon whom, strange as it may appear to unenlightened eyes, the sentence had been carried out. The custom was that the body should hang only half-an-hour; and, in a mistaken lenity, the sheriff, in whose hands was entrusted the execution of the law, would look away after the prisoner had been turned off, while the friends of the culprit would hold up their companion by the waistband of his breeches, so that the rope should not press upon his throat. They would, at the expiration of the usual time, thrust their "deceased" friend into a cart, in which they would gallop him over all the stones and rough ground they came near, which was supposed to be a never-failing recipe in order to revive him, professedly― and indeed in reality― with the intention of "waking" him.

An anecdote is related of a fellow named Mahony, who had been convicted of the murder of a Connaught man in one of the numerous Munster and Connaught wars, and whose execution had been managed in the manner above described, who, being put into the cart in a coffin by his Munster friends, on his way home was so revived, and so overjoyed at finding himself still alive, that he sat upright and gave three hearty cheers, by way of assuring his friends of his safety. A "jontleman" who was shocked at this indecent conduct in his defunct companion, and who was, besides, afraid of their scheme being discovered and thwarted, immediately, with the sapling which he carried, hit him a thump on the head, which effectually silenced his self- congratulations. On their arrival at home they found that the "friendly" warning which had been given to the poor wretch had been more effectual than the hangman's rope; and the wailings and lamentations which had been employed at the place of execution to drown the encouraging cries of the aiders of the criminal's escape were called forth in reality at his wake on the same night. It was afterwards a matter of doubt whether the fellow who dealt the unfortunate blow ought not to have been charged with the murder of his half-hanged companion; but, a justice being consulted, it was thought one could be successfully charged with the murder of a man who was dead in the law.

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1706

66: Roger Lowen

Executed for Murder, 25th October, 1706

Roger Lowen was a native of Hanover, where he was born about the year 1667, and educated in the principles of the Lutheran religion. His father being huntsman to the Duke of Zell, that prince sent young Lowen into France, to obtain the qualifications of a gentleman, and, on his return from his travels, he was one of the pages under the duke's master of the horse.

Coming over to England when he was between twenty and thirty years of age, the Duke of Shrewsbury patronised and procured him a place. Having thus obtained something like a settlement, he married a young English woman, with whom he lived in an affectionate manner for a considerable time; but in the year 1697, on his going abroad to attend King William at the treaty of Ryswick, he left Mrs. Lowen with her cousin, who was married to Mr. Richard Lloyd, of Turnham Green.

When Lowen returned from Holland, he became, with what justice we cannot say, extremely jealous of his wife and he pretended to have received incontestable proof of her criminal conversation with Mr. Lloyd, for the murder of whom he was indicted at the Old Bailey, on the 20th of September, 1706, and was tried by a jury composed equally of Englishmen and foreigners.

In the course of the evidence it appeared that, on the evening previous to the day on which the murder was committed, Lowen invited Lloyd and his wife to dine with him on the following day; that Mr. Lloyd, being obliged to go to Acton, did not come very early, at which Lowen expressed a considerable degree of uneasiness; that when he came, Lowen introduced him into the parlour with great apparent civility; that Mr. Lloyd put his sword in a corner of the room, some time after which Lowen invited him into the garden, to see his plants, after which they came together into the house, appearing to  be good friends, and Lowen desired his wife to hasten the dinner; that while she went to obey his directions, Lowen drew Mr. Lloyd's sword a little way out of the scabbard, as if admiring it, and asked who was his cutler; and that while the deceased stood with his hand behind him, Lowen, stamping with his foot, drew the sword quite out of the scabbard, and stabbed Mr. Lloyd through the back; on which his wife (who was present at this horrid transaction) said to him, "Speak to me, my dear"; but he was unable to do so; and having lifted up his eyes, groaned twice, and then expired.

Mr. Hawley, a justice of the peace in the neighbourhood, passing by at the instant, Mrs. Lloyd acquainted him with what had happened; on which he examined the prisoner, who confessed his intention of having committed the murder sooner, and was only concerned lest he had not killed Mr. Lloyd.

The particulars respecting the murder being proved to the satisfaction of the jury, Lowen was convicted, and received sentence of death: in consequence of which he was hanged at Turnham Green, on the 25th of October, 1706.

While he lay under sentence of death, he was attended by Messrs. Idzardi and Ruperti, two divines of his own country, who were assiduous to convince him of the atrociousness of the crime which he had committed; and he be came a sincere penitent, confessing with his last breath the crime he had committed in shedding innocent blood.

From this melancholy narrative we may learn the fatal effects of jealousy, which generally judges ill of the party accused, and always renders the jealous person miserable. Mr. Lowen was jealous of his wife; but we have no proof that there was any foundation for his suspicions. Hence let married men be taught not to indulge unwarrantable sentiments respecting that amiable sex who are the great sources of all the comforts of life. A man may be wretched in a thousand instances which occur in life; but let him retire to the wife of his bosom, and her advice will extricate him from many a difficulty, or her consolations soothe him to bear his burdens. There is a great wisdom in the following proverbs of Solomon:

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil, all the days of her life. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."

Jealousy is the most dangerous passion of the mind. It generally proceeds from the extravagance of love. That jealousy which is moved by fond and sincere affection may be distinguished from the extravagance resulting from meanness and suspicion. When proceeding from real love, it must be owing to the suspicion of levity in the object, which instantly conjures up a thousand frightful phantoms. We fear that the charms which have subdued us have made the same impression on the heart of another. This is generally the foundation of jealousy in men, and is, by the immortal Shakespeare, called "a green-eyed monster," which, once gaining ascendancy,

"Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!"

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67: Arthur Chambers

A Master of Thieves' Slang, who was full of Artful Tricks, which, however, did not save him from the Gallows at Tyburn, where he found himself in 1706

ARTHUR CHAMBERS was of base extraction, and consequently void of education, good manners or any other qualification that was amiable. The first step, in his opinion, to complete him a thorough master in the thieving art was to have at his finger ends all the canting language (which comprehends a parcel of invented words, such as thieves very well know, and by which they can distinguish one another from the other classes of mankind), in order to the attainment whereof he put himself under the direction of an experienced teacher that way; and, what was soon observable, attended so closely to the dictates of his preceptor that he not only outrivalled him but became superior to any of his contemporary thieves.

Chambers quickly demonstrated how pleasing his new language was to him, for he could not enter an ale house but he would be punning with the landlord: indeed his gay apparel (for Arthur could not endure the thought of being called a sloven) very often induced the masters of the houses he frequented to sit down by him and listen to his jocular way of talking. Sometimes, from the ignorance of some of them, he would impudently assert that what he now and then mixed with his ordinary English was the purest Greek in the world, and, to convince them he was sincere in what he advanced, would frequently pull out of his pocket a Greek testament and say:

"Sir, this book was made by one of the oldest philosophers; believe me, I have studied it this dozen years, and every moment I looked into it I gained a twelvemonth's knowledge."

The landlord would be gazing all the while open mouthed at Chambers, and, to be sure, he on his part was very intent upon something besides his Greek Testament, for, soon after, a general complaint was made of abundance of money being lost; but which way was the question. In Launceston, in Cornwall, whither he went, the inhabitants received him with open arms for a considerable time, and his merry disposition soon procured him the acquaintance of men of note in that country. He had taken care, too, before leaving London, to supply himself with a great number of false crown and half crown pieces, which, on his arrival, he uttered at all the places he frequented; but abundance of persons having been deceived with these pieces, and a general complaint made round about, search was made everywhere for the apprehending of the cheat, and poor Chambers was taken up; the consequence of which was the sending of him to jail, where he remained a year and a half before he could get his enlargement. Cornwall now became too hot for him to stay any longer there; so he made the best way he was able to London, where, on the very first day of his arrival, he performed the most cunning, artful and yet barefaced piece of felony that was ever heard of.

Having alighted from the wagon, he went directly to an ale house in West Smithfield, where, seating himself in a box, and calling for a pint of beer and a slice of bread and cheese, he comfortably refreshed himself; then, falling into discourse with some tradesmen in the next box to him, about the country and quiet enjoyment of a rural life, the talk was insensibly turned upon diving or picking of pockets.

"Look ye, gentlemen," said Chambers, "I can pick a pocket as well as any man in Great Britain, and yet, though I say it, am as honest as the best Englishman breathing. For an instance of what I say, observe the country gentleman just now passing by the window. I'll step out and take his watch though it is now scarce five o'clock."

A wager of ten shillings was immediately laid that he did not perform it. Chambers answered the bet, and presently, pushing out of the door, made a quick round till he came to the end of Long Lane, where he met with the gentleman, and courteously pulling off his hat to him asked if he could inform him which was the nearest way to Knave's Acre; to which the gentleman replied: "Lackaday, friend, you ask a very ignorant person, for I am a stranger here, and want to know the nearest way to Moorfields."

"Oh, Sir, I live there, and can acquaint you which way to take; excuse me, Sir, I would willingly bear you company thither, but extraordinary affairs calling me to find out a place called Knave's Acre I must necessarily be jogging on; but be pleased to take my directions."

So saying, he pointed with his hand. "Look you, Sir, you have no other way to go than directly along this lane, which will bring you into a street called Barbican, that into a dirty lane over against it, and that into Chiswell Street, the end whereof will lead you into Moorfields."

All this while the country gentleman was staring the way Chambers pointed, who in the interim made sure of his watch, and after the gentleman and he had left one another returned back to the company, laid down the spoil on the table, and claimed the wager which was accordingly paid.  One day, being very well dressed, he goes to the Exchange and mixes with some Italian merchants, and after some little conversation, which ran on trade and shipping, calls one of them aside, who was a very comely and grave person. With him he seems to be in a close and eager dialogue, the merchant all the while nodding and biting his thumb. Meantime one of Chambers's confederates comes up and begins to discourse with the merchant much after the same manner as he had done. Upon which Chambers says:

"Sir, I perceive you have no liking to my proposition, but possibly you may not meet with such another bargain as mine I mean as to profit."

"No liking!" answered the merchant.

"Yes, yes, Sir; I had as lief chap with you as the best man alive, so I find but my advantage in it."

Upon this the merchant spoke a few words to Chambers's confederate, and then, calling Arthur to him, said: "Here is another gentleman who has a bargain much like yours to dispose of; if you can join together, we'll throw the commodities together and make but one lot of them."

"Agreed," replied Chambers, who without any further ceremony, as the merchant stood close to his confederate, dived nimbly into his pockets and drew thereout a purse of gold and his gold watch, and imperceivably conveyed them to his confederate. But this spoil not satisfying the avaricious temper of our adventurer, and seeing a very good handkerchief hanging out of the merchant's coat pocket, he snaps at it, but unluckily for his first prize.

The merchant, it seems, caught him in the act; and seizing him by the collar, called out, "Thief! thief!" which words raised abundance of persons then on the walks about them, and everyone was desirous to know the bottom of the matter. The merchant was for having our adventurer before a magistrate; and he, on his part, strenuously denied the fact (for by this time the purse and watch were found gone), and even threatened the injured tradesman to punish him for defaming his character among the only persons in the world he got his living by. During this contention the confederate, who had received the purse and watch from Chambers, had marched to the porter at the gate, to get proclamation to be made on the Exchange that if any person had lost a purse with gold in it, and a gold watch, on giving the true marks he might have it again. These words reaching the merchant's ears, he, glad of the opportunity of regaining his lost things, let go Chambers, with a thousand excuses for his rudeness and rash accusations, and went directly to the crier; but both Chambers and his confederate procured means of slipping away in the meantime.

This disappointment but the more sharpened the wit and cunning of our adventurer, who was resolved to use his talents (as he called them) to a much better purpose than his last endeavour had produced. To this end he takes a first floor of a house in Soho Square, and contracts with the landlord to pay fourteen shillings a week for the same. For a while good harmony and understanding ruled between Chambers and the gentleman of the house, who took him for a man of fortune, as his dress and expenses might have very well argued him. One evening as they were at supper -- I mean the family of the house our adventurer -- came in, seemingly in a vast uneasiness, which made the good folks importune him to let them know what it was that disturbed him. "I have so much friendship for you, Mr Woodville" , said the landlord (for you must know this was the name he had given himself), "that if I can be of any real service to you, it is but opening your mind to me, and you may depend to find me both yourcounsellor and benefactor."

Chambers, pleased with the landlord's frank kindness, made no further doubt to unravel the great mystery he had at his heart, and thus began:

"It is with a thousand struggles of the soul that I find myself obliged to speak. Landlord, I am very sensible of the obligations I already owe you, and that thought makes me decline being any further burthensome to you; you must know, then, that, having been at Hampstead this afternoon, where I frequently used to go to divert myself with an affectionate brother of mine, I was there a mournful spectator of his death. 'Tis too much for me" (here he pretended to weep) "to acquaint you with every sad particular about the struggles he had before his soul departed out of his body; let it suffice to say that he has left me heir to his possessions (but his life would have been of greater value to me), and in his will appointed me to inter him in the cloisters in Westminster Abbey. Now, Landlord, the favour I have to desire of you is, for convenience of his funeral, to have his body brought here, and carried hence to his grave."

These last words Chambers pronounced with a deep groan, which made the landlord and all the family compassionate towards him; they told him anything they had was at his service, the landlord left him at his own liberty to bring the corpse, and choose whatever room he pleased to place it in. He thanked him for his civility, and told him he would certainly repay it very shortly, in a way he should be very sensible of. Which indeed he was as good as his word to perform. Chambers accordingly went out the next morning, leaving word that the hearse with the corpse would be with them about six in the evening. And true was he to his word. For just upon six o'clock a stately hearse with six horses arrived at the door, and men, suborned to this end, took thereout a beautiful coffin, with fine hinges and nails, wherein our adventurer had put himself, there being private holes in the sides for respiration. The counterfeit load was straightway borne up one pair of stairs and placed on a table in the dining room, where the landlord, to grace the deceased brother of his lodger, had set out a very fine and rich sideboard of plate, besides other valuables. You must know Chambers was laid in the coffin in his clothes, and a winding sheet wrapped round him, and one of his confederates had taken care to draw the screws. All this time our adventurer was missing, which made the landlord ask the fellows where he was, who said he had bade them acquaint him that having a multitude of things to dispatch about the funeral, it was probable he might not come home that night, but should be obliged to stay with a friend of his in the Strand. The landlord took the excuse for granted, the hearse and men departed, and the family of the house, excepting the maid, at their usual hour went to bed, leaving Chambers to rise out of his silent mansion of death and perpetrate his villainous design.

Accordingly he gets out, with his winding sheet about him, and going downstairs places himself in a chair over against where the maid was sitting, who, hereby frightened at the apparition, as she thought, screamed out, "A ghost! a ghost!"― and without speaking another word ran as fast as she could up into her master's chamber and told him and his wife the story.

"A ghost!" says the master; "phoh, you fool, there's no such thing in nature; you have been asleep, woman, and waking suddenly have fancied you saw a thing there never was."

Scarce were these words out of the mouth of the landlord when in steps, with a solemn tread, our adventurer, Chambers, in his winding sheet, and presenting himself and his face, which was covered over with flour, full to the maid, the landlord and his wife, sets himself down in a chair in the room, where he continued full half an hour, putting the above three persons into the greatest panic in the world all the time.

After which the imaginary ghost stalks downstairs and opens the door to six of his accomplices, who, while their director, Chambers, raps the doors to drown the noise of more persons being in the house than himself, strip the dining room of all the plate and other rich furniture therein, and then, making a general search through out the other chambers and the kitchen below, rifle and carry off everything of value to the amount of six hundred pounds. All this while the family, believing a spirit was actually in their house, and making the horrid noise they heard, kept close hid under the bedclothes; but the dawn of day soon appearing, their fears began to abate.

Whereupon the maid gets up, and has the courage to go down and see the consequences of the late bustle. She finds all her pots and pans removed effectually out of the way, and a dreadful havoc made among the pewter, which, to the very last plate, has all vanished. She hastens to her master, who is still in bed, acquaints him with the spirit's having robbed the house, and tells him that she cannot in conscience live with him any longer, since a bad and thieving ghost visited his family, which proved that his house was not a good one, nor were the persons that composed his family fit to be lived with. Whereat the landlord could not forbear bursting out into an extreme laughter: "Why, thou silly jade, can it be supposed that ghosts, or spirits, who have neither flesh, blood nor bones, can rob? Phoh, banish thy foolish conceits, and let me come and see what has been a working all this night."

The maid, displeased with her master's words, goes downstairs, and finding some of her fellow servants and neighbours about the door tells them what she had seen; whereat all seem astonished, and say they should not dare to stir an inch out of their houses in the night if the case was so as she related it. Meantime the landlord had roused his indolent body from his bed and made a strict search in those places where he thought the most valuable part of his movables lay, which he found entirely conveyed away; but coming into the dining room, and seeing the plate gone, and an empty shell of a coffin, he, too late, is made sensible of the imposition, which we will leave him to mourn, or banish the thoughts of, just as he pleases.

Chambers during a few years committed actions the most daring and artful that were ever known, and he received a just recompense for his ill spent life at Tyburn in 1706.

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68: Jack Goodwin alias Plump

A young but expert Thief, who was executed at Tyburn in 1706 for Burglary

WHEN silver tankards were more in vogue in the ale houses than they are at present, this fellow, going into one to drink, called for a tankard of ale, which being brought, he drank it off, and having cut out the bottom of it, paid the victualler for his liquor, who, seeing the tankard on the table, had no suspicion that any damage had been done it. But shortly after some other company came in, and the tapster, running into the cellar to fill for them the tankard which Mr Goodwin had been fingering, wondered to see the cock run and the tankard never the fuller, whereupon, turning it up, he could find no more bottom in it than mariners can in the ocean.

Another time Jack Goodwin, being in the country as far as Durham, and destitute of money, happened to meet with another idle companion, with whom he made a bargain to beg their way up to London; and in order to excite people's pity the more, his new companion was to act the part of a blind man, and he was to be his guide, instead of a dog and a bell. So getting a pennyworth of cereing wax, with which tailors cere the edges of silk and slight stuffs, Jack Goodwin, mollifying it over a candle, daubed his comrade's eyelids therewith, insomuch that he could not open them.

Our couple, thus proceeding on their journey, had, by their cruising or begging through the counties, picked up about the sum of four pounds, sixteen shillings; by that time they had got up to Ware. Next, making the best of their way up to London, within ten or eleven miles of the same, having to cross a small brook over a narrow wooden bridge, with a rail but on one side of it for the convenience of foot passengers, when they were upon it Goodwin threw his blind comrade into the water, where he stood up to the neck, but moving neither one way nor the other, for fear of being drowned. In the meantime his guide made straight to London. Soon afterwards, some passengers coming by took pity on the fellow, supposing him to be really blind; they helped him out of the brook, and setting him on terra firma, he presently, by their directions, arrived at a house, where, getting some warm water, he washed his eyelids, and having got them opened he marched after his fellow traveller to London, where he might hunt about long enough before he found him out, for Jack had got into some ill house or another, where he was as safe as a thief in a mill.

The Duke of Bedford visiting a person of quality one night very late, whilst the footmen were gone to drink at some adjacent boozing ken, or ale house, and the coach man was taking a nap on his box, Jack Goodwin, coming by at the same time with some of his thieving cronies, took the two hind wheels off the coach and supported it up with two pieces of wood, which they got out of a house which was being built hard by. On his Grace not long after going into his coach, and the footmen getting up behind in a hurry, no sooner did the horses begin to draw but down fell his Grace, footmen and all; who, looking to see how the accident came, found the hind wheels were stolen; whereupon the Duke was obliged to go home in a hackney coach.

This John Goodwin, alias Plump, was condemned, when he was but eleven years of age, for picking a merchant's pocket of one hundred and fifty guineas, and was afterwards several times in great danger of his life before justice took hold of him in earnest.

At last, committing a burglary in company with another, when he was but eighteen years of age, he was apprehended and carried before Sir Thomas Stamp, knight and alderman of London, where, after he was examined, being searched, several cords were found in his pocket; upon which his Worship asked Goodwin of what trade he was.

He replied: "A tailor."

Then Sir Thomas, taking up the cords and looking suspiciously on them, quoth:

"You use, methinks, very big thread."

"Yes, Sir" said Goodwin, "for it is generally coarse work which I'm employed about."

Next searching his comrade, Henry Williams, a pistol was found loaded in his bosom; upon which Sir Thomas asked him also of what trade he was. He replied:

"A tailor too."

"What! Both tailors?" said his Worship. "And pray what implement is this belonging to your trade?"

Quoth Williams:

"That pistol, Sir, is my needle case."

To conclude, Sir Thomas was so astonished at their impudence that he immediately made out their mittimus for Newgate, and being tried at Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey, they were both condemned to die, and soon after executed, at Tyburn, in 1706.

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1707

69: William Elby otherwise Dunn

An Armed Criminal, who was hanged for Burglary and Murder at Fulham on the 13th of September, 1707

WILLIAM ELBY was indicted at the sessions in the Old Bailey for breaking into the house of Mr. James Barry, at Fulham, the 2nd of August, 1707, with intent to rob it; and likewise for the murder of Nicholas Hatfield, by giving him a mortal wound with a rapier near the left breast, of which he died soon after.  The evidence deposed that, Mr. Barry hearing a noise about his house between twelve and two in the morning, he got up with his wife and man, Nicholas

Hatfield, went downstairs, found a window broken open, and espied two men without, at about five yards' distance, one of whom was the prisoner. They then ran immediately upstairs for arms, but Hatfield, stepping into the kitchen, was met by Elby, who drove him into the pantry, and gave him a stab in the breast, of which he died twelve hours afterwards.  In the scuffle between Elby and Hatfield one of the thieves fired a pistol to disengage them, which happened to wound Elby in the leg, and a button was found in the pantry which belonged to Elby's coat, also a bloody sword was found under a haycock, and a receipt that had been given Mr Barry for money paid.

The prisoner, who had little to say in his defence, was found guilty of the fact, and received sentence accordingly, upon which he was so impious as to say: "G-d d --n you all."  Elby owned he was guilty of the burglary, but would not confess the murder, neither would he discover his accomplices or any other offences he had committed, and in this obstinacy he all along persisted; and was so peremptory as to say that if any person should ask him any such questions again he would knock him down. He was hanged in chains at Fulham, on the 13th of September, 1707.

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70: John Herman Brian

Executed for robbing and burning the House of Peter Persode, Esq., St James's Street, Westminster, in October, 1707

THE CRIME for which this man suffered is defined by the law to be arson, or arsonry; that is, wilfully setting fire to another person's house, whether by day or by night.

It is in this case a capital offence; but if a man burns his own house, without injuring any other, it is only a misdemeanour, punishable by fine, imprisonment, or the pillory.

By the 23rd of Henry VIII, cap. 1, the capital part of the offence is extended to persons (whether principals or accessories) burning dwelling-houses, or barns wherein corn is deposited; and by the 43rd of Elizabeth, cap. 13, burning barns or stacks of corn, in the four northern counties, is also made felony, without benefit of clergy.

By the 22nd and 23rd of Charles II, cap. 7, it is made felony, to set fire to any stack of corn, hay, or grain; or other outbuildings, or kilns, maliciously, in the night time; punishable with transportation for seven years.

By the 1st George I cap. 48, it is also made single felony to set fire to any wood, underwood, or coppice.

Other burnings are made punishable with death, without benefit of clergy. viz, setting fire to any house, barn, or outhouse, or to any hovel, cock, mow, or stack of corn, straw, hay, or wood; or the rescuing any such offender: 9 George I cap. 22.― Setting fire to a coal mine: 10 George II cap. 32. ―Burning, or setting fire to any windmill, or water-mill, or other mill (as also pulling down the same): 9 George III cap. 29; but the offender must be prosecuted within eighteen months.―Burning any ship, to the prejudice of the owners, freighters, or underwriters: 22 and 23 Charles II cap. 11; 1 Anne, stat. 2. cap. 9; 4 George I cap. 12. ― Burning the king's ships of war afloat, or building; or the dockyards, or any of the buildings, arsenals, or stores therein; 12 George Ill cap. 24. And finally threatening by anonymous or fictitious letters to burn houses, barns, etc. is by the act 27 George 11 cap. 15 also made felony, without benefit of clergy.

John Herman Brian was a native of Dully, a village in the bailiwick of Monge, in the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland, where he was born about the year 1683. He left Switzerland while very young, and went to Geneva, where he lived in the service of a gentleman above four years, and then made a tour of Italy with a person of fortune. On his arrival in England, he lived in several reputable families for the space of about three years, and last of all, for about two months, in that of Mr Persode, when, being discharged, in about two days after he broke open, plundered, and burned his dwelling house, for which he was indicted at the sessions house in the Old Bailey, 16th of October, 1707, for burning and consuming the mansion-house of Peter Persode, Esq., in St James's Street, Westminster.

He was likewise indicted a second time for breaking open the said house about three o'clock on the day above mentioned and taking from thence a gold tweezer case and chain, value fifty pounds, a gold watch, seventeen guineas, and valuables.  Mr Persode deposed that the prisoner had been his servant for the space of two months, and was discharged from his service the Monday before the fact was committed, and that the Wednesday following, about ten o'clock at night, he left all his doors and windows fast. Mrs Persode deposed that when she went to bed she locked up her tweezer case, watch and other articles; and that about three o'clock in the morning she awoke and smelt a strong smell of smoke. Getting up, she went out of her chamber and found a lighted flambeau in the passage, which had burned the boards; that she then opened the door of a parlour, which was full of smoke, and immediately the room was all on fire, which rushed out of the stairs and raged with such fury that the house was consumed in a quarter of an hour, they not being able to save any of their goods.

Mr Stevenson and Mr Acton, goldsmiths, deposed that the prisoner offered to sell the tweezer case to them, and asked eight pounds for it, which gave them reason to suspect he had stolen it, and thereupon they stopped it, but the prisoner went away; and upon inquiry they found it to be Mr Persode's property; that afterwards, he coming again to demand the goods, they seized him, and on searching him found two pistols and a dagger about him, with which they were informed he designed to shoot or stab them if they refused to return the tweezer case.

The prisoner denied the fact, and said he bought the goods of a strange man, but could give no proof of it, nor where he was the night the fact was committed; whereupon the jury found him guilty of both indictments. All the time he was under condemnation at Newgate he seemed only to meditate on making his escape. He made repeated efforts to escape out of Newgate, by unscrewing and filing off his irons; but being detected, he was properly secured till the time of his execution; and being asked, by the ordinary of Newgate, how he could waste his precious time in such a fruitless attempt, he answered that "life was sweet, and that any other man, as well as himself, would endeavour to save it if he could".

He was executed in St James's Street, near St James's House, Westminster; and hanged in chains at Acton Gravel Pits, 24th of October, 1707.

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71: Jack Hall

Who, with two Associates named Bunce and Low, committed many Robberies, and was executed at Tyburn in 1707

JACK HALL was an expert in breaking open houses, going on the footpad, shoplifting or pilfering any small matter that lay in the way nay, if it were but mops and pails; the "drag," which is having a hook fastened to the end of a stick, with which they drag anything out of a shop window on a dark evening; and "filing a cly," which is picking pockets of watches, money, books or handkerchiefs. To this end he used to haunt churches, fairs, markets, public assemblies, shows, and be very busy about the playhouse. And he who performs this last part of thieving commonly gives what he takes to another, that in case he should be found with his hand in any man's pocket, he might prove his innocence by having nothing about him but what he can justify to be his own.

Having a design once to rob a great merchant in the City of London, he went oftentimes hankering about his house, but could never effect it; whereupon he bethought himself of this stratagem. He was to be put into a pack done up like a bale, and by the contrivance of his comrade, who was very well apparelled, he was to be laid into this merchant's house in the evening as so much silk, which he was to see next morning, and buy off his hands if they agreed. Accordingly this bale full of iniquity, wedged inwardly on all sides with coarse cloth and fustian, was laid up in the warehouse. Night being come, and the apprentices weary, two of them, whilst their master was at supper, went to rest themselves, and by accident lay on this bale, which was placed by some others, insomuch that the extreme anguish of their weight being very heavy upon Jack Hall, he could scarce fetch his breath. Upon this he drew out a sharp knife, and making a great hole in the fillet of the bale he also made a deep wound in him that Jay most upon it, which made him rise and roar out his fellow apprentice had killed him. Running out to his master in his agony, his fellow apprentice followed him, and was innocently secured, till a further examination of the matter. In the meanwhile Jack Hall made his escape out of a window, taking only two pieces of velvet along with him.

He was also very good for the "lob," which is going with a consort into any shop to change a pistole or guinea, and having about half of his change the consort cries:

"What need you to change? I have silver enough to defray our charges where we are going."

Upon this the other throws the money back again into the money box, but with such dexterity that he has one of the pieces, whether shilling or half crown, sticking in the palm of his hand, which he carries clean off, without any suspicion of fraud. Again, he was very expert at the "whalebone lay," which is having a thin piece of whalebone daubed at the end with bird lime, and going into a shop with a pretence to buy something, make the shopkeeper, by wanting this and that thing, turn his back often; and then take the opportunity of putting the whalebone, so daubed with bird lime, into the till of the counter, which brings up any single piece of money that sticks to it. After which, to give no mistrust, they buy some small matter, and pay the man with a pig of his own sow.

Hall also went with some of his wicked associates upon the "running smobble," which is this: one of them goes into a shop and, pretending to be drunk, after some troublesome behaviour puts out the candles, and taking away what ever comes first to hand he runs off, whilst another flings handfuls of dirt and nastiness into the mouth and face of the person that cries out "Stop thief!" thus putting him or her into a sudden surprise, and giving them an opportunity of going off without apprehending.,  Jack Hall, Stephen Bunce and Dick Low, going upon an enterprise at Hackney about twelve of the clock at night, by the help of their betties and short crows made a forcible entry into the house of one Clare, a baker, whose journeyman, tied neck and heels, they threw into the kneading trough, and the apprentice with him. Jack Hall stood sentry over them with a great old rusty back sword, which he found in the kitchen, and swore with a great grace that both their heads went off as round as a hoop if they offered to stir or budge. In the meantime Dick Low and Stephen Bunce went up to Mr Clare's room; whom they found in bed with his wife, and tied and gagged the old folks, without any consideration of their age, which had left them but few teeth to barricade their gums from the injury they might receive from those ugly instruments that stretched their mouths asunder.  Finding not so much as they expected, they ungagged the old man again, to bring to a confession where he hoarded his money; but extorting nothing out of him, Jack Hall being then come up to them, for fear they should sink upon him, which is a usual thing among thieves, to cheat one another took up in his arms the old man's granddaughter, about six years old, lying in a trundle bed by him, and said:

"D --n me, if I won't bake the child presently in a pie, and eat it, if the old rogue will not be civil."

These scaring words made Mr Clare beg heartily that they should not hurt the child and he would discover what he had; so fetching, by his order, a little iron bound chest from under the bed, and unlocking it, they took what was in it, which was about eighty pounds; then obscuring their dark lanterns they bid the baker good night, and commanded him to return them thanks that they spared his ears, which is against the law for any of their occupation to wear.  An end came to Hall's wicked crimes in the year 1707, when he deservedly suffered death at Tyburn, with his companions Low and Bunce.

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72: Dick Low

Who started thieving at the Age of Eleven. Executed at Tyburn in 1707, when twenty-five years old

DICK LOW was an expert thief at the age when others usually begin. One time, when he was about eleven or twelve years old, creeping privately one evening behind a goldsmith's counter in Cheapside, the goldsmith comes from a back room and goes behind the counter, insomuch that Dick Low had no opportunity of going out invisible; whereupon he cries: "Whoop, whoop!" At this the goldsmith cried: "Hey, hey, is this a place to play at Whooper's hide? Get you gone, you young rogue, and play in the streets." But Dick, yet lying still, cried again: "Whoop, whoop!" --which made the goldsmith in a great passion cry: "Get you gone, sirrah, or I'll whoop you with a good cane, if you want to play here." Whereupon Dick went away with a bag of fifty pounds, which the goldsmith missed next day.

But as he grew up in years his stature made him past those exercises which they call the morning, noon or night sneak, which is privately sneaking into houses at any of those times and carrying off what next comes to hand; for all is fish that comes to net with them, who are termed Saint Peter's children, as having every finger a fish-hook. He went also upon other lays, such as "taking lobs from behind rattlers"― that is to say, trunks or boxes from behind coaches; and upon the "mill," which is breaking open houses in the night, for which purpose they have their tinder-boxes, matches, flints, steels, dark lanterns, bags, cords, betties and chisels to wrench. This was then the manner; but at present they have a new way of using a large turning gimlet, or auger, boring holes with which through a wooden window they presently, with a knife, cut out a hole big enough to put in their hand to unbolt it, whereby an honest man is soon undone by these sly rascals, who call themselves "prigs," which, in their canting language, denotes a thief.

After being a soldier for a short time Dick came home again, and there being one Mr Pemmell, an apothecary, living in Drury Lane, it was his misfortune to have a wife who kept company with one Davis, a glazier; but bad circumstances obliging him to fly for sanctuary to Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, his madonna was in great want of another gallant. However, she being naturally prone to liberality, and always extravagantly rewarding kindnesses of this nature, it was not long ere a particular acquaintance of hers undertook to supply her with a new lover, which was Dick. As soon as he was introduced into the company of the apothecary's wife she took a huge fancy to him, for he behaved himself so pleasantly, and his caresses were so agreeable, that his mistress esteemed herself the happiest woman in the world in the enjoyment of a person so facetious, and accomplished with all the mysteries of love. Whenever he came to her house, which was always when her husband was from home, she entertained him with such an unreserved freeness that she concealed nothing from her spark that might please either his fancy or curiosity. But one day, opening a chest of drawers, Dick espied a couple of bags of money, at which his mouth instantly watered; and although his mistress told him that as long as one penny was in them his pockets should never be unfurnished, yet he wanted to be master of them presently― and indeed it was not long before he had them at his command, for business requiring the apothecary in the country for about a week, Dick then lay in his house at rack and manger; and having two other rogues like himself at a great supper prepared for them there, they began about twelve of the clock at night to declare their intention with sword and pistol, saying that whoever presumed to speak but one word suffered present death. To work they now went, gagging and tying first the procurer. In the meantime the apothecary's wife, seeing how her friend was served, fell on her knees and heartily beseeched them not to use her so. Quoth Dick: "No, no, madam; we'll only tie your hands, lest you should ungag that serious, and now silent, bawd there." After she was secured they went down into the kitchen and gagged and tied the maid and apprentice; then, rifling the house, they carried away two hundred and fifty pounds, and some plate to a considerable value. But Dick, thinking it unmannerly to go away without saying anything, went to his late beloved mistress, and giving her a Judas kiss, quoth he:

"Dear madam, farewell; and when I am gone, say I've done more than ever your husband did, for I've bound you to be constant now."

Dick also industriously applied himself to picking of pockets; and one day he and two others of that profession, having been eight or nine miles in the country, where they were so extravagant as to spend all their money, as they were coming into Hammersmith bethought themselves on the following stratagem to get more before they entered London. Two of them acted the parts of drunken men in the town, reeling, tumbling and abusing several people, who, believing them to be really drunk, let them pass on without much interruption. Hereupon their sober companion, Dick Low, seeing nobody would take them up, resolved to do it himself; so, meeting them as if by chance, they gave him the jostle; which not taking so patiently as the others had done, he not only had high words with them, but from words they fell to blows. At last, two being against one, it was thought unequal, and they having been abusive to others a great company was assembled, and among them the constable, who, seizing all three, carried them before a justice, who hearing the matter, and finding by the testimony of the people who went with them that only the two who were drunk were wholly to blame, ordered them to be set in the stocks for two hours, and discharged Dick Low.

This order was obeyed, and the delinquents were presently put into the stocks, where they behaved themselves so pleasantly in foolish discourse that a great number of people hovered about them. In the meantime Dick was not idle, for he had made such havoc among their pockets that in the two hours' time they were in the stocks he had gained about eight pounds by the frolic; then coming to London they fell into hard drinking, like so many drunken Germans, but in the midst of their cups they had the civility, every now and then, to drink the health of all them by whom they had fared the better.

This fellow, though he was not above twenty-five years of age when he was hanged at Tyburn, with Jack Hall and Stephen Bunce, in 1707, had reigned long in his villainy; and the fortunate success which he had had in his manifold sins only made him repent that he had not practised them sooner.

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1708

73: William Gregg

Spy, executed at Tyburn on the 28th of April, 1708

High treason is by the law accounted the highest civil crime which can be committed by any member of the community. After various alterations and amendments made and repealed in subsequent reigns, the definition of this offence was settled as it originally stood, by the Act of the 25th of Edward Ill stat. 5, cap. 2, and may be divided into seven different heads:

1. Compassing, or imagining, the death of the king, queen, or heir apparent.

2. Levying war against the king in his realm.

3. Adhering to the king's enemies, and giving them aid, in the realm, or elsewhere. [It has been thought necessary by the legislature to explain and enlarge these clauses of the Act 25 Edward III as not extending, with sufficient explicitness, to modern treasonable attempts. It is therefore provided by the Act 36 George III cap. 7, 'That if any person (during the life of his present Majesty, and until the end of the session of Parliament next after a demise of the crown) shall within the realm, or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend, death or destruction, or any bodily harm, tending to death or destruction, maim or wounding, imprisonment or restraint of the person of the king, his heirs and successors, or to deprive or depose him or them, from his style, honour, or kingly name, or to levy war against the king within this realm, in order by force to compel him to change his measures, or in order to put any force or constraint upon, or to intimidate or overawe, both houses, or either house, of Parliament: or to incite any foreigner to invade the dominions of the crown: and such compassings, etc., shall express, utter, or declare, by publishing and printing or writing, or by any other overt act or deed,' -- the offender shall be deemed a traitor, and punished accordingly.]

4. Slaying the king's chancellor or judge in the execution of their offices.

5. Violating the queen, the eldest daughter of the king, or the wife of the heir apparent, or eldest son.

6. Counterfeiting the king's great seal, or privy seal.

7. Counterfeiting the king's money, or bringing false money into the kingdom.

This detail shows how much the dignity and security of the king's person is confounded with that of his officers, and even with his effigies impressed on his coin. To assassinate the servant, or to counterfeit the type, is held as criminal as to destroy the sovereign.

This indiscriminate blending of crimes, so different and disproportionate in their nature, under one common head, is certainly liable to great objections, seeing that the judgment in this offence is so extremely severe and terrible, viz. 'That the offender be drawn to the gallows on the ground or pavement; that he be hanged by the neck, and then cut down alive; that his entrails be taken out and burnt, while yet alive; that his head be cut off; that his body be divided into four parts; and that his head and quarters be at the king's disposal.'

William Gregg was born at Montrose, in Scotland, and having received the common instructions in the grammar-school of that own, finished his education in the university of Aberdeen, and was intended by his friends for the study of divinity; but his inclination leading him to seek for advancement in the state, he came to London, and soon afterwards went abroad as secretary to the ambassador to the court of Sweden.

Gregg, during his residence abroad, debauched a Swedish lady, and was guilty of some other irregularities; in consequence of which the ambassador dismissed him from his service, and he was glad to embark for London in the first ship that sailed.

As soon as he arrived in London, he was engaged by Mr Secretary Harley, to write dispatches; and letters of great importance were left unsealed, and perused by Gregg. As the account of this malefactor, which was given by the ordinary of Newgate, is very superficial and unsatisfactory, we shall give the following extracts respecting him, from Bishop Burnett's history:

At this time two discoveries were made very unlucky for Mr Harley: Tallard wrote often to Chamillard, but he sent the letters open to the secretary's office, to be perused and sealed up, and so be conveyed by the way of Holland. These were opened upon some suspicion in Holland, and it appeared, that one in the secretary's office put letters in them, in which, as he offered his service to the courts of France and St Germain's, so he gave an account of all transactions here. In one of these he sent a copy of the letter that the queen was to write in her own hand to the emperor; and he marked what parts were drawn by the secretary, and what additions were made to it by the lord treasurer. This was the letter by which the queen pressed the sending prince Eugene into Spain; and this, if not intercepted, would have been at Versailles many days before it could reach Vienna.

He who sent this wrote, that by this they might see what service he could do them, if well encouraged. All this was sent over to the duke of Marlborough; and upon search it was found to have been written by Gregg, whom Harley had not only entertained, but taken into a particular confidence, without inquiring into the former parts of his life; for he was a vicious and a necessitous person, who had been secretary to the queen's envoy in Denmark, but was dismissed by him for his ill qualities. Harley had made use of him to get him intelligence, and he came to trust him with the perusal and sealing up of the letters, which the French prisoners, here in England, sent over to France, and by that means he got into the method of sending intelligence thither. He, when seized on, either upon remorse or hopes of pardon, confessed all, and signed his confession; upon that he was tried, and, pleading guilty, was condemned as a traitor, for corresponding with the queen's enemies.

At the same time Valiere and Bara, whom Harley had employed as his spies to go often over to Calais, under the pretence of bringing him intelligence, were informed against, as spies employed by France to get intelligence from England, who carried over many letters to Calais and Boulogne, and, as was believed, gave such information of our trade and convoys, that by their means we had made our great losses at sea. They were often complained of upon suspicion, but they were always protected by Harley; yet the presumptions against them were so violent, that they were at last seized on, and brought up prisoners.

The Whigs took such advantage of this circumstance, that Mr Harley was obliged to resign, and his enemies were inclined to carry matters still further, and were resolved, if possible, to find out evidence enough to affect his life. With this view, the House Lords ordered a committee to examine Gregg, and the other prisoners, who were very assiduous in the discharge of their commission, as will appear by the following account written by same author:

The lords who were appointed to examine Gregg, could not find out much by him: he had but newly begun his designs of betraying secrets, and he had no associates with him in it. He told them, that all the papers of state lay so carelessly about the office, that every one belonging to it, even the door-keepers might have read them all. Harley's custom was to come to the office late on post- nights, and after he had given his orders, and written his letters, he usually went away, and left all to be copied out when he was gone. By that means he came to see every thing, in particular the queen's letter to the emperor. He said, he knew the design on Toulon in May last, but he did not discover it; for he had not entered on his ill practices till October. This was all he could say.

By the examination of Valiere and Bara, and of many others who lived about Dover, and were employed by them, a discovery was made of a constant intercourse they were in with Calais, under Harley's protection. They often went over with boats full of wool, and brought back brandy, though both the import and export were severely prohibited. They, and those who belonged to the boats carried over by them, were well treated on the French side at the governor's house or at the commissary's: they were kept there till their letters were sent to Paris, and till returns could be brought back, and were all the while upon free cost. The order that was constantly given them was, that if an English or Dutch vessel came up with them, they should cast their letters into the sea, but that they should not do it when French ships came up with them: so they were looked on by all on that coast as the spies of France. They used to get what information they could, both of merchant-ships, and of the ships of war that lay in the Downs, and upon that they usually went over; and it happened that soon after some of those ships were taken. These men, as they were papists, so they behaved themselves insolently, and boasted much of their power and credit.

Complaints had been often made of them, but they were always protected; nor did it appear that they ever brought any information of importance to Harley but once, when, according to what they swore, they told him that Fourbin was gone from Dunkirk, to lie in wait for the Russian fleet; which proved to be true; he both went to watch for them, and he took a great part of the fleet. Yet though this was the single piece of intelligence that they ever brought, Harley took so little notice of it, that he gave no advertisement to the admiralty concerning it. This particular excepted they only brought over common news, and the Paris gazetteer. These examinations lasted for some weeks. When they were ended, a full report was made of them to the house of lords, and they ordered the whole report, with all the examinations, to be laid before the  queen.

Gregg was convicted on the statute of Edward III, which declares it high treason 'to adhere to the king's enemies, or to give them aid either within or without the realm.'

Immediately after his conviction, both houses of Parliament petitioned the queen that he might be executed; and he accordingly hanged at Tyburn, with Morgridge, on the 28th April, 1708.

Gregg, at the place of execution, delivered a paper to the sheriff of London and Middlesex, in which he acknowledged the justice of his sentence, declared his sincere repentance of all his sins, particularly that lately committed against the queen, whose forgiveness he devoutly implored.

He likewise expressed his wish to make all possible reparation for the injuries he had done; begged pardon in a particular manner of Mr Secretary Harley, and testified the perfect innocence of that gentleman, declaring that he was no way privy, directly or indirectly, to his writing to France. He professed that he died an unworthy member of the Protestant church, and that the want of money to supply his extravagances had tempted him to commit the fatal crime which cost him his life.

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74: John Morgridge

Murderer, executed at Tyburn, on the 28th of April, 1708.

WE NOW present a dreadful instance of the effect of intoxication. This unfortunate man, who, through the indulgence in this vice, met an untimely fate, was a native of Canterbury, whose ancestors had served the crown for upwards of two hundred years. He had been kettle-drummer to the first troop of horse-guards for a considerable time, and would have been promoted, had it not been for the following unfortunate quarrel.

A Mr. Cope having obtained the rank of lieutenant in the army, invited several officers to dine with him at the Dolphin tavern, in Tower-street; and one of the parties invited Morgridge likewise to go, assuring him that he would be made welcome on the part of Mr. Cope. When dinner was over, Cope paid the reckoning, and then each man depositing half-a-crown, Morgridge and others adjourned to the guard room, to which place more liquor was sent. They had not been long there before a woman of the town came in a coach, and asked for Captain Cope. Being introduced to the guard-room, she remained a short time, and then said,

"Who will pay for my coach?"

Morgridge said, "I will;" having done so, he advanced to salute her; but she pushed him from her in a disdainful manner, and spoke to him in very abusive terms which induced him to treat her with the same kind of language. Morgridge's rudeness was resented by Cope, who took the woman's part, and a violent quarrel ensued between Cope and Morgridge, both of whom were intoxicated.

This contest increased to such a degree, that they threw the bottles at each other; till at length, Morgridge, inflamed with passion, drew his sword, and stabbed Cope, who instantly expired.

Morgridge being taken into custody, was tried at the Old Bailey, July 5, 1706 'but a doubt arising in the breast of the jury, whether he was guilty of murder or manslaughter, they brought in a special verdict, and the affair was left to be determined by the twelve judges. The judges having consequently met at Sergeant's-inn, the case was argued before them by counsel; when they gave an unanimous opinion that he was guilty of wilful murder, because he did not kill Cope with the weapons he was originally using, but arose from his seat and drew his sword, which was deemed to imply a malicious intention. Morgridge, in the interim, made his escape from the Marshalsea prison, and went into Flanders, where he remained about two years: but being uneasy to revisit his native country, he imprudently came back to England, and being apprehended, received sentence of death, and suffered, along with William Gregg, at Tyburn, on the 28th of April, 1708. When convicted he was truly sensible of the crime of which he had been guilty, acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and submitted to his fate with becoming resignation.

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75: Jack Ovet

An amorous Highwayman, who was executed at Leicester in May, 1708

JACK OVET, a shoemaker by trade, was born at Nottingham, where his abode was for four or five years after he had served his apprenticeship. But being always of a daring, audacious disposition, his unruly temper induced him to keep very lewd and quarrelsome company, and depending on his manhood, it inspired him with an inclination of laying aside his mechanical employment to translate himself into a gentleman, by maintaining that quality on the highway.

Immediately equipping himself, as a highwayman ought, with a good horse, hanger and pistols, he rode towards London; and on the road had the good success of robbing a gentleman of twenty pounds, who, being one of great courage, told Ovet that if he had not come upon him unawares, and surprised him at a disadvantage, he should have given him some trouble before he would have parted with his money.

Quoth Ovet: "Sir, I have ventured my life once already in committing this robbery; however, if you have the vanity to think yourself a better man than me, I'll venture once more. Here's your money again; let it be betwixt us, and whoever of us is the best man let him win it and wear it."

The gentleman very willingly accepted the proposal, and making use of their swords on foot, Jack Ovet had the fortune to kill his antagonist on the spot.

Not long after he killed another man in a quarrel at Leicester; but flying from justice he still cheated the hangman of his due, and without any dread pursued his unlawful courses to the highest pitch of villainy. One day, in particular, meeting the pack-horses of one Mr Rogers, who went from Leominster, in Herefordshire, to London, and being in great want of money, he turned one of them out of the main road into a narrow lane, where, cutting open the pack, he found therein about two hundred and eighty guineas in gold, besides three dozen of silver-hafted knives and forks and spoons, which he carried off. The other pack-horses had gone about two miles before Mr Rogers missed this; and then making a strict search after it, he found it tied to a tree, and the pack thrown off its back and rifled of what was most valuable.

Another time Jack Ovet, meeting with the Worcester stage-coach on the road, in which were several young gentlewomen, robbed them all; but one of them being a very handsome person, he entertained such a passion for her exquisite charms that when he took her money from her he said: "Madam, cast not your eyes down, neither cover your face with those modest blushes; your charms have softened my temper, and I am no more the man I was. What I have taken from you (through mere necessity at present) is only borrowed; for as no object on earth ever had such an effect on me as you, assure yourself that if you please to tell me where I may direct to you, I'll upon honour make good your loss to the very utmost." The young gentlewoman told him where he might send to her, and they parted. It was not above a week after that before Jack sent the following letter to the aforesaid gentlewoman, who had gained such an absolute conquest over his soul that his mind ran now as much upon love as robbing:-

MADAM,-These few lines are to acquaint you that though I lately had the cruelty to rob you of twenty guineas, yet you committed a greater robbery at the same time in robbing me of my heart; on which you may behold yourself enthroned, and all my faculties paying their homage to your unparalleled beauty. Therefore be pleased to propose but the method how I may win your belief, and were the way to it as deep as from hence to the centre, I will search it out. For by all my hopes, by all those rites that crown a happy union, by the rosy tincture of your checks, and by your all-subduing eyes, I prize you above all the world. Oh, then, my fair Venus, can you be afraid of Love? His brow is smooth, and his face beset with banks full of delight; about his neck hangs a chain of golden smiles. Let us taste the pleasures which Cupid commands, and for that unmerited favour I shall become another man, to make you happy. So requesting the small boon of a favourable answer to be sent me to Mr Walker's, who keeps an ale-house at the sign of the Bell in Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, give me leave to subscribe myself your most humble servant to command for ever,

JOHN BURTON.

THE GENTLEWOMAN'S ANSWER

SIR,-Yours I received with as great dissatisfaction as when you robbed me, and admire at your impudence of offering me yourself for a husband, when I am sensible 'twould not be long ere you made me a hempen widow. Perhaps some foolish girl or another may be so bewitched as to go in white to beg the favour of marrying you under the gallows; but indeed I should venture neither there nor in a church to marry one of your profession, whose vows are treacherous, and whose smiles, words and actions, like small rivulets through a thousand turnings of loose passions, at last arrive to the dead sea of sin. Should you therefore dissolve your eyes into tears, was every accent a sigh in your speech, had you all the spells and magic charms of love, I should seal up my ears that I might not hear your dissimulation. You have already broken your word in not sending what you villainously took from me; but not valuing that, let me tell you, for fear you should have too great a conceit of yourself, that you are the first, to my remembrance, whom I ever hated; and sealing my hatred with the hopes of quickly reading your dying speech, in case you die in London, I presume to subscribe myself yours never to command,

D. C.

This was the end of Jack Ovet's warm amour, and he was soon after as unsuccessful in his villainy as he was here in love; for committing a robbery in Leicestershire, where his comrade was killed in the attempt, he was closely pursued by the country, apprehended, and sent to jail, At last, the assizes being held at Leicester, he was condemned. Whilst he was under sentence of death he seemed to have no remorse at all for his wickedness, nor in the least to repent of the blood of two persons which he had shed; so being brought to the gallows, on Wednesday, the 5th of May, 1708, he was justly hanged in the thirty-second year of his age.

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76: Anne Harris

Although only Twenty when she was executed at Tyburn, on 13th of July, 1708, she was a notorious Shoplifter, and her two Husbands had already suffered the  Death Penalty

ANNE HARRIS, alias Sarah Davies, alias Thorn, alias Gothorn, was born of honest but poor parents, in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate; but being debauched by one James Wadsworth, she soon abandoned all manner of goodness. This Wadsworth was otherwise called "Jemmy the Mouth" among his companions. He was hanged for felony and burglary at Tyburn, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, on Friday, the 24th of September, 1702. She next lived with one William Pulman, otherwise called Norwich Will, from the place of his birth, who also made his exit at Hyde Park Corner, on Friday, the 9th of March, 1704-1705, aged twenty-six years, for robbing one Mr Joseph Edwards on the highway of a pair of leather bags, a shirt, two neck-cloths, two pocket-books, twenty-five guineas, a half broad-piece of gold, and four pounds in silver.

Now Nan, being twice left a hempen widow in less than three years, had learned in that time to be as vicious as the very worst of her sex, and was so absolutely enslaved to all manner of wickedness through custom and opportunity that good admonitions could work no good effects upon her. Her inclination was entirely averse to honesty. Bidding adieu to everything that looked like virtue, she drove a great trade among goldsmiths, to whose shops she often went to buy gold rings, but she only cheapened till she had the opportunity of stealing one or two; which she did by means of a little ale held in a spoon over the fire till it congealed thick like a syrup, for by rubbing some of this on the palm of her hand, any light thing would stick to it, without the least suspicion at all. She was as well known among the mercers, lacemen and linen-drapers on Ludgate Hill, Cheapside or Fleet Street as that notorious shoplifter, Isabel Thomas, who was condemned for the same crimes. But at last she was apprehended for her pranks, and being so often burned in the face that there was no more room left for the hangman to stigmatise her, the Court thought fit to condemn her for privately stealing a piece of printed calico out of the shop of one Mr John Andrews; and she was hanged, in the twentieth year of her age, at Tyburn, on Friday, 13th of July, 1708.

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77: Madam Churchill

Who with three Men committed a Murder, and was executed at Tyburn on

17th of December, 1708

IN THIS CASE we shall disclose one of the most consummate tricks ever played by woman, to defraud her creditors; and a more effectual method cannot be resorted to. It is a satisfaction, however, that during the perusal of the fate of Deborah Churchill, we know that Fleet marriages have long been de dared illegal; and therefore the artifice cannot now be so easily accomplished. Formerly, within the liberties of the Fleet, the clergy could perform the marriage rites, with as little ceremony as at Gretna Green, where, to the disgrace of the British empire, an ignorant blacksmith, or a fellow, equally mean and unfit, assumes this sacred duty of the church.

Though this woman's sins were great, (yet we must admit some hardship in her suffering the utmost rigour of the law for the crime, of which she was found guilty,) but which, at the same time, is, in the eye of the law, great as in the immediate perpetrator of a murder. Here we deem it well to observe, that any person present while murder is committing, and though he may take no part in the commission of the crime, yet unless he does his utmost to prevent, he is considered guilty, equal with him who might have given the fatal blow.

Deborah Churchill was born about the year 1678, in a village near Norwich. She had several children by her husband, Mr. Churchill; but her temper not being calculated to afford him domestic happiness, he repined at his situation, and destroyed himself by intoxication.

Deborah, after this event, came to London; and being much too idle and too proud to think of earning a subsistence by her industry, she ran considerably in debt; and, in order to extricate herself from her incumbrances, bad recourse to a method which was formerly as common as it is unjust. Going to a public-house in Holborn, she saw a soldier, and asked him if he would marry her. The man immediately answered in the affirmative, on which they went in a coach to the Fleet, where the nuptial knot was instantly tied.

Mrs. Churchill, whose maiden-name is unknown, having obtained a certificate of her marriage, enticed her husband to drink till he was quite inebriated, and then gave him the slip, happy in this contrivance to screen herself from an arrest.

A little after this, she cohabited with a young fellow named Hunt, with whom she lived more than six years. Hunt appears to have been a youth of a rakish disposition. He behaved very ill to this unhappy woman, who, however, loved him to distraction; and, at length, forfeited her life in consequence of the regard she had for him.

One night as Mr. Hunt and one of his associates were returning from the Theatre, in company with Mrs. Churchill, a quarrel arose between the men, who immediately drew theft swords; while Mrs. Churchill, anxious for the safety of Hunt, interposed, and kept his antagonist at a distance; in consequence of which, being off his guard, he received a wound, of which he died almost immediately.

No sooner was the murder committed, than Hunt effected his escape, and, eluding his pursuers, arrived safely in Holland; but Mrs. Churchill was apprehended on the spot, and being taken before a magistrate, was committed to Newgate.

June 1708, at the sessions held at the Old Bailey, Mrs. Churchill was indicted as an accomplice on the act of the first year of king James the First, called the statute of stabbing, by which it is enacted, that "If any one stabs another, who hath not at that time a weapon drawn, or hath not first struck the party who stabs, is deemed guilty of murder, if the person stabbed dies within six months afterwards."

Mrs. Churchill, being convicted, pleaded a state of pregnancy, in bar to her execution; and a jury of matrons being impannelled, declared that they were ignorant whether she was with child or not. Hereupon the court, willing to allow all reasonable time in a case of this nature, respited judgment for six months; at the end of which time she received sentence of death, as there was no appearance of her being pregnant.

This woman's behaviour was extremely penitent; but she denied her guilt to the last moment of her life, having no conception that she had committed murder, because she did not herself stab the deceased. She suffered at Tyburn, 17th of December 1708.

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78: Captain Evan Evans

Clerk to Sir Edmund Andrews, in Guernsey, and later Highwayman in England. Executed in 1708

THE title of Captain was only assumed by this noted criminal, who was born in South Wales, and his father, who kept an inn at Brecknock, the chief town in Brecknockshire, having given him a good education, put him apprentice to an attorney-at-law; but by his vicious inclinations, together with the opportunity he had of corresponding with some gentlemen of the road (as such rogues affected to call themselves) who frequented his father's house, he soon came to act in the same wicked courses they followed, and in a little time became the most noted highwayman in those parts, having made prodigious booties of the Welsh graziers and others.

The Captain once happening to be under a guard, who were conducting him to Shrewsbury Jail with his legs tied under the belly of the horse, and one of his attendants having an excellent fowling-piece, which was then loaded, the prisoner, espying a pheasant perching upon a tree, with a deep sigh expressed the dexterity he had used formerly in killing such game; so humbly requesting the gun, that he might shoot at so fine a mark, the ignorant fellow readily complied with his request. But no sooner had the Captain got the piece into his hands than he charged upon his guard, and swore a whole volley of oaths that he would fire upon them if they stirred one step farther.

Then, retreating from them on his little pony to a convenient distance, he commanded one of them that was best mounted to come near him and alight; which being done, and the bridle of the horse hung on a hedge, the poor fellow was obliged to throw him his pistols, and then was admitted to approach nearer the Captain, who, presenting one of them at his head, obliged him to loose his legs and retire to his companions. This being also done, he soon left his little scrub, mounted the fine gelding, and rode off.

The Captain then coming to London, the country being too hot to hold him, upon his handsome behaviour and carriage, which was somewhat extraordinary, as likewise his person, he got to be clerk to Sir Edmund Andrews, then Governor of Guernsey, and continued there in that capacity for three or four years; but money not coming in fast enough in that honest employment to support his wicked inclinations, he soon left that service, returned to London, and took a lodging at the Three Neats' Tongues, in Nicholas Lane, where he passed for a Guernsey merchant, or captain of a ship, and took his younger brother, William Evans, as a servant to wait on him, giving him a livery, under the colour of which he committed several notorious robberies on the highways about London.

One of his boldest and most daring robberies was committed on Squire Harvey, of Essex, between Mile End and Bow, in the daytime, from whom he took a diamond ring, and money to a considerable value, as he was riding home in his coach from the Cathedral Church of St Paul's, the late Queen Anne having that day honoured the city with her Royal presence.

Some time after that, meeting not far from Hampstead with one Gambol, a writing-master, living in Exeter Street, behind Exeter Exchange, in the Strand, walking with his wife, he made bold to command them to deliver what money they had, which they very obstinately refusing, the Captain violently took what money he found in their pockets, which was about thirty or forty shillings, and for their presumption of not being obedient to the doctrine of non-resistance obliged them, upon pain of death, to strip themselves stark naked, and then, tying them close, bound them to a tree and rode off. But before he left them he had chalked in great letters just over their heads on the body of the tree that Gambol and his wife were Adamites, which is a sort of sect which teaches their proselytes, both men and women, to pray in their meetings, and perform other divine services, stark naked; which posture they call the state of innocency, and the places they assemble in Paradise.

One remarkable robbery he committed with his brother was this. As he was travelling along Portsmouth Road, in Surrey, meeting a parcel of headboroughs, or constables, conducting about thirty poor fellows they had pressed to Portsmouth garrison, Captain Evans asked the reason of their being led so, as captives tied with cords. The officers told him they were for the service, and that they had ten shillings for each man they had so impressed. He highly commended them for performing their duty and rode off. But coming up with them again in a more convenient place, he and his brother attacked them with so much fury that, setting all the prisoners at liberty, they robbed all the headboroughs of every penny they had, and then, binding them hand and foot in a field, they made the best of their way off.

Having intelligence of the Chester coach's coming with passengers to London, Captain Evans sent his brother William the night before to lie at Barnet, and to be in Baldock Lane at a certain time next morning. But the poor lad happening to light on a Scots cheesemonger who was travelling to Edinburgh, and he pretending to be going some part of the way on his master's occasions, they must needs lie together, and proceed on their journey next day. When they had got into Baldock Lane, a pistol, to the great surprise of the Scotsman, was fired over Will's head by the Captain, that being the signal proposed; they then soon commanded the Scotsman to lie by, and in sight robbed all the coaches. Then in thunderclaps of oaths the Captain, riding up to the Scotsman, robbed him of seven guineas and two watches; but by Will's intercession, who had lain with him all night, returned him his best watch, and three guineas to bear his charges into his own country; for which generous action the same Scotsman hanged them both at the assizes held at Hertford in 1708, the Captain aged twenty-nine years, and his brother Will twenty-three.

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1709

79: Dick Hughes

A Robber whose thoughtful Wife bought the Rope to hang him. Executed at Tyburn in June, 1709.

THIS great villain, Richard Hughes, was the son of a very good yeoman living at Bettws, in Denbighshire, in North Wales, where he was born, and followed husbandry, but would now and then be pilfering in his very minority, as he found opportunity. When he first came up to London, on his way money being short, necessity compelled him to steal a pair of tongs at Pershore in Worcestershire, for which he was sent to Worcester Jail; and at the assizes held there, the matter of fact being plainly proved against him, the judge directed the jury to bring him in guilty only of petty larceny; and accordingly, giving in their verdict guilty to the value of tenpence, he came off with crying carrots and turnips, a term which rogues use for whipping at the cart's tail.

After this introduction to further villainy, Dick Hughes, coming up to London, soon became acquainted with the most celebrated villains in this famous metropolis, especially with one Thomas Lawson, alias Browning, a tripe man, who was hanged at Tyburn on Tuesday, the 27th of May, 1712, for felony and burglary, in robbing the house of one Mr Hunt, at Hackney. In a very short time he became noted for his several robberies; but at last, breaking open a victualling-house at Lambeth, and taking from thence only the value of three shillings, because he could find no more, he was tried and condemned for that fact at the assizes held at Kingston-upon-Thames; but was then reprieved, and afterwards pleaded his pardon at the same place. Now being again at liberty, instead of becoming a new man he became rather worse than before, breaking open and robbing several houses, at Tottenham Cross, Harrow-on-the-Hill, a gentlewoman's house at Hackney, a gentleman's at Hammersmith, a minister's near Kingston- upon-Thames, a tobacconist's house in Red Cross Street, and a house on Hounslow Heath.

Burglaries being the masterpiece of Dick Hughes's villainy, he went chiefly on them; till at last, breaking open and robbing the house of one Mr George Clark, at Twickenham, he was apprehended for this fact, and committed to Newgate.

Whilst he lay under condemnation, his wife, to whom he had been married in the Fleet Prison, constantly visited him at chapel. She was a very honest woman, and had such an extraordinary kindness for her husband under his great afflictions that when he went to be hanged at Tyburn, on Friday, the 24th of June, 1709, she met him at St Giles's Pound, where, the cart stopping, she stepped up to him, and whispering in his ear, said:

"My dear, who must find the rope that's to hang you― me or the sheriff?"

Her husband replied: "The sheriff, honey; for who's obliged to find him tools to do his work?"

"Ah!" replied his wife, "I wish I had known so much before; it would have saved me twopence, for I have been and bought one already."

"Well, well," said Dick again, "perhaps it mayn't be lost, for it may serve a second husband."

"Yes," quoth his wife, "if I have any luck in good husbands, so it may."

Then, the cart driving on to Hyde Park Corner, this notorious villain ended his days there, in the thirtieth year of his age; and was after anatomised at Surgeons' Hall, in London.

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80: Christopher Slaughterford

Executed at Guildford, July 9, 1709, for the murder of Jane Young

THIS is a very singular case, and will excite different opinions respecting this unhappy man's commission of the deed for which he was executed.

He was the son of a miller at Westbury-Green, in Surrey, who apprenticed him at Godalming. When his time was expired, he lived in several situations, and afterwards took a malt-house at Shalford, when his aunt became his housekeeper, and he acquired a moderate sum of money by his industry.

He now paid his addresses to Jane Young, and it was generally supposed he intended to marry her. The last time he was seen in her company was on the evening of the 5th of October, 1703; from which day she was not heard of for a considerable time, on which suspicions arose that Slaughterford had murdered her.

About a month afterwards, the body of the unfortunate girl was found in a pond, with several marks of violence on it; and the public suspicion being still fixed on Slaughterford, he voluntarily surrendered himself to two justices of the peace, who directed that he should be discharged; but as he was still accused by his neighbours, he went to a third magistrate, who, agreeable to his own solicitations, committed him to the Marshalsea Prison; and he was tried at the next assizes at Kingston, and acquitted.

The majority of his neighbours, however, still insisted that he was guilty, and prevailed on the relations of the deceased to bring an appeal for a new trial; towards the expense of which many persons subscribed, as the father of Jane Young was in indigent circumstances.  During the next term, he was tried by a Surrey jury, in the court of Queen's Bench, before Lord Chief Justice Holt, the appeal being lodged in the name of Henry Young, brother and heir to the deceased.

The evidence given on this second trial was the same in substance as on the first; yet so different were the sentiments of the two juries, that Slaughterford was now found guilty, and received sentence of death. It may be proper to mention the heads of some of the depositions, that the reader may judge of the propriety of the verdict.

Elizabeth Chapman, the mistress of Jane Young, deposed, that when the young woman left her service, she said she was going to he married to the prisoner, that she had purchased new clothes on the occasion, and declared she was to meet him on the Sunday following. That the deponent sometime afterwards inquired after Jane Young, and, asking if she was married, was informed that she had been seen in the company of Slaughterford, but no one could tell what was become of her since, and that he himself pretended he knew nothing of her, but thought she had been at home with Mrs Chapman; which had induced this witness to believe that some mischief had befallen her.

Other witnesses proved that Jane Young was in company with the prisoner on the night that the murder was committed; and one man swore that, at three in the morning, he met a man and woman on a common, about a quarter of a mile from the place where the body was found; that the man wore light-coloured clothes, as it was proved the prisoner had done the preceding day; and that soon after he passed them he heard a shrieking, like the voice of a woman.

It was sworn by a woman, that, after the deceased was missing, she asked Slaughterford what was become of his lady: to which he replied, "I have put her off; do you know of any girl that has any money? I have got the way of putting them off now."

It was deposed by another woman, that, before the discovery of the murder, she said to Mr Slaughterford, "What if Jane Young should lay such a child to you as mine is here?" at which he sighed, and said, "It is now impossible;" and cried till the tears ran down his cheeks.

In contradiction to this, the aunt of Mr Slaughterford and a young lad who lived in the house deposed that the prisoner lay at home on the night that the murder was committed.

Slaughterford, from the time of conviction to the very hour of his death, solemnly declared his innocence; and, though visited by several divines, who urged him, by all possible arguments, to confess the fact, yet he still persisted that he was not guilty. He was respited from the Wednesday till Saturday, in which interim he desired to see Mr Woodroof, a minister of Guildford: from which it was thought he would make a confession; but what he said to him tended only to confirm his former declarations.

As soon as the executioner had tied him up, he threw himself off, having previously delivered to the sheriff a paper, containing the following solemn declaration:

GUILDFORD, JULY 9, 1709

Being brought here to die, according to the sentence passed upon me at the Queen's-Bench bar, for a crime of which I am wholly innocent, I thought myself obliged to let the world know, that they may not reflect on my friends and relations, whom I have left behind me much troubled for my fatal end, that I know nothing of the death of Jane Young, nor how she came by her death, directly or indirectly, though some have been pleased to cast reflections on my aunt. However, I freely forgive all my enemies, and pray to God to give them a due sense of their errors, and in his due time to bring the truth to light. In the mean time, I beg every one to forbear reflecting on my dear mother, or any of my relations, for my unjust and unhappy fall, since what I have here set down is truth, and nothing but the truth, as I expect salvation at the hands of Almighty God; but I am heartily sorry that I should be the cause of persuading her to leave her dame, which is all that troubles me. As witness my hand this 9th day of July.

We have already observed, that the case of Slaughterford is very extraordinary. We see that he surrendered himself to the justices when he might have ran away; and common sense tells us that a murderer would endeavour to make his escape; and we find him a second time surrendering himself, as if anxious to wipe away the stain on his character. We find him tried by a jury of his countrymen, and acquitted; then again tried, on an appeal, by another jury of his neighbours, found guilty, condemned, and executed. Here it should be observed, that after conviction on an appeal, which rarely happens, the king has no power to pardon; probably, had Slaughterford been found guilty by the first jury, as his case was dubious, he would have received royal mercy. Some of the depositions against him seem very striking; yet the testimony in his favour is equally clear. There appears nothing in the former part of his life to impeach his character; there is no proof of any animosity between him and the party murdered; and there is an apparent contradiction in part of the evidence against him. He is represented by one female witness as sneering at and highly gratified with the murder; while another proves him extremely affected and shedding tears on the loss of Jane Young. The charitable reader must, therefore, be inclined to think this man was innocent, and that he fell a sacrifice to the prejudices, laudable, perhaps, of his incensed neighbours. He was visited, while under sentence of death, by a number of divines; yet he died with the most sacred averment of his innocence.

Continued in Volume 3

Table of Contents

- 1684
- 1685
- 1686
- 1687
- 1688
- 1689
- 1690
- 1691
- 1692
- 1693
- 1694
- 1696
- 1697
- 1699
- 1700
- 1701
- 1702
- 1703
- 1704
- 1705
- 1706
- 1707
- 1708
- 1709