Transcriber’s Note: This ebook contains both volumes.
MEMOIRS OF JAMES HARDY VAUX. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME I.
MEMOIRS
OF
JAMES HARDY VAUX.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
_PRINTED BY W. CLOWES, NORTHUMBERLAND-COURT, STRAND._
AND SOLD BY
ALL RESPECTABLE BOOKSELLERS.
1819.
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
ADVERTISEMENT, _page_ vii.
PREFACE, _page_ xi.
DEDICATION, _page_ xv.
CHAPTER I.
Some account of my family—My birth, and subsequent adventures,
until I attain my ninth year, _page_ 1.
CHAP. II.
I am taken from school, and return to my Grandparents—Remove
to Cambridgeshire—From thence again to London, and a second
time to S⸺shire—Different plans proposed for my settlement in
life—Friendship of the Moultrie family—I am sent to Liverpool
on liking, _page_ 9.
CHAP. III.
My employment in my new situation—Seduced by an apprentice
in the house to neglect my business, and keep irregular
hours—Become a frequenter of the Cockpit—Repeated losses at
this place induce me to recruit my finances by embezzling my
employer’s money—Remonstrances on my misconduct producing no
effect, am seriously admonished, and sent back to my friends,
_page_ 16.
CHAP. IV.
I prevail on my grandfather to let me visit London—Am provided
with letters of recommendation—Received into the office of a
respectable attorney, my kinsman—Quit that employment, and
engage with a wholesale stationer—Obtain clothes, _&c._, on
credit, without any intention of paying for them—Bilk my
lodgings repeatedly—Return to the law—Obliged to live by my
wits—Become a hackney waiter—Resort nightly to the Blue-Lion,
_page_ 24.
CHAP. V.
The trip to Portsmouth, _page_ 32.
CHAP. VI.
Still much embarrassed to support appearances—Meet
with a surgeon of a frigate—Our conversation and its
result—Negotiation set on foot with the captain—I obtain
an appointment as midshipman—Fitted out by my friends in
the most liberal manner—Join my ship—Delighted with my new
situation—Account of my messmates, and other matters, _page_ 53.
CHAP. VII.
My rapid progress in navigation—Become a good sailor in
theory—The approach of a severe winter somewhat damps
my pleasure—Begin to repent my bargain—Duty excessively
fatiguing, and situation uncomfortable—Advised to alter my
course—Appointed captain’s clerk, and find myself at home
to a peg—The frigate ordered up the river Thames—I visit
London—Become enamoured of a fair Cyprian—Desert my ship on her
account, _page_ 63.
CHAP. VIII.
Consequences of my imprudent secession—Reduced to
great distress—Become a billiard player—Associate with
sharpers—Engage with a country attorney—Take leave of London
once more, _page_ 74.
CHAP. IX.
Account of my situation at Bury St. Edmunds—Obstinately
determine to relinquish it, and return to London—Defraud
several tradesmen—Quit the town, and arrive in the
metropolis—Obtain a quantity of wearing apparel under false
pretences, _page_ 91.
CHAP. X.
Live gaily for a few weeks on the spoils of my late
excursion—Again obliged to seek employment—Engage with
a conveyancer in the Temple—Apprehended by my late
master—Compromise the affair, through the friendship of a
relation, _page_ 103.
CHAP. XI.
Obtain an employment as clerk and shopman—Rob my employers, and
embezzle several sums of money—Quit this service, and am soon
after taken in custody, and committed to the Bastile, _page_
112.
CHAP. XII.
Fully committed for trial—Acquitted for want of evidence—Fatal
consequences of consigning a young person to a gaol—Meet with a
fellow-prisoner, who introduces me to the company of professed
thieves—Live by fraud and robbery—Trip to Staines—Am at length
apprehended for what I am innocent of, _page_ 128.
CHAP. XIII.
Examined before the Lord Mayor—Fully committed—Tried and
cast—My father’s faith and assurances—My disappointment on
being transported for seven years—Contract the gaol distemper,
and am reduced to the point of death—Recover my health, and am
sent on board a transport for Botany Bay, _page_ 155.
CHAP. XIV.
Sail from England—Account of our voyage—Arrive at Port
Jackson—Write in my own behalf to Commissary Palmer—That
gentleman is pleased to notice my application—Land at Sydney,
and am carried before Governor King—A curious dialogue
between His Excellency and myself—Ordered to Hawkesbury, as
Store-keeper’s Clerk, _page_ 168.
CHAP. XV.
My conduct at Hawkesbury—Continue for three years to give
satisfaction to my principal—Ordered by Governor King into the
Secretary’s Office—Give way to the temptations with which I am
surrounded, and begin to lead a dissipated life, in company
with some other clerks.—Concert a system of fraud upon the
King’s stores, which we practise successfully for some time—The
imposition is at length detected—I am in consequence dismissed
the office, and sent to hard labour for the first time in my
life, _page_ 176.
CHAP. XVI.
Draughted to Castle-hill—Variously employed there—Appointed
clerk to the Settlement—Again noticed by the Governor—Summoned
to Parramatta by the Rev. Mr. Marsden—Appointed Magistrate’s
Clerk, and begin once more to lead an easy life—Preparations
for the Governor’s departure—Mr. Marsden gives me hopes of
accompanying himself and the Governor to England in His
Majesty’s Ship Buffalo—My pleasing sensations at the prospect
of revisiting my native land, _page_ 186.
CHAP. XVII.
The Buffalo being ready for sea, I receive an intimation from
Mr. Marsden, that the late Governor obtained a remission of my
unexpired time, and consents to take me home as his clerk—I
wait on his Excellency accordingly, and receive orders to go on
board—We set sail, _page_ 194.
CHAP. XVIII.
Receive a free pardon from the hands of Captain (late Governor)
King—Account of our passage home—Suffer a great deal from
the want of provisions—Leaky state of the ship—Double Cape
Horn—Fall in with an English frigate, bound to the river
Plate—Arrive at Rio de Janeiro, _page_ 199.
CHAP. XIX.
Account of my adventures at San Sebastian—Form acquaintance
with a Portuguese family—Their affection for me—Overtures made
to induce my stay in South America—The ship being repaired and
victualled, we re-imbark and sail for Europe, _page_ 209.
CHAP. XX.
The ship becomes as leaky as before—All hands in turn at the
pumps—Means adopted to reduce the leaks—I offend the late
Governor, who orders me before the mast—Fall in with the Thisbe
a second time in company with several transports—Unhappy fate
of one of them—Arrive at Spithead, _page_ 225.
CHAP. XXI.
Captain King leaves the ship, which proceeds to Portsmouth
harbour—My melancholy reflections on my confinement to the
service—Preparations for paying off the Buffalo—Employed by
the Purser in arranging the ships’ books—Write to London, and
receive an answer from my mother—Obtain leave to go ashore very
unexpectedly, and effect my escape through the friendly aid of
a total stranger, _page_ 237.
ADVERTISEMENT.
It has been thought that the Public would benefit in more ways than one,
by the publication of a work, in which the philosopher may read the
workings of an unprincipled conscience, the legislator be let into the
operations of the laws upon the criminal’s mind, and the citizen derive
a key to the frauds by which he is so easily and constantly beset; and
it is not often that thieves are possessed of sufficient truth, memory,
vanity, and literature, to tell the story of their own lives. It will be
seen that Mr. Vaux, together with an excellent memory, possesses a good
share of vanity, and sufficient literature. In the following pages, the
former (I think) often magnifies the latter, particularly in the account
of the author’s readership at the printing-office; but it is only justice
to him to say, that I have found occasion to make very few alterations
in his manuscript, which came to my hands ready prefaced and dedicated,
and chaptered, as if ripe for his old master’s printing-office—that
it was exceedingly well and fairly transcribed; and, (with one or two
exceptions) correctly spelled and punctuated.
When Mr. Vaux’s predilection for low company comes to be observed, the
reader will justly doubt the great liberality of education and taste for
reading, upon which he so often vaunts himself. The quotations in his
narrative are all common-place; and I have struck out a few as profaned
by misapplication.
As for the truth of the following tale—nobody can vouch for it. I am
afraid it is occasionally sacrificed at the shrine of Vanity, who seems
to be the author’s patron-saint. He is fonder of confessing himself
guilty of frauds, from the punishment of which he escaped, than of those
in which he was found out; detection (he thinks) impeaches his cunning;
and though he recounts with exultation the theft for which he is now
transported for life, that is, because he knows it was committed under
protection of, perhaps, the most consummate address and assurance ever
exhibited by man—it amounted to the sublime of impudence—and, after all,
he was only betrayed into the hands of justice, who, if she had a hundred
eyes, would not (it should seem) have enough to detect the dissimulations
of James Hardy Vaux. The reader will observe, that he denies his guilt of
the crime for which he was before transported, because it was a common,
clumsy partnership picking a handkerchief out of the pocket; and so, too,
he denies any confederacy with the Judge Advocate’s servant, in robbing
his master’s writing-desk, for which offence he was further transported
to Newcastle, in this territory, whither he now again is sent for life,
for an attempt to escape from the country altogether. The reader must,
therefore, believe as much or as little as he pleases of the following
story. Of him who confesses himself a liar, the voice must necessarily
be listened to with distrust.
“Look to him well; have a quick eye to see;
He has deceiv’d another, and may thee.”
By the laws of all nations, he who is once detected in perjury, is not
allowed to bear further witness—the testimony of a king’s evidence must
be corroborated—and the confession of a felon is never allowed to prove
any thing against another person.
With this _caveat lector_, I dismiss this entertaining and instructive
narrative; for so I will call it, thinking it as full of cunning and
adventure as “The Life of Guzman de Alfarache—the Spanish Rogue,” if not
so profoundly moralized. The religion, indeed, (if it can be so called)
of Mr. Vaux is, like that of most convicts, a low sort of fatalism, which
may be called _a fatalism after the fact_. The followers of this sect
do not connect predestination with “foreknowledge absolute,” but merely
comfort themselves with the truism, that when their _misfortunes_ have
happened, nothing can prevent them from having happened. Of “free will,”
they first suffer the time for the exercise to go by, and then complain
of the impotency,—abandoning themselves with an insensibility, which they
mistake for resignation, to what they call the predestined and inevitable
decrees of “fixed fate[1].” Some of this false complaining has been
expunged from the following work; but enough (I am afraid) is left to
shew the delusion.
It remains only to be added, that the pecuniary profits of this
publication will be applied to the relief of the author, in his perpetual
banishment.
B. F—D.
_Sydney, New South Wales, 18th May, 1817._
PREFACE.
Before I commence this narrative of a life marked with more than common
vicissitudes, I beg to bespeak the reader’s attention to a few cursory
remarks. I must first premise that I have undertaken the task, in
obedience to the commands of a gentleman, who is pleased to anticipate
a sufficient fund of entertainment in the perusal, to compensate for
the honour he confers in noticing an outcast of Fortune like myself;
who, partly from my own vicious conduct, and partly (perhaps,) from
the malignity of my fate, have forfeited all hope of attaining that
respectable rank in society, to which, in the happy days of youthful
innocence, I had every reason to look forward with confidence.
But now, alas! although I have too late seen my errors, and my intentions
are strictly virtuous, I have nothing to expect, but to continue
through the remainder of this transitory life, such as I am at the
present moment,—an unhappy exile, for ever banished from my country and
relations, and rendered incapable of making the smallest reparation
to the community I have injured, by the exercise of those talents
which nature has bestowed, and the best of friends have so liberally
cultivated. Nor do I fear being accused of vanity, in asserting, that
they are above mediocrity, since it is not to myself I am indebted for
them; and the greater infamy attaches to me for their perversion,—for
where much is given much is required.
To return to the remark I set out with: these sheets not being intended
at first for the press, or to meet the public eye, I have not laboured
their composition. Indeed, the work being executed in haste, and under
many local disadvantages, I have had little time for study, and can only
boast of a scrupulous attention to truth, to which I have been enjoined
by my employer.
Where my conduct has been such as I now blush at, I have “nothing
extenuated;” nor have I, on the other hand, used the smallest
embellishments to advance myself in the good opinion of my readers. With
me, in all human probability, the die is cast; and as the prejudices of
those persons, who alone can extricate me from misery, are not likely to
be removed by any professions of amendment I can make, my only hopes of
happiness are centred in a better world, where we are instructed that
there is much joy over one single repentant sinner.
JAMES HARDY VAUX.
_Newcastle, New South Wales, 17th September, 1815._
DEDICATION.
_To THOMAS THOMPSON, Esq., (Captain in His Majesty’s 46th regiment),
Commandant of Newcastle, in the Colony of New South Wales, and one of His
Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for that Territory._
SIR,
Having, in obedience to your commands, completed the following narrative
of my adventures I should deem myself wanting in gratitude, were I to
omit offering, at the same time that I respectfully submit my production
to your perusal, the humble tribute of my thanks, for the many favours I
have received at your hands; for the indulgent treatment I have generally
experienced; and more particularly for the distinguished honour you have
conferred on so unworthy an object as myself, in condescending to feel an
interest in the occurrences of my former life, and in permitting me to
inscribe to you, the following Memoirs of it.
I beg to assure you, Sir, that, however Fate or Fortune may hereafter
dispose of me, the remembrance of your goodness will never be effaced
from my mind; and that in the event of my past sufferings inducing you
to use your bountiful influence in my behalf, and to procure me once more
the probable means of attaining a respectable rank in society, my future
conduct shall be such, as to prove that you have not erred in believing
me radically reformed, and deserving the honour of your patronage.
In the sincere hope that these sheets will contribute to your
entertainment, and that of such friends as you may be pleased to
communicate them to,
I have the honour to subscribe myself,
with the most dutiful respect,
SIR,
your obliged and grateful
humble servant,
JAMES H. VAUX.
_Newcastle, 30th March 1816._
MEMOIRS
OF
JAMES HARDY VAUX.
CHAPTER I.
_Some Account of my Family.—My Birth and subsequent Adventures
until I attained my ninth Year._
It may be expected that, like other biographers, I should give some
account of my ancestors. This I can but imperfectly do; for the
volatility of my disposition, and the early age at which I left my
friends, prevented me from ever making pointed inquiries on the
subject. Family pride I have ever considered as the most ridiculous
of all human weaknesses. However, as I am writing facts, be it known,
that my progenitors, by the mother’s side, were of no mean rank; my
great-great-grandmother, Dorothy, the daughter of Sir Thomas Hartopp,
Bart. of Ragby, or Ragley Castle, in ⸺shire, was united, after a long
and romantic courtship, to a gentleman named Yonge, and from this union
sprang a very respectable family, the Yonges of ⸺shire, who are still
of some consequence in that county. This scrap of genealogy I should
probably have been unacquainted with, but for the circumstance of two
original love-letters, interchanged between the parties above-mentioned,
during the period of their courtship, and still preserved in the family
as antiques. These epistles are written in the most pathetic strain,
and, allowing for the age in which they were composed, abound in elegant
diction. My grandmother, Dorothy Yonge, married Mr. Lowe, a respectable
attorney of the court of King’s-Bench, who for many years filled the
office of clerk to the warden of the Fleet, and had, besides, a very
extensive private practice. The only issue of this marriage was my
mother, who was brought up with the most affectionate tenderness, and
well educated. By what means she became acquainted with my father, who
was from a very distant county, I never learnt; but she was united to him
in the year 1781, and, as I have reason to think, against the advice and
will of her parents, my father being of a family much less respectable,
and, at the time of his marriage, in no higher situation than that of
butler and house-steward to Mr. Sumner, a member of parliament, whose
estate was situated near Guildford, in Surrey; where my mother, it
appears, went to reside after her union, of which I was the first fruits,
being born at the village of East Clandon, on the 20th of May, 1782. My
father shortly afterwards quitted the family of Mr. Sumner, and obtained
a similar post in the service of Sir Richard Hill, Bart., with whom he
continued several years.
In the year 1785, my grandfather, being advanced in life and naturally
fond of domestic retirement, quitted the profession to which, by his
integrity and honour, he had long been an ornament; and prevailing on
my parents to commit me to his care, removed with my grandmother to S⸺
in S⸺shire, I being then about three years of age. In this neat little
town, surrounded by the relatives of my grandmother, and many friends
of his own, my grandfather having served his clerkship in the county,
this worthy and truly virtuous couple enjoyed, for several years,
uninterrupted happiness, their only care being centred in the education
and indulgence of their grandson, of whom they every day became more
extravagantly fond.
As my years increased, I was transferred from the preparatory school, at
which I had been first placed, to a respectable seminary in the town,
one of the best the county afforded, where I received the rudiments of a
general education, and my capacity for learning endeared me still more
to my indulgent friends. The imprudence of my mother’s conduct had much
lessened her in the affectionate esteem of her parents; nor did her
subsequent behaviour, I believe, tend to restore her or recommend my
father to their good opinion; so that their correspondence grew every
year less frequent, and at length settled in a formal coldness on both
sides. What may appear more unnatural, though not uncommon, is, that in
proportion as the kindness and liberality of my grandparents towards me
increased, the affection of my father and mother diminished; and, as
they had several children afterwards, I soon became an object, if not of
aversion, at least of indifference. Of these children, two brothers and
a sister died in their infancy, and two sisters younger than myself are
still living.
Nothing worth record occurred during my continuance in S⸺shire. I passed
my hours of relaxation, like other children, in harmless sports, but
attended with avidity to my lessons when at school; and indeed as soon
as I was capable of understanding, my chief delight was in reading books
of an entertaining nature, from all of which I derived more or less
instruction. I even preferred this rational amusement to the childish
games of my young companions, from which my good friends prognosticated
that I should become a great man. I must confess that I was already a
spoiled child; but I did not abuse the indulgence I met with, by any
irregular or vicious conduct, nor did I betray any symptoms of latent
depravity, or indicate any wicked propensities. I hope my readers will
believe this assertion when I relate by what gradations I fell from the
path of rectitude, and when I account for the causes which actuated me to
pursue a course of dishonesty. My principal delight, when very young, was
to frequent the only bookseller’s shop our little town afforded, where I
would stand for hours reading, or rather devouring, whatever books, or,
as my dear grandfather termed it, mental food, I could lay hold of. There
was also an old woman who had a circulating library, consisting of about
a hundred volumes, chiefly novels, to whom I disbursed every sixpence
and shilling I received for pocket money. My parents, indeed (for by
this term I shall in future, for brevity’s sake, call my grandfather
and grandmother, as it is from them only I ever experienced parental
affection; they, I say) did not wholly approve of this indiscriminate
passion for reading; fearing, and indeed with reason, as I am now
convinced, that I should meet with matter tending to vitiate a young
mind (which has been justly compared to a sheet of white paper, open to
receive and retain the first impressions), and to inculcate romantic
notions of men and manners. Though I subscribe to the justice of this
idea in general, yet I firmly believe it was owing to this course of
reading that I very early acquired a knowledge of the world, surprising
in one so young; and that when I soon after launched into the ocean of
life, I was on my guard against many of the deceptions of the designing
part of mankind and enabled to avoid or defeat them. My beloved parents,
indeed, suspected not the errors to which I was becoming daily a stronger
proselyte. My grandfather, whom I believe to have been as perfect a
character and as good a Christian as nature ever formed, inculcated
both by precept and example, the love and practice of piety and virtue;
and, above all, an inflexible adherence to honesty. He possessed many
peculiarities of habit as well as principle, several of which I inherit
from him;—would to Heaven I inherited his virtues!
My volatile disposition was early manifested by my want of stability
or steady application to any particular employment or pursuit. Like
Robinson Crusoe, I felt a strong predilection for rambling into foreign
countries, and had a longing desire to go to sea. This arose from
perusing the Voyages of Cooke, Anson, and other circumnavigators; so
enraptured was I with their profession, that before I was twelve years
old I had a pretty just notion of nautical manœuvres, without having
ever seen a ship, and had most sea-terms at my tongue’s end. This rising
inclination was, however, checked for a time by the dissuasions of my
friends, who were alarmed at the bare thought of it, and by the inland
situation of the county we resided in. Among my domestic amusements I
practised drawing, for which I had a good natural genius; but happening
to be furnished with some prints of running horses for imitation,
and being a great admirer of that noble animal, I suddenly turned my
whole attention to this subject, in which I soon became a pretty good
proficient, considering my youth and that I never had any master, and it
appears to have been my _forte_. These prints having always the pedigree
and performances of the animal subjoined, insensibly gave me a passion
for racing, which became my next hobby-horse. I now eagerly perused
the _Racing Calendar_, took in the _Sporting Magazine_, purchased a
_Stud-Book_[2]; and was so indefatigable in my researches, that, before
I was fourteen, I could repeat the pedigree of any celebrated horse, and
could discourse of handicaps, and give-and-take plates, of the _Beacon
Course_, and the _Devil’s Ditch_[3], with the fluency of a veteran
jockey—and I actually stole a march from London to Newmarket in hopes of
obtaining a situation in the racing stables; flattering myself that I
might, like the great Dennis O’Kelly[4], whose life I had read, become
in time a shining character on the turf; but I failed in this attempt
to disgrace my friends, and degrade myself, as my youth and genteel
appearance deterred the persons to whom I applied from listening to my
request.
I shall now resume the thread of my narrative. After six years’
residence at S⸺, my grandfather was prevailed on, by the solicitations
of my father and mother, to return to London, and reside with them. My
father, from whom I probably derived my disposition to instability, had
by this time quitted the service of Sir Richard Hill, and established
himself in the hat and hosiery business in Great Turnstile, Holborn. How
this chimerical project occurred to him, I know not, as he certainly
had been bred to no trade; however, he was sanguine in his hopes of
success. He had taken a good house and shop, and on our arrival in town,
we found the family very comfortably established. I was introduced to my
two surviving sisters, who were pretty, lively girls, and my father and
mother received me with a shew of great affection.
I was now turned of nine years old, and shortly after our arrival, was
placed by my grandfather at a respectable boarding-school at Stockwell,
in Surrey, and my sisters were soon afterwards settled by their father
at one equally genteel at Oakingham, in Berkshire. As I shall not have
occasion to say much more of these girls, I shall now briefly observe
that they received a good female education, learning French and the other
fashionable accomplishments of the age. Their capacities were good; they
were both more than agreeable in their persons, and their dispositions
uncommonly sweet.