man possessing the most consummate hypocrisy, and a disposition of the
very worst description.
John Richardson was a native of New York in America, where, at the age
of fourteen years, he entered on board a vessel commanded by his uncle.
After a single voyage, he took a dislike to the sea, and, loath again to
trust himself upon salt water, he procured an engagement in the service
of a carpenter, by whom he was employed for five years, when an intimacy
having commenced with his master's daughter which was likely to produce
unpleasant consequences, he ran off, and once again selected the sea as
the scene of his future exploits. The vessel on board which he entered
was bound for Jamaica, and there our hero was pressed and put on board a
man-of-war, by which he was carried to England. He subsequently attained
the rank of boatswain on board a vessel trading to the Baltic; but
having, by means of a forged letter, obtained the sum of one hundred
rix-dollars from a merchant of Riga, he decamped to Amsterdam. At that
place he formed an acquaintance with a woman whose husband was a mate on
board an East India vessel, with whom he cohabited during a period of
eight months. His innamorata then informed him that he must retire in
favour of her husband, whose return she daily expected; but he could not
make up his mind to give up his connexion without procuring some
substantial proof of his good fortune, and he did not venture to depart
until he had secured to himself booty of the value of about 250_l._ in
goods and money. Rotterdam was the next point to which he proceeded; but
from thence he almost immediately departed for New England. On his
arrival there, he deposited the wares of which he had possessed himself
in a commodious storehouse, and assuming the character of a merchant, he
began to look out for a wife, with whom he hoped to procure a fortune
sufficient to enable him to live with respectability. As Christmas
approached, he became intimate with his neighbours, and he was induced
to keep the festival with a Mr. Brown, who had a family of three
daughters and four maid-servants. A prolonged visit at the house of his
host enabled him to ingratiate himself so far with the young women as to
procure from them more than ordinary favours; and he did not quit the
agreeable society with which he met, until more than one or two of his
fair friends had reason to regret the intimacy which had subsisted
between them. Not long after this, he addressed himself to a young lady,
the daughter of a magistrate, whose hand he solicited in marriage; and
her father making no objection to the celebration of the nuptials, the
banns were published in the parish church, in accordance with the usual
custom. On the first day no objection was made; but upon the publication
taking place the second time, there appeared no less than seven injured
women, who forbade the ceremony proceeding any further. The time which
had elapsed since the intended bridegroom had obtained the consent of
the young lady and her father to the proposed match, had been quite
sufficient to enable him to work himself into the good graces of the
former; and thinking it now quite time to depart, he packed up what few
moveables he still possessed, and proceeded to New York. His residence
there, however, was soon discovered by his proposed father-in-law; and
overtures having been made by the old gentleman, he consented to return
and marry the girl, whom he had debauched, upon the receipt of 300_l._
The ceremony had no sooner been performed, than his re-appearance at
Boston having been discovered by the friends of the other girls, his
apprehension was secured at their instance, in order that he might be
compelled to give security for the maintenance of the progeny to which
they were about to give birth. His father-in-law at once undertook that
he should be forthcoming when wanted, and upon this assurance he
regained his liberty; but he had hardly obtained the possession of the
promised dower, when he once again bade adieu to his Boston friends, and
returned to New York.
His improvidence speedily reduced him in that city to a condition of the
most abject misery and want, and he was at length compelled to accept
employment in the yard of a quaker shipbuilder. He was treated with the
greatest kindness, by his master, but the attention which he received
appeared to excite only ingratitude in his mind: for he not only found
means to become intimate with his mistress, but he at length absconded,
carrying with him about 70_l._, which he procured by breaking open a
chest in his master's house. He now proceeded to Philadelphia, which
place he conceived would be well calculated for the concealment of his
past iniquities, and a renewal of his schemes upon the unwary. A widow
and her two daughters were the next new victims to his diabolical
lusts. Having become intimate with the mother, he subsequently, in turn,
found means to seduce the daughters. The widow was outrageous at the
discovery of this treble act of duplicity, and insisted that he should
afford the only reparation which remained in his power. A difficulty,
however, arose, for it became obvious that he could not marry them all
three; but at length a satisfactory adjustment took place, an
arrangement being made, by which one of the daughters was married to a
former lover, the other being committed to the tender mercies of our
hero, with a dower of 600_l._ and some plate. Affairs were no sooner
settled in this way, however, than Richardson, already weary of his
wife, absconded to South Carolina, and there he obtained employment on
board a vessel trading between that place and Jamaica. He was soon
engaged in another intrigue with the daughter of his commander, and
having added a third wife to his list, he started upon a new expedition
to Barbadoes. But this voyage proved unfortunate, for the vessel being
wrecked, he lost all that he possessed. Being picked up, he was carried
to St. Kitt's; and from thence he proceeded to Jamaica, to Carthagena,
Vera Cruz, and finally to England. The port at which he arrived was
Chatham, and chance threw him once again into a situation, in which he
was enabled to impose upon the good-nature of strangers. Putting up at
the house of a publican named Ballard, his host became possessed of an
idea that he was no other than a brother of his, who had gone to sea
several years before, but had never returned; and Richardson, taking
advantage of the good-natured credulity which the other exhibited,
declared himself to be his long-lost relation. Great rejoicings took
place upon the supposed discovery being made, and our hero went the
round of his newly-found friends, permitting his good-nature to be
imposed upon by the payment to him of a legacy alleged to have been left
by his deceased parents. But his villanies did not rest there; for,
being introduced to two sisters named Knowlding, he so far ingratiated
himself with one of them, as to obtain possession of the title-deeds of
the small estate which she possessed, which he mortgaged at Gravesend
for 800_l_., and then immediately sailed for Venice with the proceeds.
It was not long before, in that city of splendour, he succeeded in
disposing of his ill-gotten spoil, and then he went to Ancona, where he
became acquainted with Captain Benjamin Hartley, for whose murder he was
eventually executed. Capt. Hartley, it appears, had sailed to that place
with a cargo of pilchards, and having discharged his lading, he was
about to proceed to Turkey upon a new trip. Being in want of a
carpenter, he prevailed upon Richardson to accompany him in that
capacity. On board the vessel, Coyle, the fellow-sufferer with
Richardson, was employed as mate. The vessel proceeded in one course to
Turkey, where having taken in a cargo of corn, she sailed to Leghorn.
She had not advanced many leagues upon her voyage, however, before a
plot for the murder of the captain and the seizure of the vessel was put
into execution. Coyle, it appears, was the instigator of this foul
conspiracy, and having obtained the assistance of Richardson and a man
named Larson, they all three proceeded to the performance of their
horrid project. On the first night of the voyage, they went to the
captain's cabin at about midnight, determined to despatch him as he lay
in his hammock; but Hartley being alarmed at their presence, sprang upon
deck and ran up the shrouds. His pursuers were not far behind him, and
he was rapidly followed by Richardson and Larson; but, driven to
desperation by the dreadful situation in which he was placed, he flung
himself from a fearful height upon the deck. Here Coyle was in waiting
to receive him, and raising a blunderbuss to his shoulder, he attempted
to shoot him. The captain, however, avoided the discharge, and, rushing
to his antagonist, he wrested the blunderbuss from him, and threw it
overboard. By this time the crew had gained intelligence of what was
passing on deck, and, rushing through the hatchway, Capt. Hartley
perceived from their looks that they were too little disposed to assist
him in opposition to the attack which had been made upon him. He at once
gave himself up for lost; and, being stunned by a blow which he received
from Coyle, he was directly hove overboard.
Coyle and Richardson now assumed the respective offices of master and
mate of the vessel; and, after a long consultation, it was determined
that they should bear up for the island of Foviniano, where it was hoped
they would be able to procure supplies. Here, however, their piratical
proceedings were communicated to the authorities of the place by two
boys, who escaped from the vessel during the night; and the crew,
discovering the dangerous position in which they were placed,
immediately set sail in the long-boat for Tunis. On their arrival at
that place, they were carried before the English consul, to whom they
represented themselves to be the crew of a vessel which had been lost
off Sardinia, but having been supplied with money, Coyle, while in a
state of intoxication, spoke so freely of their adventures, that he was
immediately placed under arrest. Richardson, however, escaped to
Tripoli, and from thence to Malta and Sicily; but on his going to
Messina, he was taken into custody on the representations of a friend of
the deceased Capt. Hartley. Having remained in prison during a period of
nine months, he procured his liberation by representing to the king of
Naples that he had been a servant to his father; and he then travelled
to Rome and Civita Vecchia, where he was finally apprehended and sent to
England. Coyle had only just before reached London, and they were
immediately both indicted for the murder of their commander. The
evidence against them consisted of the declarations made by the two
boys, to whom we have already alluded; and having been found guilty,
they received sentence of death. The wretched man Coyle, who was
respectably connected in Devonshire, appeared sensible of the enormity
of the crime of which he had been guilty, and professed the greatest
penitence; while Richardson, on the other hand, exhibited an
extraordinary degree of recklessness. They were hanged at Execution Dock
on the 25th of January, 1738.
GEORGE PRICE.
CONVICTED OF MURDER.
The case of this malefactor gives us an opportunity of bringing under
the notice of the reader the occurrence of a calamity which has always
attracted considerable attention,--namely, the breaking out of the jail
fever.
The offence of the prisoner was that of the murder of his wife, a crime
which he perpetrated on Hounslow Heath, in a gig, within view of the
gibbets which formerly stood there, by strangling her with the thong of
his whip. He was apprehended upon suspicion of the crime, and was found
guilty, and sentenced to death, but before the law could be executed
upon him he died in Newgate, of the jail fever, on the 22d October,
1738. The following account of this malignant fever, shows the peculiar
circumstances under which it first exhibited itself. It appears that it
was always attended with a degree of malignity, in proportion to the
closeness and stench of the place.
The assize held at Oxford in the year 1577, called the "Black Assize,"
was a dreadful instance of the deadly effects of the jail fever. The
judges, jury, witnesses, and in fact nearly every person except the
prisoners, women, and children, in court, were killed by a foul air,
which at first was thought to have arisen out of the bowels of the
earth; but that great philosopher, Lord Bacon, proved it to have come
from the prisoners, taken out of a noisome jail, and brought into court
to take their trials; and they alone, being subject to the inhaling foul
air, were not injured by it.
"Baker's Chronicle," a work of the highest authenticity, thus speaks of
the Black Assize:--"The Court were surprised with a pestilent savour,
whether arising from the noisome smell of the prisoners, or from the
damp of the ground, is uncertain; but all that were present within forty
hours died, except the prisoners, and the women and children; and the
contagion went no farther. There died Robert Bell, Lord Chief Baron,
Robert de Olie, Sir William Babington, the high sheriff of Oxfordshire,
some of the most eminent lawyers, the jurors, and three hundred others,
more or less."
Some attributed the cause of the sudden mortality at Oxford to
witchcraft, the people in those times being very superstitious. In
"Webster's Display of Witchcraft," a work of some authenticity as to the
relation of circumstances as they occurred, we find the following
account of the Black Assize, which we insert as a matter of curiosity:--
"The 4th and 5th days of July, 1559, were holden the assizes at Oxford,
where was arraigned and condemned one Rowland Jenkes, for his seditious
tongue, at which time there arose such a damp, that almost all were
smothered. Very few escaped that were not taken at that instant. The
jurors died presently; shortly after died Sir Robert Bell, Lord Chief
Baron, Sir Robert De Olie, Sir Wm. Babington, Mr. Weneman, Mr. De Olie,
high sheriff, Mr. Davers, Mr. Harcourt, Mr. Kirle, Mr. Pheteplace, Mr.
Greenwood, Mr. Foster, Sergeant Baram, Mr. Stevens, &c. There died in
Oxford three hundred persons; and sickened there, but died in other
places, two hundred and odd, from the 6th of July to the 12th of August,
after which day died not one of that sickness, for one of them infected
not another, nor any one woman or child died thereof. This is the
punctual relation according to our English annals, which relate nothing
of what should be the cause of the arising of such a damp just at the
conjuncture of time when Jenkes was condemned, there being none before,
and so it could not be a prison infection; for that would have
manifested itself by smell, or operating sooner. But to take away all
scruple, and to assign the true cause, it was thus: It fortuned that a
manuscript fell into my hands, collected by an ancient gentleman of
York, who was a great observer and gatherer of strange things and facts,
who lived about the time of this accident happening at Oxford, wherein
it is related thus:--
"That Rowland Jenkes, being imprisoned for treasonable words spoken
against the queen, and being a popish recusant, had, notwithstanding,
during the time of his restraint, liberty some time to walk abroad with
the keeper; and that one day he came to an apothecary, and showed him a
receipt which he desired him to make up; but the apothecary, upon
viewing of it, told him that it was a strong and dangerous receipt, and
required some time to prepare it; also asking to what use he would apply
it. He answered, 'To kill the rats, that since his imprisonment spoiled
his books;' so being satisfied, he promised to make it ready. After a
certain time he cometh to know if it were ready, but the apothecary said
the ingredients were so hard to procure that he had not done it, and so
gave him the receipt again, of which he had taken a copy, which mine
author had there precisely written down, but did seem so horribly
poisonous, that I cut it forth, lest it might fall into the hands of
wicked persons. But after, it seems, he had it prepared, and against the
day of his trial had made a wick of it, (for so is the word,--that is,
so fitted it that like a candle, it might be fired,) which as soon as
ever he was condemned he lighted, having provided himself with a
tinder-box and steel to strike fire. And whosoever should know the
ingredients of that wick or candle, and the manner of the composition,
will easily be persuaded of the virulency and venomous effect of it."
In the year 1730, the Lord Chief Baron Pengelly, with several of his
officers and servants; Sir James Sheppard, sergeant-at-law; and John
Pigot, Esq., high sheriff for Somersetshire, died at Blandford, on the
Western Circuit of the Lent assize, from the infected stench brought
with the prisoners from Ilchester jail to their trials at Taunton, in
which town the infection afterwards spread, and carried off some hundred
persons.
In 1754 and 1755 this distemper prevailed in Newgate to a degree which
carried off more than one-fifth of the prisoners.
RICHARD TURPIN.
EXECUTED FOR HORSE-STEALING.
The character which this notorious offender is generally supposed to
have possessed for remarkable gallantry and courage, and which in one
instance has been deemed of sufficient importance to fit him for one of
the heroes of a romance[7], upon being examined, appears to sink him to
the low degree of a petty pilferer, of a heartless plunderer, and even
of a brutal murderer.
Turpin was the son of a farmer named John Turpin, at Thackstead, in
Essex; and having received a common school education, was apprenticed to
a butcher in Whitechapel, in whose service he at an early age
distinguished himself for the brutality of his disposition. On the
expiration of his apprenticeship, he was married to a young woman named
Palmer, who resided at East Ham in Essex, and set up in business for
himself; but he had not been thus occupied long, before he sought to
decrease his expenditure in trade by stealing his neighbours' cattle,
and cutting them up and selling them in his shop. His proceedings,
however, received an unexpected check; for having stolen two oxen from
a Mr. Giles at Plaistow, he drove them straight home; but two of Giles'
servants having obtained sufficient evidence of the robbery, a warrant
was obtained for his apprehension, and he only evaded the officers who
were in search of him, by making his escape from the back window of his
house at the very moment when they were entering at the door.
Having retreated to a place of security, he found means to inform his
wife where he was concealed, and she furnished him with money, with
which he travelled into the hundreds of Essex, where he joined a gang of
smugglers, with whom he was for some time successful. A body of the
Custom-house officers, however, by one fortunate stroke, deprived him of
all his ill-acquired gains. Thrown out of this kind of business, he
connected himself with a gang of deer-stealers, the principal part of
whose depredations were committed on Epping Forest, and the parks in its
neighbourhood: but their efforts not succeeding to the expectation of
the robbers, they determined to commence housebreakers. Their plan was
to fix on those houses which they presumed contained any valuable
property; and while one of them knocked at the door, the others rushed
in, and seized whatever they might deem worthy of their notice.
The first attack of this kind was at the house of Mr. Strype, an old man
who kept a chandler's shop at Watford, whom they robbed of all the money
in his possession, but did not offer him any personal violence.
The well-known story of placing the old woman on the fire at Loughton is
thus related by the original historian of the life of our hero:--
"Turpin now acquainted his associates that there was an old woman at
Loughton who was in possession of seven or eight hundred pounds,
whereupon they agreed to rob her; and when they came to the door, one of
them knocked, and the rest forcing their way into the house, tied
handkerchiefs over the eyes of the old woman and her maid.
"This being done, Turpin demanded what money was in the house; and the
owner hesitating to tell him, he threatened to set her on the fire if
she did not make an immediate discovery. Still, however, she refused to
give the desired information: on which the villains actually placed her
on the fire, where she sat till the tormenting pains compelled her to
discover her hidden treasure; so that the robbers possessed themselves
of above four hundred pounds, and decamped with the booty."
The gang appear to have proceeded with some success, for soon afterwards
they robbed the house of a farmer at Barking of above 700_l_. in a most
daring manner, and then they determined to attack the house of Mr.
Mason, the keeper of Epping Forest. Turpin, it appears, was absent from
this expedition, for he was unable to remain with so much money in his
pocket as he possessed, and he therefore started to London to spend it
in riot and intoxication. His companions, however, were true to their
faith, and having obtained a considerable booty, they sought him in town
and shared the produce of the robbery with him.
On the 11th of January, 1735, Turpin and five of his companions went to
the house of Mr. Saunders, a rich farmer at Charlton, in Kent, between
seven and eight in the evening, and, having knocked at the door, asked
if Mr. Saunders was at home. Being answered in the affirmative, they
rushed into the house, and found Mr. Saunders, with his wife and
friends, playing at cards in the parlour. They told the company that
they should remain uninjured if they made no disturbance, and having
made prize of a silver snuff-box which lay on the table, part of the
gang stood guard over the company, while the others attended Mr.
Saunders through the house, and, breaking open his escrutoires and
closets, stole above a hundred pounds, exclusive of plate. During these
transactions the servant-maid ran up stairs, barred the door of her
room, and called out "Thieves!" with a view of alarming the
neighbourhood; but the robbers broke open the door, secured her, and
then robbed the house of all the valuable property they had not before
taken. Finding some mince-pies and some bottles of wine, they sat down
to regale themselves; and meeting with a bottle of brandy, they
compelled each of the company to drink a glass of it. Mrs. Saunders
fainted through terror, but the gallantry of the thieves would not
permit her to remain in this condition, and they therefore administered
some drops in water to her, and recovered her to the use of her senses.
Having staid in the house a considerable time, they packed up their
booty and departed, declaring that if any of the family gave the least
alarm within two hours, or advertised the marks of the stolen plate,
they would return and murder them at a future time. Retiring to a
public-house at Woolwich, where they had concerted the robbery, they
crossed the Thames to an empty house in Ratcliffe Highway, and there
deposited the stolen effects till they found a purchaser for them.