NEWGATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Newgate Calendars—Their editors and publishers—All based
on sessions' papers—Demand for this literature fostered
by prevalence of crime—Brief summary of state of crime
in the first half of the 18th century—State of the
metropolis—Street-robberies—Burglaries—Henry Fielding on
the increase of robbers—The Thieves' Company—The Resolution
Club—Defiance in the Law Courts—Causes of the increase of
crime—Drunkenness—The Gin Act—Gaming universal—Faro's
daughters—State Lotteries—Repression of crime limited
by hanging—No police—The "Charlies" or watchmen—Civil
power lethargic—Efforts made by private societies for
reformation of manners—Character of crimes—Murders, duels,
and affrays—Richard Savage, the poet, in Newgate for murder
—Major Oneby commits suicide—Marquis de Paleoti committed
for murder—Colonel Charteris sentenced to death, but pardoned
—Crime in high place—The Earl of Macclesfield, Lord
Chancellor, convicted of venal practices—Embezzlement by
public officials.
Prison calendars obviously reflect the criminal features of the age
in which they appear. Those of Newgate since the beginning of the
eighteenth century are numerous and voluminous enough to form a
literature of their own. To the diligence of lawyers and publishers
we owe a more or less complete collection of the most remarkable
cases as they occurred. These volumes have been published under
various titles. The "Newgate Calendar," compiled by Messrs. Knapp
and Baldwin, attorneys at law, is one of the best known. This work,
according to its title-page, professes to contain "interesting memoirs
of notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the
law of England; with essays on crimes and punishments and the last
exclamations of sufferers." There are many editions of it. The first
was undoubtedly published by Nuttall, Fisher, and Dixon, of Liverpool;
a later edition issued from the Albion Press, Ivy Lane, London, under
the auspices of J. Robins and Co. But another book of similar character
had as its compiler "George Theodore Wilkinson, Esq.," barrister at
law. It was published by Cornish and Co. in 1814, and the work was
continued by "William Jackson, Esq.," another barrister, with Alexander
Hogg, of Paternoster Row, and by Offor and Sons of Tower Hill as
publishers. Early and perfect editions of these works are somewhat
rare and curious, fondly sought out and carefully treasured by the
bibliophile. But all of them were anticipated by the editors of the
"Tyburn Calendar," or "Malefactor's Bloody Register," which appeared
soon after 1700 from the printing-office of G. Swindells, at the
appropriate address of Hanging Bridge, Manchester. The compilers of
these volumes claimed a high mission. They desired "to fully display
the regular progress from Virtue to Vice, interspersed with striking
reflections on the conduct of those unhappy wretches who have fallen
a sacrifice to the injured laws of their country. The whole tending
to guard young minds from allurements of vice and the paths that lead
to destruction." Another early work is the "Chronicle of Tyburn, or
Villainy displayed in all its branches," which gave the authentic lives
of notorious malefactors, and was published at the Shakespeare's Head
in 1720. Yet another, dated 1776, and printed for J. Wenman, of 144
Fleet Street, bears the title of "The Annals of Newgate," and claims,
upon the title-page, that by giving the circumstantial accounts of
the lives, transactions, and trials of the most notorious malefactors
it is "calculated to expose the deformity of vice, the infamy, and
punishments naturally attending those who deviate from the paths of
virtue; and is intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation
against the temptations, the allurements, and the dangers of bad
company."
All Newgate calendars have seemingly a common origin. They are all
based primarily upon the sessions' papers, the official publications
which record the proceedings at the Old Bailey. There is a complete
early series of these sessions' papers in the Library of the British
Museum, and another in the Home Office from the year 1730, including
the December sessions in 1729. The publisher, who is stated on the
title-page to be "T. Payne, at the corner of Ivy Lane, near Paternoster
Row," refers in his preface to an earlier series, dating probably from
the beginning of the century, and a manuscript note in the margin of
the first volume of the second series also speaks of a preceding folio
volume. These sessions' papers did not issue from one publisher. As the
years pass the publication changes hands. Now it is "J. Wilford, behind
the Chapter House, St. Paul's;" now "I. Roberts at the Oxford Arms
in Warwick Lane." Ere long "T. Applebee in Bolt Court, near the Leg
Tavern," turns his attention to this interesting class of periodical
literature. He also published another set of semi-official documents,
several numbers of which are bound up with the sessions' papers already
mentioned, and like them supplying important data for the compilation
of calendars. These were the accounts given by the ordinary of Newgate
of the behaviour, confessions, and dying words of the malefactors
executed at Tyburn, a report rendered by command of the mayor and
Corporation, but a private financial venture of the chaplain's. As
the ordinary had free access to condemned convicts at all times, and
from his peculiar duties generally established the most confidential
relations with them, he was in a position to obtain much curious and
often authentic information from the lips of the doomed offenders.
Hence the ordinary's account contained many criminal autobiographies,
and probably was much patronized by the public. Its sale was a part
of the reverend gentleman's perquisites; and that the chaplains looked
closely after the returns may be gathered from the already mentioned
application made by the Rev. Mr. Lorraine, chaplain in 1804, who
petitioned Parliament to exempt his "execution brochure" from the paper
tax.
[Illustration: _Newgate_
The most notorious prison in England and the most interesting
because intimately connected with the early annals of London.
Chancellor's Gate to the City of London, originally called
Westgate, was rebuilt in the reign of Henry I and named
Newgate. When the county of Middlesex was added to the
territory of London, Newgate was first used as a place of
detention for prisoners from that county.]
In the advertisement sheets of these sessions' papers are notices
of other criminal publications, proving how great was the demand
for this kind of literature. Thus in 1731 is announced "The History
of Executions: being a complete account of the thirteen malefactors
executed at Tyburn for robberies, price 4_d._," and this publication
is continued from year to year. In 1732 "T. Applebee and others"
published at 3_s._ 6_d._ the "Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals,"
a volume containing as a frontispiece the escape of Jack Sheppard from
Newgate. In the description of this book the public is assured that the
volume contains a first and faithful narration of each case, "without
any additions of feigned or romantic adventures, calculated merely
to entertain the curiosity of the reader." Jack Sheppard had many
biographers. Seven accurate and authentic histories were published, all
purporting to give the true story of his surprising adventures, and
bequeathing a valuable legacy to the then unborn historical novelist,
Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Again, Rich, the manager of the Lincoln's
Inn Theatre, brought out "Harlequin Jack Sheppard" in the year
of that desperado's execution, an operatic pantomime founded upon
his exploits. A little before this another dramatic performance, the
"Beggar's Opera," having a criminal for its hero, had taken the town
by storm; and many strongly and with reason condemned the degradation
of national taste which could popularize the loves of "Polly Peachum"
and "Captain Macheath." Besides these books and plays there was a
constant publication of broad sheets and chap-books of a still lower
type, intended to pander to the same unwholesome taste, while a great
novelist like Fielding did not hesitate to draw upon his personal
acquaintance with crime, obtained as a police magistrate, and write the
life of Jonathan Wild.
The demand was no doubt fostered by the extraordinary prevalence
of crime in England. Criminal records would probably be read with
avidity at times when ruffianism was in the ascendant, and offences
of the most heinous description were of daily occurrence. New crimes
cropped up daily. The whole country was a prey to lawlessness and
disorder. Outrages of all kinds, riots, robberies, murders, took place
continually. None of the high-roads or by-roads were safe by night or
day. Horsemen in the open country, footpads in or near towns, harassed
and pillaged wayfarers. Armed parties ranged the rural districts
attacking country-houses in force, driving off cattle and deer, and
striking terror everywhere.
The general turbulence often broke out into open disturbance. The
Riot Act, which was a product of these times, was not passed before
it was needed. Riots were frequent in town and country. The mob was
easily roused, as when it broke open the house of the Provost Marshal
Tooley in Holborn, to whom they owed a grudge for impressing men to
sell as recruits to Flanders. They burned his furniture in the street,
and many persons were killed and wounded in the affray. Now political
parties, inflamed with rancorous spirit, created uproars in the "mug
houses;" now mutinous soldiers violently protested against the coarse
linen of their "Hanover" shirts; again the idle flunkies at a London
theatre rose in revolt against new rules introduced by the management
and produced a serious riot. In the country gangs of ruffians disguised
in female attire, the forerunners of Rebecca and her daughter, ran
amuck against turnpike gates, demolishing all they found. There were
smuggling riots, when armed crowds overpowered the customs officers
and broke into warehouses sealed by the Crown; corn riots at periods
of scarcity, when private granaries were forced and pillaged. A still
worse crime prevailed—that of arson. I find in "Hardwicke's Life,"
reference to a proclamation offering a reward for the detection of
those who sent threatening letters "to diverse persons in the citys of
London, Westminster, Bristol, and Exeter, requiring them to deposit
certain sums of money in particular places, and threatening to set
fire to their houses, and to burn and destroy them and their families
in case of refusal, some of which threats have accordingly been carried
into execution."
Other threats were to murder unless a good sum was at once paid down.
Thus Jepthah Big was tried in 1729 for writing two letters, demanding
in one eighty-five guineas, in the other one hundred guineas from
Nathaniel Newnham, "a fearful old man," and threatening to murder both
himself and wife unless he got the money. Jepthah Big was found guilty
and sentenced to death.
The state of the metropolis was something frightful in the early
decades of the eighteenth century. Such was the reckless daring of
evil-doers that there was but little security for life and property.
Wright, in his "Caricature History of the Georges," says of this
period: "Robbery was carried on to an extraordinary extent in the
streets of London even by daylight. Housebreaking was of frequent
occurrence by night, and every road leading to the metropolis was
beset by bands of reckless highwaymen, who carried their depredations
into the very heart of the town. Respectable women could not venture
in the streets alone after nightfall, even in the city, without
risk of being grossly insulted." In 1720 ladies going to court were
escorted by servants armed with blunderbusses "to shoot at the
rogues." Wright gives a detailed account of five and twenty robberies
perpetrated within three weeks in January and February of the year
above mentioned. A few of the most daring cases may be quoted. Three
highwaymen stopped a gentleman of the prince's household in Poland
Street, and made the watchman throw away his lantern and stand quietly
by while they robbed and ill-used their victim. Other highwaymen the
same night fired at Colonel Montague's carriage as it passed along
Frith Street, Soho, because the coachman refused to stand; and the
Dutchess of Montrose, coming from court in her chair, was stopped
by highwaymen near Bond Street. The mails going out and coming into
London were seized and rifled. Post-boys, stagecoaches, everybody
and everything that travelled, were attacked. A great peer, the Duke
of Chandos, was twice stopped during the period above mentioned, but
he and his servants were too strong for the villains, some of whom
they captured. People were robbed in Chelsea, in Cheapside, in White
Conduit Fields, in Denmark Street, St. Giles. Wade, in his "British
Chronology," under the head of public calamities in 1729, classes
with a sickly season, perpetual storms, and incessant rains, the
dangerous condition of the cities of London and Westminster and their
neighbourhoods, which "proceeded from the number of footpads and
street-robbers, insomuch that there was no stirring out after dark for
fear of mischief. These ruffians knocked people down and wounded them
before they demanded their money." Large rewards were offered for the
apprehension of these offenders. Thief-catchers and informers were
continually active, and the law did not hesitate to strike all upon
whom it could lay its hands. Yet crime still flourished and increased
year after year.
The Englishman's house, and proverbially his castle, was no more secure
then than now from burglarious inroads. Housebreakers abounded, working
in gangs with consummate skill and patience, hand and glove with
servants past and present, associated with receivers, and especially
with the drivers of night coaches. Half the hackney-coachmen about this
time were in league with thieves, being bribed by nocturnal depredators
to wait about when a robbery was imminent, and until it was completed.
Then, seizing the chance of watchmen being off their beat, these useful
accomplices drove at once to the receiver with the "swag."
Towards the middle of the century, Henry Fielding, the great novelist,
and at that time acting magistrate for Westminster, wrote:[251:1] "I
make no doubt but that the streets of this town and the roads leading
to it will shortly be impassable without the utmost hazard; nor are
we threatened with seeing less dangerous groups of rogues amongst us
than those which the Italians call banditti. . . ." Again, "If I am to
be assaulted and pillaged and plundered, if I can neither sleep in
my own house, nor walk the streets, nor travel in safety, is not my
condition almost equally bad whether a licensed or an unlicensed rogue,
a dragoon or a robber, be the person who assaults and plunders me?"
Those who set the law at defiance organized themselves into gangs, and
coöperated in crime. Fielding tells us in the same work that nearly
a hundred rogues were incorporated in one body, "have officers and a
treasury, and have reduced theft and robbery into a regular system."
Among them were men who appeared in all disguises and mixed in all
companies. The members of the society were not only versed in every
art of cheating and thieving, but they were armed to evade the law,
and if a prisoner could not be rescued, a prosecutor could be bribed,
or some "rotten member of the law" forged a defence supported by
false witnesses. This must have been perpetuated, for I find another
reference later to the Thieves or Housebreaker's Company which had
regular books, kept clerks, opened accounts with members, and duly
divided the profits. According to the confession of two of the gang who
were executed on Kensington Common, they declared that their profits
amounted on an average to £500 a year, and that one of them had put by
£2,000 in the stocks, which before his trial he made over to a friend
to preserve it for his family. Another desperate gang, Wade says, were
so audacious that they went to the houses of the peace officers, and
made them beg pardon for endeavouring to do their duty, and promise
not to molest them. They went further, and even attacked and wounded a
"head borough" in St. John's Street in about forty places, so that many
of the threatened officers had to "lie in Bridewell for safety."
In Harris's "Life of Lord Hardwicke" is a letter from the solicitor
to the Treasury to Sir Philip Yorke, referring to "the gang of
ruffians who are so notorious for their robberies, and have lately
murdered Thomas Bull in Southwark, and wounded others. Their numbers
daily increase, and now become so formidable that constables are
intimidated by their threats and desperate behaviour from any endeavour
to apprehend them." One of these ruffians was described in the
proclamation offering rewards for their apprehension as "above six feet
high, black eyebrows, his teeth broke before;" another had a large scar
under his chin.
Still worse was the "Resolution Club," a numerous gang, regularly
organized under stringent rules. It was one of their articles, that
whoever resisted or attempt to fly when stopped should be instantly cut
down and crippled. Any person who prosecuted, or appeared as evidence
against a member of the club, should be marked down for vengeance.
The members took an "infernal oath" to obey the rules, and if taken
and sentenced to "die mute." Another instance of the lawlessness of
the times is to be seen in the desperate attack made by some forty
ruffians on a watch-house in Moorfields, where an accomplice was kept a
prisoner. They were armed with pistols, cutlasses, and other offensive
weapons. The watchman was wounded, the prisoner rescued. After this
the assailants demolished the watch-house, robbed the constables,
"committed several unparalleled outrages, and went off in triumph." The
gang was too numerous to be quickly subdued, but most of the rioters
were eventually apprehended, and it is satisfactory to learn that they
were sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate for three, five, or seven
years, according to the part they had played.
The contempt of the majesty of the law was not limited to the lower
and dangerous classes. A gentleman's maid servant, having resisted the
parish officers who had a distress warrant upon the gentleman's house
for unpaid rates, was committed by the magistrates to Newgate. "The
gentleman," by name William Frankland, on learning what had happened,
armed himself with a brace of pistols, and went to the office where the
justices were then sitting, and asked which of them had dared to commit
his servant to prison. "Mr. Miller," so runs the account, "smilingly
replied, 'I did,' on which the gentleman fired one of his pistols
and shot Mr. Miller in the side, but it is thought did not wound him
mortally. He was instantly secured and committed to Newgate." At the
following Old Bailey Sessions, he was tried under the Black Act, when
he pleaded insanity. This did not avail him, and although the jury
in convicting him strongly recommended him to mercy, he was sentenced
to death. Another case of still more flagrant contempt of court may
fitly be introduced here. At the trial of a woman named Housden for
coining at the Old Bailey in 1712, a man named Johnson, an ex-butcher
and highwayman by profession, came into court and desired to speak to
her. Mr. Spurling, the principal turnkey of Newgate, told him no person
could be permitted to speak to the prisoner, whereupon Johnson drew out
a pistol and shot Mr. Spurling dead upon the spot, the woman Housden
loudly applauding his act. The court did not easily recover from its
consternation, but presently the recorder suspended the trial of the
woman for coining, and as soon as an indictment could be prepared,
Johnson was arraigned for the murder, convicted, and then and there
sentenced to death; the woman Housden being also sentenced at the same
time as an accessory before and after the fact.
Various causes are given for this great prevalence of crime. The long
and impoverishing wars of the early years of the century, which saddled
England with the national debt, no doubt produced much distress, and
drove thousands who could not or would not find honest work into
evil ways. Manners among the highest and the lowest were generally
profligate. Innumerable places of public diversion, ridottos, balls,
masquerades, tea-gardens, and wells, offered crowds a ready means for
self-indulgence. Classes aped the habits of the classes above their
own, and the love of luxurious gratification "reached to the dregs
of the people," says Fielding, "who, not being able by the fruits of
honest labour to support the state which they affect, they disdain
the wages to which their industry would entitle them, and abandoning
themselves to idleness, the more simple and poor-spirited betake
themselves to a state of starving and beggary, while those of more art
and courage became thieves, sharpers, and robbers."
Drunkenness was another terrible vice, even then more rampant and
wildly excessive than in later years. While the aristocracy drank deep
of Burgundy and port, and every roaring blade disdained all heel-taps,
the masses fuddled and besotted themselves with gin. This last-named
pernicious fluid was as cheap as dirt. A gin-shop actually had on its
sign the notice, "Drunk for 1_d._; dead drunk for 2_d._; clean straw
for nothing," which Hogarth introduced into his caricature of Gin Lane.
No pencil could paint, no pen describe the scenes of hideous debauchery
hourly enacted in the dens and purlieus of the town. Legislation was
powerless to restrain the popular craving. The Gin Act, passed in
1736 amidst the execrations of the mob, which sought to vent its rage
upon Sir Joseph Jekyll, the chief promoter of the bill, was generally
evaded. The much-loved poisonous spirit was still retailed under
fictitious names, such as "Sangree," "Tow Row," the "Makeshift," and
"King Theodore of Corsica." It was prescribed as a medicine for colic,
to be taken two or three times a day. Numberless tumults arose out of
the prohibition to retail spirituous liquors, and so openly was the law
defied, that twelve thousand persons were convicted within two years of
having sold them illegally in London. Informers were promptly bought
off or intimidated, magistrates "through fear or corruption" would not
convict, and the act was repealed in the hope that more moderate duty
and stricter enforcement of the law would benefit the revenue and yet
lessen consumption. The first was undoubtedly affected, but hardly the
latter.
Fielding, writing nearly ten years after the repeal of the act, says
that he has reason to believe that "gin is the principal sustenance
(if it may be so called) of more than a hundred thousand people in the
metropolis," and he attributed to it most of the crimes committed by
the wretches with whom he had to deal. "The intoxicating draught itself
disqualifies them from any honest means to acquire it, at the same time
that it removes sense of fear and shame, and emboldens them to commit
every wicked and desperate enterprise."
The passion for gaming, again, "the school in which most highwaymen
of great eminence have been bred," was a fruitful source of immoral
degeneracy. Every one gambled. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1731
there is the following entry: "At night their Majesties played for
the benefit of the groom porter, and the king (George II) and queen
each won several hundreds, and the Duke of Grafton several thousands
of pounds." His Majesty's lieges followed his illustrious example,
and all manner of games of chance with cards or dice, such as hazard,
Pharaoh, basset, roly-poly, were the universal diversion in clubs,
public places, and private gatherings. The law had thundered, but
to no purpose, against "this destructive vice," inflicting fines on
those who indulged in it, declaring securities won at play void, with
other penalties, yet gaming throve and flourished. It was fostered and
encouraged by innumerable hells, which the law in vain strove to put
down. Nightly raids were made upon them. In the same number of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ as that just quoted it is recorded, that "the
High Constable of Holborn searched a notorious gaming-house behind
Gray's Inn Road; but the gamesters were fled, only the keeper was
arrested and bound over for £200." Again, I find in Wade's "Chronology"
that "Justice Fielding, having received information of a rendezvous
of gamesters in the Strand, procured a strong party of the Guards,
who seized forty-five of the tables, which they broke to pieces, and
carried the gamesters before the justice. . . . Under each of the broken
tables were observed two iron rollers and two private springs, which
those who were in the secret could touch and stop the turning whenever
they had flats to deal with." No wonder these establishments throve.
They were systematically organized, and administered by duly appointed
officers.
There was the commissioner, who checked the week's accounts and
pocketed the takings; a director to superintend the room; an operator
to deal the cards, and four to five _croupiers_, who watched the
cards and gathered in the money of the bank. Besides these there were
"puffs," who had money given them to decoy people to play; a clerk and
a _squib_, who were spies upon the straight dealings of the puffs; a
flasher to swear how often the bank was stripped; a dunner to recover
sums lost; a waiter to snuff candles and fill in the wine; and an
attorney or "Newgate solicitor." A flash captain was kept to fight
gentlemen who were peevish about losing their money; at the door was a
porter, "generally a soldier of the foot-guards,"[259:1] who admitted
visitors after satisfying himself that they were of the right sort.
The porter had aides-de-camp and assistants—an "orderly man," who
patrolled the street and gave notice of the approaching constables;
a "runner," who watched for the meetings of the justices and brought
intelligence of the constables being out; and a host of link-boys,
coachmen, chair-men, drawers to assist, with "common-bail affidavit"
men, ruffians, bravos, and assassins for any odd job that might turn up
requiring physical strength.
As the years passed the vice grew in magnitude. Large fortunes were
made by the proprietors of gaming-houses, thanks to the methodized
employment of capital (invested regularly as in any other trading
establishment), the invention of E. O. tables, and the introduction
of the "foreign games of _roulet_ and _rouge et noir_. Little short
of a million must have been amassed in this way," individuals having
acquired from £10,000 to £100,000 apiece.
The number of the gambling establishments daily multiplied. They were
mounted regardless of expense. Open house was kept, and free luxurious
dinners laid for all comers. Merchants and bankers' clerks entrusted
with large sums were especially encouraged to attend. The cost of
entertainment in one house alone was £8,000 for eight months, while the
total expenditure on all as much as £150,000 a year. The gambling-house
keepers, often prize-fighters originally, or partners admitted for
their skill in card-sharping or cogging dice, possessed such ample
funds that they laughed at legal prosecutions. Witnesses were suborned,
officers of justice bribed, informers intimidated. Armed ruffians and
bludgeon men were employed to barricade the houses and resist the
civil power. Private competed with public hells.
Great ladies of fashion, holding their heads high in the social world,
made their drawing-rooms into gambling-places, into which young men
of means were enticed and despoiled. This was called "pidgeoning,"
probably the first use of the expression. The most noted female
gamesters were Lady Buckinghamshire, Lady Archer, Lady Mount Edgecombe,
a trio who had earned for themselves the soubriquet of "Faro's
Daughters." Their conduct came under severe reprehension of Lord
Kenyon, who, in summing up a gambling case, warned them that if they
came before him in connection with gambling transactions, "though they
should be the first ladies of the land," they should certainly exhibit
themselves in the pillory. This well-merited threat was reproduced
in various caricatures of the day, under such heads as, "Ladies of
Elevated Rank;" "Faro's Daughters, Beware!" "Discipline _à la_ Kenyon."
The Government itself was in a measure responsible for the diffusion
of the passion for gambling. The pernicious custom of public lotteries
practically legalized this baneful vice. State lotteries began in
the reign of Elizabeth, and existed down to 1826. They brought in a
considerable revenue, but they did infinite mischief by developing
the rage for speculation, which extended to the whole community. The
rich could purchase whole tickets, or "great goes;" for the more
impecunious the tickets were sub-divided into "little goes." Those
who had no tickets at all could still gamble at the lottery insurance
offices by backing any particular number to win. The demoralization was
widespread. It reached a climax in the South Sea Bubble, when thousands
and thousands were first decoyed, then cruelly deceived and beggared.
But lotteries lingered on till the Government at length awoke to the
degradation of obtaining an income from such a source.
While crime thus stalked rampant through the land, the law was nearly
powerless to grapple and check it. It had practically but one method
of repression—the wholesale removal of convicted offenders to another
world. Prevention as we understand it had not yet been invented. The
metropolis, with its ill-paved, dimly lighted streets, was without
police protection beyond that afforded by a few feeble watchmen, the
sorely tried and often nearly useless "Charlies." The administration
of justice was defective; the justices had not sufficient powers; they
were frequently "as regardless of the law as ignorant of it," or else
were defied by pettifoggers and people with money in their pockets. A
mob of chair-men or servants, or a gang of thieves, were almost too
big for the civil authority to repress; and the civil power generally,
according to Fielding, was in a lethargic state.
The private enterprise of citizens had sought for some time past
to second the efforts of the State, and various societies for the
reformation of manners laboured hard, but scarcely with marked
success, to reduce crime. The first of these societies originated
in the previous century by six private gentlemen, whose hearts were
moved by the dismal and desperate state of the country "to engage in
the difficult and dangerous enterprise;" and it was soon strengthened
by the addition of "persons of eminency in the law, members of
Parliament, justices of the peace, and considerable citizens of London
of known abilities and great integrity." There was a second society
of about fifty persons, tradesmen, and others; and a third society of
constables, who met to consider how they might best discharge their
oaths; a fourth to give information; while other bodies of householders
and officers assisted in the great work. These in one year, 1724, had
prosecuted over twenty-five hundred persons, and in the thirty-three
years preceding nearly ninety thousand; while in the same period they
had given away four hundred thousand good books. However well meant
were these efforts, it is to be feared that they were of little avail
in stemming the torrent of crime which long continued to deluge the
country.
The character of offences perpetrated will best be understood by
passing from the general to the particular, and briefly indicating
the salient points of a certain number of typical cases, all of which
were in some way or other connected with Newgate. Crime was confined
to no one class; while the lowest robbed with brutal violence, members
of the highest stabbed and murdered each other on flimsy pretences,
or found funds for debauchery in systematic and cleverly contrived
frauds. Life was held very cheap in those days. Every one with any
pretensions carried a sword, and appealed to it on the slightest
excuse or provocation. Murderous duels and affrays were of constant
occurrence. So-called affairs of honour could only be washed out in
blood. Sometimes it was a causeless quarrel in a club or coffee-house
ending in a fatal encounter. Richard Savage, the poet, was tried
for his life for a murder of this kind in 1727. In company with two
friends, all three of them being the worse for drink, he forced his way
into a private room in Robinson's coffee-house, near Charing Cross,
occupied by another party carousing. One of Savage's friends kicked
down the table without provocation. "What do you mean by that?" cried
one side. "What do _you_ mean?" cried the other. Swords were drawn, and
a fight ensued. Savage, who found himself in front of one Sinclair,
made several thrusts at his opponent, and ran him through the body.
Lights were put out, and Savage tried to escape, but was captured in a
back court. He and his associates were committed first to the gatehouse
and thence to Newgate. Three weeks later they were arraigned at the
Old Bailey, found guilty of murder, and cast for death. The king's
pardon was, however, obtained for Savage through the intercession of
influential friends, but contrary, it is said, to the expressed wish of
his mother. Savage was tried before Sir Francis Page, commonly known as
"the hanging judge." He afterwards admitted that he had been anxious to
hang Savage. In his old age, when his health was inquired after, he is
reported to have replied, "I keep hanging on, hanging on." Savage was
the illegitimate child of the Countess of Macclesfield, the fruit of a
guilty intrigue with Captain Richard Savage, afterwards Earl Rivers.
Lady Macclesfield was divorced, and subsequently married Earl Rivers;
but she conceived a violent hatred for the child, and only consented
to settle an annuity of £50 upon him when grown to man's estate, under
threat of exposure in the first publication of Savage's poems. Savage,
after his release from Newgate, retired into Wales, but he continued in
very distressed circumstances, and being arrested for debt, lingered
for the remainder of his days in Bristol Gaol.
The case of Major Oneby is still more typical of the times. He was a
military officer who had served in Marlbro's wars, and not without
distinction, although enjoying an evil reputation as a duellist. When
the army lay in winter quarters at Bruges, he had been "out," and had
killed his man; again in Jamaica he had wounded an adversary who
presently died. After the Peace of Utrecht Major Oneby was placed on
half-pay, and to eke out his narrow means he became a professional
gambler, being seldom without cards and dice in his pocket. He was
soon known as a swaggerer and a bully, with whom it was wisest not
to quarrel. One night in 1727, however, he was at play in the Castle
Tavern in Drury Lane, when a Mr. Gower and he fell out about a bet.
Oneby threw a decanter at Gower, and Gower returned the fire with a
glass. Swords were drawn, but at the interposition of others put up
again. Gower was for making peace, but Oneby sullenly swore he would
have the other's blood. When the party broke up he called Gower into
another room and shut the door. A clashing of swords was heard within,
the waiter broke open the door, and the company rushed in to find Oneby
holding up Gower with his left hand, having the sword in his right.
Blood was seen streaming through Gower's waistcoat, and his sword lay
upon the floor. Some one said to Oneby, "You have killed him;" but
the major replied, "No, I might have done it if I would, but I have
only frightened him," adding, that if he had killed him in the heat
of passion the law would have been on his side. But his unfortunate
adversary did actually die of his wound the following day, whereupon
Major Oneby was apprehended and locked up in Newgate. He was tried the
following month at the Old Bailey, but the jury could not decide as to
the exact measure of the major's guilt, except that it was clear he
had given the first provocation, while it was not denied he had killed
the deceased.
A special verdict was agreed to, and the case with its various points
referred to the twelve judges. The prisoner, who had hoped to escape
with a conviction of manslaughter, was remanded to Newgate, and
remained there in the State side without judgment for the space of two
years. Becoming impatient, he prayed the Court of King's Bench that
counsel might be heard in his case, and he was accordingly brought
into court before the Lord Chief Justice Raymond, when his counsel and
those for the Crown were fully heard. The judge reserved his judgment
till he had consulted his eleven brethren; but the major, elated at the
ingenious arguments of his lawyer, fully counted upon speedy release.
On his way back to gaol he entertained his friends at a handsome dinner
given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern.[267:1] He continued to carouse
and live high in Newgate for several months more, little doubting the
result of the judges' conference. They met after considerable delay in
Sergeant's Inn Hall, counsel was heard on both sides, and the pleadings
lasted a whole day. A friend called in the evening, and told him when
he was making merry over a bowl of punch that eleven of the judges had
decided against him. This greatly alarmed him; next day the keeper
of Newgate (Mr. Akerman) came to put irons on him, unless he was
prepared to pay for a special keeper to occupy the same room. Oneby was
indignant, but helpless. He felt the ground slipping from under his
feet, and he was almost prepared for the judgment delivered in open
court that he had been guilty of murder, his threat that he would have
Gower's blood having had great weight in his disfavour.
Oneby spent the days before execution, in 1729, in fruitless efforts
to get relations and friends to use their influence in obtaining
pardon for him. But he was so overbearing that his relations would not
visit him in Newgate, and his friends, if he had any, would not stir a
finger to help him. His last moments seem to have been spent between
laughing at the broad jokes of his personal gaoler, who now never
left him, one John Hooper, afterwards public executioner,[268:1] and
fits of rage against those who had deserted him in his extremity. He
was further exasperated by a letter from an undertaker in Drury Lane,
who, having heard that the major was to die on the following Monday,
promised to perform the funeral "as cheap and in as decent a manner as
any man alive." Another cause of annoyance was the publication of a
broad sheet, entitled "The Weight of Blood, or the Case of Major John
Oneby," the writer of which had visited the prisoner, ostensibly to
offer to suppress the publication, but really as an "interviewer" to
obtain some additional facts for his catchpenny pamphlet. The major
was so indignant that he laid a trap for the author by inviting him to
revisit Newgate, promising himself the pleasure of thrashing him when
he appeared, but the man declined to be caught. On the Saturday night
before execution Oneby, learning that a petition had been presented and
rejected, prepared to die. He slept soundly till four in the morning,
then calling for a glass of brandy and writing materials, he wrote his
will. It was brief, and to the following effect:
"Cousin Turvill, give Mr. Akerman, for the turnkey below stairs, half
a guinea, and Jack Hooper, who waits in my room, five shillings. The
poor devils have had a great deal of trouble with me since I have been
here." After this he begged to be left to sleep; but a friend called
about seven: the major cried feebly to his servant, "Philip, who is
that?" and it was found that he was bleeding to death from a deep gash
in his wrist. He was dead before a surgeon could be called in.
In these disastrous affrays both antagonists were armed. But reckless
roisterers and swaggering bobadils were easily provoked, and they
did not hesitate, in a moment of mad passion, to use their swords
upon defenceless men. Bailiffs and the lesser officers of justice
were especially obnoxious to these high-tempered bloods. I read in
"Luttrell," under date February, 1698, "Captain Dancy of the Guards
killed a bailiff in Exeter Street, and is committed to Newgate."
Again, in 1705, "Captain Carlton, formerly a justice of the peace for
Middlesex, is committed to Newgate for running a marshal's man through
the body who endeavoured to arrest him on the parade by the Horse
Guards in St. James's Park, of which wound it is thought the man will
die." I can find no mention of the fate which overtook these murderers;
but the "Calendars" contain a detailed account of another murder of
much the same kind; that perpetrated by the Marquis de Paleoti upon
his servant, John Niccolo, otherwise John the Italian, in 1718. The
marquis had come to England to visit his sister, who had married the
Duke of Shrewsbury in Rome, and had launched out into a career of wild
extravagance. The duchess had paid his debts several times, but at
length declined to assist him further. He was arrested and imprisoned,
but his sister privately procured his discharge. After his enlargement,
being without funds, the marquis sent Niccolo to borrow what he could.
But "the servant, having met with frequent denials, declined going,
at which the marquis drew his sword and killed him on the spot." The
marquis seems to have hoped to have found sanctuary at the Bishop of
Salisbury's, to whose house he repaired as soon as Niccolo's body was
found. But he was arrested there after having behaved so rudely, that
his sword, all bloody with gore, had to be taken from him, and he was
conveyed to Newgate. His defence was weak, his guilt clear, and much to
his surprise, he was sentenced to be hanged. He declared that it was
disgraceful "to put a nobleman to death like a common malefactor for
killing a servant;" but his plea availed little, and he suffered at
Tyburn five weeks after the murder.
Forty years later an English nobleman, Earl Ferrers, paid the same
extreme penalty for murdering his steward. His lordship was tried by
his peers, and after sentence until his execution was lodged in the
Tower, and not in Newgate. His case is sufficiently well known, and has
already been briefly referred to.
Another aristocratic miscreant, whose crimes only fell short of
murder, was Colonel Francis Charteris. Well born, well educated, well
introduced into life, he joined the army under Marlborough in the Low
Countries as a cornet of horse, and soon became noted as a bold and
dexterous gambler. His greed and rapacity were unbounded; he lent
money at usurious rates to those whom he had already despoiled of
large sums by foul play, and having thus ruined many of his brother
officers, he was brought to trial, found guilty of disgraceful conduct,
and sentenced by court martial to be cashiered. On his way back to
Scotland, by falsely swearing he had been robbed at an inn, he swindled
the landlord out of a large sum of money as an indemnity, and does
not seem to have been called to account for his fraud. In spite of
his antecedents, Charteris obtained a new commission through powerful
friends, and was soon advanced to the grade of colonel. Moving in the
best society, he extended his gambling operations, and nearly robbed
the Duchess of Queensbury of £3,000 by placing her near a mirror, so
that he could see all her cards. Escaping punishment for this, he
continued his depredations till he acquired a considerable fortune
and several landed estates. Fate overtook him at last, and he became
the victim of his own profligacy. Long notorious as an unprincipled
and systematic seducer, he effected the ruin of numbers, by means
of stratagems and bribes, but was at length arrested on a charge of
criminal assault. He lay in Newgate on the State side, lightly ironed,
and enjoying the best of the prison until the trial at the Old Bailey
in February, 1730. He was convicted and sentenced to die, but through
the strenuous exertions of his son-in-law, the Earl of Wemyss, obtained
the king's pardon. He died two years later, miserably, in Edinburgh,
whither he had retired after his release. He was long remembered with
obloquy. Doctor Arbuthnot, who wrote his epitaph, has best depicted
his detestable character, as a villain, "who with an inflexible
constancy and inimitable impunity of life persisted, in spite of age
and infirmity, in the practice of every human vice except prodigality
and hypocrisy, his insatiable avarice exempting him from the first, and
his matchless impudence from the latter, . . . and who, having done
every day of his life something worthy of a gibbet, was once condemned
to one for what he had not done." Doctor Arbuthnot appears from this
to have dissented from the verdict of the jury by which Charteris was
tried.
In times of such general corruption it was not strange that a
deplorable laxity of morals should prevail as regards trusts,
whether public or private. Even a Lord Chancellor was found guilty
of venal practices—the sale of offices, and the misappropriation
of funds lodged in the Chancery Court. This was the twelfth Earl of
Macclesfield,[273:1] who sought thus dishonestly to mend his fortunes,
impaired, it was said, by the South Sea Bubble speculations. He was
tried before his peers, found guilty, and declared for ever incapable
of sitting in Parliament, or of holding any office under the Crown; and
further sentenced to a fine of £30,000 with imprisonment in the Tower
until it was paid.
Lord Macclesfield promptly paid his fine, which was but a small part
of the money he had amassed by his speculations, and was discharged.
"To the disgrace of the times in which he lived," says the biographer
of Lord Hardwicke, "the infamy with which he had been thus covered
debarred him neither from the favour of the great nor even from that of
his sovereign."
Various cases of embezzlement by public officials previous to this are
mentioned by Luttrell. Frauds upon the Exchequer, and upon persons
holding Government annuities, were not infrequent. The first entry in
"Luttrell" is dated 1697, May, and is to the effect that "Mr. Marriott,
an underteller in the Exchequer, arrested for altering an Exchequer
bill for £10 to £100, pleaded innocency, but is sent to Newgate;"
others were implicated, and a proclamation was issued offering a reward
for the apprehension of Domingo Autumes, a Portuguese, Robert Marriott,
and another for counterfeiting Exchequer bills. A little later another
teller, Mr. Darby, is sent to Newgate on a similar charge, and in that
prison Mr. Marriott "accuses John Knight, Esq., M. P., treasurer of
customs, who is displaced."
Marriott's confession follows: "He met Mr. Burton and Mr. Knight at
Somerset House, where they arranged to get twenty per cent. by making
Exchequer bills specie bills; they offered Marriott £500 a year to
take all upon himself if discovered. It is thought greater people are
in it to destroy the credit of the nation." Following this confession,
bills were brought into the House of Commons charging Burton, Knight,
and Duncombe with embezzlement, but "blanks are left for the House to
insert the punishment, which is to be either fine, imprisonment, or
loss of estates." Knight was found guilty of endorsing Exchequer bills
falsely, but not of getting money thereby. Burton was found guilty;
Duncombe's name is not mentioned, and Marriott was discharged. But this
does not end the business. In the May following "Mr. Ellers, master
of an annuity office in the Exchequer, was committed to Newgate for
forging people's hands to their orders, and receiving a considerable
sum of money thereon." Again in October, "Bellingham, an old offender,
was convicted of felony in forging Exchequer bills; and a Mrs. Butler,
also for forging a bond of £20,000, payable by the executors of Sir
Robert Clayton six years after his death." Later on (1708) I find an
entry in "Luttrell" that Justice Dyot, who was a commissioner of the
Stamp-office, was committed to Newgate for counterfeiting stamps, which
others whom he informed against distributed. Of the same character
as the foregoing was the offence of Mr. Lemon, a clerk in the Pell
office of the Exchequer, who received £300 in the name of a gentlewoman
deceased, and kept it, for which he was turned out of his place. Other
unfaithful public servants were to be found in other departments.
Robert Lowther, Esq., was taken into custody on the 25th October,
1721, by order of the Privy Council, for his tyrannical and corrupt
administration when governor of the Island of Barbadoes. Twenty years
later the House of Commons fly at still higher game, and commit the
Solicitor of the Treasury to Newgate for refusing to answer questions
put to him by the secret committee which sat to inquire into Sir Robert
Walpole's administration. This official had been often charged with
the Prime Minister's secret disbursements, and he was accused of being
recklessly profuse.
FOOTNOTES:
[251:1] "An inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers,"
etc. London, 1751.
[259:1] Soldiers in the Guards, after long and faithful service, were
granted leave of absence from military duty in order to take civil
situations which did not monopolize all their time. By this means they
eked out their scanty pay.
[267:1] Thornbury, in his "Old Stories Retold," calls it the King's
Arms, on what authority he does not say.
[268:1] "What do you bring this fellow here for?" Oneby had cried
to the keeper of Newgate when he appeared with Hooper. "Whenever I
look at him I shall think of being hanged." Hooper had a forbidding
countenance, but he was an inimitable mimic, and he soon made himself
an agreeable companion to the condemned man.
[273:1] The husband of the Lady Macclesfield who was mother to Richard
Savage.