LATER RECORDS
Crimes more commonplace, but more atrocious—Murder committed
by Catherine Hayes and her accomplices—She is burned alive
for petty treason—Sarah Malcolm, the Temple murderess—Other
prominent and typical murders—Wife murderers—Theodore
Gardelle, the murderer of Mrs. King—Two female murderers—
Mrs. Meteyard—Her cruelty to a parish apprentice—Elizabeth
Brownrigg beats Mary Clifford to death—Governor Wall—His
severe and unaccommodating temper—Trial of Sergeant Armstrong
—Punished by drumhead court martial and flogged to death—
Wall's arrest and escape to the Continent—Persons of note
charged with murder—Quin, the actor, kills Williams in
self-defence—Charles Macklin kills Hallam, a fellow actor at
Drury Lane—Joseph Baretti, author of the "Italian Dictionary,"
mobbed in the Haymarket, defends himself with a pocket-knife,
and stabs one of his assailants.
Returning to meaner and more commonplace offenders, I find in the
records full details of all manner of crimes. Murders the most
atrocious and bloodthirsty; robberies executed with great ingenuity
and boldness by both sexes; remarkable instances of swindling and
successful frauds; early cases of forgery; coining carried out with
extensive ramifications; piracies upon the high seas, long practised
with strange immunity from reprisals.
Perhaps the most revolting murder ever perpetrated, not excepting
those of later date, was that in which Catherine Hayes assisted. The
victim was her husband, an unoffending, industrious man, whose life
she made miserable, boasting once indeed that she would think it no
more sin to murder him than to kill a dog. After a violent quarrel
between them she persuaded a man who lodged with them, named Billings,
and who was either her lover or her illegitimate son, to join her in
an attempt upon Hayes. A new lodger, Wood, arriving, it was necessary
to make him a party to the plot, but he long resisted Mrs. Hayes's
specious arguments, till she clenched them by declaring that Hayes was
an atheist and a murderer, whom it could be no crime to kill; moreover
that at his death she would become possessed of £1,500, which she would
hand over to Wood.
Wood at last yielded, and after some discussion it was decided to do
the dreadful deed while Hayes was in his cups. After a long drinking
bout, in which Hayes drank wine, probably drugged, and the rest beer,
the victim dragged himself to bed and fell on it in a stupor. Billings
now went in, and with a hatchet struck Hayes a violent blow on the head
and fractured his skull; then Wood gave the poor wretch, as he was
not quite dead, two more blows and finished him. The next job was to
dispose of the murdered man's remains.
To evade identification Catherine Hayes suggested that the head
should be cut off, which Wood effected with his pocket-knife. She then
proposed to boil it, but this was overruled, and the head was disposed
of by the men, who threw it into the Thames from a wharf near the
Horseferry at Westminster. They hoped that the damning evidence would
be carried off by the next tide, but it remained floating near shore,
and was picked up next day by a watchman, and handed over to the parish
officers, by whom, when washed and the hair combed, it was placed on
the top of a pole in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
Having got rid of the head, the murderers next dealt with the body,
which they dismembered, and packed the parts into a box. This was
conveyed to Marylebone, where the pieces were taken out, wrapped in an
old blanket, and sunk in a pond.
Meanwhile the exposed head had been viewed by curious crowds, and at
last a Mr. Bennet, an organ-builder, saw a resemblance to the face of
Hayes, with whom he had been acquainted; another person, a journeyman
tailor, also recognized it, and inquiries were made of Catherine as to
her husband. At first she threw people off the scent by confessing that
Hayes had killed a man and absconded, but being questioned by several
she told a different story to each, and presently suspicion fell upon
her. As it had come out that Billings and Wood had been drinking with
Hayes the last time he was seen, they were included in the warrant,
which was now issued for the apprehension of the murderers. The woman
was arrested by Mr. Justice Lambert in person, who had "procured the
assistance of two officers of the Life Guards," and Billings with her.
One was committed to the Bridewell, Tothill Fields, the other to the
Gatehouse. Catherine's conduct when brought into the presence of her
murdered husband's head almost passes belief. Taking the glass bottle
in which it had been preserved into her arms, she cried, "It is my
dear husband's head," and shed tears as she embraced it. The surgeon
having taken the head out of the case, she kissed it rapturously, and
begged to be indulged with a lock of his hair. Next day the trunk
and remains of the corpse were discovered at Marylebone without the
head, and the justices, nearly satisfied as to the guilt of Catherine
Hayes, committed her to Newgate. Wood was soon after captured, and
on hearing that the body had been found confessed the whole crime.
Billings shortly did the same; but Mrs. Hayes obstinately refused to
admit her guilt. This atrocious creature was for the moment the centre
of interest; numbers visited her in Newgate, and sought to learn her
reasons for committing so dreadful a crime; but she gave different and
evasive answers to all.
At her trial she pleaded hard to be exempted from the penalty of
petty treason, which was at that time burning, alleging that she was
not guilty of striking the fatal blow. The crime of petty treason
was established when any person out of malice took away the life of
another to whom he or she owed special obedience—as when a servant
killed his master, a wife her husband, or an ecclesiastic his superior.
The wife's accomplices in the murder of a husband were not deemed
guilty of petty treason. She was told the law must take its course.
Billings and Wood hoped they might not be hung in chains, but received
no answer. Wood actually died in prison before execution; Billings
suffered at Tyburn, and was hung in chains near the pond in Marylebone.
Mrs. Hayes tried to destroy herself, but failed, and was literally
burnt alive. The fire reaching the hands of the hangman, he let go the
rope by which she was to have been strangled, and the flames slowly
consumed her, as she pushed the blazing fagots from her, and rent
the air with her agonized cries. Her execution, which took place on
9th May, 1726, was not the last of its kind. In November, 1750, Amy
Hutchinson was burnt at Ely, after a conviction of petty treason,
having poisoned a husband newly married, whom she had taken to spite
a truant lover. In 1767, again, Ann Sowerly underwent the same awful
sentence at York. She also had poisoned her husband. Last of all, on
the 10th March, 1788, a woman was burnt before the debtors' door of
Newgate. Having been tied to a stake and seated on a stool, the stool
was withdrawn and she was strangled. After that she was burnt. Her
offence was coining. In the following year, 1789, an act was passed
which abolished this cruel custom of burning women for petty treason.
Sarah Malcolm was another female monster, a wholesale murderess, whose
case stands out as one of peculiar atrocity even in those bloodthirsty
times. She was employed as a laundress in the Temple, where she waited
on several gentlemen, and had also access in her capacity of charwoman
to the chambers occupied by an aged lady named Mrs. Duncombe.[282:1]
Sarah's cupidity was excited by the chance sight of her mistress's
hoarded wealth, both in silver plate and broad coins, and she resolved
to become possessed of it, hoping when enriched to gain a young man of
her acquaintance named Alexander as her husband. Mrs. Duncombe had two
other servants, Elizabeth Harrison, also aged, and a young maid named
Ann Price, who resided with her in the Temple. One day (Feb. 2, 1733) a
friend coming to call upon Mrs. Duncombe was unable to gain admittance.
After some delay the rooms were broken into, and their three occupants
were found barbarously murdered, the girl Price in the first room, with
her throat cut from ear to ear, her hair loose, hanging over her eyes,
and her hands clenched; in the next lay Elizabeth Harrison on a press
bed, strangled; and last of all, old Mrs. Duncombe, also lying across
her bed, quite dead. The strong box had been broken open and rifled.
That same night one of the barristers, returning to his chambers late,
found Sarah Malcolm there kindling a fire, and after remarking upon
her appearance at that strange hour, bade her begone, saying, that no
person acquainted with Mrs. Duncombe should be in his chambers till the
murderer was discovered. Before leaving she confessed to having stolen
two of his waistcoats, whereupon he called the watch and gave her into
custody. After her departure, assisted by a friend, the barrister made
a thorough search of his rooms, and in a cupboard came upon a lot of
linen stained with blood, also a silver tankard with blood upon the
handle. The watchmen had suffered Sarah to go at large, but she was
forthwith rearrested; on searching her, a green silk purse containing
twenty-one counters was found upon her, and she was committed to
Newgate. There, on arrival, she sought to hire the best accommodation,
offering two or three guineas for a room upon the Master Debtors' side.
Roger Johnston, a turnkey, upon this searched her, and discovered
"concealed under her hair," no doubt in a species of a chignon, "a bag
containing twenty moidores, eighteen guineas, and a number of other
broad pieces." This money she confessed had come from Mrs. Duncombe;
but she stoutly denied all complicity with the murder, or that she
had done more than contrive the robbery. She charged two brothers,
named Alexander, one the man she desired to marry, and a woman, Mary
Tracy, with the greater crime. Upon her information they were arrested
and confronted with her. She persisted in this line of defence at her
trial, but the circumstantial evidence against her was so strong that
the jury at once found her guilty. She herself had but little hope of
escape, and had been heard to cry out on her first commitment, "I am a
dead woman." She was duly executed at Tyburn. The Alexanders and Tracy
were discharged.
I have specially instanced these foul murders as exhibiting
circumstances of atrocity rarely equalled in the records of crime.
Catherine Hayes and Sarah Malcolm were unsexed desperadoes, whose
misdeeds throw into the shade those of the Mannings and Kate Websters
of later times. But women had no monopoly of assassination, in those
days when life was held so cheap. Male murderers were still more
numerous, and also more pitiless and bloodthirsty. The calendars are
replete with homicides, and to refer to them in anything like detail
would both weary and disgust the reader. I shall do no more, therefore,
than briefly indicate here a certain number of the more prominent cases
remarkable either from the position of the criminals, the ties by
which they were bound to their victims, or the horrible character of
the crime.
The hangman figures among the murderers of this epoch. John Price,
who filled the office in 1718, and who rejoiced in the usual official
soubriquet of "Jack Ketch," was a scoundrel rendered still more
callous and cruel by his dreadful calling. He had begun life well, as
an apprentice, but he absconded, and entering the navy, "served with
credit on board different kings' ships for eighteen years." On his
discharge, seeking employment, he obtained the situation of public
executioner. He might have lived decently on the hangman's wages and
perquisites, but he was a spendthrift, who soon became acquainted
with the interiors of the debtors' prisons for Middlesex. Once he was
arrested on his way back from Tyburn after a good day's work, having in
his possession, besides fees, the complete suits of three men who had
just been executed. He gave up all this to liquidate the debt, but the
value being insufficient, he was lodged in the Marshalsea.
When released, in due course he returned to his old employment, but
was soon arrested again, and on a serious charge—that of a murderous
assault upon a poor woman who sold gingerbread through the streets.
He had shamefully attacked her, and maddened by her resistance, had
ill-used her terribly. "He beat her so cruelly," the account says,
"that streams of blood issued from her eyes and mouth; he broke one
of her arms, knocked out some of her teeth, bruised her head in a most
shameful manner, and forced one of her eyes from the socket."
One account says that he was taken red-handed close to the scene of
his guilt; another, the more probable, that he was arrested on his way
to Tyburn with a convict for the gallows. In any case his unfortunate
victim had just life left in her to bear testimony against him. Price
was committed to Newgate, and tried for his life. His defence was,
that in crossing Moorfields he found something lying in his way, which
he kicked and found to be the body of a woman. He lifted her up, but
she could not stand on her legs. The evidence of others was too clear,
and the jury did not hesitate to convict. After sentence he abandoned
himself to drink, and obstinately refused to confess. But on the day
before his execution he acknowledged that he had committed the crime
while in a state of intoxication. He was hanged in Bunhill Fields, and
his body afterwards exhibited in chains in Holloway near the scene of
the murder.
Wife-murder was of common occurrence in these reckless times. The
disgraceful state of the marriage laws, and the facility with which
the matrimonial knot could be tied, often tempted unscrupulous people
to commit bigamy.[286:1] Louis Houssart was of French extraction,
settled in England, who married Ann Rondeau at the French church in
Spitalfields. After about three years "he left his wife with disgust,"
and going into the city, passed himself off as a single man. Becoming
acquainted with a Mrs. Hern, he presently married her. He had not been
long married before his new wife taxed him with having another wife.
He swore it was false, and offered to take the sacrament upon it. She
appeared satisfied, and begged him to clear his reputation. "Do not be
uneasy," he said; "in a little time I will make you sensible I have no
other wife." He now resolved to make away with the first Mrs. Louis
Houssart, otherwise Ann Rondeau, and reopened communications with her.
Finding her in ill-health, one day he brought her "a medicine which had
the appearance of conserve of roses, which threw her into such severe
convulsive fits that her life was despaired of for some hours; but at
length she recovered." This attempt having failed, he tried a simpler
plan. Dressed in a white coat, with sword and cane, he went one evening
to the end of Swan Alley, where his wife lived with her mother, and
finding a boy, gave him a penny to go and tell Mrs. Rondeau that a
gentleman wanted to speak to her in a neighbouring public-house. When
she left the house, Houssart went in, found his wife alone, and cut her
throat with a razor.
Thus murdered she was found by her mother on her return, after
inquiring in vain for the gentleman who was said to be waiting for her.
Suspicion fell on Houssart, who was arrested and tried, but for want
of the boy's evidence acquitted of the murder. But he was detained in
Newgate to take his trial for bigamy. While waiting sentence, the boy,
a lad of thirteen, who knew of the murder and arrest, and who thought
he would be hanged if he confessed that he had carried the message to
Mrs. Rondeau, came forward to give evidence. He was taken to Newgate
into a room, and identified Houssart at once among seven or eight
others. The brother of the deceased, Solomon Rondeau, as heir, now
lodged an appeal, in the names of John Doe and Richard Roe (an ancient
form of legal procedure), against Houssart, who was eventually again
brought to trial. Various pleas were put forward by the defence in bar
of further proceedings, among others that there were no such persons as
John Doe and Richard Roe, but this plea, with the rest, was overruled,
the fact being sworn to that there was a John Doe in Middlesex, a
weaver, also a Richard Roe, who was a soldier, and the trial went on.
The boy's evidence was very plain. He remembered Houssart distinctly,
had seen him by the light of a lantern at a butcher's shop; he wore
a whitish coat. The boy also recognized Mrs. Rondeau as the woman to
whom he gave the message. Others swore to the white coat which Houssart
had on; but the most damning evidence was that of a friend whom he had
summoned to see him in Newgate, and whom he asked to swear that they
had been drinking together in Newgate Street at the time the murder was
committed. Houssart offered this witness a new shirt, a new suit of
clothes, and twenty guineas to swear for him. The prisoner, however,
owned that he did give the boy a penny to call the old woman out, and
that he then went in and gave his wife "a touch with the razor, but did
not think of killing her." The prisoner was found guilty and hanged at
the end of Swan yard in Shoreditch.
Vincent Davis was another miscreant who murdered his wife, under much
the same conditions. He had long barbarously ill-used her; he kept
a small walking-cane on purpose to beat her with, and at last so
frightened her by his threats to kill her that she ran away from him.
She returned one night, but finding that he had put an open knife by
the bedside, she placed herself under the protection of the landlady,
who advised her to swear the peace against him and get him imprisoned.
Next day the brutal husband drove her out of the house, declaring
she had no right to be in his company, as he was married to "Little
Jenny." But she implored him to be friends, and having followed him
to an ale-house seeking reconciliation, he so slashed her fingers with
a knife that she came back with bleeding hands. That same night, when
his wife met him on his return home, he ordered her to light him to his
room, then drawing his knife, stabbed her in the breast. The poor woman
bled to death in half an hour. Davis after the deed was done was seized
with contrition, and when arrested and on his way to Newgate, he told
the peace officer that he had killed the best wife in the world. "I
know I shall be hanged," he added; "but for God's sake don't let me be
anatomized." This man is said to have assumed an air of bravado while
he lay under sentence of death, but his courage deserted him as the
time for execution approached. He had such a dread of falling into the
hands of the surgeons that he wrote to several friends begging them to
rescue his body if any attempt should be made at the gallows to remove
it. He was hanged at Tyburn on the 30th April, 1725; but the calendar
does not state what happened to his corpse.
George Price, who murdered his wife in 1738, had an analogous motive:
he wished to release himself from one tie in order to enter into
another. He was in service in Kent, his wife lived in lodgings in
Highgate, and their family increased far more rapidly than he liked.
Having for some time paid his addresses to a widow in Kent, he at
length resolved to remove the only obstacle to a second and more
profitable marriage. With this infernal object in view he went to
Highgate, and told his wife that he had secured a place for her at
Putney, to which he would himself drive her in a chaise. She was
warned by some of his fellow servants against trusting herself alone
with him, but "she said she had no fear of him, as he had treated her
with unusual kindness." They drove off towards Hounslow. On the way
she begged him to stop while she bought some snuff, but he refused,
laughingly declaring she would never want to use snuff again. When they
reached Hounslow Heath it was nearly ten o'clock at night. The time
and place being suitable, he suddenly threw his whip-lash round his
wife's throat and drew it tight. As the cord was not quite in the right
place he coolly altered it, and disregarding her entreaties, he again
tightened the rope; then finding she was not quite dead, pulled it with
such violence that it broke, but not till the murder was accomplished.
Having stripped the body, he disfigured it, as he hoped, beyond
recognition, then left it under a gibbet on which some malefactors were
hanging in chains, and returned to London with his wife's clothes, part
of which he dropped about the street, and part he gave back to her
landlady, to whom they belonged. Being seen about, so many inquiries
were made for his wife that he feared detection, and fled to Portsmouth.
Next day he heard the murder cried through the streets by the bellman,
and found that it was his own case, with an exact description of his
appearance. He at once jumped out of the window—the inn was by the
waterside—and swam to another part of the shore. Thence he made his
way into the country and got chance jobs as a farm-labourer. At Oxford
he found that he was advertised in the local paper, and he again
decamped, travelling on and on till he reached his own home in Wales.
His father gave him refuge for a couple of days, but a report of his
being in the house got about, and he had to fly to Gloucester, where
he became an ostler at an inn. In Gloucester he was again recognized
as the man who had killed his wife on Hounslow Heath, by a gentleman
who promised not to betray him, but warned him that he would be taken
into custody if he remained in town. "Agitated by the momentary fear of
detection, Price knew not how to act," and he resolved at length to go
back to London and give himself up to justice. He called first on his
former master, was apprehended, and committed to Newgate. He took his
trial in due course, and was, on "the strongest circumstantial evidence
ever adduced against an offender," cast for death, but fell a victim to
the gaol-fever in October, 1738.
Mention of two more heinous cases of wife-murder may be made. The
second marriage of Edward Joines, contracted at the Fleet, was not
a happy one. His wife had a violent temper, and they continually
disagreed. A daughter of hers lived with them, and the two women
contrived to aggravate and annoy Joines to desperation. He retaliated
by brutal treatment. On one occasion he pushed his wife into the grate
and scorched her arm; frequently he drove her out-of-doors in scanty
clothing at late hours and in inclement weather. One day his anger was
roused by seeing a pot of ale going into his house for his wife, who
was laid up with a fractured arm. He rushed in, and after striking the
tankard out of her hand, seized her by the bad arm, twisted it till
the bone again separated. The fracture was reset, but mortification
rapidly supervened, and she died within ten days. The coroner's jury
in consequence brought in a verdict of wilful murder against Joines.
He was in due course convicted of murder, although it was difficult to
persuade him that he had had a fair trial, seeing that his wife did not
succumb immediately to the cruel injury she had received at his hands.
In December, 1739, he was executed.
The second wife of John Williamson received still more terrible and
inhumane treatment at his hands. This ruffian within three weeks after
his marriage drenched his wife with cold water, and having otherwise
ill-used her, inflicted the following diabolical torture. Having
fastened her hands behind with handcuffs, he lifted her off the ground,
with her toes barely touching it, by a rope run through a staple.
She was locked up in a closet, and close by was placed a small piece
of bread and butter, which she could just touch with her lips. She
was allowed a small portion of water daily. Sometimes a girl who was
in the house gave the poor creature a stool to rest her feet on, but
Williamson discovered it, and was so furious that he nearly beat the
girl to death. The wretched woman was kept in this awful plight for
more than a month at a time, and at length succumbed. She died raving
mad. Williamson when arrested made a frivolous defence, declaring his
wife provoked him by treading on a kitten and killing it. In 1760 he
was found guilty and executed.
The victim of Theodore Gardelle was a woman, although not his wife.
This murder much exercised the public mind at the time. The perpetrator
was a foreigner, a hitherto inoffensive miniature painter, who was
goaded into such a frenzy by the intolerable irritation of the woman's
tongue, that he first struck and then despatched her. He lodged with a
Mrs. King in Leicester Fields, whose miniature he had painted, but not
very successfully. She had desired to have the portrait particularly
good, and in her disappointment gave the unfortunate painter no peace.
One morning she came into the parlour which he used, and which was
_en suite_ with her bedroom, and immediately attacked him about the
miniature. Provoked by her insults, Gardelle told her she was a very
impertinent woman; at which she struck him a violent blow on the
chest. He pushed her from him, "rather in contempt than anger," as he
afterwards declared, "and with no desire to hurt her;" her foot caught
in the floor-cloth, she fell backward, and her head came with great
force against a sharp corner of the bedstead, for Gardelle apparently
had followed her into her bedroom. The blood immediately gushed from
her mouth, and he at once ran up to assist her and express his concern;
but she pushed him away, threatening him with the consequences of his
act. He was greatly terrified at the thought of being charged with a
criminal assault; but the more he strove to pacify the more she reviled
and threatened, till at last he seized a sharp-pointed ivory comb which
lay upon her toilet-table and drove it into her throat. The blood
poured out in still greater volume and her voice gradually grew fainter
and fainter, and she presently expired. Gardelle said afterwards he
drew the bedclothes over her, then, horrified and overcome, fell by her
side in a swoon. When he came to himself he examined the body to see if
Mrs. King were quite dead, and in his confusion staggered against the
wainscot and hit his head so as to raise a great bump over his eye.
Gardelle now seems to have considered with himself how best he might
conceal his crime. There was only one other resident in the house, a
maid servant, who was out on a message for him at the time of his
fatal quarrel with Mrs. King. When she returned she found the bedroom
locked, and Gardelle told her her mistress had gone into the country
for the day. Later on he paid her wages on behalf of Mrs. King and
discharged her, with the explanation that her mistress intended to
bring home a new maid with her. Having now the house to himself, he
entered the chamber of death, and stripped the body, which he laid in
the bed. He next disposed of the blood-stained bedclothes by putting
them to soak in a wash-tub in the back wash-house. A servant of an
absent fellow lodger came in late and asked for Mrs. King, but Gardelle
said she had not returned, and that he meant to sit up for her and let
her into the house. Next morning he explained Mrs. King's absence by
saying she had come late and gone off again for the day.
This went on from Wednesday to Saturday; but no suspicion of anything
wrong had as yet been conceived, and the body still lay in the same
place in the back room. On Sunday Gardelle began to put into execution
a project for destroying the body in parts, which he disposed of by
throwing them down the sinks, or spreading in the cockloft. On Monday
and Tuesday inquiries began to be made for Mrs. King, and Gardelle
continued to say that he expected her daily, but on Thursday the
stained bedclothes were found in the wash-tub. Gardelle was seen
coming from the wash-house, and was heard to ask what had become of
the linen. This roused suspicion for the first time. The discharged
maid servant was hunted up, and as she declared she knew nothing of
the wash-tub or its contents, and as Mrs. King was still missing, the
neighbours began to move in the matter. Mr. Barron, an apothecary,
came and questioned Gardelle, who was so much confused in his answers
that a warrant was obtained for his arrest. Then Mrs. King's bedroom
was examined, and that of Gardelle, now a prisoner. In both were
found conclusive evidence of foul play. By and by in the cockloft and
elsewhere portions of the missing woman were discovered, and some
jewelry known to be hers was traced to Gardelle, who did not long deny
his guilt. When he was in the new prison at Clerkenwell he tried to
commit suicide by taking forty drops of opium; but it failed even to
procure him sleep. After this he swallowed halfpence to the number of
twelve, hoping that the verdigreese would kill him, but he survived
after suffering great tortures. He was removed then to Newgate for
greater security, and was closely watched till the end. After a fair
trial he was convicted and cast for death. His execution took place in
the Haymarket near Panton Street, to which he was led past Mrs. King's
house, and at which he cast one glance as he passed. His body was
hanged in chains on Hounslow Heath.
Women were as capable of fiendish cruelty as men, and displayed
greater and more diabolical ingenuity in devising torments for their
victims. Two murders typical of this class of crime may be quoted here.
One was that committed by the Meteyards, mother and daughter, upon
an apprentice girl; the other that of Elizabeth Brownrigg, also on
an apprentice. The Meteyards kept a millinery shop in Bruton Street,
Berkeley Square, and had five parish apprentices bound to them. One was
a sickly girl, Anne Taylor by name. Being unable to do as much work as
her employers desired, they continually vented their spite upon her.
After enduring great cruelty Anne Taylor absconded; she was caught,
brought back to Bruton Street, and imprisoned in a garret on bread and
water; she again escaped, and was again recaptured and cruelly beaten
with a broom-handle. Then they tied her with a rope to the door of a
room so that she could neither sit nor lie down, and she was so kept
for three successive days, but suffered to go to bed at night-time. On
the third night she was so weak she could hardly creep upstairs. On the
fourth day her fellow apprentices were brought to witness her torments
as an incentive to exertion, but were forbidden to afford her any kind
of relief. On this, the last day of her torture, she faltered in speech
and presently expired. The Meteyards now tried to bring their victim
to with hartshorn, but finding life was extinct, they carried the body
up to the garret and locked it in. Then four days later they enclosed
it in a box, left the garret door ajar, and spread a report through
their house that "Nanny" had once more absconded. The deceased had a
sister, a fellow apprentice, who declared she was persuaded "Nanny" was
dead; whereupon the Meteyards also murdered the sister and secreted
the body. Anne's body remained in the garret for a couple of months,
when the stench of decomposition was so great that the murderesses
feared detection, and after chopping the corpse in pieces, they burnt
parts and disposed of others in drains and gully-holes. Four years
elapsed without suspicion having been aroused, but there had been
constant and violent quarrels between mother and daughter, the former
frequently beating and ill-using the latter, who in return reviled her
mother as a murderess. During this time the daughter left her home to
live with a Mr. Rooker as servant at Ealing. Her mother followed her,
and still behaved so outrageously that the daughter, in Mr. Rooker's
presence, upbraided her with what they had done. He became uneasy, and
cross-questioned them till they confessed the crime. Both women were
arrested and tried at the Old Bailey, where they were convicted and
sentenced to death. The mother on the morning of her execution was
taken with a fit from which she never recovered, and she was in a state
of insensibility when hanged.
Elizabeth Brownrigg was the wife of a plumber who carried on business
in Flower de Luce Court, Fleet Street. She practised midwifery, and
received parish apprentices, whom she took to save the expense of
keeping servants. Two girls, victims of her cruel ill-usage, ran
away, but a third, Mary Clifford, bound to her by the parish of
Whitefriars, remained to endure still worse. Her inhuman mistress
repeatedly beat her, now with a hearth-broom, now with a horsewhip
or a cane. The girl was forced to lie at nights in a coal-hole, with
no bed but a sack and some straw. She was often nearly perished with
cold. Once, after a long diet of bread and water, when nearly starved
to death, she rashly broke into a cupboard in search of food and was
caught in the act. Mrs. Brownrigg, to punish her, made her strip, and
while she was naked repeatedly beat her with the butt end of a whip.
Then fastening a jack-chain around her neck she drew it as tight as
possible without strangling, and sent her back to the coal-hole with
her hands tied behind her back. Mrs. Brownrigg's son vied with his
mother in ill-treating the apprentices, and when the mistress was
tired of horse-whipping, the lad continued the savage punishment.
When Mary Clifford complained to a French lodger of the barbarity
she experienced, Mrs. Brownrigg flew at her and cut her tongue in
two places with a pair of scissors. Other apprentices were equally
ill-used, and they were all covered with wounds and bruises from the
cruel flagellations they received.
At length one of the neighbours, alarmed by the constant moaning and
groanings which issued from Brownrigg's house, began to suspect that
"the apprentices were treated with unwarrantable severity." It was
impossible to gain admission, but a maid looked through a skylight into
a covered yard, and saw one of the apprentices, in a shocking state of
filth and wretchedness, kept there with a pig. One of the overseers
now went and demanded Mary Clifford. Mrs. Brownrigg produced another,
Mary Mitchell, who was taken to the workhouse, but in such a pitiable
state that in removing her clothes her bodice stuck to her wounds.
Mary Mitchell having been promised that she should not be sent back to
Brownrigg's, gave a full account of the horrid treatment she and Mary
Clifford had received. A further search was made in the Brownriggs'
house, but without effect. At length, under threat of removal to
prison, Mrs. Brownrigg produced Clifford from a cupboard under a
buffet in the dining-room. "It is impossible," says the account, "to
describe the miserable appearance of this poor girl; nearly her whole
body was ulcerated." Her life was evidently in imminent danger. Having
been removed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, she died there within a
few days. The man Brownrigg was arrested, but the woman and son made
their escape. Shifting their abode from place to place, buying new
disguises from time to time at rag-fairs, eventually they took refuge
in lodgings at Wandsworth, where they were recognized by their landlord
as answering the description of the murderers of Mary Clifford, and
arrested. Mrs. Brownrigg was tried and executed; the men, acquitted of
the graver charge, were only sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
The story runs that Hogarth, who prided himself on his skill as a
physiognomist, wished to see Mrs. Brownrigg in Newgate. The governor,
Mr. Akerman, admitted him, but at the instance of a mutual friend
played a trick upon the painter by bringing Mrs. Brownrigg before him
casually, as some other woman. Hogarth on looking at her took Akerman
aside and said, "You must have two great female miscreants in your
custody, for this woman as well as Mrs. Brownrigg is from her features
capable of any cruelty and any crime." This story, although _ben
trovato_, is apocryphal. At the time of this alleged visit to Newgate
Hogarth was not alive.
I pass now to murders of less atrocity, the result of temporary and
more or less ungovernable passion, rather than of malice deliberate and
aforethought. In this class must be included the case of Mr. Plunkett,
a young gentleman of Irish extraction, who murdered a peruke-maker,
when asked an exorbitant price for a wig. Brown had made it to order
for Mr. Plunkett, and wanted seven pounds for it. After haggling he
reduced it to six. Plunkett offered four, and on this being refused,
seized a razor lying handy and cut Brown's throat.
A somewhat similar case was that of Mr. Edward Bird, a well-born youth,
who had been educated at Eton, and after making the grand tour had
received a commission in a regiment of horse. Unfortunately he led a
wild, dissolute life, associating with low characters. One morning,
after spending the night in a place of public resort, he ordered a
bath. One waiter deputed the job to another, the latter went to Bird
to apologize for the delay. Bird, growing furious, drew his sword, and
made several passes at the waiter, who avoided them by holding the door
in his hand, and then escaped down-stairs. Bird pursued, threw the man
down, breaking his ribs. On this the master of the house and another
waiter, by name Loxton, tried to appease Bird, but the latter, frantic
at not having the bath when ordered, fell upon Loxton and ran him
through with his sword. Loxton dropped and died almost instantaneously.
Bird was arrested, committed to Newgate, and eventually tried for
his life. He was convicted and received sentence of death, but great
interest was made to get it commuted to transportation. His powerful
friends might have obtained it but for the protests of Loxton's
representatives, and Bird was ordered for execution. The night before
he first tried poison, then stabbed himself in several places, but
survived to be taken the following morning to Tyburn in a mourning
coach, attended by his mother and the ordinary of Newgate. At the
gallows he asked for a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff, which
"he took with apparent unconcern, wishing health to those who stood
near him. He then repeated the Apostle's Creed and was launched into
eternity."
The military were not overpopular at times, when party disputes ran
high, and the soldiery were often exposed to contumely in the streets.
It must be admitted too that they were ready enough to accept any
quarrel fastened upon them. Thus William Hawksworth, a guardsman, while
marching through the park with a party to relieve guard at St. James's,
left the ranks to strike a woman who he thought had insulted his cloth.
It was not she, however, but her companion who had cried, "What a stir
there is about King George's soldiers!" This companion, by name Ransom,
resented the blow, and called Hawksworth a puppy, whereupon the soldier
clubbed his musket and knocked the civilian down. Hawksworth marched
on with his guard; Ransom was removed to the hospital with a fractured
skull, and died in a few hours. But a bystander, having learned the
name of the offender, obtained a warrant against Hawksworth, who was
committed to Newgate. He was ably defended at his trial, and his
commanding officer gave him an excellent character. But the facts were
so clearly proved that conviction was imperative. For some time he was
buoyed up with the hope of reprieve, but this failed him at the last,
and he went to Tyburn solemnly declaring that Ransom hit him first;
that he had no malice against the deceased, and he hardly remembered
leaving the ranks to strike him.
Two cases may well be inserted here, although belonging to a somewhat
later date. Both were murders committed under the influence of strong
excitement: one was the fierce outburst of passionate despair at
unrequited love; the other the rash action of a quick-tempered man
who was vested for the moment with absolute power. The first was
the murder of Miss Reay by the Rev. James Hackman, the second the
flogging to death of the Sergeant Armstrong by order of Colonel Wall,
Lieutenant-Governor of Goree.
Mr. Hackman had held a commission in the 68th Foot, and while employed
on the recruiting service at Huntingdon, had been hospitably received
at Hinchingbroke, the seat of Lord Sandwich. At that time a Miss Reay
resided there under the protection of his lordship, by whom she had had
nine children. Hackman fell desperately in love with Miss Reay, and the
lady did not altogether reject his attentions. A correspondence between
them, which bears every appearance of authenticity, was published after
the murder under the title of "Love and Madness," and the letters on
both sides are full of ardent protestations. Hackman continued to
serve for some time, but the exile from the sight of his beloved became
so intolerable that he sold out, took orders, and entered the Church,
obtaining eventually the living of Wiverton in Norfolk.
He had determined to marry Miss Reay if she would accept him, and one
of the last letters of the correspondence above quoted proves that
the marriage arrangements were all but completed. On the 1st March,
1779, he writes: "In a month or six weeks at farthest from this time I
might certainly call you mine. Only remember that my character now I
have taken orders renders exhibition necessary. By to-night's post I
shall write into Norfolk about the alterations at _our_ parsonage." But
within a few weeks a cloud overshadowed his life. It is only vaguely
indicated in a letter to a friend, dated the 20th March, in which he
hints at a rupture between Miss Reay and himself. "What I shall do I
know not—without her I do not think I can exist." A few days later he
wrote to the same friend: "Despair goads me on—death only can relieve
me. . . . What then have I to do, who only lived when she loved me, but
cease to live now she ceases to love?"
At this period it is evident that the idea of suicide only occupied
his overwrought brain. He wrote on the 7th April: "When this reaches
you I shall be no more. . . . You know where my affections were placed;
my having by some means or other lost hers (an idea which I could not
support) has driven me to madness." So far he does not appear to have
contemplated any violence against Miss Reay, for in his letter he
commends her to the kind offices of his friend. He spent that day in
self-communing and in reading a volume of Doctor Blair's sermons. In
the evening he went from his lodgings in Duke's Court, St. Martin's
Lane, towards the Admiralty, and saw Miss Reay drive by to the Covent
Garden Theatre. He followed her into the theatre and gazed at her for
the last time. Then, unable to restrain the violence of his passion, he
returned to his lodgings, and having loaded two pistols, returned to
Covent Garden, where he waited in the piazza till the play was over.
When Miss Reay came out he stepped up with a pistol in each hand. One
he fired at her, and killed her on the spot; the other he discharged
at himself, but without fatal effect. He was at once arrested, and
when his wound had been dressed, was committed by Sir John Fielding to
Tothill Fields, and afterwards to Newgate. He wrote from prison to the
same friend as follows:
"I am alive——and she is dead. I shot her, shot her, and not myself.
Some of her blood and brains is still upon my clothes. I don't ask you
to speak to me, I don't ask you to look at me, only come hither and
bring me a little poison, such as is strong enough. Upon my knees I
beg, if your friendship for me ever was sincere, do, _do_ bring me
some poison."
Next day he was more composed, and declared that nothing should tempt
him to escape justice by suicide. "My death," he writes, "is all the
recompense I can make to the laws of my country." He was tried before
Mr. Justice Blackstone of the Commentaries, and convicted on the
clearest evidence. A plea of insanity was set up in his defence, but
could not be maintained. His dignified address to the jury had nothing
of madness in it, and it is probable that he had no real desire to
escape the just punishment for his crime. This is shown by his answer
to Lord Sandwich, who wrote:
17th April, 1779.
"TO MR. HACKMAN IN NEWGATE
"If the murderer of Miss —— wishes to live, the man he has
most injured will use all his interest to procure his life."
To this Hackman replied:
THE CONDEMNED CELL IN NEWGATE,
17th April, 1779.
"The murderer of her whom he preferred, far preferred to
life, respects the hand from which he has just received such
an offer as he neither desires nor deserves. His wishes are
for death, not life. One wish he has. Could he be pardoned
in this world by the man he has most injured—oh, my lord,
when I meet her in another world enable me to tell her (if
departed spirits are not ignorant of earthly things) that
you forgive us both, that you will be a father to her dear
infants!
"J. H."
The condemned man continued to fill many sheets with his reflections
in the shape of letters to his friend. But they are all rhapsodical to
the last degree. The 19th April was the day fixed for his execution,
and on that morning he rose at five o'clock, dressed himself, and spent
some time in private meditation. About seven o'clock he was visited by
Mr. Boswell and some other friends, with whom he went to the chaplain
and partook of the sacrament. During the procession to Tyburn he seemed
much affected, and said but little. After having hung the usual time
his body was carried to Surgeon's Hall. He appears to have written a
few last words in pencil at Tyburn while actually waiting to be turned
off.
"My dear Charlie," he wrote, "farewell for ever in this
world. I die a sincere Christian and penitent, and everything
I hope you can wish me. Would it prevent my example's having
any bad effect if the world should know how I abhor my former
ideas of suicide, my crime? —— will be the best judge. Of
her fame I charge you to be careful. My poorly will . . .
"Your dying H."
Miss Reay was buried at Elstree, Herts., where her grave is still
pointed out.
Twenty years elapsed between the commission of the murder with which
Governor Wall was charged and his trial and atonement. The date of his
execution was 1802, a date which would bring the story within the scope
of a later rather than the present chapter. But while postponing the
particulars of the execution, I propose to deal here with the offence,
as it falls naturally into this branch of my subject. Colonel Wall
was governor and commandant of Goree, a small island off the coast of
Africa close to Cape Verde, and now in the possession of the French. It
was mainly dependent upon England for its supplies, and when these ran
short, as was often the case, the troops received a money compensation
in lieu of rations. A sum was due to them in this way on one occasion
when both the governor and paymaster were on the point of leaving the
island for England, and a number of men, anxious for an adjustment
of their claims, set off in a body to interview the paymaster at
his quarters. They were encountered en route by the governor, who
reprimanded them, and ordered them to return to their barracks. An hour
or two later a second party started for the paymaster, at the head
of which was a certain Sergeant Armstrong. The governor met them as
before, and addressing himself to Sergeant Armstrong, again ordered the
men back to their quarters.
Upon the nature of this demonstration the whole of the subsequent
proceedings hinged. Governor Wall and his witnesses declared it was
a tumultuous gathering, seventy or eighty strong; other testimony
limited the number to about a dozen. Governor Wall alleged that the
men with Armstrong were armed and menacing; others that they comported
themselves in a quiet, orderly manner. It was sworn that Armstrong,
when spoken to by the governor, came up to him submissively, hat
in hand, addressed him as "Your Excellency," used no disrespectful
language, and withdrew, with his comrades, without noise or
disturbance. This view was supported by the evidence of several
officers, who swore that they saw no appearance of a mutiny on the
island that day; on the other hand, the governor urged that the men had
declared they would break open the stores and help themselves if they
were not settled with at once; that they prevented him from going to
the shore, fearing he meant to leave the island in a hurry; and that
they forced the main guard and released a prisoner. It is difficult to
reconcile statements so widely divergent; but the fact that Governor
Wall left the island next day, and took with him three officers out
of the seven in the garrison; that he made no special report of the
alleged mutiny to the military authorities in London, and did not even
refer to it in minute returns prepared and forwarded at the time,
must be deemed very detrimental to Governor Wall's case, and no doubt
weighed with the jury which tried him. The only conclusion was that no
mutiny existed, but one was assumed merely to screen the infliction of
an unauthorized punishment.
To return to the events on the island. It is pretty certain that
Governor Wall's mind must have been thrown off its balance after he
had dismissed the party headed by Armstrong. He was either actually
apprehensive for the safety of his command, or was momentarily blinded
by passion at the seeming defiance of discipline, and he felt that he
must make an example if his authority was to be maintained. Although
many old comrades of high rank bore witness at his trial to his great
humanity and good temper, there is reason to fear that to those under
his command he was so severe and unaccommodating as to be generally
unpopular, and this no doubt told against him at his trial. He was
not a strong, self-reliant commander. It is nearly certain that he
gave trifles exaggerated importance, and was only too ready to put in
practice the severest methods of repression he had at hand. In this
instance, however, he did not act without deliberation. It was not
until six in the evening that he had resolved to punish Armstrong
as the ringleader of the mutiny. By that time he had fully laid
his plans. The "long roll" was beat upon the drums, the troops were
assembled hurriedly as in the case of alarm, and a gun-carriage was
dragged into the centre of the parade. The governor then constituted a
drumhead court martial, which proceeded to try Armstrong for mutiny,
convict, and sentence him without calling upon him to plead to any
charge, or hearing him in his defence; so that he was practically
punished without a trial. He was ordered eight hundred lashes, which
were forthwith inflicted, not as in ordinary cases by the regimental
drummers, whom the governor thought were tinged with insubordination,
but by the black interpreters and his assistants; nor was the
regulation cat-of-nine-tails used, as the governor declared they had
all been destroyed by the mutineers, but a very thick rope's end,
which, according to the surgeon's testimony, did more mischief than
the cat. Armstrong's punishment was exemplary. It was proved that the
governor stood by, threatening to flog the blacks themselves unless
they "laid on" with a will, and crying again and again, "Cut him to
the heart! cut him to the liver!" Armstrong begged for mercy, but he
received the whole eight hundred lashes, twenty-five at a time; and
when he was cast loose, he said that the sick season was coming on,
which with the punishment would certainly do for him. A surgeon was
present at the infliction, but was not called upon to certify as to
Armstrong's fitness or otherwise for corporal punishment, nor did
he enter any protest. Armstrong was taken at once to hospital, and
his back was found "as black as a new hat." From the moment of his
reception the doctors had no hope of his recovery; he gradually grew
worse and worse, and presently died.
The day after the punishment Governor Wall left Goree and came to
England, where he arrived in August, 1782. The news of Armstrong's
death followed him, and various reports as to the governor's conduct,
which were inquired into and dismissed. But in 1784 a more detailed
and circumstantial account came to hand, and two messengers were
despatched to Bath by Lord Sidney, then Secretary of State, to arrest
Wall. They apprehended him and brought him as far as Reading, in a
chaise and four, where they alighted at an inn. While the officers
were at supper he gave them the slip and got over to France, whence
he wrote promising to surrender in the course of a few months. His
excuse for absconding was that many of those who would be the principal
witnesses were his personal enemies. He continued abroad, however, for
some years, residing sometimes in Italy, more constantly in France,
"where he lived respectably and was admitted into good company." He
affected the society of countrymen serving in the French army, and
was well-known to the Scotch and Irish Colleges in Paris. In 1797 he
returned to England and remained in hiding, occupying lodgings in
Lambeth Court, where his wife, who was a lady of good family, regularly
visited him. He is described as being unsettled in mind at this time,
and even then contemplating surrender. His means of subsistence were
rather precarious, but he lived at the time of delivering himself up in
Upper Thornhaugh St., Bedford Square. In October, 1801, he wrote twice
to Lord Pelham, stating that he had returned to England for the purpose
of meeting the charge against him. It was generally supposed that, had
he not thus come forward voluntarily, the matter had nearly passed out
of people's memory, and he would hardly have been molested. He was,
however, arrested on his own letter, committed to Newgate, and tried at
the Old Bailey for the murder of Benjamin Armstrong at Goree in 1782.
He was found guilty and sentenced to death. After several respites
and strenuous exertions to save his life, he was executed in front of
Newgate on the 28th January, 1802. The whole of one day was occupied by
the judges and law officers in reviewing his case, but their opinion
was against him.
Three persons of note and superior station found themselves in Newgate
about but rather before this time upon a charge of murder. The first
was James Quin, the celebrated actor, the popular diner-out and _bon
vivant_, who went to the west coast of England to eat John Dory in
perfection, and who preferred eating turtle in Bristol to London. He
made his first hit as Falstaff in the "Merry Wives of Windsor." He
had understudied the part, but Rich, manager of the Theatre Royal,
Lincoln's Inn Fields, substituted him for it in an emergency with great
reluctance. His next hit was as Cato, in which, with many other parts,
he succeeded Booth. Quin was modest enough on his first appearance as
Cato to announce that the part would be attempted by Mr. Quin. The
audience were, however, fully satisfied with his performance, and after
one critical passage was applauded with shouts of "Booth outdone!" It
was through this, his great part of Cato, that he was led into the
quarrel which laid him open to the charge of murder. One night in 1769
an inferior actor named Williams, taking the part of messenger, said,
"Cæsar sends health to Cato," but pronounced Cato "Keeto." Quin, much
annoyed, replied instantly with a "gag"—"Would that he had sent a
better messenger."[316:1] Williams was now greatly incensed, and in the
Green Room later in the evening complained bitterly to Quin that he had
been made ridiculous, that his professional prospects were blighted,
and that he insisted upon satisfaction or an apology. Quin only laughed
at his rage. Williams, goaded to madness, went out into the piazza
at Covent Garden to watch for Quin. When the latter left the theatre
Williams attacked him with his sword. Quin drew in his defence, and
after a few passes ran Williams through the body. The ill-fated actor
died on the spot. Quin surrendered himself, was committed, tried, found
guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to be burned in the hand.
Another well-known actor, Charles Macklin, was no less unfortunate
in incurring the stain of blood. He was a hot-headed, intemperate
Irishman, who, when he had an engagement at Drury Lane Theatre,
quarrelled with another actor over a wig. Going down between the pieces
into the scene-room, where the players warmed themselves, he saw a Mr.
Hallam, who was to appear as Sancho in the "Fop's Fortune," wearing a
stock wig which he (Macklin) had on the night before. He swore at him
for a rogue, and cried, "What business have you with my wig?" The other
answered that he had as much right to it as Macklin, but presently went
away and changed it for another. Macklin still would not leave the man
alone, and taking the wig, began to comb it out, making grumbling and
abusive remarks, calling Hallam a blackguard and a scrub rascal. Hallam
replied that he was no more a rascal than Macklin was; upon which the
latter "started from his chair, and having a stick in his hand, made
a full lunge at the actor, and thrust the stick into his left eye;"
pulling it back again he looked pale, turned on his heel, and in a
passion threw the stick on the fire. Hallam clapped his hand to his eye
and said the stick had gone through his head. Young Mr. Cibber, the
manager's son, came in, and a doctor was sent for; the injured man was
removed to a bed, where he expired the following day. Macklin was very
contrite and concerned at his rash act, for which he was arrested, and
in due course tried at the Old Bailey. Many of the most renowned actors
of the day, Rich, Fleetwood, Quin, Ryan, and others, bore testimony to
his good character and his quiet, peaceable disposition. He also was
found guilty of manslaughter only, and sentenced to be burnt in the
hand.
The third case of killing by misadventure was that of Joseph Baretti,
the author of the well-known Italian and English dictionary. Baretti
had resided in England for some years, engaged upon this work; he was
a middle-aged, respectable man, of studious habits, the friend and
associate of the most noted literary men and artists of the day. He was
a member of the club of the Royal Academicians at that time (1769),
lodged in Soho, and went there one afternoon after a long morning's
work over his proofs. Finding no one at the club, he went on to the
Orange coffee-house, and returning by the Haymarket to the club,
was madly assaulted by a woman at the corner of Panton Street. Very
unwisely he resented her attack by giving her a blow with his hand,
when the woman, finding by his accent he was a foreigner, cried for
help against the cursed Frenchman, when there was at once a gathering
of bullies, who jostled and beat Baretti, making him "apprehensive
that he must expect no favour nor protection, but all outrage and
blows." There was, generally, a great puddle at the corner of Panton
Street, even when the weather was fine, and on this particular day
it had rained incessantly, and the pavement was very slippery.
Baretti's assailants tried hard to push him into the puddle, and at
last in self-defence he drew his pocket-knife, a knife he kept, as he
afterwards declared, to carve fruit and sweetmeats, and not to kill his
fellow creatures with. Being hard pushed, "in great horror, having such
bad eyes," lest he should run against some, and his pursuers constantly
at him, jostling and beating him, Baretti "made a quick blow" at one
who had knocked off his hat with his fist; the mob cried, "Murder, he
has a knife out," and gave way. Baretti ran up Oxenden Street, then
faced about and ran into a shop for protection, being quite spent with
fatigue. Three men followed him; one was a constable, who had called
upon Baretti to surrender. Morgan, the man whom he had stabbed, three
times, as it appeared, "the third wound having hurt him more than the
two former," was fast bleeding to death. Baretti was carried before
Sir John Fielding; his friends came from the club and testified to
his character, among others Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, but he was
committed to prison. It was urged in Baretti's defence that he had
been very severely handled; he had a swollen cheek, and was covered
with bruises. Independent witnesses came forward, and swore that they
had been subjected to personal outrage in the neighbourhood of the
Haymarket. A number of personal friends, including Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Doctor Johnson, Mr. Fitz-Herbert, and Mr. Edmund Burke, spoke in the
highest terms of Mr. Baretti as a "man of benevolence, sobriety,
modesty, and learning." In the end he was acquitted of murder or
manslaughter, and the jury gave a verdict of self-defence.
FOOTNOTES:
[282:1] As barristers often preferred to do business at their own
homes, chambers in the Temple were rather at a discount just then, and
their landlords, "preferring tenants of no legal skill to no tenants at
all, let them out to any that offered, . . ." consequently many private
people creep about the Inns of Court.—"Newgate Calendar," i. 470.
[286:1] "Beau" Fielding, who was tried at the Old Bailey in 1706 for
committing bigamy with the Duchess of Cleveland, is one of the most
remarkable instances of this. See "Celebrated Trials," iii. 534. Also
see the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, "Remarkable Trials," 203. She
was tried by the House of Lords, found guilty, but pleaded her peerage
and was discharged.
[316:1] Quin could not resist the chance of making a sharp speech. When
desired by the manager of Covent Garden to go to the front to apologize
for Madame Rollau, a celebrated dancer, who could not appear, he said,
"Ladies and gentlemen, Madame Rollau cannot dance to-night, having
dislocated her ankle—I wish it had been her neck."