induced to return by a letter from Plunket, informing him of another
rich matrimonial prize, which was, as usual, beyond his reach or
above his ingenuity to ensnare;--he again appears to have taken up
his old thoughts of preparing for Jamaica, as a last resource. But
these thoughts did not long possess him; for though by the sale of his
horses and furniture he might have fitted himself for the West Indies
in a very genteel manner, and had still reputation enough left to have
procured sufficient recommendations from home; yet he was prevailed
upon to try his fate on the road once more, and was but too successful,
making several rich prizes. Amongst the rest he and Plunket robbed
Horace Walpole,[3] and on a reward being advertised for the watch
which they had taken from him, Plunket had the impudence to go and
receive it himself, choosing to run the risk rather than trust a third
person with their hazardous secret. But all human prudence is in vain
to stop the hand of justice, when once the measure of our iniquity
is full; our closest secrets take wind, we know not how; and our own
folly acts the part of an informer to awaken offended justice. The
crisis of Maclaine’s fate was at hand. It was he who proposed his last
excursion to Plunket, who was ill at the time, and was very unwilling
to turn out; but Maclaine, impelled by some uncommon impulse, urged
him so earnestly, that he at length complied. They came up about
two o’clock in the morning, near Turnham Green, with the Salisbury
stage-coach, in which five men and a woman were passengers. Though this
was Maclaine’s expedition, yet Plunket was the acting man, and obliged
all the men to come out of the coach one by one, and rifled them; and
then, putting his pistol in his pocket, lest he should frighten the
lady, without forcing her out of the coach, he took what she offered
without further search. Plunket would now have gone off; but Maclaine,
full of his fate, demanded the cloak-bags out of the boot of the coach;
each of them took one before him and rode off, bidding a polite adieu
to the passengers, and riding as deliberately as though they had been
performing some signal service.
On the same morning they met and robbed lord Eglinton, who was the
prize for whom they originally went out. They effected this by a
stratagem, as his lordship was armed with a blunderbuss. One of them
screened himself behind the postboy, so that if his lordship fired he
must shoot his servant, while the other with a pistol cocked demanded
his money, and ordered him to throw his blunderbuss on the ground. But,
it appears, the prize obtained at this hazard was but seven guineas,
with which, and the cloak-bags, they returned to Maclaine’s lodgings
before the family were up, and divided their spoil.
But though the clothes were described in the public papers, yet so
infatuated was Maclaine, that he sold his share of the booty to a
salesman, who instantly recognised them as belonging to a Mr. Higden,
and the latter immediately had Maclaine taken into custody.
On his first examination he denied the fact, but afterwards, that he
might leave himself no room to escape, he formed a design of saving
his life by impeaching his accomplice Plunket, foolishly imagining
that justice would promise life to a villain she had in custody, for
impeaching another that was out of her reach. But “Quem Deus vult
perdere priùs demontat,” or, to express a similar sentiment in the
words of Massinger,--
“Here is a precedent to teach wicked men,
That when they leave religion and turn atheists
Their own abilities leave ’em.”
For though he was forewarned that a confession, without impeaching a
number of accomplices, would not avail him, he still insisted upon
taking that step, not from compunction or remorse, but with the base
design of saving his own life at the expense of that of his quondam
friend.
On his second examination he delivered his confession in writing,
and behaved in a most dastardly manner, whimpering and crying like a
whipped school-boy. This conduct, degrading as it was, drew sympathetic
tears from, and opened the purses of his fair audience, whose bounty
supported him in great affluence while he remained in the Gatehouse,
and whose kind offers of intercession gave him hopes of a free pardon.
On his trial, he thought fit to retract his confession, pretending that
he was flurried, and in some measure delirious, when he made it, and
that he had received the clothes from Plunket in payment of a debt. But
this evasion had no weight with the jury, who brought him in guilty
without going out of court.
On receiving sentence, guilt, shame and dread deprived him of the power
of speech, and disabled him from reading a paper, pathetically enough
composed, in which he prayed for mercy.
In Newgate, ample time was permitted him to make his peace with his
offended Maker, and there is every evidence to believe, from the
testimony of the Rev. Dr. Allen, who attended him constantly to
the last moment of his life, that his remorse and contrition were
unaffected, sincere and strong.
He was carried to Tyburn in a cart, like the rest of the criminals,
and not, as was expected, in a coach; he stood the gaze of the
multitude (which was on this occasion almost infinite) without the
least concern; his thoughts were steadfast in his devotion, and when
he was about to be turned off he said, “O God, forgive my enemies,
bless my friends, and receive my soul!” His execution took place on
Wednesday, October 3, 1750.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] In the very amusing Letters of Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann,
recently published, we find the following spirited and lively sketch of
Maclaine.
“I have been in town for a day or two, and heard no conversation but
about M’Laine, a fashionable highwayman, who is just taken, and who
robbed me among others; as lord Eglinton, Sir Thomas Robinson of
Vienna, Mrs. Talbot, &c. He took an odd booty from the Scotch earl, a
blunderbuss, which lies very formidable upon the justice’s table. He
was taken by selling a laced waistcoat to a pawnbroker, who happened
to carry it to the very man who had just sold the lace. His history is
very particular, for he confesses every thing, and is so little of a
hero, that he cries and begs, and I believe, if lord Eglinton had been
in any luck, might have been robbed of his own blunderbuss. His father
was an Irish dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem
at the Hague. He himself was a grocer, but losing a wife that he loved
extremely about two years ago, and by whom he has one little girl, he
quitted his business with two hundred pounds in his pocket, which he
soon spent, and then took to the road with only one companion, Plunket,
a journeyman apothecary, my other friend, whom he has impeached, but
who is not taken. M’Laine had a lodging in St. James’ street over
against White’s, and another at Chelsea; Plunket one in Jermyn street;
and their faces are as known about St. James’ as any gentleman’s who
lives in that quarter, and who perhaps goes upon the road too. M’Laine
had a quarrel at Putney bowling-green two months ago with an officer,
whom he challenged for disputing his crank; but the captain declined,
till M’Laine should produce a certificate of his nobility, which he has
just received. If he had escaped a month longer, he might have heard
of Mr. Chute’s genealogical expertness, and come hither to the College
of Arms for a certificate. There was a wardrobe of clothes, three and
twenty purses, and the celebrated blunderbuss, found at his lodgings,
besides a famous kept mistress. As I conclude he will suffer, and wish
him no ill, I don’t care to have his idea, and am almost single in not
having been to see him. Lord Mountford, at the head of half White’s,
went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were
withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White’s, ‘My dear,
what did the lords say to you? have you ever been concerned with any of
them?’ Was it not admirable? what a favorable idea people must have of
White’s!--and what if White’s should not deserve a touch better! But
the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen
hero are lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe: I call them Polly and
Lucy, and asked them if he did not sing, ‘Thus I stand like the Turk
with his doxies around.’”
EUGENE ARAM.
The accounts of the life of this man have become of late so widely
circulated, and the particulars respecting the murder of which he was
the perpetrator so generally known, that any notice of him in this
work would appear almost supererogatory, were it not that a charge
of oversight and omission could, without injustice, be reasonably
advanced against it, were we to slight over or leave unmentioned a
name so notorious. We shall, therefore, give a summary of his history,
commencing with an account of his family and early life, furnished by
himself at the request of the two gentlemen who, at his own particular
desire, attended him at his condemnation.
“I was born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale, in 1704. My
maternal relations had been substantial and reputable in that dale,
for a great many generations: my father was of Nottinghamshire, a
gardener, of great abilities in botany, and an excellent draughtsman.
He served the right reverend bishop of London, Dr. Compton, with great
approbation; which occasioned his being recommended to Newby, in
this county, to Sir Edward Blackett, whom he served in the capacity
of gardener, with much credit to himself, and satisfaction to that
family, for above thirty years. Upon the decease of that baronet, he
went, and was retained in the service of Sir John Ingilby, of Ripley,
Bart., where he died; respected when living, and lamented when dead.
My father’s ancestors were of great antiquity and consideration in the
county, and originally British. Their surname is local, for they were
formerly lords of the town of Haram, or Aram, on the southern banks of
the Tees, and opposite to Sockburn, in Bishopric; and appear in the
records of St. Mary’s, at York, among many charitable names, early
and considerable benefactors to that abbey. They, many centuries ago,
removed from these parts, and were settled under the fee of the lords
Mowbray, in Nottinghamshire, at Haram or Aram Park, in the neighborhood
of Newark upon Trent; where they were possessed of no less than three
knights’ fees in the reign of Edward the Third. Their lands, I find not
whether by purchase or marriage, came into the hands of the present
lord Lexington. While the name existed in the county, some of them
were several times high sheriffs for the county; and one was professor
of divinity, if I remember right, at Oxford, and died at York. The
last of the chief of this family was Thomas Aram, Esq. of Gray’s inn,
and one of the commissioners of the salt office, under queen Anne. He
married one of the co-heiresses of Sir John Coningsby, of North Mimms,
in Hertfordshire. His seat, which was his own estate, was at the Wild,
near Shenley, in Hertfordshire, where I saw him, and where he died
without issue.
“I was removed very young, along with my mother, to Skelton, near
Newby; and thence, at five or six years old, my father making a little
purchase at Bondgate, near Ripon, his family went thither. There I went
to school; where I was made capable of reading the Testament, which was
all I was ever taught, except, a long time after, for about a month, in
a very advanced age for that, with the reverend Mr. Alcock, of Burnsal.
“After this, about thirteen or fourteen years of age, I went to my
father at Newby, and attended him in the family there, till the death
of Sir Edward Blackett. It was here my propensity to literature first
appeared, for being always of a solitary disposition, and uncommonly
fond of retirement and books, I enjoyed here all the repose and
opportunity I could wish. My study at that time was engaged in the
mathematics: I know not what my acquisitions were, but I am certain my
application was intense and unwearied. I found in my father’s library
there, which contained a very great number of books in most branches,
Kersey’s Algebra, Leybourn’s Cursus Mathematicus, Ward’s Young
Mathematician’s Guide, Harris’ Algebra, &c. and a great many more; but
these being the books in which I was ever most conversant, I remember
them the better. I was even then equal to the management of quadratic
equations, and their geometrical constructions. After we left Newby, I
repeated the same studies in Bondgate, and went over all parts I had
studied before, I believe not altogether unsuccessfully.
“Being about the age of sixteen, I was sent for to London, being
thought, upon examination by Mr. Christopher Blackett, qualified to
serve him as book-keeper in his counting-house. Here, after a year
or two, I took the small-pox and suffered most severely under that
distemper. I returned home again, and there with leisure on my hands,
and a new addition of authors to those brought me from Newby, I renewed
not only my mathematical studies, but began and prosecuted others, of
a different turn, with much avidity and diligence. These were poetry,
history, and antiquities; the charms of which quite destroyed all the
heavier beauties of numbers in lines, whose applications and properties
I now pursued no longer, except occasionally in teaching.
“I was, after some time employed in this manner, invited into
Netherdale, my native air, where I first engaged in a school, and
where, unfortunately enough for me, I married. The misconduct of the
wife which that place afforded me, has procured me this prosecution,
this prison, this infamy, and this sentence.
“During my marriage here, perceiving the deficiencies in my education,
and sensible of my want of the learned languages, and prompted by an
irresistible covetousness of knowledge, I commenced a series of studies
in that way, and undertook the tediousness of the intricacies and the
labor of grammar; I selected Lilly from the rest, all of which I got
and repeated by heart. The task of repeating it all every day was
impossible while I attended the school; so I divided it into portions;
by which method it was pronounced thrice every week, and this I
performed for years.
“I next became acquainted with Camden’s Greek Grammar, which I also
repeated in the same manner, _memoriter_. Thus instructed, I entered
upon the Latin classics, whose allurements repaid my assiduities and my
labors. I remember to have, at first, overhung five lines for a whole
day; and never, in all the painful course of my reading, left any one
passage till I did, or thought I did, perfectly comprehend it.
“After I had accurately perused every one of the Latin classics,
historians and poets, I went through the Greek Testament, first
parsing every word as I proceeded; next I ventured upon Hesiod, Homer,
Theocritus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and all the Greek tragedians:
a tedious labor was this; but my former acquaintance with history
lessened it extremely, because it threw light upon many passages, which
without that assistance must have appeared obscure.
“In the midst of these literary pursuits a man and horse from my good
friend William Norton, Esq., came for me from Knaresborough, bearing
that gentleman’s letter inviting me thither; and accordingly I repaired
there in some part of the year 1734, and was, I believe, well accepted
and esteemed there. Here, not satisfied with my former acquisitions, I
prosecuted the attainment of Hebrew, and with indefatigable diligence.
I had Buxtorff’s grammar, but that being perplexed, or not explicit
enough, at least in my opinion at that time, I collected no less than
eight or ten different grammars and thus one very often supplied the
omissions of the others, and was, I found, of extraordinary advantage.
Then I purchased the Bible in the original and read the whole
Pentateuch, with an intention to go through the whole of it, which I
attempted, but wanted time.
“In April, I think the 18th, 1744, I went again to London, and agreed
to teach the Latin and writing, for the Rev. Mr. Painblanc, in
Piccadilly, which he, along with a salary, returned, by teaching me
French; wherein I observed the pronunciation the most formidable part,
at least to me, who had never before known a word of it. By continued
application every night and every opportunity, I overcame this, and
soon became a tolerable master of French. I remained in this situation
two years and above.
“Some time after this I went to Hays, in the capacity of
writing-master, and served a gentlewoman there, since dead; and stayed,
after that, with a worthy and reverend gentleman. I continued here
between three and four years. To several other places I then succeeded,
and all that while used every occasion for improvement. I then
transcribed acts of parliament to be registered in chancery; and after
went down to the free-school at Lynn.
“From my leaving Knaresborough to this time is a long interval, which
I had filled up with the farther study of history and antiquities,
heraldry and botany; in the last of which I was very agreeably
entertained, there being in that study so extensive a display of
nature. I well knew Tournefort, Ray, Miller, Linnæus, &c. I made
frequent visits to the botanic garden at Chelsea; and traced pleasure
through a thousand fields: at last, few plants, domestic or exotic,
were unknown to me. Amidst all this I ventured upon the Chaldee and
Arabic; and, with a design to understand them, supplied myself with
Erpenius, Chappelow, and others: but I had not time to obtain any great
knowledge of the Arabic; the Chaldee I found easy enough, because of
its connection with the Hebrew.
“I then investigated the Celtic, as far as possible, in all its
dialects; began collections, and made comparisons between that, the
English, the Latin, the Greek, and even the Hebrew. I had made notes,
and compared above three thousand of these together, and found such a
surprising affinity, even beyond any expectation or conception, that
I was determined to proceed through the whole of these languages, and
form a comparative lexicon, which I hoped would account for numberless
vocables in use with us, the Latins, and Greeks, before concealed and
unobserved: this, or something like it, was the design of a clergyman
of great erudition in Scotland; but it must prove abortive, for he
died before he executed it, and most of my books and papers are now
scattered and lost.”
Such is the account Eugene Aram has given of himself, until the
commission of the fatal act that brought down upon him the execration
of the world and the last vengeance of the law. Of all the crimes man
is capable of committing, there is none so offensive to Omnipotence as
murder; and the Almighty, therefore, seems to be more intent to expose
that heinous and accursed offence to mankind; to warn and admonish
them, to show them that rocks cannot hide, nor distance secure them
from the inevitable consequences of the violation of that law which
nature dictates and man confirms. The extraordinary means by which
this murder was brought to light, is one of the many instances of this
divine interposition.
Daniel Clark was born at Knaresborough, of reputable parents, where
he lived and followed the business of a shoemaker. About the month
of January, 1744 or 5, he married, and became possessed of property
to the amount of two or three hundred pounds. He was at that time in
very good credit at Knaresborough, and it is supposed a scheme was
then laid by Eugene Aram, at that time a schoolmaster in the town, and
one Houseman, a flax-dresser, to defraud several tradesmen of great
quantities of goods and plate, Clark having been chosen as the fittest
person to carry their plan into execution; for, as he then lived in
very good reputation, and, moreover, was lately married, he was the
person of all others best calculated to effect the intended purpose.
Accordingly, Clark for some days went about to various tradesmen in the
town, and under the pretext that, as he was just married, it was not
altogether irrational to suppose that cloth, and table and bed-linen,
would considerably contribute to his matrimonial comfort, he took up
great quantities of linen and woollen-drapery goods; the worthy dealers
of Knaresborough rendering up their commodities with the greatest zeal
and expedition on so interesting an occasion. After this, he went to
several innkeepers and others, desiring to borrow a silver tankard of
one, a nicely-worked silver pint of another, and the like, alleging
that he was to have company that night, and should be glad of the
use of them at supper; and in order to give a color to his story, he
procured of the innkeepers (of whom he had borrowed the plate) ale and
other liquors to regale his visitors.
Some suspicious circumstances, however, appearing that night and the
following morning, a rumor got wind that Clark had absconded; and upon
inquiry, most certainly, he was not to be found. An active search was
immediately made for the goods and plate with which he had provided
himself, when some part of the goods was found at Houseman’s house,
and another part dug up in Aram’s garden: but as no plate could be
found it was concluded, somewhat naturally, that with them Clark had
decamped. The strictest inquiry was instantly set on foot to discover
his retreat; persons were despatched to all parts; advertisements
describing his person inserted in all the papers; but to no purpose.
Eugene Aram being suspected to be an accomplice, a process was granted
against him by the steward of the honor of Knaresborough to arrest
him for a debt due to a Mr. Norton, with a view to detain him till
such time as a warrant could be obtained from the justice of the peace
to apprehend him upon that charge. To the surprise of all, however,
the money was instantly paid, and moreover, at the same time, a
considerable mortgage upon his house at Bondgate was also discharged.
Soon afterwards, Aram left the town, and was not heard of until the
month of June, 1758, when the murder of Clark being traced to him, he
was found residing at Lynn.
Upwards of thirteen years after Clark’s disappearance, it happened
that a laborer employed in digging for stone to supply a lime-kiln, at
a place called Thistle hill, near Knaresborough, striking about half
a yard and half a quarter deep, turned up an arm bone and the small
bone of the leg of a human skeleton. His curiosity being excited, he
carefully removed the earth round about the place, and discovered all
the bones belonging to a body, presenting an appearance, from their
position, as though the body had been doubled at the hips, though the
bones were all perfect. This remarkable accident being rumored in the
town, gave rise to a suspicion that Daniel Clark had been murdered and
buried there; for no other person had been missing thereabouts for
sixty years and upwards. The coroner was instantly informed, and an
inquest summoned.