(1746.)
[Illustration: Drop-I]n contrast with the triumph and the deification
came the torture and the slaughter of the victims. The trials of the
prisoners taken at Carlisle and in Scotland next monopolised the
public mind. When the precept was issued by the judges, to the High
Sheriff of Surrey, to summon a jury for the trial of the prisoners, at
the Court House, in Southwark, a very equivocal compliment was paid
to Richmond. The grand jury were selected from among the inhabitants
of Addiscombe, Bermondsey, Camberwell, Clapham, Croydon, Kennington,
Lambeth, Putney, Rotherhithe, Southwark,――but not from Richmond, or
its immediate neighbourhood. The inhabitants of that courtly locality
were spared. They were supposed to be thoroughly Hanoverian, and
therefore to a certain degree biassed! The trials of those called ‘the
Manchester officers’ divided the attention of London with those of
the Jacobite peers. The former were brought to the Court House, St.
Margaret’s Hill, Southwark, on July 3rd, for arraignment. The judges in
commission were Chief Justice Lee, Justices Wright, Dennison, Foster,
and Abney; Barons Clive and Reynolds, with two magistrates, Sir Thomas
De Viel and Peter Theobald, Esqs. Eighteen prisoners were brought to
the Court through an excited and insulting mob. Of these eighteen, five
pleaded ‘guilty.’ The trials of the remaining thirteen were deferred
to the 13th July. Of these, one was acquitted. ◆[Sidenote: _COLONEL
TOWNELEY._]◆ The first prisoner placed at the bar was Francis Towneley,
Colonel of the Manchester regiment, and nephew of the Towneley who
had such a narrow escape of the gallows for his share in the earlier
outbreak. The trials so nearly resembled each other, that to narrate a
few will afford a sample of the whole. The Attorney-General (Ryder),
the Solicitor-General (Murray), Sir John Strange, Sir Richard Lloyd,
and the Hon. Mr. Yorke were the prosecuting counsel. Towneley was
defended by Sergeant Wynne and Mr. Clayton. The addresses of the king’s
counsel altogether would make but a short speech, in the present day.
One briefly explained the charge; and the others, among them, expressed
their horror at the rebel idea of overturning so glorious a throne
and so gracious a king. They laughed at the motto on the rebel flag:
_Liberty, Property, and King_. Liberty was interpreted as meaning
slavery; property meant plunder; and king, an usurper who was to sit in
the place of a murdered and rightful monarch. Seven witnesses deposed
against Towneley. The first two were ‘rebels’ who, to save their
necks, turned traitors. The first, Macdonald, swore to his having seen
Towneley acting as colonel of the Manchester regiment with a white
cockade in his hat, a Highland dress, a plaid sash, sword and pistols.
The cross-examination was as brief as that in chief. Out of it came
that Macdonald expected his pardon for his testimony; that he was only
a servant; was brought by sea and came ashore from the Thames in a
destitute condition, and had nothing to subsist on.
[Sidenote: _KING’S EVIDENCE._]
Macdonald’s fellow in iniquity, Maddox, succeeded. He was nominally an
ensign, but he held no commission, and Towneley was his colonel. In the
retreat, northward, Maddox stated that he had expressed a desire to
get back to his master at Manchester, and that Towneley replied that,
if he attempted to withdraw, he would have his brains knocked out.
At Carlisle, he added, the Pretender, on leaving, appointed Towneley
Commandant, under Hamilton, the Governor of the town. That, in the
above capacity, Towneley fortified the city, sent out foraging parties,
to whom he made signals by firing a pistol as he stood on the wall,
to warn them against surprises by the enemy. When Governor Hamilton
spoke of surrendering the citadel, Towneley, according to Maddox, flew
into violent rage, and protested that ‘it would be better to die by
the sword than to fall into the hands of the damned Hanoverians.’ In
his cross-examination, Maddox accounted for his being an approver, by
saying: ‘My brother came to me in the New Prison, and advised me to do
my best to save my own life, and serve my country.’ He had followed
the fraternal counsel, and was then living, at Government cost, in
a messenger’s house. ◆[Sidenote: _TOWNELEY’S TRIAL._]◆ The third
approver, Coleman, gave similar evidence. A Carlisle grocer, Davidson,
deposed that he heard Colonel Towneley give orders to set fire to a
house near the city, from which ‘the Elector of Hanover’s troops’
had fired on some Jacobite soldiery. Two captains, Nevet and Vere,
stated, that on entering Carlisle, they had found Towneley acting as
Commandant; and Captain Carey said, that the Duke of Cumberland having
ordered him, through Lord Beauclerc, to take the rebel officers under
his guard, he found on Towneley some guineas and a watch, ‘which I did
not take from him,’ the captain added; ‘for His Royal Highness’s orders
were, not to take any money out of the pockets of any of the officers,
as it might be of service in their confinement.’
The process of accusation was not long; the defence was briefer
still. Towneley’s counsel could not save him by stating that he was
a gentleman by birth and education; that motives which weighed upon
him forced him to go abroad in 1722; that he held a commission from
the King of France; and that he was at the side of Borwick, when that
marshal was slain at Phillipsburgh; that he had come over to England,
some time before, while in the service of the French king; and that, as
a French officer, he had ‘a right to the cartel.’ Captain Carpenter,
whose evidence was to the same effect, served the colonel as little
by his deposition; and two Manchester men, Hayward and Dickinson, who
swore that Maddox was a cheating apprentice to a Manchester apothecary,
not to be believed on his oath, might as well have remained at home.
[Sidenote: _CONVICTION._]
The summing-up was brief, but to the purpose. The jury, consisting
of three gentlemen, one yeoman, three brewers, a baker, brazier,
starch-maker, gardener, and cloth-worker, promptly replied to it, by
finding Towneley ‘guilty.’ The colonel heard the word and the sentence
which followed, so horrible in its details of strangling and burning,
without being much moved. His dignity never failed him; and the crowd
through which he returned to his dungeon was less savage, in its
expletives, than the loyal press in its comments. ‘The commission from
the French king,’ said the ‘Penny Post,’ ‘was treated with the contempt
it deserved, and must convince the Jacobites that such foolish and
wicked contrivances can have no effect on men of understanding.’ ‘Hear!
hear!’ cried the Whig papers; ‘so much for the nominal Colonel!’
While these trials were in progress, a curious enquiry was attracting
not a few of ‘the mobile’ to another part of the town. A goodly number
of King George’s soldiers were made prisoners by the Jacobites, at the
battle of Preston Pans. These had been recovered, but they did not
return to the ranks unquestioned. They were compelled to appear, in
batches, at Hicks’s Hall, Clerkenwell, to clear themselves from the
imputation of cowardice and desertion; and to undergo the rough wit of
the populace as they went to and fro. Other soldiers, against whom the
above imputation could not be laid, offended in another way. For acts
of murderous violence and robbery in the London streets, six soldiers
were hung on the same day, at Tyburn. As long as such spectacles were
provided, the mob little cared to which side the victims belonged.
[Sidenote: _CAPTAIN FLETCHER._]
Three prisoners were tried on the following day, July 16th, Fletcher,
Chadwick, and Battragh. Maddox, the approver, stated, as in Towneley’s
case, that he had expressed a wish to withdraw, but that Fletcher had
said: ‘That it would be a scandalous shame to retreat;’ and, added
the witness, ‘putting his hand in his pocket, he pulled out a great
purse of gold, and told me I should not want while that lasted! I have
seen him in the assembly with ladies, he was a chapman and dealt in
linen before this affair.’ Bradbury, another witness, said, ‘When the
recruiting sergeant had finished his speech, at Manchester, with “God
save King James and Prince Charles!” Captain Fletcher pulled off his
hat and hallooed.’ For the defence, Anne Aston, an old servant of seven
and twenty years’ standing, stated that Fletcher carefully managed his
mother’s business at Salford; that he was always loyal, but that the
Jacobites had carried him off by force, from the house, and that he
went away weeping. It was, however, said that he gave 50_l._ for his
captain’s commission. He was found _guilty_, was again put in fetters,
and was taken back to prison. ‘I would do it again!’ was his bold
remark, as he turned away from the bar.
[Sidenote: _THE MANCHESTER OFFICERS._]
Lieutenant Chadwick and Ensign Battragh were then put forward. They
belonged to Captain James Dawson’s company. The ensign had been
an attorney’s clerk. The lieutenant was the son of a Manchester
tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, but he was too proud to follow his
sire’s calling. He was a handsome fellow, with a sweet voice for
singing, and was no mean proficient on the organ. ‘He kept,’ it was
said, ‘some of the most polite company in the place, and never followed
any trade.’ One of the witnesses stated that when the lieutenant was
with the Jacobite army at Lancaster, he went into the organ-loft of
one of the churches and played ‘the King shall have his own again!’ In
addition to the old witnesses, a Jacobite drummer-boy, twelve years
old, was called. ‘Child,’ said the judge, ‘do you know the nature of
an oath?’ The child readily answered in the affirmative, adding: ‘I
know I am sworn to speak the truth, and I shall never be happy if I
don’t.’ Upon this, he was sworn, and he deposed to being a servant to
Captain Lowther, and to being taken prisoner at Carlisle, where, said
he, ‘I begged my life on my knees, of His Royal Highness, which he
readily granted, and God bless him for it!’ The active presence of both
prisoners in the rebel army having been duly proved, they held their
peace, and were duly found guilty, were ironed, and carried back to
their dungeons.
[Sidenote: ‘_JEMMY DAWSON._’]
Lieutenant-Colonel Deacon, Captain Berwick, and Captain James Dawson
stood successively at the bar, on the 17th July. Deacon was the son
of a Manchester physician, and long before the Jacobites entered
Manchester, he had proclaimed his intention of joining them. This he
did with two brothers; one, a mere boy, was captured, detained, and
ultimately released. The other was slain. Berwick (who was familiarly
dignified with the titular honour of ‘Duke’) was a gay young fellow
who had dealt in ‘chequered linens,’ but had not been ‘prudent’ in
trade; and had joined the rebels to escape his creditors. The third
rebel, ‘Jemmy Dawson,’ has become better known to us than either ‘brave
Berwick,’ or ‘gallant Deacon.’ He was a ‘Lancashire lad,’ of good
family. He was so fond of what is also called ‘good company,’ when
he was at St. John’s, Cambridge, that he withdrew from his college,
in order to escape expulsion. He returned to Manchester, where he
lived ‘on his fortune and his friends.’――‘He was always a mighty gay
gentleman,’ it was said at his trial, ‘and frequented much the company
of ladies, and was well respected by all his acquaintances of either
sex, for his genteel deportment.’
The usual testimony was given against the three Jacobites. Maddox
added, of Deacon, that he had seen him sitting at the ‘Bull’s Head,’
Manchester, taking the names of the recruits, and also making up blue
and white ribbons into bows, to decorate the recruits with. On the
march, he seems to have indulged in making long speeches, praising
‘Charles, Prince Regent,’ and inducing many to join, on assurance of
good treatment when they got to London, or five guineas wherewith to
get home again. He was very conspicuous in his plaid suit, with laced
loops, broad sword, and pistols.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE PRESS._]
There was some variety on the 18th at the trial of a Welsh barrister
named David Morgan. ‘I waited on him at Preston,’ said one Tew, ‘when
he and Lord Elcho dined together. They talked on the Pretender’s
affairs. Morgan asked of what religion the prince might be, and Lord
Elcho replied that his religion was yet to seek.’ Other witnesses
deposed to Morgan’s active participation in the rebellion, the
consideration with which he was treated by other officers, and his
close attendance upon the Pretender, by whose side he rode out of Derby
on a bay horse. Captain Vere, who had received his surrender, said,
‘He called me a great scoundrel, as I prevented gentlemen getting
commissions under Sir Daniel O’Carrol.’ Another witness deposed that he
had gone the night before out of curiosity to see Morgan in Newgate,
and that this Pretender’s counsellor had actually exclaimed, ‘We shall
soon be in Derby again, in spite of King George or anybody else!’
Morgan’s defence was that he had repented, and had tried to escape, but
was arrested. The Solicitor-General remarked that the attempt was not
made till the cause was desperate, and Morgan was pronounced ‘Guilty!’
The trials and sentences impressed the writers of the London newspapers
in various ways. The ‘happy establishment’ supporters thirsted for
rebel blood. The Jacobite journals were ‘cowed.’ They seemed even
afraid to express a hope that mercy might be extended to the condemned
officers. The utmost they ventured to do was to suggest mercy, or keep
a thought of it alive in the breast of princes and people, by selecting
Shakespeare for their advocate; and in these journals might be read
again and again the lines from ‘Measure for Measure’:――
No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs,
Not the king’s crown nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As Mercy does.
But Shakespeare pleaded and suggested in vain.
[Sidenote: _THE CONDEMNED JACOBITES._]
After sentence the Jacobite officers were heavily ironed, even by day.
At night they were fastened to the floor by a staple. Colonel Towneley
was speedily interviewed by a ‘good-natured friend,’ who, in the spirit
of one of Job’s comforters, remarked: ‘I believe, Sir, you deceived
yourself in imagining you should be able to clear up your innocence;
... and that you was not quite right in supposing that you could
invalidate the credit of the king’s witnesses.’ Tears for the first
and last time came into the colonel’s eyes. Towneley said simply, ‘I
never thought it could have come to this.’ The remark may have referred
to his weakness rather than to his fate. In the disorderly prison,
when hopes of reprieve caused some to sing hysterically, and to drink
in much the same spirit, Towneley never lost his grave and becoming
dignity. His reserve when he, for an hour, came from his room into the
yard was looked upon by the hilarious and untried Jacobite prisoners
as insolent contempt. This did not affect the colonel, who communed
only with himself, and passed on without remark. ◆[Sidenote: _PAINFUL
PARTINGS._]◆ In order, however, that he might die like a gentleman as
well as a Christian, a tailor measured him for a suit of black velvet,
in which he might appear with dignity on the day of his execution.
Young Fletcher never lost his cheerfulness, except, perhaps, when he
alluded to his ‘poor mother’ having offered him 1,000_l._ not to join
the rebel army. ‘Here I am,’ said the young fellow, ‘for which I have
nobody to thank but myself.’ Blood refused to trust, as his friends
did, in a reprieve. ‘I can die but once,’ he replied to their remarks;
‘as well now as at any other time. I am ready.’ ‘My father,’ said the
valiant barber, Syddal, ‘was put to death for joining the Stuarts in
’15. I am about to follow him for joining them in ’45. I have five
children; may none of them fall in a worse cause!’ Two fathers had
interviews on the eve of the execution, with their sons. ‘Jemmy Dawson’
and Chadwick had displayed the utmost unobtrusive fortitude. ‘You may
put tons of iron on me,’ said the former young captain, when he was
being heavily fettered after judgment: ‘it will not in the least damp
my resolution.’ Chadwick had manifested a similar spirit; but when
the two lads were held for the last time each in his weeping father’s
arms, resolution temporarily gave way. The parting scene was of a most
painful nature. Poor Syddal, the Jacobite barber, behaved with as much
propriety as any of higher rank. Morgan, the lawyer, was irritable, and
on the very eve of being hanged quarrelled with the charges made by the
prison cook for indifferent fare.
[Sidenote: _WITHIN PRISON-WALLS._]
Among the untried prisoners there was one Bradshaw, in whom there
seems to have been a touch of the insanity which was afterwards pleaded
in his defence. This gay, thoughtless fellow hated Towneley, with whom
he had quarrelled at Carlisle, ‘on account,’ say the newspapers, ‘of
a young lady whom they had severally addressed at a ball which was
kept at the Bull’s Head Inn, Manchester, for the neighbouring gentry.’
This trifle seems to show what feather-brained gallants some of the
Jacobite officers were. The quarrel about a pretty girl was never made
up. On the day before the sentence was carried out, Bradshaw shuffled
up in his fetters to Colonel Towneley in the yard, and saluted his
former superior officer with, ‘I find, sir, you must shortly march
into other quarters.’ Towneley looked at him in silent surprise, but
Berwick, who was at the colonel’s side, spiritedly remarked: ‘Jemmy,
you should not triumph at our misfortunes. You may depend upon it,
mocking is catching;’ and turning to Chadwick, who had not yet been
summoned to meet his fate, Berwick rejoined: ‘Bradshaw has no pity in
him.’ Chadwick looked at the pitiless scoffer, who had been drinking
freely (prison rules set no limit to tippling), and said: ‘What could
be expected of such a fellow? He is a disgrace to our army.’ At length
on their last evening came the hour for locking up. As the doomed
Jacobites were being stapled to the floor, some of them ordered that
they should be called at six in the morning, and that coffee should be
ready for them when they descended to the yard. They were wide awake,
however, at that hour; but when the fastidious Morgan heard that the
coffee was ready before he was released from the staple, he flew into a
furious passion, and, within an hour or two of being hanged, drawn, and
quartered, this irascible Jacobite made a heavy grievance of having to
drink his coffee half cold!
[Sidenote: _THE LAST MORNING._]
Before they descended to the yard the three sledges were drawn up
there, in which the nine Jacobites were to be drawn, by threes, to the
gallows, the quartering block, and the fire, at the place of sacrifice.
Prisoners whose hour had not yet come were curiously inspecting these
gloomy vehicles. Bradshaw, with his morning brandy in his brains,
affected much curiosity in the matter, and his doings were watched,
like the performance of a mime, by idle gentlemen who had walked in,
without let or hindrance, to the spectacle. It was raining heavily, but
that was no obstacle to the acting. Bradshaw inspected the sledges,
and pronounced them very proper for the purposes for which they were
designed. Then he raked about the straw, declared there was too little
of it, and bade the warders to procure more, or ‘the lads’ would get
their feet wet.
The ‘lads’ took their last coffee in a room off the yard, generally in
silence. Chadwick alone made a remark to Berwick: ‘Ah, Duke,’ he said,
‘our time draws near, but I feel in good heart.’ ‘I, too,’ answered
Berwick; ‘death does not shock me in the least. My friends forgive me,
and have done their best to save me. May God be merciful to us all!’
And then appeared the governor with, ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please!’
[Sidenote: _VIA DOLOROSA._]
The gentlemen were ready at the call. Their irons were knocked off
before they entered the sledges, and each was slightly pinioned――so
slightly that Syddal took advantage of it to take snuff, whereby to
cover a little natural nervousness. Behind the sledges followed a
coach, in which, under the guard of a warder, the younger Deacon lay
rather than sat. His youth had saved his life. The parting of the two
brothers was most touching, and the younger one implored that he might
suffer too. He suffered more, for he was condemned to witness the
sufferings of his brother. The mob between the prison and Kennington
Common was enormous, in spite of the pitiless rain. At the period of
the trials, when the Jacobite prisoners passed to and fro, the mob
treated them in the most ruffianly manner; but now, on their way to
death, not even a word of offence was flung at them. The crowd gazed at
the doomed men and the heavy escort of horse and foot in sympathising
silence.
[Sidenote: _AT KENNINGTON COMMON._]
At the gallows tree there was neither priest, nor minister, nor
prison ordinary, to give spiritual aid. Singular incidents ensued.
The captives could scarcely have been pinioned at all. Morgan took
out a book of devotion, and read it full half an hour to his fellows
in misery, who stood around him, gravely listening. Syddal and Deacon
read speeches, which were word for word identical. They were, in fact,
addresses said to be written by a nonjuring minister, one Creake, and
printed for circulation in the crowd. The purport was, that the two
culprits professed to belong to neither the Church of England nor of
Rome, but to a poor episcopal church that had cured the errors of
all other modern churches. They were further made to say that one
universal church was the only perfect principle; and they recommended
a perusal of a work called ‘A Complete Collection of Devotion, A.D.
1734,’ which was believed to be by Dr. Deacon, the father of one of the
condemned. Morgan appears to have really spoken. He abused the Church
of Rome, which was rather ungracious at such a moment, in Towneley’s
presence, who, however, never uttered a word in reply. Morgan declared
he was a Church of England man (the anti-Jacobite journals denounced
him as an unmitigated miscreant), and that his faith was set forth
in two works: ‘The Christian Test,’ and, he added, ‘in a work to be
hereafter published by my most dutiful daughter, Miss Mary Morgan.’ The
other sufferers observed silence, but all, before they died, manfully
declared that they died willingly in a just cause, and that their
deaths would be avenged. One or two threw papers into the crowd; one or
two their gold-laced hats――which must have disgusted the hangmen, who
were thus deprived of part of their perquisites. Others, it is said,
flung to the mob their prayer-books, which were found to be turned
down at the 89th Psalm, from the 21st verse to the end, which passages
will be found, not, indeed, altogether inapplicable, but needing some
little violence to make the application suit the circumstances.
[Sidenote: _EXECUTION._]
Next followed the unutterable barbarity of the execution; where,
however, the strangling rendered the sufferers above all consciousness
of the butcher’s knife, and the flames. The mob had time to notice
that the twist of the halters were alternately white and red. The
rope-maker, much urged to explain, gave no other answer than that it
was his fancy. The crowd, at the close, had to make way for a coach
which had been drawn up by the side of the scaffold. It contained the
poor lad, Deacon, condemned to see his elder brother die. Thence,
probably, has arisen the romance, which tells us that the coach
contained a lady who had died of her love, and of her horror at the
sufferings of her sweetheart, Dawson, and which afforded an opportunity
to Shenstone to write his well-known ballad,――‘Jemmy Dawson.’
The Whig Press observed a certain decency in its comments on the
sufferers. Exception, however, was made in the case of Morgan.
‘What his virtues and better qualities were,’ said the loyal ‘Penny
Post,’――‘if he had any, have not yet come to our knowledge; if they
had, we should gladly have mentioned them, that the world might not
run away with the opinion that Mr. Morgan was the only man who ever
lived half a century without doing one good action, and that he died
unlamented by friend, neighbour, or domestic.’ There is a charming
affectation of delicacy in another paragraph, which runs thus: ‘What
his treatment of his wife has been, we have no business with. He
parted from her with a good deal of seeming affection.’ One of the
journals paid the sufferers as much compliment as the writer could
afford to give under the circumstances: ‘They all behaved,’ he says,
‘with a kind of fixt resolution of putting the best face they could
upon a Bad Cause, and therefore behaved with Decency and seeming
Resolution.’
At the ‘clearing up,’ it was discovered that the papers the poor
fellows had flung among the crowd, before they were hanged, were of a
highly treasonable nature. There was eager snatching of them from one
another, and a still hotter eagerness on the part of the Government
to discover the ‘rascal printer.’ He had audaciously set in type the
last expression of the sufferers,――that they died willingly for their
king and the cause; regretted the brave attempt had failed;――and, had
they the opportunity, they would make the same attempt, for their king,
again. A mob rather than a group had collected about Temple Bar to see
their heads spiked. Deacon’s and Syddal’s had been sent to Manchester.
When the hangman and his assistant tripped up the ladder at the bar,
each with a head under his arm, the sympathising spectators were
in doubt as to whose shoulders they had originally come from. Bets
were laid on one, as being certainly Colonel Towneley’s. There were
counter-bets that Towneley’s had gone to Carlisle. Assertions were
made upon oath――very strong oaths, too,――that Towneley’s head was then
lying with his body at an undertaker’s up at Pancras, and was to be
buried with it. The hangman was a reserved man, and his comrade was
taciturn. They left the gaping crowd uncertain. One of the heads was
truly Fletcher’s. Was the other Morgan’s? Information was not supplied
by the officials; but, after consideration, the spectators decided that
the colonel’s head was set up with the captain’s; and this judgment
was never shaken from the popular mind. A correspondent of ‘Notes and
Queries’ (Dec. 7, 1872, p. 456), says of the Jacobite colonel: ‘His
head is now in a box, in the library at 12, Charles Street, Berkeley
Square, the residence of the present Colonel Charles Towneley.’
[Sidenote: _HEADS AND BODIES._]
The bodies of the Jacobites executed on Kennington Common were
buried in the parish of St. Pancras. The headless trunk of Towneley
was deposited in a grave in the old churchyard. Those of Fletcher,
Deacon, Chadwick, Berwick, Syddal, Dawson, Blood, and Morgan, lie in
the burial-ground of the parish, near the Foundling Hospital. The
heads of the last three were given up to their friends. Syddal’s and
Deacon’s were exposed on the market-cross at Manchester. Chadwick’s and
Berwick’s were sent to Carlisle.
Towneley’s ghost was appeased by a ballad-writer who brought the spirit
to the Duke of Cumberland’s bed, where the ghost scared him from
sleep, charged him with crimes which he could hardly have committed in
a life time, and so horrified him with a recital of the retributive
pains the victor at Culloden would suffer in hell, that William
rushed, for safety, to his usurping father, who bade him be of good
cheer,――adding:――
If we on Scotland’s throne can dwell,
And reign securely here,
Your uncle Satan’s King in Hell,
And he’ll secure us there.
[Sidenote: _OTHER TRIALS._]
One of the most cruel illustrations of the period has reference to the
father of young Captain Deacon. The captain’s head was sent down to be
‘spiked’ at Manchester. The father, a nonjuring minister in the town,
always avoided the spot. One day, he involuntarily came within view of
what was to him a holy relic. He reverently raised his hat on passing
it. For this testimony of respect and affection, he was charged with
sedition, and was fined.
Several of the so-called Jacobite captains and lieutenants who were
subsequently tried, were allowed their lives (to be passed beyond the
Atlantic) on condition of pleading guilty. Others who stood their
trial, similarly escaped. Alexander Margrowther, a lieutenant, a
well-dressed, active, joyous, hopeful fellow, protested that he did
not join the army of Prince Charles Edward till after Lord Perth had
three times threatened to lay waste his property and burn his house;
and even then he was carried off against his will. Chief Justice Lee
acknowledged that constraint had been put upon him, but that his
remaining and fighting on the rebel side was voluntary. The verdict was
‘guilty,’ but execution did not follow.
[Sidenote: _A MAD JACOBITE._]
The brothers of Sir James Kinloch, Charles and Alexander, were
equally fortunate. Mr. Justice Wright differed with his judicial
brother on a point of law, and was of opinion that judgment should be
arrested. This saved the dashing pair of brothers from the gallows.
Bradshaw, who came up for trial, October 27th, appeared at the bar in
a gay suit of green; he looked as confident as his suit looked gay.
His presence and activity in the Pretender’s array at Manchester,
Carlisle, and Culloden, were amply proved; but a plea of insanity was
set up to excuse it. This amounted to little more than that he was a
sleep-walker, was eccentric, had always been so, and that eccentricity
was almost developed into madness at the death of his wife who was
described as ‘a fine lady whom he had accompanied to all the gay places
of diversion in London.’ He was certainly out of his senses when he
left a flourishing business at Manchester, in order to wear a pair
of epaulettes and a plaid scarf among the Jacobites. That he quitted
Carlisle, instead of surrendering, and took his chance with the Scots,
till the decisive day at Culloden, was held by the prosecuting lawyers
as a proof that Bradshaw had his senses about him. His courage failed
him when he was adjudged to be hanged on the 28th of November. Some
of his friends among the London Jacobites tried, but in vain, to get
him off. The Whig papers were quite scandalised that even certain
‘city ald――rm――n’ had petitioned for a pardon for this once defiant,
insolent, and impetuous rebel.
[Sidenote: _SIR JOHN WEDDERBURN._]
If Bradshaw excited some interest in the City aldermen, there was a
Sir John Wedderburn, Bart., who found sympathy in men of both parties.
His father, a stout Whig, had been at the head of the excise, in the
Port of Dundee. Old Sir John had an ample estate, but being of a
liberal and generous spirit, as the contemporary press remarks, his
liberality and generosity utterly ruined his family. At his death
there was no estate for his heirs to inherit. The new baronet, with
his wife and family, took up his residence near Perth, in a thatched
hut, with a clay floor, and no light except what came through the
doorway. It was placed on a very small bit of land from which Sir John
could not be ousted. He tilled his half acre with ceaseless industry,
and he made what was described as ‘a laborious but starving shift’
to support his wife and nine children. They all went about barefoot.
To the head of this family, a proposal was made, when the Jacobites
occupied Perth, that he should collect all dues and imposts for Prince
Charles Edward. Sir John’s poverty consented. He collected the taxes,
but he never joined the Jacobite army. Nevertheless, when the army
under the Duke of Cumberland came that way, Sir John was seized and
sent south. Put upon his trial, he pleaded his poverty, his starving
family, and his light offence. He was however condemned, though more
guilty offenders had unaccountably escaped. He bore himself with a calm
dignity till the adverse verdict was pronounced, and then he could not
completely control an emotion which sprung rather from thoughts of his
family, than for himself. The lowest and loyalest of the Londoners
acknowledged that Sir John Wedderburn was a gentleman and deserving of
pity. After his death, the king afforded pecuniary relief to his wife
and family.
[Sidenote: _‘BISHOP’ COPPOCK._]
Some of these unfortunate Jacobites manifested a dauntless bravery
which almost amounted to absence of proper feeling. Coppock was one
of them. Charles Edward had nominated this reverend gentleman to the
bishopric of Carlisle. Leaving the bar, after sentence of death, with a
doomed and somewhat terrified fellow prisoner,――‘What the devil are you
afraid of?’ said the prelate; ‘we sha’n’t be tried by a Cumberland Jury
in the next world.’
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