That idleness in which youths are suffered to live in this kingdom till
they are grown to that size at which they are usually put apprentice (a
space of time in which they are much better employed, in many other
countries of Europe) too often creates an inaptitude to work and allows
them opportunity of entering into paths which have a fatal termination.
John Winship, of whom we are now to treat, was born of parents in
tolerable circumstances in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. They
gave him an education rather superior to his condition, and treated him
with an indulgence by which his future life became unhappy. At about
fourteen, they placed him as an apprentice with a carpenter, to which
trade he himself had a liking. His master used him as well as he could
have expected or wished, yet that inclination to idleness and loitering
which he had contracted while a boy, made him incapable of pursuing his
business with tolerable application. The particular accident by which he
was determined to leave it shall be the next point in our relation.
It happened that returning one day from work, he took notice of a young
woman standing at a door in a street not far distant from that in which
his master lived. He was then about seventeen, and imagining love to be
a very fine thing, thought fit, without further enquiry, to make this
young woman the object of his affection. The next evening he took
occasion to speak to her, and this acquaintance soon improving into
frequent appointments, naturally led Winship into much greater expenses
than he was able to support. This had two consequences equally fatal to
this unhappy young man, for in the first place he left his master and
his trade, and took to driving of coaches and like methods, to get his
bread; but all the ways he could think of, proving unable to supply his
expenses, he went next upon the road, and raised daily contributions in
as illegal a manner as they were spent at night, in all the excesses of
vice.
It is impossible to give either a particular or exact account of the
robberies he committed, because he was always very reserved, even after
conviction, in speaking as to these points.
However, he is said to have been concerned in robbing a Frenchman of
quality in the road to Hampstead, who in a two-horsed chaise, with the
coachman on his box, was attacked in the dusk of the evening by three
highwaymen. They exchanged several pistols and continued the fight,
till, the ammunition on both sides being exhausted, the foreigner
prepared to defend himself with his sword. The rogues were almost out of
all hopes of obtaining their booty, when one of them getting behind the
chaise secretly cut a square hole in its back, and putting in both his
arms, seized the gentleman so strongly about the shoulders that his
companions had an opportunity of closing in with him, disarming him of
his sword, rifling and taking a hundred and twenty pistoles. Not
content with this they ripped the lace off his clothes, and took from
the coachmen all the money he had about him.
Winship had been concerned in divers gangs, and being a fellow of
uncommon agility of body, was mighty well received and much caressed by
them, as was also another companion of his, whom they called
Clean-Limbed Tom, whose true name was never known, being killed in a
duel at Kilkenny in Ireland. This last mentioned person had been bred
with an apothecary, and sometimes travelled the country in the high
capacity of a quack doctor, at others, in the more humble station of a
merry-andrew. Travelling once down into the west, with a little chest of
medicines which he intended to dispose of in this matter at West
Chester, at an inn about twenty miles short of that city he overtook a
London wholesale dealer, who had been that way collecting debts. Tom
made a shift to get into his company overnight, and diverted him so much
with his facetious conversation that he invited him to breakfast with
him the next morning. Tom took occasion to put a strong purge into the
ale and toast which the Londoner was drinking, he himself pretending
never to take anything in the morning but a glass of wine and bitters.
When the stranger got on horseback, Tom offered to accompany him, _For_,
says he, _I can easily walk as fast as your horse will trot._ They had
not got above two miles before, at the entrance of a common, the physic
began to work. The tradesman alighting to untruss a point, Tom leaped at
once into his saddle, and galloped off both with his horse and
portmanteau. He baited an hour at a small village three miles beyond
Chester, having avoided passing through that city, then continued his
journey to Port Patrick, from whence he crossed to Dublin with about
four score pounds in ready money, a gold watch, which was put up in a
corner of a cloak bag, linen, and other things to a considerable value
besides.
But to return to Winship. His robberies were so numerous that he began
to be very well known and much sought after by those who make it their
business to bring men to justice for rewards. There is some reason to
believe that he had been once condemned and received mercy. However, on
the 25th of May, 1721, he stopped one Mr. Lowther in his chariot,
between Pancras Church and the Halfway House, and robbed him of his
silver watch and a purse of ten guineas; for which robbery being quickly
after apprehended, he was convicted at the Old Bailey, on the evidence
of the prosecutor and the voluntary information of one of his
companions.
While he lay under sentence, he could not help expressing a great
impatience at the miserable condition to which his follies had reduced
him, and at the same time to show the most earnest desire of life,
though it were upon the terms of transportation for the whole
continuance of it; though he frequently declared it did not arise so
much from a willingness in himself to continue in this world, as at the
grief he felt for the misfortunes of his aged mother, who was ready to
run distracted at her son's unhappy fate.
As he was a very personable young man strangers, especially at chapel,
took particular notice of him, and were continually inquiring of his
adventures; but Winship not only constantly refused to give them any
satisfaction, but declared also to the Ordinary that he did not think
himself obliged to make any discoveries which might affect the lives of
others, showing also an extraordinary uneasiness whenever such questions
were put to him. When he was asked, by the direction of a person of some
rank, whether he did not rob a person dressed in such a manner in a
chaise as he was watering his horse before the church door, during the
time of Divine service, Winship replied, he supposed the crime did not
consist in the time or place, and as to whether he was guilty of it or
no, he would tell nothing.
In other respects he appeared penitent and devout, suffering at Tyburn
at the same time with the afore-mentioned Matthew Clark, in the
twenty-second year of his age, leaving behind him a wife, who died
afterwards with grief for his execution.