It is a reflection almost too common to be repeated that of all the
vices to which young people are addicted, nothing is so dangerous as a
habit and inclination to gaming. To explain this would be to swell a
volume. Instances which are so numerous do it much better. Perhaps this
unhappy person John Dykes is as strong a one as is anywhere to be met
with. His parents were persons in middling circumstances, but he being
their eldest child, they treated him with great indulgence, and to the
detriment of their own fortune afforded him a necessary education. When
he grew up and his friends thought of placing him out apprentice, he
always found some excuse or other to avoid it, which arose only from his
great indolence of temper, and his continual itching after gaming. When
he had money, he went to the gaming tables about town, and when reduced
by losses sustained there, would put on an old ragged coat and get out
to play at chuck, and span-farthing, amongst the boys in the street, by
which, sometimes he got money enough to go to his old companions again.
But this being a very uncertain recourse, he made use more frequently of
picking pockets; for which being several times apprehended and committed
to Bridewell, his friends, especially his poor father, would often
demonstrate to him the ignominious end which such practices would
necessarily bring on, entreating him while there was yet time, to
reflect and to leave them off, promising to do their utmost for him,
notwithstanding all that was past. In the course of this unhappy life
the youth had acquired an extraordinary share of cunning, and an unusual
capacity of dissembling; he employed it more than once to deceive his
family into a belief of his having made a thorough resolution of
amendment.
Once, after having suffered the usual discipline of the horsepond, Dykes
was carried before a Justice of Peace, and committed to Tothill Fields
Bridewell[13]. Here he became acquainted with one Jeddediah West, a
Quaker's son, who had fallen into the like practices, and for them
shared the same punishment with himself. They were pretty much of a
temper, but Jeddediah was the elder and much the more subtle of the two,
and in this unhappy place they contracted a strict and intimate
friendship. Out of shame Jeddediah forbore for two or three days to
acquaint his relations, and during that time for the most part subsisted
out of what Dykes got from home. But at last West picked up courage
enough to send to his brother, a very eminent man in business, and by
telling him a plausible story, procured not only pity and relief, but
even prevailed on him to believe that he was innocent of the fact for
which he was committed. He so well tutored his friend Dykes that though
he could not persuade his parents into the same degree of credulity, yet
his outward appearance of penitence induced them not only to pardon him
but to take him home, give him a new suit of clothes, and to promise
him, if he continued to do well, whatever was in their power to do for
him.
Dykes and his companion being in favour with their friends, and having
money in their pockets, continued their correspondence and went often to
the gaming tables together. At first they had a considerable run of luck
for about three weeks, but Fortune then forsaking them, they were
reduced to be downright penniless, without any hopes of relief or
assistance from their friends sufficient to carry on their expenses.
West at last proposed an expedient for raising money, which lay
altogether upon himself, and which he the next day executed in the
following manner.
About the time that he knew his brother was to come home from the
Exchange to dinner, he went to his house equipped in a sailor's
pea-jacket, his hair cropped short to his ears, his eyebrows coloured
black, and a handkerchief about his neck. As soon as he saw him in the
counting-house, his brother started back, and cried, _Bless me!
Jeddediah, how came you in this pickle?_ With all signs of grief and
confusion, he threw himself at his brother's feet, and told him with a
flood of tears that two coiners who had accidentally seen him in
Bridewell had sworn against him and three others on their apprehension,
in order on the merit thereof to be admitted evidences to get off
themselves. _So that, dear brother_, he continued, _I have been obliged
to take a passage in a vessel that does down next tide to Gravesend, for
I have ran the hazard of my life to come and beg your charitable
assistance._
The poor honest man was so much amazed and concerned at this melancholy
tale, that bursting out into tears, and hanging about his brother's
neck, he begged him to take a coach and begone to Billingsgate, giving
him ten guineas in hand and telling him that his bills should not be
protested if he drew within the compass of a hundred pounds from Dieppe,
whither he said the ship was bound. West was no sooner out of the street
where his brother lived, but he ordered the coach to drive to a certain
place where he had appointed Dykes to meet him, and there they expressed
a great deal of mutual satisfaction at the trick West had played his
brother. However, the latter was no great gainer in the end, for Mr.
West, senior, soon finding out the contrivance, forever renounced him,
and Jeddediah being soon after arrested for twelve pounds due to his
tailor, was carried to prison and remained there without the least
assistance from his brother, till after his friend Dykes was hanged.
The last mentioned malefactor, unmoved by all the tender entreaties of
his friends, and the glaring prospect before him of his own ruin, went
still on at the old rate, and whenever gaming had brought him low in
cash, took up with the road, or some such like dishonest method to
recruit it. At last he had the ill-luck to commit a robbery in Stepney
parish, in the road between Mile End and Bow, upon one Charles Wright,
to whose bosom clapping a pistol, he commanded him to deliver
peacefully, or he would shoot him through the body. The booty he took
was very inconsiderable, being only a penknife, an ordinary seal, and
five shillings and eightpence in money. A poor price for life, since two
days after he was apprehended for this robbery, committed to Newgate and
condemned the next sessions.
His behaviour under these unhappy circumstances was very mean, and such
as fully showed what difference there is between courage and that
resolution which is necessary to support the spirits and calm our
apprehensions at the certain approach of a violent death. I forbear
attempting any description of those unutterable torments which the
exterior marks of a distracted behaviour fully showed that this poor
wretch endured. And as I have nothing more to add of him, but that he
confessed his having been guilty of a multitude of ill acts, he
submitted at last with greater cheerfulness than he had ever shown
during his confinement to that shameful death which the Law had ordained
for his crimes, on the 23rd of October, 1721, when he was about
twenty-three years of age.