The various dispositions of men make frequent differences in their
progress, either in virtue or vice; some being disposed to cultivate
this or that branch of their duty with peculiar diligence, and others,
again, plunging themselves in some immoralities they have no taste for.
But as for this unfortunate criminal, Nathaniel Jackson, he seemed to
have swept all impurities with a drag net, and to have habituated
himself to nothing but wickedness from his cradle. He was the son of a
person of some fortune at Doncaster, in Yorkshire, who died when his son
Nat was very young, but not, however, till he had given him some
education. He was bound by a friend, in whose hands his father left his
fortune, to a silk-weaver at Norwich, with whom he lived about three
years; but his master restraining his extravagancies, and taking great
pains to keep him within the bounds of moderation, Jackson at last grew
so uneasy that he ran away from his master, and absconded for some time.
But his guardian at last hearing where he was, wrote to him, and advised
him to purchase some small place with his fortune, whereon he might live
with economy, since he perceived he would do no good in trade. Jackson
despised this advice, and instead of thinking of settling, got into the
Army, and with a regiment of dragoons went over into Ireland.
There he indulged himself in all the vices and lusts to which he was
prone, living in all those debaucheries to which the meanest and most
licentious of the common soldiers are addicted; but he more especially
gave himself up to lewdness and the conversation of women. This, as it
led him into abundance of inconveniences, so at last it engaged him in a
quarrel with one of his comrades which ended in a duel. Jackson had the
advantage of his antagonist and hacked and wounded him in a most cruel
manner. For this, his officers broke him, and he thereby lost the
fifteen guineas which he had given to be admitted into the troop; and as
men are always apt to be angry with punishment, however justly they
receive it, so Jackson imputed his being cashiered to the officers'
covetousness, the crime he had committed passing in his own imagination
for a very trivial action.
Having from this accident a new employment to seek, he came over to his
guardian and stayed with him a while. But growing very soon weary of
those restraints which were put upon him there, as he had done at those
under his Norwich master, he soon fell into his old courses, got into an
acquaintance with lewd women and drunken fellows, with whom he often
stayed out all night at the most notorious bawdy houses. This making a
great noise, his friends remonstrated in the strongest terms, pointing
out to him the wrong he did himself; but finding all their persuasions
ineffectual, they told him plainly he must remove. Upon this he came up
to London, not without receiving considerable presents from his so much
abused friends.
The town was an ill place to amend a man who came into it with
dispositions like his. On the contrary, he found still more
opportunities for gratifying his lustful inclinations than at any time
before, and these lewd debaucheries having reduced him quickly to the
last extremity, he was in a fair way to be prevailed on to take any
method to gain money. He was in these said circumstances when he met
accidentally with John Morphew, an old companion of his in Ireland, and
soon after, as they were talking together, they fell upon one O'Brian in
a footman's garb, also their acquaintance in Ireland.
He invited them both to go with him to the camp in Hyde Park, and at a
sutler's tent there, treated them with as much as they would drink. When
he had paid the reckoning, turning about, _d'ye see, boys_, says he,
_how full my pockets are of money? Come, I'll teach you to fill yours,
if you are but men of courage._ Upon this out they walked towards
Hampstead, between which place and St. Pancras they met one Dennet, whom
they robbed and stripped, taking from him a coat and a waistcoat, two
shirts, some hair, thirteen pence in money, and other things. This did
not make O'Brian's promise good, all they got being but of
inconsiderable value, but it cost poor Jackson his life, though he and
Morphew had saved Dennet's when O'Brian would have killed him to prevent
discoveries; for Jackson being not long after apprehended, was convicted
of the fact, but O'Brian, having timely notice of his commitment, made
his escape into Ireland.
As soon as sentence was passed, Jackson thought of nothing but how to
prepare himself for another world, there being no probability that
interest his friends could make to save him. He made a very ingenious
confession of all he knew, and seemed perfectly easy and resigned to
that end which the Law had appointed for those who, like him, had
injured society. He was about thirty years old at the time of his death,
which was on the 18th of July, 1722, at Tyburn.
The Life of JAMES, _alias_ VALENTINE CARRICK, a Notorious Highwayman and
Street Robber
Though it has become a very common and fashionable opinion that honour
may supply the place of piety, and thereby preserve a morality more
beneficial to society than religion, yet if we would allow experience to
decide, it will be no very difficult matter to prove that when persons
have once given way to certain vices (which in the polite style pass
under the denomination of pleasures) rather than forego them they will
quickly acquire that may put it in their power to enjoy them, though
obtained at the rate of perpetrating the most ignominious offences. If
there had not been too much truth in this observation we should hardly
find in the list of criminals persons who, like James Carrick, have had
a liberal education, and were not meanly descended, bringing themselves
to the most miserable of all states and reflecting dishonour upon those
from whom they were descended.
This unfortunate person was the son of an Irish gentleman, who lived not
far from Dublin, and whom we must believe to have been a man of
tolerable fortune, since he provided as well for all his children as to
make even this, who was his youngest, an ensign. James was a perfect boy
at the time when his commission required him to quit Ireland to repair
to Spain, whither, a little before, the regiment wherein he was to serve
had been commanded. As he had performed his duty towards the rest of his
children, the father was more than ordinarily fond of this his youngest,
whom therefore he equipped in a manner rather beyond that capacity in
which he was to appear upon his arrival at the army. In his person James
was a very beautiful well-shaped young man, of a middle size, and
something more than ordinarily genteel in his appearance, as his father
had taken care to supply him abundantly for his expenses; so when he
came into Spain he spent his money as freely as any officer of twice his
pay. His tent was the constant rendezvous of all the beaux who were at
that time in the camp, and whenever the army were in quarters, nobody
was handsomer, or made a better figure than Mr. Carrick.
Though we are very often disposed to laugh at those stories for fictions
which carry in them anything very different from what we see in daily
experience, yet as the materials I have for this unfortunate man's life
happen both to be full and very exact, I shall not scruple mentioning
some of his adventures, which I am persuaded will neither be unpleasant,
nor incapable of improving my readers.
The regiment in which Carrick served was quartered at Barcelona, after
the taking of that place by the English troops[19] who supported the
title of the present Emperor to the crown of Spain. The inhabitants were
not only civil, but to the last degree courteous to the English, for
whom they always preserved a greater esteem than for any other nation.
Carrick, therefore, had frequent opportunities for making himself known
and getting into an acquaintance with some of the Spanish cavaliers, who
were in the interest of King Charles. Amongst these was Don Raphael de
Ponto, a man of fortune and family amongst the Catalans, but, as is
usual with the Spaniards, very amorous and continually employed in some
intrigue or other. He was mightily pleased with Carrick's humour, and
conceived for him a friendship, in which the Spaniards are perhaps more
constant and at the same time more zealous, than any other nation in
Europe. As Carrick had been bred a Roman Catholic and always continued
so, notwithstanding his professing the contrary to those in the Army, so
he made no scruple of going to Mass with his Spanish friend, which
passed with the English officers only as a piece of complaisance.
Vespers was generally the time when Don Raphael and his English
companion used to make their appointments with the ladies, and therefore
they were very punctual at those devotions, from a spirit which too
often takes up young minds. It happened one evening, when after the
Spanish custom they were thus gone forth in quest of adventures, a
duenna slipped into Don Raphael's hand a note, by which he was appointed
to come under such a window near the convent, in the street of St.
Thomas, when the bell of the convent rang in the evening, and was
desired to bring his friend, if he were not afraid of a Spanish lady.
Don Raphael immediately acquainted his friend, who you may be sure was
ready to obey the summons.
When the hour came, and the convent bell rang, our sparks, wrapped up in
their cloaks, slipped to their posts under a balcony. They did not wait
long there, before the same woman who delivered the note to Don Raphael
made her appearance at the window, and throwing down another little
billet, exhorted them to be patient a little, and they should not lose
their labour. The lovers waited quiet enough for about a quarter of an
hour, when the old woman slipped down, and opened a door behind them, at
which our sparks entered with great alacrity. The old woman conduced
them into a very handsome apartment above stairs, where they were
received by two young ladies, as beautiful as they could have wished
them. Compliments are not much used on such occasions in Spain, and
these gentlemen, therefore, did not make many before they were for
coming to the point with the ladies, when of a sudden they heard a great
noise upon the stairs, and as such adventures make all men cautious in
Spain, they immediately left the ladies, and retiring towards the
window, drew their swords. They had hardly clapped their backs against
it, before the noise on the stairs ceasing, they felt the floor tremble
under their feet, and at last giving way, they both fell into a dark
room underneath, where without any other noise than their fall had made,
they were disarmed, gagged and bound by some persons placed there for
that purpose. When the rogues had finished their search, and taken away
everything that was valuable about them, even to ripping the gold lace
off Carrick's clothes, they let them lie there for a considerable time,
and at last removed them in two open chests to the middle of the great
marketplace, where they left them to wait for better fortune. They had
not remained there above a quarter of an hour, before Carrick's sergeant
went the rounds with a file of musketeers. Carrick hearing his voice,
made as much noise as he was able, and that bringing the sergeant and
his men to the place where they were set, their limbs and mouths were
immediately released from bondage.
The morning following, as soon as Carrick was up, the Spanish
gentleman's major domo came to wait upon him, and told him that his
master being extremely ill, had desired him to make his compliments to
his English friend in order to supply the defects of the letter he sent
him, which by reason of his indisposition was very short. Having said
this, the Spaniard presented him with a letter, and a little parcel,
and then withdrew. Carrick did not know what to make of all this, but as
soon as the stranger was withdrawn, opened his packet in order to
discover what it contained. He found in it a watch, a diamond ring, and
a note on a merchant for two hundred pieces-of-eight, which was the sum
Carrick (to make himself look great) said he had lost by the accident.
The note at the same time informing him that Don Raphael de Ponto
thought it but just to restore to him what he had lost by accompanying
him in the former night's adventures.
After Carrick returned into England, though he had no longer his
commission, or indeed any other way of living, yet he could not lay
aside those vices in which hitherto he had indulged himself. When he had
any money he entertained a numerous train of the most abandoned women of
the town, and had also intrigues at the same time with some of the
highest rank of those prostitutes. To the latter he applied himself when
his pocket first began to grow low, and they supplied him as long, and
as far as they were able. But, alas! their contributions went but a
little way towards supporting his expenses. Happening about that time to
fall into an acquaintance with Smith, his countryman, after a serious
consultation on ways and means to support their manner of living, they
came at last to a resolution of taking a purse on the road, and joined
company soon afterwards with Butler, another Irish robber, who was
executed some time before them on the evidence of this very Carrick.
When Carrick's elder brother heard of this in Ireland, he wrote to him
in the most moving terms, beseeching him to consider the sad end to
which he was running headlong, and the shame and ignominy with which he
covered his family and friends, exhorting him at the same time not to
cast away all hopes of doing well, but to think of returning to Dublin,
where he assured him he would meet him, and provide handsomely for him,
notwithstanding all that was past.
But Carrick little regarded this good advice, or the kind overtures made
him by his brother. No sooner had he procured his liberty but he
returned to his old profession, and committed a multitude of robberies
on Finchley Common, Hounslow and Bagshot Heaths, spending all the money
he got on women of the town, at the gaming table, and in fine clothes,
which last was the thing in which he seemed most to delight. But money
not coming in very quick by these methods, he with Molony, Carrol and
some others of his countrymen, began to rob in the streets, and by that
means got great sums of money. They continued this practice for a long
space of time with safety, but being one night out in Little Queen
Street, by Lincoln's Inn Fields, between one and two in the morning they
stopped a chair in which was the Hon. William Young, Esq., from whom
they took a gold watch, valued at £50, a sword, and forty guineas in
money. Carrick thrust his pistol into the chair, Carrol watched at a
distance, while Molony, perceiving the gentleman hesitate a little in
delivering, said with a stern voice, _Your money, sir! Do you trifle?_
It was a very short time after the commission of this robbery that both
he and his companion Molony were taken, Carrol making a timely escape to
his native kingdom. While James Carrick remained in Newgate, his
behaviour was equally singular and indecent, for he affected to pass his
time with the same gaiety in his last moments as he had spent it in the
former part of his days.
Throngs of people, as it is but too much the custom, came to see him in
Newgate, to whom, as if he had intended that they should not lose their
curiosity, he told all the adventures of his life, with the same air and
gaiety as if he had been relating them at some gaming ordinaries. This
being told about town, drew still greater heaps of company upon him,
which he received with the same pleasantness; by which means he daily
increased them, and by that means the gain of the keepers at Newgate,
who took money to show him. Upon this he said to them merrily one day:
_You pay, good folks, for seeing me now, but if you had suspended your
curiosity 'till I went to Tyburn, you might have seen me for nothing._
This was the manner in which he talked and lived even to the last,
conversing until the time of his death with certain loose women who had
been his former favourites, and whom no persuasions could engage him to
banish from his presence while he yet had eyes, and could behold them in
his sight.
At the place of execution, where it often happens that the most daring
offenders drop that resolution on which they foolishly value themselves,
Carrick failed not in the least. He gave himself genteel airs (as Mr.
Purney, the then Ordinary, phrases it) in placing the rope about his
neck, smiled and bowed to everybody he knew round him, and continued
playing a hundred little tricks of the same odd nature, until the very
instant the cart drove away, declaring himself to be a Roman Catholic,
and that he was persuaded he had made his peace with God in his own way.
In this temper he finished his life at Tyburn, on the 18th of July,
1722, being then about twenty-seven years of age.