Of all the unhappy wretches whose ends I have recorded that their
examples may be of the more use to mankind, there is none perhaps which
be more useful, if well considered, than this of Edmund Neal Though
there be nothing in it very extraordinary, yet it contains a perfect
picture of low pleasures for which men sacrifice reputation and
happiness, and go on in a voluptuous dream till they awake to temporal
and, but for the mercy of God, to eternal death.
This Edmund Neal was the son of a father of the same name, a blacksmith
in a market town in Warwickshire. He was one of those mechanics who,
from a particular observance of the foibles of human nature, insinuate
themselves into the good graces of those who employ them, and from being
created as something even beneath a servant, grow up at last into a
confidence to which it would not be improper to affix the name of a
friend. This Edmund Neal senior had by this method climbed (by a little
skill he had in horses) from paring off their hoofs, to directing of
their riders, until in short there was scarce a sporting squire in the
neighbourhood but old Edmund was of his privy council. Yet though he got
a vast deal of money, he took very little care of the education of his
son, whom he scarce allowed as much learning as would enable him to read
a chapter; but notwithstanding this, he carried him about with him
wherever he went, as if the company of gentlemen, though he was unable
to converse with them, would have been sufficient to improve him.
The scenes young Neal saw at the houses whither his father carried him,
filled him with such a liking to debauchery and such an irreclaimable
passion for sensual pleasures, as was the source from whence his
following misfortunes flowed. For what, as he himself complained, first
gave him occasion to repine at his condition, and filled him with
wandering inclinations of pursuing an idle and extravagant life, was the
forcing of him to go apprentice to a tailor, a trade for which he had
always the greatest aversion, and contempt. No sooner, therefore, was he
placed out apprentice, but the young fellows of that occupation whom he
had before derided and despised, now ridiculed him in their turns, and
laughed at the uneasiness which they saw his new employment caused him.
However, he lived about four years with his master, being especially
induced thereto by the company of a young man who worked there, and who
used to amuse him with stories of intrigues in London, to which Neal
listened with a very attentive ear.
This London companion more and more inclined him to vice, and the
history he gave of his living with a woman--who cheated her other
cullies to maintain him, and at last for the sake of a new sweetheart,
stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so
much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country--the relation,
I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he
was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them. And as
ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his
first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful
and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he
wanted. This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his
goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding
a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was
awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.
These practices quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his
breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally destitute of money,
friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two
shillings in his pocket. He took a solitary walk to that end of the town
which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman
who asked him to go with her to London. He not knowing what to do with
himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain
they set out together. The woman was very kind to him on the road, and
poor Edmund flattered himself that money was so plentiful in London as
to render it impossible for him to remain without it. But he was
miserably mistaken when he arrived there. He went to certain
public-houses of persons whom he had known in the country, who instead
of using him civilly, in a day or two's time were thrusting him out of
doors. Some common whores, also, finding him to be a poor country
fellow, easily seduced him and kept him amongst them for a stallion,
until, between their lust and their diseases, they had put him in a fair
road to the grave.
Tired out with their vices, which were even too gross for a mind so
corrupted as his was, he chose rather to go and live with a brewer and
carry out drink. But after living for some time with two masters of that
occupation, his mind still roving after an easier and pleasanter life,
he endeavoured to get it at some public-house; which at last he with
much ado effected at Sadlers Wells.[21] This appeared so great a
happiness that he thought he should never be tired of a life where there
was so much music and dancing, to which he had been always addicted;
and, as he phrased it himself, he thought he was in another world when
he got with a set of men and maids in a barn with a fiddle among them.
However, he at last grew tired of that also; and resolving to betake
himself to some more settled and honest employment, he hired himself to
a man who kept swine, and there behaved himself both with honesty and
diligence. But his master breaking a little time after he had been with
him, though as he affirmed without his wronging him in the least, he was
reduced to look for some new way of maintaining himself. This being
about the time of the late Rebellion,[22] and great encouragement being
then offered for those who would enter themselves in the late king's
service at sea, Neal accepted thereof, and shipped himself on board the
_Gosport_ man-of-war, which sailed to the Western Islands of Scotland.
What between the cold and the hard fare he suffered deeply, and never,
as be said, tasted any degree of comfort till he returned to the West of
England The Rebellion being then over, Neal with very great joy accepted
his discharge from the service, and once more in search of business came
up to London.
The reputation of an honest servant he had acquired from the hog
merchant he had formerly lived with, quickly procured him a place with
another of the same trade, with him he lived too (as was said) very
honestly; and having been trusted with twenty or thirty pounds at a
time, was always found very trusty and faithful. But happening,
unluckily, to work here with one Pincher, who in the course of his life
had been as unhappy as himself, they thereupon grew very intimate
together, and being a couple of fellows of very odd tempers, after
having got half drunk at the Hampshire Hog, they took it into their
heads that there was not in the world two fellows so unhappy as
themselves. The subject began when they were maudlin, and as they grew
quite drunk, they came to a resolution to go out and beat everybody they
met, for being happier than themselves.
The first persons they met in this expedition were a poor old man whose
name was Dormer and his wife. The woman they abused grossly, and Pincher
knocked the man down, though very much in years, Neal afterwards
rolling him about, and either took or shook out of his pocket all the
money he had, which was but three pence farthing. For this unaccountable
action they were both apprehended, tried and convicted, with three other
persons, in the November sessions, 1722. But their inhuman behaviour to
the old man made such an impression on the Court to their disadvantage,
that when the death warrant came down, they two only were appointed for
execution.
At the near approach of death, Neal appeared excessively astonished, and
what between fear and concern, his senses grew disordered. However, at
the place of execution he seemed more composed than he had been before,
and said that it was very fit he should die, but added he suffered
rather for being drunk than any design he had either to rob or use the
man cruelly. As for William Pincher, his companion both in the robbery
and its punishment, he seemed to be the counterpart of Neal, a downright
Norfolk clown, born within six miles of Lynn and by the kindness of a
master of good fortune, taken into his house with an intent to breed him
up, on his father's going for a soldier. At first he behaved himself
diligently and thereby got much into the favour of his master, but
falling into loose company and addicting himself to sotting in
alehouses, his once kind and indulgent master, finding him incorrigible,
dismissed him from his service, and having given him some small matter
by way of encouragement, he set out for London. Here he got into the
business before mentioned, and said himself, that he might have lived
very comfortably thereon, if he had been industrious and frugal; but
that addicting himself to his old custom of sitting continually in an
alehouse had drawn him into very great inconveniences. In order to draw
himself out of these he thought of following certain courses, by which,
as he had heard some company where he used say, a young man might get as
much money as he could spend, let him live as extravagantly as he would.
This occasioned his persuading Neal into that fatal undertaking which
cost them their lives. His behaviour under sentence was irreproachable,
being always taken up either in reading, praying or singing of Psalms,
performing all things that so short a space would give him leave to do,
and showing as evident marks of true repentance as perhaps any unhappy
person ever did in his condition.
Thus these two companions in misfortune suffered together on die last
day of the year 1722, Edmund Neal being then about thirty years of age,
and Pincher about twenty-six.