As indulgence is a very common parent of wickedness and disobedience, so
immoderate correction and treating children as if they were Stocks is as
likely a method as the other to make them stubborn and obstinate, and
perhaps even force upon them taking ill methods to avoid usage which
they cannot bear.
William Burk, the unfortunate criminal whose enterprises are to be the
subject of our present narration, was born towards Wapping of parents
honest and willing to give him education, though their condition in the
world rendered them not able. He was thereupon put to the charity
school, the master of which being of a morose temper and he a boy of
very indifferent disposition, the discipline with which he was treated
was so severe that it created in him an aversion towards all learning;
and one day, after a more severe whipping than ordinary, he determined
(though but eleven years of age) to run away.
He sought out, therefore, for a captain who might want a boy, and that
being no difficult matter to find in their neighbourhood, he went on
board the _Salisbury_, Captain Hosier, then lying at the Buoy in the
Nore, bound for Jamaica. His poor mother followed him in great
affliction, and endeavoured all she could to persuade him to return, but
her arguments were all in vain, for he had contracted so great an
antipathy to school, from his master's treatment, that instead of being
glad to go back, he earnestly intreated the captain to interpose his
authority and keep him on board. His request was complied with, and the
poor woman was forced to depart without her son.
It was the latter end of Queen Anne's War when they sailed to Jamaica,
and during the time they were out, took two Spanish galleons very richly
laden. Their first engagement was obstinate and bloody, and he, though a
boy, was dangerously hurt as he bustled about one way or another as the
captain commanded him. The second prize carried 74 guns and 650 men, yet
the _Salisbury_ (but a 60-gun ship) took her without the loss of a
single man; only a woman, who was the only one on board, going to peep
at the engagement, had her head and shoulders shot off. Burk said the
prize money of each sailor came but to £15, but some of the officers
shared so handsomely as never to be obliged to go to sea again, being
enabled to live easily on shore.
Three years he continued in the West Indies, and there (especially in
Jamaica) he learned so much wickedness that when he came home, hardly
any of the gangs into which he entered were half so bad, though inured
to plunder, as he when he came amongst them a fresh man. From this
voyage he went another in the slave trade to the coast of Guinea. Here
he endured very great hardships, especially when he had the misfortune
to be on board where the negroes rose upon the English, and had like to
have overcome them; but at last having been vanquished, and tied down in
a convenient place, they were used with severity enough. Upon his return
into England from this voyage, he went into the Baltic in the
_Worcester_ man-of-war, in which he suffered prodigious hardships from
the coldness of the climate and other difficulties he went through.
The many miseries he had experienced in a life at sea might possibly
have induced him to the resolution he made of never going on ship-board
any more. How he came to take to robbing does not very clearly appear,
further than that he was induced thereto by bad women; but he behaved
himself with very great cruelty, for going over the first field from
Stepney, armed with a hedging-bill, he attacked one William Fitzer, and
robbed him of his jacket, tobacco-box, a knife and fork, etc. He robbed,
also, one James Westwood, of a coat and ten shillings in money; last of
all, attacking John Andrews and Robert his son, coming over the fields,
he dove the old man down. His son taking up the stick boldly attacked
Burk, and a neighbour, one Perkinson, coming in at the noise, he was
overpowered and apprehended. As the fact was very plainly proved, he was
on a short trial convicted, and the barbarity of the fact being so
great, left no room for his being omitted in the warrant for execution.
As he lay a long time under condemnation, and had no hopes of life, from
the moment of his confinement he applied himself to make his peace with
that Being whom he had so much offended by his profligate course of
life. On all occasions he expressed his readiness to confess anything
which might be for the promoting of justice or public good, in all
respects manifesting a thorough sorrow and penitence for that cruelty
with which he had treated poor old Andrews. At the tree he stood up in
the car, beckoned for silence, and then spoke to the multitude in these
terms.
Good People,
I never was concerned but in four robberies in my life. I desire all
men who see my fatal end to let my death teach them to lead a sober
and regular life, and above all to shun the company of ill-women,
which has brought me to this shameful end and place. I desire that
nobody may reflect upon my wife after my decease, since she was so
far from having any knowledge of the ills I committed, that she was
continually exciting me to live a sober and honest life. Wherefore I
hope God will bless her, as I also pray He may do all of you.
This malefactor, William Burk, was in the twenty-second year of his age
when executed at Tyburn, April the 8th, 1723.