When persons sin out of ignorance there is great room for pity, and when
persons suddenly become guilty of evil through a precipitate yielding to
the violence of their passions there is still room for extenuation. But
when people sin, not only against knowledge but deliberately, and
without the incitement of any violent passion such as anger or lust,
even as nothing can be said in alleviation, so there is little or no
room left for compassion.
Frederick Schmidt was a person born of a very honourable and wealthy
family at Breslau, the capital of the Duchy of Silesia in the north-east
of Germany. They educated this their son not only in such a manner as
might qualify him for the occupation they designed him, of a merchant,
but also gave him a most learned and liberal knowledge, such as suited a
person of the highest rank. He lived, however, at Breslau as a merchant
for many years, and at the request of his friends, when very young, he
married a lady of considerable fortune, but upon some disgust at her
behaviour they parted, and had not lived together for many years before
his death.
He carried on a very considerable correspondence to Hamburg, Amsterdam
and other places, and above a year before had been over in England to
transact some affairs, and thought it, it seems, so easy a matter to
live here by his wits, that he returned hither with the Baron Vanloden
and the Countess Vanloden. It is very hard to say what these people
really were, some people taking Schmidt for the baron's servant, but he
himself affirmed, and indeed it seems most likely, that they were
companions, and that both of them exerted their utmost skill in
defrauding others to maintain her.
The method they took here for that purpose was by altering bank-notes,
which they did so dexterously as absolutely to prevent all suspicion.
They succeeded in paying away two of them, but the fraud being
discovered by the cheque-book at the bank, Schmidt was apprehended and
brought to a trial. There it was sworn that being in possession of a
bank-note of £25 he had turned it into one of £85, and with the Baron
Vanloden tendered it to one Monsieur Mallorey, who gave him goods for
it, and another note of £20. It was deposed by the Baron Vanloden and
Eleanora Sophia, Countess Vanloden, that Schmidt took the last mentioned
note of £20 upstairs, and soon after brought it down again, the word
"twenty" being taken out; upon which they drew it through a plate of
gummed water, and then smoothing it between several papers with a box
iron, the words "one hundred" were written in its place. Then he gave it
to the Baron and the interpreter to go out with it and buy plate, which
they did to the amount of £40. It appeared also, by the same witnesses,
that Schmidt had owned to the Baron that he could write twenty hands,
and that if he had but three or four hundred pounds, he could swell them
to fifty thousand. It was proved also by his own confession that he had
written over to his correspondent in Holland, to know whether English
bank-notes went currently there or not. Upon which he was found guilty
by a party-jury, that singular favour permitted to foreigners by the
equitable leniency of the Law of England. Yet after this he could hardly
be persuaded that his life was in any danger; nay, when he came into the
condemned hold, he told the unhappy persons there, in as good English as
he could speak, that he should not be hanged with them.
For the first two or three days, therefore, that he was under sentence,
he refused to look so much as on a book, or to say a prayer, employing
that time with unwearied diligence in writing a multitude of letters to
merchants, foreign ministers, and German men of quality and such like,
still holding fast his old opinion that his life was not in the least
danger; and when a Lutheran minister was so kind as to visit him, he
would hardly condescend to speak with him. But when he had received a
letter from him who had all along buoyed him up with hopes of safety, in
which he informed him that all those hopes were vain, he then began to
apply himself with a real concern to the Lutheran minister whom he had
before almost rejected, but did not appear terrified or much affrighted
thereat. However, quickly after, he fell into a fit of sickness and
became so very weak as not to be able to stand. He confessed, however,
to the foreign divine who attended him that he was really guilty of that
crime for which he was to die, though it did not appear that he
conceived it to be capital at the time he did it, nor, indeed, was he
easily convinced it was so, until within a few days of his execution.
There had prevailed a report about the town that he had done something
of the like nature at Paris, for which he had been obliged to fly, but
he absolutely denied that, and seemed to think the story derived its
birth from the Baron, who, he said, was an apothecary's son, and from
his acquaintance with his father's trade, knew the secret of expunging
waters. He added, that his airs of innocence were very unjust, he having
been guilty of abundance of such tricks, and the Countess of many more
than he. Thus, as is very common in such cases, these unhappy people
blackened one another. But the Baron and the Countess had the advantage,
since by their testimony poor Schmidt was despatched out of the way, and
'tis probable their credit at the time of his execution, was not in any
great danger of being hurt by his character of them.
When he came to Tyburn, being attended in the cart by the Lutheran
minister whom I have so often mentioned, he was forced to be held up,
being so weak as not to be able to stand alone. He joined with the
prayers at first, but could not carry on his attention to the end,
looking about him, and staring at the other prisoners, with a curiosity
that perhaps was never observed in any other prisoner in his condition
what-so ever; neither his looks not his behaviour seemed to express so
much terror as was struck into others by the sight of his condition. So
after recommending to the minister by letter, to inform his aged mother
in Germany of his unhappy fate, he requested the executioner to put him
to death as easily as he could. He then submitted to his fate on the 4th
of April, 1724, being in the forty-fifth year of his age.
The Life of PETER CURTIS, a Housebreaker, etc.
Peter Curtis, _alias_ Friend, was born of honest but industrious parents
in the country, at a very great distance from London. Finding a method
to get him put apprentice to a ship's carpenter, they were very much
pleased therewith, hoping that they had settled him in a trade in which
he might live well, and much beyond anything they could have expected to
have done for him.
But Peter himself was of a very different opinion, for from the hour he
came to it he greatly disliked his profession, and though he went to sea
with his master once or twice, yet he failed not to take hold of the
first opportunity to set himself at liberty by running away from him.
From that time he devoted himself to live a life of pleasure, having
contracted an obstinate aversion to business and to everything which
looked like labour; though, as be acknowledged, the hand of Providence
hindered him from accomplishing his wish, making this life that he chose
a greater burden and hardship to him than that which he had
relinquished.
He found means to get into gentlemen's service, and lived in them with
tolerable reputation and credit for the space of several years. At last
he was resolved to go to sea again, but he had so unconquerable an
aversion to his own trade that he chose rather going in the capacity of
a trumpeter, having learnt how to play on that instrument at one of his
services. He sailed on board the _Salisbury_, in that expedition Sir
George Byng made to the Straits of Messina, when he attacked and
destroyed the Spanish Fleet.[39] There Peter had the good luck to escape
without any hurt, though there were many killed and wounded on board
that ship. He afterwards served in a regiment of dragoons, where by
prudent management he saved no less than fourscore pounds. With this he
certainly had it in his power to have put himself in some way of doing
well, but he omitted it, and falling into the company of a lewd woman,
she persuaded him to take lodgings with her, and they lived together for
some space as man and wife.
During this time he made a shift to be bound for one of his companions,
for a very considerable sum, which the other had the honesty to leave
him to pay. The creditor, upon information that Curtis was packing up
his awls[40] to go to sea, resolved to secure him for his debt. But not
being able to catch him upon a writ, he made up a felonious charge
against him, and having thereupon got him committed to the Poultry
Compter, as soon as the Justice had discharged him, he got him taken for
the debt, and recommitted to the same place. Here he was soon reduced to
a very melancholy condition, having neither necessaries of life not any
prospect of a release. The wretched company with which such prisons are
always full, corrupted him as to his honesty, and taught him first to
think of making himself rich by taking away the properties of others.
When he came out of prison, upon an agreement with his creditor, he soon
got into service with Mr. Fluellen Aspley, a very eminent chinaman by
Stocks Market.[41] When he was there, the bad woman with whom he still
conversed, was continually dunning his ears with how easy a matter it
was for him to make himself and her rich and easy by pilfering from his
master, telling him that she and her friends in the country would help
him off with a thousand pounds worth of china, if need were, and baiting
him continually, not to lose such an opportunity of enriching them. The
fellow himself was averse to such practices, and nothing but her
continual teasing could have induced him ever to have entertained a
design of so base a nature.
At last he condescended so far as to enquire how it might be done with
safety. _For that_, replied the woman, _trust to my management. I'll put
you in a way to bring off the most valuable things in the house, and yet
get a good character, and be trusted and valued by the family for having
robbed them._ At that Curtis stared, and said, if she'd but put him to
such a road he did not know but he might comply with her request. She
thereupon opened her scheme to him this: _Here's my son, you shall lift
him into the house, and after you have given him plate and what you
think proper and my boy, who is a very dexterous lad, is got off with
them, you have nothing to do but to put an end of a candle under the
Indian cabinet in the counting-house, and leave things to themselves.
The neighbourhood will soon be alarmed by the fire, and if you are
apparently honest in what you take away publicly, there will be no
suspicion upon you for what went before, which will be either thought to
be destroyed in the fire, or to be taken away by some other means._
This appeared so shocking a project to Curtis that he absolutely refused
to comply with the burning, though with much ado he was brought to
stealing a large quantity of plate, which he brought to this woman, but
in attempting to sell it she was stopped, and the robbery discovered.
However, there being no direct evidence at first against Curtis, he was
released from his confinement on suspicion, even by the intercession of
Mr. Aspley himself. But a little time discovering the mistake, and that
he was really the principal in the robbery, he was thereupon again
apprehended, and at the next sessions tried and convicted.
While he lay under sentence of death, he behaved himself as if he had
totally resigned all thoughts of the world, or of continuing in it,
praying with great fervency and devotion, making full and large
confession, and doing every other act which might induce men to believe
that he was a real penitent, and sincerely sorry and affected for the
crime he had committed.
But it seems that this was all put on, for the true source of his
easiness and resignation was the assurance he had in himself of escaping
death either by pardon, or by an escape; for which purpose, he and those
who were under sentence with him had provided all necessaries, loosened
their irons and intended to have effected it at the expense of the lives
of their keepers. But their design being discovered the Saturday before
their deaths, and Curtis perceiving that his hopes of pardon were
ill-founded, began to apply himself to repenting in earnest. Yet there
was very little time left for so great a work, especially considering
that nothing but the necessity of the thing inclined him thereto, and
that he had spent that respite allowed him by the clemency of the Law to
prepare for death in contriving to fly from justice at the expense of
the blood of others. How he performed this it is impossible for us to
know, and must be left to be decided by the Great Judge to whom the
secrets of all hearts are open. However, at his death he appeared
tolerably composed and cheerful, and turning to the people said, _You
see, they who contrived to burn the house and the people in it escaped,
but I, who never consented to any such thing, die as you see._ Some
discourse there was of his having buried a portmanteau and about
fourteen hundred pounds; he was spoke to about it, and did not deny he
had it. He said he hid it upon Finchley Common and that by the arms,
which was the Spread Eagle, he took to be an ambassador's. As to the
diamond ring he had been seen to wear, he did not affirm he came very
honestly by it, but would not give any direct answer concerning it, and
seemed uneasy that he should have such questions put to him at the very
point of death. He suffered the 15th of June, 1724, about thirty years
of age.