[71] See note, page 218.
The Life of JOHN WHALEBONE, _alias_ WELBONE, a Thief, etc.
This malefactor was born in the midst of the City of London, in the
Parish of St. Dionis Back Church. His parents were persons in but mean
circumstances, who however strained them to the uttermost to give this
their son a tolerable education. They were especially careful to
instruct him in the principles of religion, and were therefore under an
excessive concern when they found that neglecting all other business, he
endeavoured only to qualify himself for the sea. However, finding this
inclinations so strong that way, they got him on board a man-of-war, and
procured such a recommendation to the captain that he was treated with
great civility during the voyage, and if he had had any inclinations to
have done well, he might in all probability have been much encouraged.
But after several voyages to sea, he took it as strongly in his head to
go no more as he had before to go, whether his parents would or no.
He then cried old clothes about the streets; but not finding any great
encouragement in that employment, he was easily drawn in by some wicked
people of his acquaintance, to take what they called the shortest method
of getting money, which was in plain English to go a-thieving. He had
very ill-luck in his new occupation, for in six weeks' time, after his
first setting out on the information of one of his companions, he was
apprehended, tried, convicted, and ordered for transportation.
It was his fortune to be delivered to a planter in South Carolina, who
employed him to labour in his plantations, afforded him good meat and
drink, and treated him rather better than our farmers treat their
servants here. Which leads me to say something concerning the usage such
people met with, when carried as the Law directs to our plantations, in
order to rectify certain gross mistakes; as if Englishmen abroad had
totally lost all humanity, and treated their fellow-creatures and
fellow-countrymen as slaves, or as brutes.
The Colonies on the Continent of America are those which now take off
the greatest part of those who are transported for felony from Britain,
most of the Island Colonies having long ago refused to receive them. The
countries into which they now go, trading chiefly in such kind of
commodities as are produced in England (unless it be tobacco), the
employment, therefore, of persons thus sent over, is either in attending
husbandry, or in the culture of the plant which we have before
mentioned. They are thereby exposed to no more hardships than they would
have been obliged to have undergone at home, in order to have got an
honest livelihood, so that unless their being obliged to work for their
living is to pass for great hardship, I do not conceive where else it
can lie, since the Law, rather than shed the blood of persons for small
offences, or where they appear not to have gone on for a length of time
in them, by its lenity changes the punishment of death into sending them
amongst their own countrymen at a distance from their ill-disposed
companions, who might probably seduce them to commit the same offences
again. It directs also, that this banishment shall be for such a length
of time as may be suitable to the guilt of the crime, and render it
impracticable for them on their return to meet with their old gangs and
acquaintance, making by this means a happy mixture both of justice and
clemency, dealing mildly with them for the offence already committed and
endeavouring to put it ever out of their own power by fresh offences, to
draw a heavier judgment upon themselves.
But to return to this Whalebone. The kind usage of his master, the
easiness of the life which he lived, and the certainty of death if he
attempted to return home, could not all of them prevail upon him to lay
aside the thoughts of coming back again to London, and there giving
himself up to those sensual delights which he had formerly enjoyed.
Opportunities are seldom wanting where men incline to make use of diem;
especially to one who had been bred as he was to the sea. So that in a
year and a half after ms being settled there, he took such ways of
recommending himself to a certain captain as induced him to bring him
home, and set him safe on shore near Harwich. He travelled on foot up to
London, and was in town but a very few days before being accidentally
taken notice of by a person who knew him, he caused him to be
apprehended, and at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, he was
convicted of such illegal return, and ordered for execution.
At first he pretended that he thought it no crime for a man to return to
his own country, and therefore did not think himself bound to repent of
that. Whatever arguments the Ordinary made use of to persuade him to
sense of his guilt I know not. But because this is an error into which
such people are very apt to fall; and as there want not some of the
vulgar who take it for a great hardship, also making it one of those
topics upon which they take occasion to harangue against the severity of
a Law that they do not understand, I think it will not, therefore, be
improper to explain it.
Transportation is a punishment whereby the British law commutes for
offences which would otherways be capital, and therefore a contract is
plainly presumed between every felon transported and the Court by whose
authority he is ordered for transportation, that the said felon shall
remain for such term of years as the Law directs, without returning into
any of the King's European dominions; and the Court plainly acquaints
the felon that if, in breach of his agreement, he shall so return, that
in such case the contract shall be deemed void, and the capital
punishment shall again take place. To say, then, that a person who
enters into an agreement like this, and is perfectly acquainted with its
conditions, knowing that no less than his life must be forfeited by the
breach of them, and yet wilfully breaks them, to say that such a person
as this is guilty of no offence, must in the opinion of every person of
common understanding be the greatest absurdity that can be asserted; and
to call that severity which only is the Law's taking its forfeit, is a
very great impropriety, and proceeds from a foolish and unreasonable
compassion. This I think so plain that nothing but prepossession or
stupidity can hinder people from comprehending it.
As to Whalebone, when death approached, he laid aside all these excuses
and applied himself to what was much more material, the making a proper
use of that little time which yet remained for repentance. He
acknowledged all the crimes which he had committed in the former part of
his life, and the justice of his sentence by which he had been condemned
to transportation; and having warned the people at his execution to
avoid of all things being led into ill company, he suffered with much
seeming penitence, together with the afore-mentioned malefactors, at
Tyburn, being then about thirty-eight years of age.