Though there is not perhaps any sin so opposite to our nature as cruelty
towards our fellow creatures, yet we see it so thoroughly established in
some tempers, that neither education nor a sense of religion are strong
enough to abate it, much less to wear it out. The person of whom we are
speaking, John Jaen, was the son of parents in very good circumstances
at Bristol, who they bred him up to the knowledge of everything
requisite to a person who was to be bred up in trade, and he grew a very
tolerable proficient as well in the knowledge of the Latin tongue, as in
writing and accounts, for his improvement in all which he was put under
the best masters. When he had finished that course of learning which
his friends thought would qualify him for what they designed him, he was
immediately put apprentice to a cooper in Bristol, where he served his
time with both fidelity and industry. When it was expired, he applied
himself to trade with the same diligence, and sometimes went to sea,
till in the year '24 he became master of a ship called the _Burnett_,
fitted out by some merchants at Bristol, for South Carolina. In his
return from this voyage he committed the murder for which he died.
On the 25th April, 1726, an Admiralty Sessions was held at the Old
Bailey, before the Hon. Sir Henry Penrice, Judge of the High Court of
Admiralty, assisted by the Honourable Mr. Baron Hale, at which Captain
Greagh was indicated for feloniously sinking the good ship called the
_Friendship_, of which he was commander; but as there appeared no
grounds for such a charge, he was acquitted. Afterwards Captain John
Jaen, of Bristol, was set to the bar, and arraigned on an indictment for
wilfully and inhumanly murdering one Richard Pye, who had been
cabin-boy, in the month of March, in the year 1724. It appeared by the
evidence produced against him that he either whipped the boy himself or
caused him to be whipped every day during the voyage; that he caused him
to be tied to the mainmast with ropes for nine days together, extending
his arms and legs to the utmost, whipping him with a cat (as it is
called) of five small cords till he was all bloody, then causing his
wounds to be several times washed with brine and pickle. Under this
terrible usage the poor wretch grew soon after speechless. The Captain,
notwithstanding, continued his cruel usage, stamping, beating and
abusing him, and even obliging him to eat his own excrements, which
forcing its way upwards again, the boy in his agony of pain made signs
for a dram, whereupon the captain in derision took a glass, carried it
into the cabin, and made water therein, and then brought it to the boy
to drink, who rejected the same. The lamentable condition in which he
was made no impression on the captain, who continued to treat him with
the same severity, by whipping, pickling, kicking, beating, and bruising
him while he lingered out his miserable life. On the last day of this he
gave him eighteen lashes with the aforesaid cat of five tails, in a
little time after which the boy died. The evidence farther deposed that
when the boy's body was sewn up in a hammock to be thrown overboard it
had in it as many colours as there are in a rainbow, that his flesh in
many places was as soft as jelly, and his head swelled as big as two.
Upon the whole it very fully appeared that a more bloody premeditated
and wilful murder was never committed, and Sir Henry Penrice declared,
that in all the time he had had the honour of sitting on the Bench he
never heard anything like it, and hoped that no person who should sit
there after him should hear of such an offence.
Under sentence of death he behaved with a great deal of piety and
resignation though he did not frequent the public chapel for two
reasons, the first because the number of strangers who were admitted
thither to stare at such unhappy persons as are to die are always
numerous and sometimes very indiscreet; the second was, that he had many
enemies who took a pleasure in coming to insult him, and as he was sure
either of these would totally interrupt his devotions, he thought it
excusable to receive the assistance of the minister in his own chamber.
As to the general offences of his life, he was very open in his
confession, but as to the particular fact for which he suffered, he
endeavoured to excuse it by saying he never intended to murder the boy,
but only to correct him as he deserved, he being exceedingly wicked and
unruly; he charged him with thieving in their voyage out, being yet
worse as they came home, and that particularly one evening when he was
asleep in the cabin, the lad broke open his lockers, and took out a
bottle of rum, of which he drank near a pint, making himself therefor so
drunk that his excrements fell involuntarily from him, which stunk so
abominably that it awakened him (the Captain), whereupon he called in
several of his men, who found the boy in a sad condition, and were
obliged to sit down and smoke tobacco in order to overcome the stench he
had raised. This produced the terrible punishment of tying him to the
mast for several days and the offering him his excrements which he
rejected.
Notwithstanding the captain owned all this, yet he could not forbear
reflections on those who gave testimony against him at his trial,
charging them with perjury and conspiracy to ruin him, though nothing
like it appeared from the manner in which they delivered their
testimony. As the time of his death approached nearer, the fear thereof,
and remorse of conscience, brought the captain into so weak and low a
state that he could scarce speak or attend to any discourses of others,
but lay in a languishing condition, often fainting, and in fine
appearing not unlike a person who had taken something to produce a
sudden death, in order to prevent an ignominious one. Yet when such
suspicions were mentioned to him, he declared that they were without
ground, that he had never suffered such a thought once to enter into his
head. His wife, who attended him constantly while in prison, said she
loved him too well to become his executioner, and that she was positive
since his commitment, he had had nothing unwholesome administered to
him.
[Illustration: CATHERINE HAYES BURNT FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND
(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
As he was carried to execution, he was so very much spent, that it was
thought he would hardly have lived to have reached it. There he had the
assistance of a minister of distinction, who prayed with him till the
instant he was thrown off, which was on the 13th day of May, 1726, being
then about twenty-nine years of age. As soon as he was cut down, he was
put in chains, in order to be hung up.