Amongst the number of those unfortunate persons whose memory we have
preserved to the world in order that their punishments may become
lasting warnings unto all who are in any danger of following their
footsteps, none is more capable of affording useful reflections than the
incidents that are to be found in the life of this robber are likely to
create. He was the son of a serjeant's wife, in the regiment of the Earl
of Derby, but who his father was it would be hard to say. His mother
having had a long intrigue with one Captain Benson and the serjeant
dying soon after this child was born, she thought fit to give him the
captain's name, declaring publicly enough, that if it was in her power
to distinguish, the captain must be his father. Certain it is that the
woman acted cunningly, at least, for Benson, who had never had a child,
was so pleased with the boy's ingenuity that he sent him to a grammar
school in Yorkshire, where he caused him to be educated as well as if
he had been his legitimate son.
Nothing could be more dutiful than Tim was, while a child. The captain
was continually vexed with long letters from the gentlewoman where he
was boarded, concerning master's fine person, great parts and wonderful
improvements, which Benson, being a man of sense, took to be such gross
flattery that he came down to Bellerby, the village where the child was,
on purpose to take it away. But Mr. Tim, upon his arrival, appeared such
a prodigy both in beauty and understanding that the old gentleman was
perfectly ravished with him, and whatever he might believe before,
vanity now engaged him to think the youth his son. For this reason he
doubled his care in providing for him, and when he had made a sufficient
progress at the Grammar School, he caused him to be sent over to Leyden,
a university of which he had a great opinion.
Timothy lost not any of his reputation in this change of climate, but
returned in three years time from Holland as accomplished a young fellow
as had been bred there for a long time. He had but just made his
compliments to his supposed father, and received thirty guineas from him
as a welcome to England, before the old gentleman fell ill of a
pleurisy, which in four days' time deprived him of his life; and as he
had no will, his estate of £300 a year, and about £700 in money (which
he had lent out on securities), descended to his sister's son, as arrant
a booby as ever breathed, and deprived Tim both of his present
subsistance and future hopes.
In this distressed condition he took lodgings in a little court at the
farther end of Westminster. He had a great number of good clothes, and
as he then addicted himself to nothing so much as reading, he lived so
frugally as to make a very tolerable appearance, and to pay everybody
justly for about half a year, which so well established his credit in
the neighbourhood that he was invited to the houses of the best families
thereabouts, and might undoubtedly, if he had had his wits about him,
have married some young gentlewoman thereabouts of a tolerable fortune.
But happening to lodge over against a great mantua-maker's, he took
notice of a young girl who was her apprentice, and happened to be a
chandler's daughter, at Hammersmith. The wench, whose name was Jenny,
was really handsome and agreeable, but as things were circumstanced with
him, nothing could be more ridiculous than that passion which he
suffered himself to entertain for her.
It is very probable that he might have had some transient amours before
this, but Jenny was certainly the mistress to whom he made his first
addresses, and the real passion of his heart. The girl was quickly
tempted by the person and appearance of her lover, and without enquiring
too narrowly into his circumstances, would certainly have yielded to his
passion, if marriage had been the thing at which he aimed; but he was an
obstacle hard to get over. Tim looked upon himself to be irretrievably
undone from the hour he entered into that state. At last he conquered
that virtue which his mistress had hitherto preserved, and after they
had fooled away a month or two together, at the expense of all he had,
Tim found himself at last obliged to confess the truth of his
circumstances, and by that confession brought a flood of grief upon his
fair one, who had hitherto been unaccustomed to misfortunes.
When they first came together it was agreed between them to quit that
part of the town where they were both known, and they afterwards lodged
in a very pretty little house on the edge of Red Lion Fields. On the
morning Tim made this discovery, his cash was reduced to a single crown.
It is true he had abundance of things of value, but when once they began
to go, he was conscious to himself that starving would be quickly their
lot, and what added more to his misfortunes was that his mistress,
amidst all her sighs and afflictions, declared she would rather continue
with him than go home to her relations, though from the indulgence of a
mother she did not doubt of meeting with a good reception.
However, they came to this resolution, that Jenny should go and raise
five guineas upon a diamond ring of his, and while she was gone on this
errand, poor Benson sat leaning with his head upon his arm in a window
that looked towards the fields. Casting up his eyes by chance, he saw a
gentleman walking up and down as if for his diversion, whereupon a
thought immediately struck him, that it would be an easy matter to rob
him, and by his appearance it was not unlikely but that he might prove a
good prize. Without reflecting, he resolved upon the thing, and putting
on over his nightgown an old great coat which he had in his closet and
with a case of pistols in his breast, he slipped out at the garden gate
without being perceived, and was up with him in an instant. Then, taking
the button of his hat in his teeth, he mumbled out, _Deliver or you're a
dead man._ The gentleman in great confusion gave him a green purse of
gold, and was going to pull his ring off from his finger, and his watch
out of his pocket, but Tim stopped him and said he had enough, only
commanded him to turn his back towards him, and not to alter his
position for fifteen minutes by his own watch. This the gentleman
religiously observed, and Tim made all the haste he could through the
garden into his own chamber, where having hid the cloak at the back of
the bed, he began to examine the value of the plunder, and found that
the purse contained seventy guineas and two diamond rings, one a single
stone and a very fine one, the other consisting of seven, but small and
of no great value. These he went down and buried in the garden, having
first burnt the purse in the fire.
The hurry of the fact being over, he sat down once again in his own
room, and had leisure to reflect a little on what he had done, which
threw him into such an agony that he was scarce able to sit upon the
chair. Shame at the villainy he had committed, the fear of being
apprehended, and the apprehensions of Tyburn, gave so many wounds to his
imagination that he thought his former uneasiness a state of quiet to
the pangs which he now felt, which were much more bitter, as well as of
a very different nature from anything he had known before.
In the midst of these terrors, he heard the voices of a great deal of
company in his landlady's parlour. The hopes of being a little easy
where he had not so much opportunity of affrighting himself with his own
thoughts, occasioned his going downstairs, and without well knowing what
he did, he knocked at the parlour door, which when opened, the first
thing which struck his eyes was the gentleman whom he had robbed,
drinking a glass of water. This gave him such a shock that he had much
ado to collect spirits enough to tell the gentlewoman of the house that
he perceived she had company, and therefore would not intrude. But she,
laying her hand upon his arm, said, _Pray, Mr. Benson, walk in; here's
nobody but a gentleman who has had the misfortune to be robbed in the
field, the fright of which has put him into such a disorder that he
desired to step in here that he might have leisure to come a little to
himself._ Tim saw it was impossible for him to retreat, and so putting
on the best face he was able, he came in and sat down.
The landlady began then to enquire the circumstances of the robbery.
_Why, madam_, replied he, _I was walking there, as I generally do of a
fine afternoon, in order to get a little fresh air, when a man came up
all of a sudden to me, close muffled up in a green or blue great-coat,
in truth I cannot say which. He clapped a pistol to my breast, and I
gave him my purse, and my niece's two rings, one of which cost me
fourscore guineas, but three weeks ago. And as I was afraid he would
murder me, I was going to give him this off my finger, and my watch out
of my pocket, but that the fellow said he had enough, and his leaving
these, surprised me almost as much as taking the rest. But what sort of
a man was he?_ said she. _Why, I think he was about that gentleman's
height_, added he; _but I am so short-sighted that I question whether I
should have known his face, even had it not been covered with his hat.
Besides I am so much taken with the rogue's generosity that I would not
prosecute him if I had him in the room._
This set Tim's heart so much at rest that he began to come to himself a
little, and asked the strange gentleman if he would not be so good as to
drink a glass of wine. A bottle was sent for, and during the time they
were drinking it, Jenny came in, and it being quite dark before they had
finished it, a coach was called, and Mr. Benson offered to see the
gentleman home, in order to which he was going upstairs to put on his
clothes. But this the stranger would not permit, begging him to go as he
was, upon which Jenny said, _Then, my dear, I'll fetch your great-coat._
He had much ado to desire the gentleman to walk to the coach and he'd go
as he was, which he did accordingly, and after drinking a glass of
citron water with the lady whose rings he had stolen, he came home again
as fast as the coach could carry him.
Jenny was very melancholy at his return, and giving him three guineas,
told him that it was all the pawnbroker would lend, and she had much ado
to get that, as she was not known. Tim bid her be of good cheer, and
said he hoped things would mend, and so they went to bed. Two or three
days after, he took an opportunity of going out pretty early, and
returning about dinner time, told her, with much seeming joy, that he
had met with a gentleman whom he had been acquainted with at Leyden, and
who hearing of his father's death, had begged him to accept of twenty
guineas as a mark to his esteem. Jenny was in raptures at their good
fortune, and went that afternoon and fetched the ring home, returning,
poor creature, with as much satisfaction as if she had received ever so
much money; for the hopes of living quietly a month or two with the man
she loved, dispelled all the apprehensions of poverty which she was
before under.
Tim considering that this supply would not last always, and resolving
with himself never to run such a hazard again, he began to beat his
brains about the best method to be taken of getting money in an honest
way. As he had been bred to no profession, notwithstanding the excellent
education he had had, never was a man more at his wits' end. After a
thousand schemes had offered themselves to his mind, and were rejected,
it came at last into his head that as he was tolerably versed in physic,
it might not be impossible for him to get his bread by that. But how to
get into practice, there was the difficulty. A little recollection
helped him here. He had seen a quack doctor exhibit his medicines, with
a panegyric on their good qualities, on his journey to London; he
resolved, scandalous as the profession was, to venture upon it, rather
than run the risk he had done before.
This scheme doubtless cost him some trouble before he brought it to bear
so as to give him any hopes of his putting it into execution, but having
at last settled it as well as he could, he determined with himself to go
down into some distant county and undertake it. In order to have his
thoughts at greater liberty to resolve about it, he took a walk into the
fields, and being very dry after his perambulation, he stepped into a
little alehouse, and called for a mug of drink. While he sat there he
heard two men discoursing upon the vast sums of money that was got by
one Smith, a practitioner in the very art which he was going to set up,
and he found by them that the chief scene of Smith's adventures had lain
in Lincolnshire and thereabouts; so without more ado, as all places were
alike to him, he settled his intentions to go down to the same place,
where he understood by the man that his _quondam_ doctor had done some
great cures and got a tolerable reputation.
When he came home, he could not avoid appearing very thoughtful, and
Jenny fearful of some new disaster, would not let him rest until he had
acquainted her fully with his design, which he would not consent to do
until she promised to comply with a proposal he was to make her, after
he had revealed the secret she was so desirous to know. When he had told
her his project, she next demanded what the condition was to which she
had bound herself to yield. Benson replied that it was to remain at some
place thirty or forty miles distant from where he intended to go, that
she might not be exposed to any inconveniences from that unhappy figure
he saw himself obliged to make. It was with great reluctance that she
ratified the consent he had given, but at length, after much persuasion,
she again acknowledged he was in the right, and promised to do as he
would have her. Things being thus adjusted, nothing remained for him to
do but to get ready for his journey, and that his mate might be the less
timorous of the event, he told her he had procured another supply of
twenty-five guineas.
His cloak-bag was soon stored with such medicines as he thought proper,
and having packed up a few practical books he thought he might have
occasion for, he took a place for himself and Jenny, who passed for his
wife, in the stage coach for Huntingdon, at a village near which, paying
the people for a month's board, he left his consort, and having hired
horses to Boston, he took a young fellow from Huntingdon with him
thither.
As Benson had a very smooth tongue, so he set off the wonderful
properties of his drugs in so artful a manner that in the space of a
fortnight he had cleared £10 besides his expenses. As he had left Jenny
five guineas in her pocket, he wrote to her to pay the people another
month's board, and assured her that he would return within that space.
Hiring accordingly visited Sleaford, and some other great towns
thereabouts, in seven weeks' time he set out for his return into
Huntingdonshire, with fifty guineas, all clear gain, in his pockets.
This good luck encouraged him to run through the greatest part of the
North of England in the same manner, and within the compass of three
years he cleared upwards of £500. At the time of his making this
calculation he was set down at Bristol, in order to exercise his talent
in that great city; but an unexpected accident broke all his measures.
Just as his stage was set up, and he mounted, and opening his harangue
which was now become familiar to him, a constable stepped up upon the
stage, and told him that a gentleman had sworn a robbery directly
against him, and he must go immediately before the mayor. This put him
into a lamentable confusion. He knew himself innocent, but the character
of a mountebank was sufficient to make the thing believed at first, and
therefore he could not be blamed for his apprehensions, especially
considering he took it as a just return for that robbery which he had
committed in town, and for which he made no satisfaction when it was so
fully in his power.
Upon his prosecutor's appearing before the mayor, and swearing flatly to
his face as to his robbing him of seven guineas, a silver watch, and a
snuff box, Tim had his _Mittimus_ made for Newgate; but upon his
desiring the mayor that his effects might be searched, but not
plundered, he had leave given him to return with the officer and see
them looked over at the inn. As many of them were valuable of
themselves, as the drugs were of the best sorts, and as he had several
letters from persons of good character, in the several counties through
which he had passed, and bank notes and bills to the value of £400, they
thought fit to report all this to the mayor, before they did anything.
The mayor thereupon resolved to act very cautiously, and having first
looked over everything himself, he then ordered the effects to be
delivered up to Mr. Benson, himself, who, however, was obliged to
undergo a confinement of eight weeks, till the assizes. The prosecutor
not appearing, and Mr. Benson, by permission of the Court, examining two
gentlemen of undoubted credit, who proved to his being at the time when
the robbery was sworn in another place, he was acquitted, and a copy of
his indictment ordered him. It seems a person under condemnation at
Hertford acknowledged the fact for which Tim had been committed, and
produced both the snuff-box and watch; which though the gentleman who
lost them got again, yet it proved an affair of very ill-consequence to
him, for he was obliged to give Benson one hundred guineas to obtain a
general release, and Tim fearing the noise of the thing had undone his
reputation, resolved to go over to America and settle there.
A gentleman at Bristol who traded largely to the plantations offered him
his assistance in the affair, and matters being quickly adjusted between
them, Tim, to show himself grateful, and a man of honour, was married
privately to Jenny, whom he resolved should be the companion of his
future fortunes, as she had hitherto been the constant solace of all his
sorrows. But before they set out, he thought it proper to make a journey
to London, as well as to provide some necessary articles in the
profession he intended to follow, as to make an end of a little affair
which we have before related, and which lay very hard upon his
conscience. To town then came Jenny and he, and took a lodging near
Tower Street, where in about a fortnight's time, Mr. Benson had put
everything in order for his voyage. The day before he sat out on his
return for Bristol, he wrote the following letter to the old gentleman
he had robbed, and who as he informed himself, was still living at the
same place.
Sir,
Under the pressure of severe necessity my misfortunes tempted me to
commit so great a piece of villainy as the robbing you in Red Lion
Fields. You may remember, sir, that I took from you a green purse,
in which was seventy guineas, and two diamond rings, the one of a
large, the other of a less value. The first comes to you enclosed in
this, the latter, the same necessity which urged me so far as to
take them, obliged me some months after to dispose of, which I did
for fourteen pounds. As a satisfaction for the injury I did you, be
so good, sir, as to accept of the enclosed note of one hundred
pounds, which I hope will amount to the whole value of those things
I took from you, and may I flatter myself, procure your pardon, the
only thing wanting to making him easy, who is,
Sir,
Your most obedient
Humble Servant.
This he took care to convey by a ticket-porter of whose fidelity he was
well assured, and having despatched this affair, he let slip nothing to
make his intended voyage successful. His skill in his profession was
such that he soon had as much business in the plantation where he
settled, as he knew what to do with, and in seven or eight years'
practice, acquired such an estate as was sufficient to furnish him with
all the necessaries of life, upon which he lived when he gave this
account to the gentleman who communicated it to me. And as it is an
instance of a return of virtue not often to be met with, I thought it
might be as useful as any other relation which hitherto had a place in
this confession.
The Life of JOSEPH SHREWSBERRY, _alias_ SMITH, a Robber, etc.
This unhappy criminal of whom we are now to speak was the son of parents
in so mean circumstances that they were not able to give him any
education at all; yet they were careful in carrying him constantly to
church with them, and instructing him as far as they were able in the
principles of the Christian faith, and did everything that narrow
capacity would give them leave, in order to enable him to get his bread
in some honest employment. Then they put him out apprentice to a tanner
in the neighbourhood, a very honest, considerate man, who treated him
with all the indulgence and kindness he could have wished throughout the
time of his apprenticeship. But he was so unfortunate as to fall into
the company of a set of giddy young people who were totally addicted to
merry-making and dancing, which when he had once got into the road of,
he so neglected his business that his master, after abundance of
reproofs, was obliged to part with him.
He had not at that time any designs of doing anything like the fact for
which he afterwards suffered, but continuing still to frequent his
dancing-mates' company, they promised to put him into a road to supply
him with money enough to live without working, provided he had courage
to do as they would have him; and he, without considering what he did,
giving consent to their motions, went out one evening with David
Anderson, Country Will and Jenny Austin, and after a while they stripped
one Thomas Collier, and robbed him of his coat and waistcoat, hat, and a
pair of silver buckles and other things, with a half guinea in gold, and
twenty-five shillings in silver. For this offence he was quickly after
committed, apprehended, and sent to Newgate, where, upon a plain proof
of the fact, he was convicted and ordered for execution.
When the poor man was under sentence of death, he sufficiently repented
those idle hours he had consumed in dancing, and in the other merriments
into which he had been led by his companions. He was now sensible how
easily he might have lived if he had taken the advice of his kind
master, who with so much pains endeavoured not only to instruct him in
his profession, but also to reclaim him from those follies in which he
saw him engaged. The thoughts of death threw him into violent agonies
from whence his natural sense (of which he had a great deal) at last in
some measure recovered him; and when upon the coming down of the death
warrant, he saw there were no hopes left for him in this life, he
applied himself with very great ardency to secure happiness in the next.
He declared that the fact for which he died was the first he ever
committed, and that the depositions against him were not exactly
conformable to truth. A day or two before his death, he appeared to be
very calm and very cheerful, submitted with a perfect resignation to the
lot which had befallen him, and at the place of execution exhorted the
people not to let their curiosity only be satisfied in the sight of his
wretched death, but he warned them also from the commission of such
crimes as might bring them to a like fate. He suffered on the 3rd of
November, 1726, at Tyburn, being then about twenty-two years of age.