Though, generally speaking, the old saying holds true that nobody
becomes superlatively wicked at once, yet it may be also averred that a
long and habitual course of vice at last so hardens the soul that no
warnings are sufficient, no dangers so frightful, nor reflections so
strong as to overcome lewd inclinations, when their strength has become
increased by a long unrestrained indulgence.
The criminal of whom we are now to speak was a native of the town of
Windsor, in the county of Berks. His parents were honest people in
middling circumstances, who yet took such care of his education that he
was fit for any business to which he would have applied himself. But
he, on the contrary, continuing to lead a lazy and indolent course of
life, sauntering from one place to another, and preferring want and
idleness to industry and labour, at last became so burdensome to his
relations that with much ado they sent him to sea. There being of a
robust constitution and of a bold, daring spirit, he quickly gained some
preferment in the ship on board of which he sailed and might possibly
have done very well if he had continued at sea for any time, having the
good luck to serve on board the admiral's vessel, and to be taken notice
of as a sprightly young fellow, capable of coming to good.
But alas! James soon blasted this prospect of good fortune, for no
sooner was he on shore than laying aside all the views he had formed of
rising in the Navy, he associated himself with some of his old
companions. They persuaded him to take a purse, as the shortest and
easiest method of supporting those expenses into which his inclinations
for sensual pleasures naturally plunged him. He too easily listened to
their persuasions and from that time forward he left nothing unstolen
upon which he could lay his fingers.
Punishment did not pursue his crimes with a leaden pace; on the
contrary, he had scarce offended ere she made him sensible of the
offences. Bridewells, prisons, duckings, lashings, and beatings of hemp
were made familiar to him by his running through them several times in
the space of a few years. At length, as he increased the guilt of his
crimes, so he added to the weight of his sufferings; for after having
been at Newgate several times for lesser offences, he was at last
committed for a felony, and being convicted thereof, was ordered for
transportation. Rightly conceiving that if he was carried into the
Plantations he would be obliged to work very hard, which he most
dreaded, in order to escape he forged a letter as from a certain man of
quality directing that he should be set at liberty in order to serve as
a good hand on board of one of his Majesty's ships. His old ill luck
pursuing him, the forgery was detected and he was thereupon ordered to
remain two years at hard labour in Bridewell; but when he was brought
thither, the keeper absolutely refused to have anything to do with him.
They knew him of old and said that he was a fellow only fit to make the
other criminals who were there unruly, by projecting and putting them
into way of making their escape. Upon this he was carried back to
Newgate and remained a prisoner for that space of time.
How he came by his liberty again I cannot take upon me to say; all that
appears from my papers is that he made a very ill use of it as soon as
he obtained it, returning immediately to the commission of those crimes
for which he had before forfeited it. At length turning housebreaker he
was committed for feloniously stealing five pounds out of the house of
John Spence, for which fact, at the sessions following, a bill of
indictment was found against him, and he was thereupon arraigned.
At first he insisted that overtures had been made in order to procure
discoveries from him, and therefore he desired that he might be admitted
an evidence. The Court informed him that they would enter into no
altercations with a prisoner at the bar; that he had heard the nature of
the charge preferred against him; and that now they could hear nothing
from him unless he pleaded guilty or not guilty. He persisted
obstinately in his first demand, and in consequence thereof obstinately
refused to plead. Whereupon he was told from the Bench that such
behaviour was not a proper method to excite the mercy of the Court, that
it was not in their power to comply in any degree with what he desired,
but that on the contrary they should proceed to pass sentence upon him
as a mute, by which be would be subjected to a much greater and more
grievous punishment than if he were found guilty of the crime of which
he was accused. All this made no impression upon the criminal; he said
he could but die, and the manner in which he died was indifferent to
him. And so sentence, as is usual in such cases, was pronounced upon
him, and he was ordered to be carried back and put into the press. But
when he had carried it so far, and found there was no avoiding that
cruel fortune which was appointed for such obstinate persons as himself,
he desired time till the next morning to consider his plea, which being
permitted him, he that time pleaded guilty.
While under sentence of death something very extraordinary occurred in
relation to this malefactor. It seems that one Mrs. Dawson had a parcel
of plate, consisting of two silver tankards, two silver mugs, a silver
cup and a punch ladle, seven pounds sixteen shillings in money, and a
great quantity of papers of considerable value, stolen out of her house.
She suspected one Eleanor Reddey, and caused her to be apprehended, who
thereupon confessed that she opened the door of her mistress's house in
the night-time and let in one William Read; that she saw him take away
the plate and watched, in the meantime, to observe if anyone came. Upon
this confession she herself was convicted, but no evidence appearing
against William Read, who was tried with her, he was acquitted.
After she received sentence of death she declared herself absolutely
innocent of the fact for which she was to die, affirming that as soon as
she was taken up some neighbours persuaded her to make such a
confession, and to charge William Read with stealing the things,
assuring her that if she did so, she would preserve herself by coming a
witness against him. Being a silly timorous creature in herself, and
terrified by their suggesting that if she did not take the method they
proposed, somebody would infallibly swear against her, she with much ado
assented; and being carried before Justice Jackson, made and signed such
a confession as is before mentioned.
But How, _alias_ Harris, whose life we are now writing, declared that
he, himself, robbed Mrs. Dawson, and that he had a considerable quantity
of the plate and most of the papers in his power, offering to restore
them if the said Mrs. Dawson had interest enough to procure a pardon
either for himself or Eleanor Reddey. But the Ordinary assured him that
Mrs. Dawson could do no such thing, and at the same time exhorted him to
make what restitution was in his power, since otherwise his repentance
would remain imperfect and small hope could be given him of his meeting
with forgiveness from an offended God. At first this seemed to have
little or no weight with the criminal; he expressed himself very civilly
when spoken to on that head, but peremptorily refused to do anything
towards making satisfaction to Mrs. Dawson, unless she could do
something for him or the woman.
But when death approached nearer he began to relent, sent for the
Ordinary and told him that, as for the plate, it was indeed out of his
power, but for that the papers, he had caused them to be brought in a
box which he delivered and desired they might be kept carefully, because
he was sensible that they were of great value to their owner.
At the place of execution he seemed desirous only of clearing his wife
from any imputation of being concerned with him in any of his villainies
and then suffered with much resignation, on the 11th of September, 1728,
being near thirty-eight years of age.
The Lives of GRIFFITH OWEN, SAMUEL HARRIS, and THOMAS MEDLINE,
Highwaymen and Footpads
Griffith Owen, the first of these unhappy criminals, was the son of very
honest parents who had given him a very good education in respect both
of letters and religion. When he was grown up they put him out
apprentice to a butcher in Newgate Market, with whom he served his time,
though not without committing many faults and neglecting his business
in a very marked degree, addicting himself too much to idle company, the
usual incitements to those crimes for the commission of which he
afterwards suffered.
His companion Harris, if Owen were to be believed, first proposed
robbing as an expedient to the supply of their pockets, to which he too
readily gave way; and having once ventured to attack he never suffered
himself nor his companions to cool. For the space of about six weeks,
keeping themselves still warm with liquor, they committed five or six
robberies, for which at last they were all apprehended. And as they had
been companions together in wickedness, so they shared also in
imprisonment and death as the consequences of those offences they had
committed.
Samuel Harris, though he had received a very tolerable education as to
reading and writing, yet he never applied himself to any business, but
served bricklayers as a labourer, in company with his fellow-sufferer
Medline. But having been all his life addicted to lust and wickedness,
he proposed robbing to his companions as the most feasible method of
getting money wherewith to support their debauches and the strumpets who
used to partake with them at their houses of resort. He confirmed what
Owen had said, and acknowledged that during the time they continued
their robberies, never any people in the world led more profligate and
more uneasy lives than they did; being always engaged in a continual
circle of drunkenness, violence and whoredom; while their minds were
continually agitated with the fear of being apprehended, so that they
never enjoyed peace or quiet from the time of their betaking themselves
to this course of life unto the day of their apprehension and coming to
the gallows.
Thomas Medline was born more meanly than either of his companions, and
had so little care taken of him in his youth, that he could neither read
nor write. However, he applied himself to working hard as a labourer to
the bricklayers, and got thereby for some time sufficient wherewith to
maintain himself and his family. At last, giving himself over to drink,
he minded little of what became of his wife and children, and falling
unhappily about the same time into the acquaintance of the
before-mentioned malefactor Harris, he was easily seduced by him to
become a partner in his crimes and addicted himself to the highway.
It was but a very short space that they continued to exercise this their
illegal and infamous calling, for venturing to attack one Mr. Barker, on
the Ware Road, and not long after Dr. Edward Hulse,[81] they were
quickly apprehended for those facts, and after remaining some time in
Newgate, were brought to their trials at the Old Bailey.
There it was sworn by Mr. Barker, that he observed them drinking at an
alehouse at Tottenham, the very evening in which he was robbed; and that
apprehending them to be loose and disorderly persons he took more than
ordinary notice of their faces; that about a mile from Edmonton church
they came up with him, and notwithstanding he told them he knew them,
they pulled him off his horse and robbed him of five pounds and
sixpence; that returning the next day to the place where he was robbed,
he found sevenpence, which he supposed they had dropped in their hurry.
On the second indictment it was desposed by one Mr. Hyatt that he
suspected the prisoners, from the description given by Mr. Barker and
Doctor Hulse, to be the persons who had robbed them; he thereupon
apprehended them upon suspicion, and that Mr. Barker, as soon as he saw
them, swore to their faces.
Doctor Hulse deposed that they were the persons who robbed him of his
watch and money, and that he had particularly remarked Owen as having a
scar on his face. Thomas Bennett, the doctor's coachman, swore that Owen
was the man who got upon the coach-box and beat him, and afterwards
robbed his master; that not contented therewith, they beat the witness
again, knocked out one of his teeth, and broke his own whip about him.
Henry Greenwood confirmed this account in general, but could not be
positive to any of the faces except that of Owen. The jury, in this
proof, without any long stay found them all guilty.
While under sentence of death they all behaved themselves with as much
penitence and seeming sorrow for their offences as was ever seen amongst
persons in their condition. They attended as often as Divine Worship was
celebrated in the chapel, and appeared very desirous of instruction as
to those private prayers which they thought necessary to put up to God,
when carried back to their several places of confinement.
Harris seemed a little uneasy at the Ordinary's remonstrating with him
that he was more guilty than the rest, inasmuch as he first incited them
to the falling into those wretched methods by which they brought shame
and ruin upon themselves. He answered that there was little difference
in their dispositions, having been all of them addicted for many years
to the greatest wickedness which men could practise; that his companions
were no less ready than he to fall upon such means of supporting
themselves in sensual delights. As he averred this to their faces they
did not contradict it, but seemed to take shame to themselves and to
sorrow alike for the evils they had committed.
They ended their lives at Tyburn, on the 11th of September, 1728, with
all outward signs of true repentance; Owen being twenty, Harris
twenty-nine, and Medline thirty-nine years of age at the time of their
execution.