[84] See page 182.
The Life of JOHN UPTON, a Pirate; including also the history of that
sort of people, particularly the crew under Captain Cooper, in the
_Night Rambler_
No laws in any civilized nations are more severe than those against
piracy, nor are they less severely executed, and the criminals who
suffer by them are usually the least pitied, or rather the most detested
of all who come to die an ignominious death by the sentence of the Law.
Of old they were styled _hostes humani generis_, and the oldest systems
we have of particular institutions have treated them with a rigor
suitable to their offence. With respect to those who fall into the hands
of British justice, it must be remarked that they usually plead as an
excuse for what they have done their being forced into pirates' service,
and as it is well known that numbers are really forced into crimes they
detest, so the lenience of our judicators generally admit whatever
proofs are probable in such a case. But where the contrary appears, and
the acts of piracy plainly arise from the wicked dispositions of the
offenders, the Royal Mercy is less frequently extended to them than to
any other sort of criminal whatever.
As to the prisoner of whom we are to speak, John Upton was born at
Deptford, of very honest parents who gave him such an education as
fitted their station, and that in which they intended to breed him. When
grown up to be a sturdy youth, they put him out apprentice to a
waterman, with whom he served out his time faithfully, and with a good
character. Afterwards he went to sea and served for twenty-eight years
together on board a man-of-war, in the posts of either boatswain or
quartermaster. Near the place of his birth he married a woman, took a
house and lived very respectably with her during the whole course of her
life, but she dying while he was at sea, and finding at his return that
his deceased wife had run him greatly in debt, clamours coming from
every quarter, and several writs being issued out against him, he
quitted the service in the man-of-war, and went immediately in a
merchantman to Newfoundland. There by agreement he was discharged from
the ship and entered himself for eighteen pounds _per annum_ into the
service of a planter in that country in order to serve him in fishing
and furring, the chief trade of that place; for Newfoundland abounding
with excellent harbours, there is no country in the world which affords
so large and so plentiful a fishery as this does. However its climate
renders it less desirable, it being extremely hot in the summer and as
intensely cold in the winter, when the wild beasts roam about in great
numbers, and furnish thereby an opportunity to the inhabitants of
gaining considerably by falling them, and selling their furs.
Upton having served his year out was discharged from his master, and
going to New England, he there, in the month of July, 1725, shipped
himself on board the _Perry_ merchantman bound for Barbadoes. The ship
was livred and loaded again, the captain designing them to sail for
England, whereupon Upton desired leave to go on board his Majesty's ship
_Lynn_, Captain Cooper. But Captain King absolutely refusing to
discharge him in order thereto, on the ninth of November, 1725, he
sailed in the aforesaid vessel for England.
On the twelfth of the same month, off Dominica, they were attacked by a
pirate sloop called the _Night Rambler_, under the command of one
Cooper. The pirate immediately ordered the captain of the _Perry_ galley
to come on board his ship, which he and four of his men did, and the
pirate immediately sent some of his crew on board the _Perry_ galley,
who effectually made themselves masters thereof, and as Upton said, used
him and the rest of the persons they found on board with great
inhumanity and baseness, a thing very common amongst those wretches.
Upton also insisted that as to himself, one of the pirate's crew ran up
to him as soon as they came on board and with a cutlass in his hand,
said with an oath, _You old son of a bitch, I know you and you shall go
along with us or I'll cut out your liver_, and thereupon fell to beating
him fore and aft the deck with his cutlass.
The same evening he was carried on board the pirate sloop, where,
according to his journal, three of the pirates attacked him; one with a
pistol levelled at his forehead demanded whether he would sign their
articles, another with a pistol at his right ear, swore that if he did
not they would blow out his brains, while a third held a couple of forks
at his breast, and terrified him with the continual apprehensions of
having them stabbed into him. Whereupon he told them that he had four
young infants in England, to whom he thought it his duty to return, and
therefore begged to be excused as having reason to decline their
service, as well as a natural dislike to their proceedings. Upon which,
he said, he called his captain to take notice that he did not enter
voluntarily amongst them. Upon this the pirate said they found out a way
to satisfy themselves by signing for him, and this, he constantly
averred, was the method of his being taken into the crew of the _Night
Rambler_, where he insisted he did nothing but as he was commanded,
received no share in the plunder, but lived wholly on the ship's
allowance, being treated in all respect as one whom force and not choice
had brought amongst them.
But to return to the _Perry_ galley, which the pirates carried to the
Island of Aruba, a maroon or uninhabited island, or rather sand bank,
where they sat the crew ashore and left them for seventeen days without
any provision, except that the surgeon of the pirate now and then
brought them something in his pocket by stealth. On the tenth of
December the pirates saw a sail which proved to be a Dutch sloop, which
they took, and on board this Upton and two others who had been forced as
well as himself were put, from whence as he said, they made their
escape. After abundance of misfortunes and many extraordinary
adventures, he got on board his Majesty's ship _Nottingham_, commanded
by Captain Charles Cotterel, where he served for two years in the
quality of quartermaster. He was then taken up and charged with piracy,
upon which he was indicted at an Admiralty sessions held in the month of
May, 1729, when the evidence at his trial appeared so strong that after
a short stay the jury found him guilty.
But his case having been very differently represented, I fancy my
readers will not be displeased if I give them an exact account of the
proofs produced against him.
The first witness who was called on the part of the Crown was Mr.
Dimmock, who had been chief mate on board the _Perry_ galley, and he
deposed in the following terms:
On the twelfth of November, 1725, we sailed from Barbadoes on the
_Perry_ galley bound for England. On the 14th, about noon, we were
taken by the _Night Rambler_, pirate sloop, one Cooper commander.
Our captain and four men were ordered on board the pirate sloop,
part of the pirate's crew coming also on board the _Perry._ Wherein
they no sooner entered, but the prisoner at the bar said, _Lads, are
ye come? I'm glad to see ye; I have been looking out for ye for a
great while._ Whereupon the pirates saluted him very particularly,
calling him by his name, and the prisoner was as busy as any of the
rest in plundering and stripping the ship on board of which he had
served, and the rest who belonged to it, the very next day after
being made boatswain of the pirate. The same day I was carried on
board the pirate sloop, tied to the gears and received two hundred
lashes with a cat o' nine tails which the prisoner Upton had made
for that purpose; after which they pickled me, and the prisoner
Upton stabbed me in the head near my ear with a knife, insomuch that
I could not lay my head upon a pillow for fourteen days, but was
forced to support it upon my hand against the table; and when some
of the pirate's crew asked me how I did, upon my answering that I
was as bad as a man could be and live, the prisoner, Upton, said
_D----n him, give him a second reward._
It was also further deposed by the same gentleman that at the island of
Aruba, the prisoner was very busy in stripping the _Perry_ galley of the
most useful and valuable parts of her rigging, carrying them on board
the pirate, and making use of them there. He had also in his custody
several things of value, and particularly wearing apparel, belonging to
one Mr. Furnell, a passenger belonging to the said _Perry_ galley; and
when it was debated amongst the pirates, and afterwards put to the vote,
whether the crew of the said galley should have their vessel again or
no, John Upton was not only against them, but also proposed burning the
said vessel, and tying the captain and mate to one of the masts in order
to their being burnt too.
Mr. Eaton, the second mate of the ship, was the next witness called. He
confirmed all that had been sworn by Mr. Dimmock, adding that the day
they were taken the pirates asked if he would consent to sign their
articles, which he refused. Whereupon they put a rope about his neck,
and hoisted him up to the yard's arm, so that he totally lost his
senses. He recovered them by some of the pirate's crew pricking him in
the fleshy parts of his body, while others beat him with the flat of
their swords. As soon as they perceived he was a little come to himself
they put the former question to him, whether he would sign their
articles. He answered, _No_, a second time. One of the crew thereupon
snatched up a pistol, and swore he would shoot him through the head; but
another of them said, _No, d----n him, that's too honourable a death; he
shall be hanged._ Upon this they pulled him up by the rope again, and
treated him with many other indignities, and at last in the captain's
cabin, pulled a cap over his eyes and clapped a pistol to his head; then
he expected nothing but immediate death, a person having almost jabbed
his eye out with the muzzle of the pistol, but at last they did let him
go. He swore, also, that when the pirates' articles were presented to
him to sign, he saw there the name of John Upton, he being well
acquainted with his hand.
Mr. Furnell, a passenger in the ship, was the third evidence against the
prisoner. He deposed to the same effect with the other two, adding that
John Upton was more cruel and barbarous to them than any of the other
pirates, insomuch that when they were marooned, and under the greatest
necessities for food, Upton said, _D----n them, let them be starved_,
and was the most active of all the rest in taking the goods, and
whatever he could lay his hands on out of the _Perry_ galley.
In his defence the prisoner would fain have suggested that what the
witnesses had sworn against him was chiefly occasioned by a malicious
spleen they had against him. He asserted that he was forced by the
pirates to become one of their number and was so far from concerned with
them voluntarily that he proposed to the mate, after they were taken, to
regain the ship, urging that there were but thirteen of the pirates on
board, and they all drunk, and no less than nine of their own men left
there who were all sober; that the mate's heart failed him, and instead
of complying with his motion, said, _This is a dangerous thing to speak
of; if it should come to the pirates' ears we shall be all murdered_,
and therefore entreated the prisoner not to speak of it any more. The
mate denied every syllable of this, and so the prisoner's assertions did
not weigh at all with the jury. After they had brought in their verdict,
Mr. Upton said to those who swore against him, _Lord! What have you
three done?_
Under sentence of death he behaved himself with much courage, and yet
with great penitence. He denied part of the charge, viz., that he was
willingly one of the pirates, but as to the other facts, he confessed
them with very little alteration. He averred that the course of his life
had been very wicked and debauched, for which he expressed much sorrow,
and to the day of his death behaved himself with all outward mark of
true repentance. At the place of execution, he was asked whether he had
not advised the burning of the _Perry_ galley, with Captain King and the
chief mate on board. He averred that he did not in any shape whatsoever
either propose or agree to an act of such a sort. Then, after some
private devotions, he submitted to his sentence, and was turned off on
the 16th day of May, 1729, being then about fifty years of age.
The Life of JEPTHAH BIGG, an Incendiary, and Writer of Threatening
Letters
I have already taken notice in the life of Bryan Smith[85] of the Act of
Parliament on which the proceedings against these letter-writers are
grounded. One would be surprised that after more examples than one of
that kind, people should yet be found so foolish as well as wicked as to
carry on so desperate an enterprise, in which there is scarce any
probability of meeting with success; yet this unfortunate person of whom
we are now to speak, who was descended of mean parents, careful however
of giving him a very good education, fell upon this project, put into
his head by being a little out of business, and so in one moment
cancelled all his former honesty and industry, and hazarded a life which
soon after became forfeited.
His friends had put him out apprentice to a gunstock maker, to which he
served out his time honestly and with a good character. Afterwards he
continued to work at his business with several masters and tolerable
reputation, until about a year before the time of his death, when he was
out of work, by reason he had disobliged two or three persons for whom
he had wrought, and had also been guilty of some extravagancies which
had brought him into narrow circumstances. These straits it is to be
supposed put him upon the fatal project of writing a letter to Mr.
Nathaniel Newman, senior, a man of a very good fortune, threatening him
that unless he sent the sum of eighty-five guineas to such a place, he
would murder him and his wife, with other bloody and barbarous
expressions. This not having its effect, he wrote him a second letter by
the penny post, demanding one hundred guineas, with grievous
threatenings in case they were not sent. This soon made a very great
noise about town, and put Mr. Newman upon all methods possible for
detecting the author of these villainous epistles, and as everybody
almost looked upon it as a common case, to which any gentleman who is
supposed to be rich might be liable, such indefatigable pains were taken
that in a short time the whole mystery of iniquity was discovered and
Bigg apprehended.
At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted capitally for
this offence, and after the counsel for the prosecutor had fully opened
the heinous nature of the crime, Peter Salter was the first witness
called to prove it upon the prisoner. He deposed that Jepthah Bigg came
to him where he was at work in the Minories, and desired him to go with
him, having something to say to him of consequence; whereupon the
witness would have gone to the sign of the Ship where he used, but the
prisoner would needs go to the Sieve in the Little Minories. There he
communicated to him his design, and then prevailed on Salter to go to
the Shoulder of Mutton alehouse at Billingsgate, where Bigg directed him
to call for drink, and to wait until a porter came to him with a parcel
directed to John Harrison, when if he suspected anything, he should come
to the prisoner at the King's Head alehouse, on Fish Street Hill. This
the evidence performed punctually, whereupon Bigg sent him a second
time to the Blackboy, in Goodman's Fields, where a second parcel was
left, though of no value. Whereupon Bigg would have had the evidence
Salter concerned in a third letter to the same purpose, but Salter
declined it and dissuaded him as much as lay in his power, from
continuing to venture on such hazardous things. Upon which the prisoner
replied, _You need not fear. Nothing can hurt you; my life is in your
hands; but if ever you reveal the matter, you shall share the same
fate._
John Long, servant to Mr. Newman, deposed that he delivered two penny
post letters to his master on the 20th and 27th of March. Other
witnesses swore as to the sending of the parcels, and the jury on the
whole, seeing the fact to be well proved against the prisoner, found him
guilty.
Under sentence of death at first the poor man behaved himself like one
stupid. He pretended that he did not know the offence that he had
committed was capital, and afterwards exclaimed against the hardness of
the Law which made it so; but some little pains being taken with him in
those points, he was soon brought over to acknowledge the justice of his
sentence, and the reasonableness of that Statute which enacted it into a
capital offence.
As the day of his death drew nigh he was still more and more drowned in
stupidity and lost to all thought or concern for this world or that to
come, at least as to outward appearance. Some said he was a Roman
Catholic, but while the poor wretch retained his senses, he said nothing
that could give any ground for a suspicion of that sort. He heard the
discourses which the Ordinary made to him, with as much patience as the
rest did, and when he visited him in the cell, did not express any
uneasiness thereat. Indeed, in the passage to execution, there were two
fellows in the cart who would fain have had the minister desist from his
duty, urging the same reason, that the criminal was in communion with
another Church. The man, himself, seemed stupid and speechless all the
way, yet when he was turned off, the reverend Ordinary tells us, he went
off the stage crying out aloud, _O Lord! etc._ This seems to me a very
indecent way of concluding a dying speech, but as it is that which is
generally used, I shall not stay to bestow any further reflections upon
it. He died on the 19th of May, 1729, being about twenty-five years of
age.