[95] On Feb. 22, 1727, when the Spaniards attacked with 20,000
men and were repulsed with a loss of 5,000. The English lost 300.
[96] See page 463.
The Life of HUGH HOUGHTON, _alias_ AWTON, _alias_ NORTON, who robbed
the Bristol Mail
This unfortunate person was the son of honest and reputable people of
Lancaster, who took care to give him a very good education, sufficient
to have fitted him for any trade whatever. Afterwards they bound him out
apprentice to a wine-cooper, to whom he served out his time very
carefully and honestly, and appeared in his temper and disposition to be
a civil, good-natured young man. For some time after his coming out of
his time, he followed his trade of a wine-cooper, but being pressed on
board a man-of-war, during the French War in the late Queen's time, he
behaved himself so well on board that he acquired the goodwill of all
his officers, attained to the degree of a midshipman, and was afterwards
gunner's mate, receiving also a title to five pound _per annum_, out of
the Pension Chest at Chatham.
After this he came to London, married a wife and was a housekeeper in
town; and for his better support got himself into the Horse Guards,
where he served with reputation, until some small time before his death,
when some clothes of value being taken away, and he being strongly
suspected on that score was dismissed the service, whereby he fell into
great difficulties for want of money.
It seems that for many months before his death he had frequented the
house of one Mr. Marlow, and was indebted to him for a considerable sum
of money, but one day he came and discharged it, having for that purpose
changed a twenty pound bank-note at a brewer's not far distant. But the
Bristol mail happening about that time to be robbed, and the bank-note,
after various circulations, being discovered to be one of those taken
out of it, Houghton was thereupon seized and committed, being at the
next sessions brought to his trial at the Old Bailey for the fact, when
the course of the evidence appeared against him as follows. He was
arraigned on an indictment for dealing from Stephen Crouches, on the
King's highway, after putting him in fear, a sorrel gelding value five
pounds, the property of Thomas Ostwich, a mail value four pounds, and
fifty leather bags, value five pounds, the property of our Sovereign
Lord the King, on the first of March, 1730.
Stephen Crouches deposed that on the day laid in the indictment, he was
going with the Bristol and Gloucester mail, being near Knightsbridge, a
man of the prisoner's size, who spoke like him, came out of the gateway
and bid him stand; that he laid the horse to the farther side of a
field, commanded him to show him the Bristol bag, which he took and went
off with the horse, leaving this evidence bound with his hands behind
him, threatening to murder him in case he made the least noise.
Daniel Burton deposed that the prisoner Houghton had more than once
proposed to him the robbing of the Bristol mail, and upon his refusing
to be concerned in it, would then have had him rob their landlady, Mrs.
Marlow, which when her husband came to know, he turned him out of doors.
The next witness that was called was Mr. Marlow, who deposed that on the
2nd of March, the prisoner Houghton paid him five pounds which was owing
to him, having changed for that purpose a bank-note of twenty pounds at
Mr. Broadhead's the brewer. Then the note itself was produced, which had
been paid by Mr. Broadhead to Mr. King, a factor, and by him to Mr.
Dictorine's man, in Thames Street, and by him again to the servant of
Messrs. Knight and Jackson, by whom it was brought into Court, an
endorsement being upon it not to be paid till the fifth of May. But Mr.
Marlow being asked as to his being acquainted by Burton with the
prisoner's attempts to persuade him to robbing the Bristol mail, and
afterwards robbing his house, Mr. Marlow answered that he did not
remember he had ever been told such a thing, but that he did indeed know
the prisoner together with one Masa, was for scandalous practices turned
out of the Guards.
William Burligh deposed that he took out of the prisoner's pocket a
pocket-book in which was several notes, which pocket-book the prisoner
said he took up in Covent Garden. Mr. Langley, the Turnkey of Newgate,
deposed that after he was committed to his custody, he searched his
pocket and found therein three bank-notes of Mr. Hoare, which he gave to
Mr. Archer. Mr. Archer deposed that he did receive such notes, which
were so taken as had been before sworn by Mr. Langley.
There were some other persons produced who swore to some slips of
leather which were found in Houghton's lodgings, and which were believed
to be cut out of the bag which were taken from the Bristol Mail. The
prisoner in his defence said he believed there was a trap laid for him
and exclaimed against Burton. Two women positively deposed that Houghton
all that night was not out of his lodgings. But the jury notwithstanding
that, gave so much credit to the evidence offered for the King, that
they found him guilty.
Under sentence of death, he said that he had hitherto lived free from
most of those enormous vices into which criminals are usually plunged,
who came to his unhappy fate. He said that through the course of his
life he had always been a good husband, a loving parent, and had
provided carefully for his family; that he had served the Government
twelve years by land, and twelve years by sea, and in all that time
never had any reflection upon him until the unhappy accident in the
Guards, which he said he was not guilty of, and had been since confessed
by another man.
As to the fact for which he was to die, he said that the same day the
mail was robbed (which was on a Sunday morning) at six or seven o'clock
he found a bundle of papers which he took up, and perceived them to be a
parcel taken out of the Bristol mail, and therefore having perused them
carefully, and taken out of them such as he judged proper, he being at
that time out of business and in great want, put up the rest of them in
a sheet of paper, directed to the Post Master General, and laid them
down in the box-house at Lincoln's Inn Fields, being afraid to go with
them to the office, because a great reward was offered for the robber.
And that he, having changed a twenty-pound bank-note, paid five pounds
of it away to his landlord, Mr. Marlow. He reflected also very severely
on the evidence given against him by Mr. Burton, which he said was the
very reverse of the truth. Burton having often solicited him to go upon
the highway as the shortest method of easing his misfortunes and
bringing them both money.
As he persisted in averring the confession he made to be the truth, it
was objected to him that it was a story, the most improbable in the
world, that when a man had hazarded his life to rob the Bristol mail, he
should then throw away all the booty, and leave it in such a place as
Covent Garden, for any stranger to take up as he came by; yet neither
this nor anything else that could be said to him had so much weight as
to move him to a free confession of his guilt, but on the contrary, he
gave greater and more evident signs of a sullen, morose and reserved
disposition, spoke little, desired not to be interrupted, made general
confessions of his sins, pleased himself with high conceits of the
Divine Mercy, and endeavoured as much as possible to avoid conferences
with anybody, and especially declined speaking of that offence for which
he was to die.
When he first came to Newgate, the keepers had, it seems, a strong
apprehension that he would attempt something against his own life, and
upon this suspicion they were very careful of him, and enjoined a barber
who shaved him in prison to be so, lest he should take that occasion to
cut his throat. Yet nothing of this happened until the day of his
execution, when the keepers coming to him in the morning, found him
praying very devoutly in his cell; but about twenty minutes after, going
thither again, they perceived he had fastened his sword belt which he
wore always about him to the grate of the window which looked out of
his cell, to the end of which he tied his handkerchief, and having then
adjusted that about his neck, he strangled himself with it, and was dead
when the keepers opened the doors to look in.
The Ordinary makes this remark upon his exit, that it is to be feared he
was a hypocrite and that little of what he said can be believed. For my
part, I am far from taking upon me either to enter into the breasts of
men or pretend to set bounds to the mercy of God, and therefore without
any further remarks, shall conclude his life with informing my readers
that at the time he put an end to his own being, he was about
forty-eight years of age, and a man in his person and behaviour very
unlikely to have been such a one as it is to be feared (notwithstanding
all his denials) he really was.