in 1716 and produced in 1728; a play written around an imaginary
highwayman, "Captain Macheath," who might very well have stood for
Maclaine himself. Polly and Lucy were two of Macheath's friends in the
opera.
We have Walpole's own authority for the otherwise almost incredible
statement that three thousand people went to see Maclaine in his cell,
the first Sunday after he was condemned. He fainted away twice with the
heat of the cell. "You can't conceive the going there is to Newgate,
and the prints that are published of the malefactors and the memoirs
of their lives and deaths, set forth with as much parade as Marshal
Turenne's."
The fatal October 3rd came at last, when he was to die. A curious
etched print published at the time, at the small price of threepence,
entitled "Newgate's Lamentation, or the Ladies' Last Farewell of
Maclaine," shows the parting, and bears the following verses:
Farewell, my friends, let not your hearts be fill'd,
My time is near, and I'll with calmness yield.
Fair ladies now, your grief, I pray, forbear,
Nor wound me with each tender-hearted tear.
Mourn not my fate; your friendships have been kind,
Which I in tears shall own, till breath's resign'd.
Oh! may the indulgence of such friendly love,
That's been bestowed on me, be doubled from above.
Thus fortified, and giving his blessing, for what it might be worth, he
went to Tyburn diligently conning his prayer-book all the way, and not
once glancing at the crowds.
[Illustration: NEWGATE'S LAMENTATION; OR, THE LADIES' FAREWELL TO
MACLAINE.]
To the constable who had arrested him, and who now came to beg his
forgiveness, he replied earnestly: "I forgive you, and may God bless
you, and your friends; may He forgive my enemies and receive my soul."
And then he was turned off, and died quite easily. There was a great
sale for the many more or less truthful lives of him hawked round the
gallows.
JOHN POULTER, _ALIAS_ BAXTER
The story of John Poulter is one of the saddest that here present
themselves to be recorded. He was born at Newmarket, of poor parents,
and was given a sufficient schooling for his station. At thirteen
years of age he was taken into service in the stables of the Duke of
Somerset, and remained there for six years, leaving with an excellent
character for smartness and industry. He then went into the employ of
Colonel Lumley, and was on three occasions sent to France, in charge
of racehorses; always giving complete satisfaction. But this slight
experience of foreign travel seems to have unsettled him, and he craved
for adventures under alien skies. We next find him, accordingly,
sailing on a Bristol merchant ship and voyaging to the West Indies, to
the American Colonies, and to Newfoundland; seeing life in a humble but
effective way.
Returning to England at last, and, sailor-like—or at any rate, like
sailors of those times—falling at once into abandoned company, he
met, at Lichfield on February 1749, a dissolute set of persons living
disreputably upon their wits; among them a certain John Brown, alias
Dawson, who, with an experience of the highway trade, easily persuaded
the adventurous Poulter to join him and his associates.
Brown, Poulter, and company, fully armed, then set out to prey upon
all and sundry; devoting themselves more particularly to thefts from
houses. At Lichfield, while one diverted the attention of the landlord
of the "George" inn, another rifled a chest and stole a sum of money
and many valuable articles. At Chester, Poulter distinguished himself
by stealing some black plush that he fancied might make him a fine
stylish waistcoat; and sent off at once to a tailor, to call at the
"Black Dog" inn, where he and the gang were lodging, that he might
be measured, and enabled to appear forthwith as a person of elegance
and distinction. We may here fitly pause a moment to admire, or to
be astonished at, the child-like vanity and delight in fine clothes
displayed by nearly all the highwaymen at that time. They could not
resist seizing every and any opportunity that offered, of dressing
themselves in the best that could be obtained.
Unfortunately, the manners of a highwayman were not exactly those of
a gentleman. There was something overdone in the affected elegance of
deportment, a certain exaggeration and a decided "loudness" that made
reflective people suspicious. Thus, the tailor to whom Poulter sent
for his stolen plush to be made up was not altogether satisfied with
his strange customer, and when a pistol that Poulter carried in his
pocket went off accidentally during the process of measurement, he was
convinced that a person who carried loaded firearms in this manner was
not only a dangerous, but also a suspicious, person. The bullet had
harmlessly sped into the ceiling, but the tailor was unnerved by the
incident, and Poulter, rather lamely apologetic, endeavoured to explain
away this concealed armoury by accusing Brown of putting crackers
in his pockets. As for the tailor, he hurried off to the Mayor with
the story that a dangerous person, evidently a highwayman, had taken
lodgings in the city, and was one of a queer gang, whose suspicious
movements had already attracted attention. The Mayor sent some trusty
emissaries to examine Poulter and his associates, but they had already
taken the alarm, and had embarked at Parkgate for Ireland.
Poulter had already had enough of this criminal life, and, tired of
adventure of all kinds, desired nothing better than to settle down to
some business. He accordingly, in the name of Baxter, took a small
alehouse in Dublin, and, entirely dissociating himself from his
companions for a time, did a comfortable and fairly prosperous trade,
averaging five barrels a week. Here he might have continued, and would
have been glad to do so, only for a most unfortunate circumstance.
There were at that time a number of Irish rogues in London, obtaining a
hazardous livelihood, chiefly by picking pockets, but not disdaining
any form of villainy that might promise to be profitable. General
Sinclair was robbed of a gold watch by one or other of this gang, as he
was leaving a party at Leicester House, and William Harper and Thomas
Tobin, two suspicious characters, were arrested for being concerned,
and taken to the Gatehouse at Westminster, whence they were presently
rescued by their gang, to the number of a couple of dozen; all of them
making off to Ireland.
This affair would not appear to concern Poulter in any way, engaged
as he was at Dublin in earning an honest livelihood; but it had a
very tragical result on his fortunes. Among the fugitives was one
James Field, who had known Poulter in London; and he, as ill-fortune
would have it, chanced one day to walk down that Dublin Street where
Poulter's inn was situated. By the accursed malevolence of fate,
Poulter himself happened at that moment to be standing at the door of
his house. Field immediately recognised him and stopped to enquire
what his old confederate was doing. He drank there and wished him good
day, but soon after brought all that escaped gang of scoundrels to the
spot; and there, much to Poulter's dismay, they established themselves,
day by day, making his inn, once so respectable and well-conducted, a
byword for riotous drinking, and the haunt of characters that it would
be flattery to describe as merely "suspicious." Field and others were
actually taken into custody there. Decent trade deserted the inn, and,
despairing of being rid of the scoundrels, whom he dared not forbid the
house, lest they should turn upon and denounce him, he absconded across
Ireland to Cork, where he at first contemplated taking another inn.
He at last, however, settled upon Waterford, and took an inn there,
remaining for six months, when he was induced to return to Dublin by
his former brewer, who, sorry to have lost a good customer by Poulter's
enforced flight, wanted him back.
He eventually settled two miles outside Dublin, at an inn called the
"Shades of Clontarf," looking upon the sea; and became part innkeeper,
part fisherman, and led a very happy, honest, and contented life,
making, moreover, an average profit of £3 a week.
But here he was found towards the close of 1751 by Tobin, who foisted
himself and a dissolute woman companion upon the unfortunate man.
Poulter generously received them, but earnestly implored Tobin not
to bring his evil associates into the neighbourhood. He wanted, he
declared, to live an honest life, and to be done with the past. Tobin
assured him he would not appear in the neighbourhood again; but in a
few days he was back at Clontarf, with a select company of rascals, and
from that time the unhappy Poulter knew no peace. His determination
to lead a respectable life they took as a direct challenge to, and
slur upon, themselves. There is nothing that so greatly enrages the
habitual criminal as the reclamation of one of his own kind, and it is
doubtless the influence of hardened evil-doers that prevents many a
criminal, really disgusted with crime, from reforming. These wretches
set themselves deliberately to ruin Poulter. They practically lived
at his house, and, as had been done before, they soon changed the
character of it from a decent alehouse to a thieves' boozing-ken, to
which the police-officers came at once when they wanted to find some
bad character, or to trace stolen property. Poulter was a mere cipher
under his own roof.
But they were not content with wrecking his trade: they must needs
blast that good character he had been so patiently acquiring. They did
it by making him out a smuggler. Six pounds of tea and twelve yards of
calico and muslin placed secretly in his boat, and information then
lodged with the Revenue officers, was sufficient. Poulter's boat was
seized and condemned, and Poulter himself, convinced that he would not
be able to establish his innocence, fled from the scene and hurried
aboard a vessel bound for Bristol, where he landed penniless. There, in
Bristol streets, he met two early criminal acquaintances, Dick Branning
and John Roberts, and as there seemed to be no likelihood of being
allowed to live within the law, he agreed to take part with them and a
number of confederates, whose headquarters were at Bath, in a campaign
of highway and other robberies.
Their operations were of the most roving description. By way of
Trowbridge, they made for Yorkshire, raiding the country as they went
with all manner of rogueries. Nothing came amiss. At Halifax they
netted twenty-five guineas from a clergyman by an eighteenth-century
ancestor of the thimble-rigging fraud, called "pricking in the
belt." At last they found themselves at Chester: place of evil omen
for Poulter. There, at the house of a confederate, they heard on
the evening of their arrival of a train of pack-horses laden with
Manchester goods, due to pass that night. Watch had been kept upon
them, said the confederate, and a man would point out to our friends
which, among all the animals of the pack-horse train, was best worth
robbing of his load. It would be best, he said, to do the work on the
country road, and to take the horse into a field.
As it happened, they pitched upon the wrong horse, and got only a
load of calamancoes, fabrics woven of wool with an admixture of silk,
popular in those times; but the pack contained over a thousand yards,
and they cut it off after some difficulty in the dark, and got away
safely with it; although greatly alarmed by the horse's loud neighing
when he found himself separated from his companions.
The robbers went off at once out of the neighbourhood, and that same
night reached a village near Whitchurch, eighteen or twenty miles
distant. There they obliterated all distinguishing marks on the goods,
and divided them.
At Grantham, which Poulter and Tobin next favoured with a visit, they
relieved a credulous farmer of fifteen guineas by the "pricking in the
belt" device. At Nottingham several of the accomplices met, but they
had bad luck, and Poulter went on the sneak and stole a silver tankard,
without a lid, from the "Blackamoor's Head" inn: and that was all the
scurvy town of Nottingham yielded them. They then made for Yorkshire,
where they remained for a considerable period, and then left, only
because their widespread thefts of all kinds made a continued stay
dangerous. York, Durham, and the north, including Newcastle, comprised
a tour then undertaken.
They then made their way to Bath, the general rendezvous of the
gang, and thence in what Poulter calls "three sets," or gangs, moved
independently and by easy stages into Devonshire: attending the
cattle-fair at Sampford Peverell, with marked success to themselves,
and grievous loss to the farmers and graziers there assembled. Thence
they moved on to Torrington and Exeter, and so back again to Bath,
where twelve of them met at Roberts's house.
Poulter and two confederates named Elgar and Allen then went into the
north of England again, attending fairs, horse-races and cock-fighting
matches on the sharping lay; winning about £30 or £40 at cards.
Returning to Bath, and being looked upon with suspicion, living as
they were with a number of riotous men in Roberts's house, they hit
upon the dodge of passing for smugglers, and thus at once explaining
their association and enlisting public sympathy. Every one, except the
Revenue officers, was in those times well-affected towards smugglers.
They were not only at considerable pains, but at great expense also, to
create this impression. "We used," says Poulter, in his confessions,
"to give seven shillings a pound for tea, and sell it again for four
shillings and sixpence, on purpose to make people believe we were
smugglers."
While they were thus staying at Bath, they would go now and then to a
fair, and try "the nob," or "pricking in the belt." If that did not
succeed, they would buy a horse or two, give IOU's for the money and
false addresses, and then sell the horses again. "This," says Poulter,
"is called 'masoning.'"
This was followed by a raid into Dorset. A visit of the gang to
Blandford races was highly successful. They attended numerously, and
while some robbed the booths, others devoted their attention to the
sportsmen, and yet others lightened the pockets of the crowds engrossed
in watching the cock-fighting. They wound up a glorious day by dining
in style at the "Rose and Crown," and there chanced upon the best luck
of all those gorgeous hours: finding a portmanteau from which they took
eighteen guineas, four broad pieces, and diamonds, jewels, and clothes
to a great amount. Many of these articles were taken to London by
Poulter, and sold there to Jews in Duke's Place, Aldgate, on behalf of
self and partners. The proceeds were duly divided at Roberts's house at
Bath.
The next activities of these busy rogues were at Corsham, near Bath.
They then appeared at Farringdon in Berkshire, and there robbed the
Coventry carrier. Newbury and Bristol then suffered from them. At last,
they grew so notorious in the West of England that they judged it only
prudent to alter their methods for a time, and to devote themselves
exclusively to horse-stealing: an art they had not hitherto practised
with any frequency.
An amusing incident was that in which Poulter robbed a man of £20. The
foolish fellow, an utter stranger, had been rash enough to display his
money to Roberts one night in a country alehouse. It had just been paid
to him, he said. "And it will presently be taken from you," Roberts
might truly have retorted. But he merely in a sly manner drew Poulter's
attention, who later followed the man and presenting a metal tinder-box
to his head, roared out, "Your money or your life." The tinder-box in
the darkness looked so like a pistol that the money was meekly handed
over.
Poulter then went off to Trowbridge, in company with a new recruit,
Burke by name, an Irishman, who had been confidential ostler to
Roberts, and was now advanced to full membership of this body of
raiders. Meeting a post-chaise near Clarken Down, Burke proposed to
attack it, but Poulter would agree only on condition that no violence
were used. Poulter then led the attack, but in the darkness put his
hand with accidental force through the window, and cut it severely.
In doing so, his pistol went off, and Burke thinking it was the
occupant of the chaise who had fired, replied with his own firearms.
Fortunately, no one was hit.
The chaise was occupied by Dr. Hancock and his little girl. Poulter
took up the child and kissed her, and then, setting her down, robbed
the Doctor of one guinea and a half in gold, six shillings, a gold
watch, and some clothes: a booty not worth all the trouble, and
certainly not by a long way worth the further trouble the affair was
presently to bring.
After seeing the post-chaise disappear in the darkness, Poulter and his
companion made their way to a neighbouring inn, and coolly displayed
their takings to the landlord and his wife, who appear to have been,
if not actual confederates, at least better disposed to self-revealed
robbers than honest innkeepers should be. The landlady gave the
highwaymen a bag for the clothes, and the landlord, when they lamented
the fact of all their powder and ball being fired off, obligingly
removed the charge from his loaded fowling-piece, and melted down two
pewter spoons for casting into bullets. The landlady, when Poulter and
Burke asked her if these preparations for arming did not alarm her,
said: "No, they are not the first pistols I have seen loaded by night
in this kitchen." Evidently an inn that the solitary and unarmed
traveller with money about him should avoid.
She added thoughtfully that, after this robbery, they had better travel
as far away as they could, that night from the spot. She would send
them any news.
They then left, and, taking a horse they chanced to see in an adjacent
meadow, proceeded to Exeter, where they sold the stolen articles to a
receiver.
It was not more than three weeks later when Poulter was arrested on
suspicion of being concerned in the robbery of Dr. Hancock. He was
thrown into Ilchester gaol, brought to trial, and condemned to death.
He made a full confession and disclosed the names of no fewer than
thirty-one of his associates, their places of meeting, and their
methods. He was not only anxious to save his life by thus turning
evidence against the gang, but he was genuinely wearied of the manner
of life into which he had been hounded.
Many members of the gang, he said, lived to all appearances
respectably. Their general meeting-place was Bath. He added that it was
on every account desirable that the messenger to the police at Bath,
entrusted with these disclosures, should keep all these things secret,
except to the Mayor; but some one had gossiped, for within one hour
of his arrival those revelations were the talk of the town, and the
names of those implicated in them were freely mentioned. The next day
they were even printed, in accounts of the disclosures hastily struck
off and sold in the streets. The very natural result was that most of
the persons named escaped before justice could lay hands upon them. A
list of nineteen not taken, and twelve in various gaols all over the
country, is printed in the _Discoveries_.
Dr. Hancock's property was found and returned to him. His conduct
was one of the most astonishing features in this amazing case, and
reflected considerable discredit upon him; for although he visited
Poulter in Ilchester gaol, before the trial, and assured the prisoner
that although he was obliged to be a prosecutor, he would bear lightly
upon the facts, and would in the event of a conviction use his best
efforts to obtain the Royal pardon, he treacherously used every effort
to secure his being hanged. There seems to have been no motive for this
double-dealing, except his own natural duplicity. His treachery was
thorough, for he even used his influence with the judge to obtain a
shortening of the period between sentence and execution.
The trial and the revelations made by Poulter excited keen and
widespread public interest, and the lengthy pamphlet account of
them, entitled "The Discoveries of John Poulter, otherwise Baxter,
apprehended for robbing Dr. Hancock on Clarken Down, near Bath," had a
large and long-continued sale. A copy of the fourteenth edition, issued
in 1769, fourteen years later, is in the British Museum library.
He was respited for six weeks, in consideration of the further
disclosures he was to make, or of any evidence he might be required
to give, and in this time, so moving was his tale, and so useful was
the information he had given, that the corporations of Bath, Bristol,
Exeter, and Taunton, together with numerous private gentlemen of
considerable influence, petitioned that he might be reprieved. It is
probable that these efforts would have been successful; but Poulter was
an unlucky man, and at this particular crisis in his affairs happened
in some way to rouse the ill-will of the gaoler, who was never tired,
in all those days of suspense, of assuring him that he would certainly
be hanged, and serve him right!
It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the unhappy
Poulter endeavoured to escape. With, the aid of a fellow-prisoner,
committed to gaol for debt, he forced an iron bar out of a window, and
the two, squeezing through the opening, broke prison at nightfall of
Sunday, February 17th, 1755. They intended to make for Wales. All that
night they walked along the country roads, Poulter with irons on his
legs as far as Glastonbury, where he succeeded in getting them removed.
When day came, they hid in haystacks, resuming their flight when
darkness was come again. They next found themselves at Wookey, near
Wells, much to their dismay, having intended to bear more towards the
north-west. Poulter was by this time in a terribly exhausted condition,
and his legs and ankles were so sore and swollen from the effects of
being chafed with the irons he had walked with for ten miles, that it
was absolutely necessary he should rest. He did so at an alehouse until
two o'clock in the afternoon, and was about to leave when a mason at
work about the place entered, and recognised him. Calling his workmen
to help, he secured Poulter, who was then taken back to Ilchester.
Nine days of his respite were left, but a strong and murderous animus
was displayed against this most unfortunate of men, and it was decided
to hang him out of hand. The execution could not, however, take place
earlier without a warrant from London, and the trouble and expense of
sending an express messenger to the local Member of Parliament, then
in town, demanding his instant execution, were incurred, in order to
cut shorter his already numbered days. The messenger must have been
phenomenally speedy, for he is said to have returned with the warrant
within twenty-four hours; and Poulter was at once taken out of his cell
and hanged, February 25th, 1755.
PAUL LEWIS
Paul Lewis, who was, like Nicholas Horner, the son of a clergyman,
was born at Hurst-monceaux, in Sussex, and was originally put to the
profession of arms, and became an officer of artillery. The usual
career of gambling and debauchery, so productive of highwaymen, led
him first into difficulties with his creditors, and then caused him to
desert from the army. He left one service only to enter another, for
he joined the navy, and rose from the rank of midshipman to that of
lieutenant.
[Illustration: PAUL LEWIS.]