mistaking his depravity. He robbed his brother officers of the small
sum of three guineas, and made off with that meagre amount to begin the
life of the road in the neighbourhood of Newington Butts. He levied
contributions from a gentleman travelling in a chaise on this spot,
but this, his initial effort, resulted in his capture. The plea of an
_alibi_ set up for him, however, secured his acquittal. Later he was
seized at night by a police-officer while in the act of robbing a Mr.
Brown, whose horse he had frightened by discharging a pistol. Mr.
Brown was flung violently to the ground, and Lewis was in the act of
going over his pockets when Pope, the police-officer, who had been on
the look-out for him, secured him, after a struggle.
Lewis was duly sentenced to death at the ensuing Sessions.
The Newgate Calendar, recounting all these things, says: "Such was the
baseness and unfeeling profligacy of this wretch that when his almost
heart-broken father visited him for the last time in Newgate, and put
twelve guineas into his hand to repay his expenses, he slipped one of
the pieces of gold into the cuff of his sleeve by a dexterous sleight,
and then, opening his hand, showed the venerable and reverend old man
that there were but eleven; upon which his father took another from his
pocket, and gave it him to make the number intended. Having then taken
a last farewell of his parents, Lewis turned to his fellow-prisoners,
and exultingly exclaimed: "I have flung the old fellow out of another
guinea!"
Lewis said he would die like a man of honour; no hangman should put a
halter round his neck. He would rather take his own life. But this he
had not, after all, sufficient courage to do. A knife he had secreted
in his pillow fell out one day, either by accident or design, and was
taken away from him. He was executed at Tyburn on May 4th, 1763, aged
twenty-three.
THE WESTONS
The careers of George and Joseph Weston read like the imaginings of a
romantic novelist, and, indeed, Thackeray adopted some of the stirring
incidents of their lives in his unfinished novel, _Denis Duval_.
George Weston was born in 1753, and his brother Joseph in 1759; sons
of George Weston, a farmer, of Stoke, in Staffordshire. Early in 1772,
George was sent to London, where a place in a merchant's office had
been secured for him, and there he was fortunate enough to be promoted
to the first position, over the heads of all the others, upon the death
of the chief clerk, eighteen months later. He was then in receipt of
£200 a year, and on that amount contrived to take part pretty freely
in the gaieties and dissipations of Vauxhall and similar resorts.
At this period he introduced his brother Joseph to town, and also
began a series of peculations in the office, in order to support the
extravagances into which a passion for gambling and "seeing life" had
led him. When he could no longer conceal his defalcations, he fled to
Holland, and Joseph, suspected of complicity, was obliged to leave
London.
Within three months George had returned to England in disguise. He made
his way to Durham and there entered the service of a devout elderly
lady of the Methodist persuasion. Pretending to have adopted the
religious convictions of George Whitefield's followers, he affected the
religious life, with the object of marrying the lady and securing her
ample fortune. But he was recognised on the very eve of the wedding,
and exposed. He then fled southward, with as much of the old lady's
money and valuables as he could manage to secure at the moment.
But he speedily lost nearly all his plunder in backing outsiders at
York and Doncaster races, and entered Nottingham with only one guinea.
There he fell in with a company of strolling players, managed by one
James Whiteley, who offered him the post of leading gentleman. He
accepted it, and under the name of Wilford, remained with them a little
while.
It was not a distinguished troupe, which perhaps accounts for his
having been so promptly given a leading part in it. It consisted of
two runagate apprentices, a drunken farrier, a stage-struck milliner,
two ladies whose characters it were well not to study too closely, the
manager's wife, a journeyman cobbler, a little girl seven years of age,
and a stage-keeper, who alternated his stage-keeping with acting and
barbering.
The theatre was a decrepit and almost roofless barn, and the stage
consisted of loose boards propped up on empty barrels; while the
scenery and the curtains were chiefly dilapidated blankets.
Barn-storming in such pitiful circumstances did not suit our
high-minded hero, who soon made his way to Manchester, where he became
a schoolmaster, and a leading member of a local club, where he read
the papers and conducted himself with such a show of authority that
the parson, the lawyer, and the apothecary, who had before his coming
disputed for pre-eminence over their fellow-members, yielded before his
masterful ways. He shortly became High Constable, and soon began to
abuse the position by blackmailing innkeepers and forging small drafts
upon them. The more timid and easy-going submitted for a while to
this, but others resented it in the very practical way of taking steps
to secure his arrest. George then obeyed the instinct of caution and
disappeared.
About the year 1774 the brothers met at a fair in Warwickshire, where
Joseph had been playing the game of "hiding the horse," and had hidden
three so effectively from their owners that he was presently able
to sell them, unsuspected, for over £70. They then had thoughts of
purchasing a farm, and travelled to King's Lynn, where, in the name of
Stone, they lodged some time with a farmer. Pretending to be riders
(_i.e._ travellers) to a London distiller, they wormed themselves into
the confidence of the farmer and appointed him local agent for the
non-existent firm, showing him tricks by which he would be able to
water down the spirits he was to receive, and so cheat the retailers.
On the strength of these confidences, they borrowed over a hundred
pounds, and then decamped, leaving only their "sample bottles" of
brandies and rums behind.
They thought it wise to travel far, and so made their way into
Scotland, and in the name of Gilbert took a small farm, where they
remained for only a few months, leaving secretly and at night with all
the movables, and with two geldings belonging to a neighbour.
Cumberland had next the honour of affording them shelter. In October
1776 they were apprehended on a charge of forgery at Bishop's Castle,
Shropshire, and must have received an altogether inadequate sentence,
or perhaps escaped, for they are next found in Ireland, in the
following summer, at Baltinglass, county Wicklow. They were shortly
afterwards at Dublin, frequenting the clubs under the name of Jones.
There they met a noted plunger of that time, one "Buck" English, and
fooled him in the highest degree; cheating at hazard, and obtaining
money from him in exchange for forged bills and drafts. At length,
after a fierce quarrel with English, who fought with George in the
Dublin streets and wounded him in the right hand, the Westons left for
Holyhead. Landing there with plenty of ready money, they toured Wales
at leisure; Joseph as "Mr. Watson," and George as his valet.
In May 1778 they were at Tenby. On leaving the inn, where they had
stayed and run up a bill of £30, they paid the landlord with a forged
cheque and departed grandly with the change, in a post-chaise and
four. They then visited Brecon and Bideford; George now posing as
master, in the name of Clark, and Joseph acting as Smith, his valet.
Next they are found at Sutton Coldfield, then on the Sussex and Kentish
coasts, where they purchased a vessel and became known to the fishermen
of Folkestone, Deal, and Dover as the "Gentlemen Smugglers," trading
between those parts and Dunkirk. They did very well, too, until an
interfering Revenue cutter chased them and forced them to run their
craft ashore.
After this exciting episode, they made their way to London, and led a
fashionable life, strongly flavoured with gambling and forgery. George
took a house in Queen Anne Street, and the two "commenced gentlemen,"
as we are told; George passing for a wealthy squire of sporting tastes.
Hounds and whippers-in were almost daily at the door in the morning,
and at night the rooms were filled with callow young men about town,
attracted by the brilliant card-parties given—at which, it is scarcely
necessary to add, they were thoroughly rooked.
The brothers lived here in great style, on the proceeds of forgery and
cheating at cards. They induced a lady next door to lend a sideboard
full of valuable silver plate, on the pretence that their own had not
arrived from the country, and sold it; and, advertising largely that
they were prepared to purchase plate, jewellery, and annuities, did, in
fact, make several such purchases, paying for them in worthless bills.
A good deal of the property thus obtained was stored at a residence
they had hired at Beckenham, in the name of Green.
At length warrants were issued against them, and they fled to Scotland.
At Edinburgh they posed as merchants trading with Holland, and acted
the part with such complete success that they secured a considerable
amount of credit. After forging and cashing numerous acceptances, they
left for Liverpool, where, in the guise of "linen merchants," they
repeated their Edinburgh frauds; and then, transferring themselves
to Bristol, they became "African merchants." There they did a little
privateering with one Dawson, but that, being legalised piracy, did not
appeal to these instinctive criminals, to whom crime was a sport, as
well as a livelihood.
London called them irresistibly, and they responded.
Riding up to town from Bristol to Bath, and then along the Bath Road,
they overtook the postboy in the early hours of January 29th, 1781,
driving the mail-cart with the Bristol mails, between Slough and
Cranford Bridge, and bidding him "good night," passed him. Arriving at
the "Berkeley Arms," Cranford Bridge, they halted for refreshment, and
then turned back, with the object of robbing the mail.
George took a piece of black crape from his pocket and covered his face
with it; and then they awaited the postboy.
Halting him, George ordered him to alight, and when he meekly did so,
seized and bound him, and then flung him into a field. The two then
drove and rode off to Windmill Lane, Sion Corner, and thence on to the
Uxbridge road, through Ealing, and up Hanger Hill to Causeway Lane.
There, in "Farmer Lott's meadow," they rifled the contents of the cart
and took the bags bodily away.
Having disposed the mails carefully about their persons, they hurried
off on horseback for London, to a house in Orange Street, near
Piccadilly, where they were well known. The bags proved to contain
between ten and fifteen thousand pounds, in notes and bills.
A clever plan for immediately putting a great part of the notes in
circulation was at once agreed upon; and in the space of an hour or
two, George left the house fully clothed in a midshipman's uniform,
with Joseph following him dressed like a servant. They went to the
"White Bear," in Piccadilly, and, hiring a post-chaise, set out upon
what was nothing less than a hurried tour of the length and breadth of
England; tendering notes at every stage, and taking gold in exchange.
By way of Edgeware, they went to Watford, Northampton, Nottingham,
Mansfield, Chesterfield, Sheffield, York, Durham, Newcastle, and
Carlisle. Thence they returned, on horseback, by way of Penrith,
Appleby, Doncaster, Bawtry, and Retford, to Tuxford, where they
arrived February 1st. Putting up for a much-needed rest there, with an
innkeeper well known to them, they were informed that the Bow Street
runners had only that day passed through, in search of them, and had
gone towards Lincoln.
Early in the morning, the Westons resumed their express journey, making
for Newark, where they were favoured by some exclusive information from
an innkeeper friend, which enabled them narrowly to escape the runners,
who had doubled back from Lincoln.
Thence, post-haste, they went to Grantham, Stamford, and Huntingdon, to
Royston, halting two hours on the way at the lonely old inn known as
"Kisby's Hut."
At Ware they took a post-chaise and four, and hurried the remaining
twenty miles to London; arriving at the "Red Lion," Bishopsgate, at
eleven o'clock on the night of February 2nd. The officers of the law
were not remiss in the chase, and were at the "Red Lion" only one hour
afterwards.
Once in London, the brothers separated; Joseph taking another
post-chaise, and George a hackney-coach. They were traced to London
Bridge, but there all track of them vanished.
Meanwhile, the Post Office had issued a long and detailed notice of
the robbery, and had offered a reward of two hundred pounds for the
apprehension of the guilty person, or persons:
[Illustration: [++] Post Office logo.]
"General Post Office, Jan. 29th, 1781.
"The Postboy bringing the Bristol Mail this morning from
Maidenhead was stop't between two and three o'clock by a single
Highwayman with a crape over his face between the 11th and 12th
milestones, near to Cranford Bridge, who presented a pistol to
him, and after making him alight, drove away the Horse and Cart,
which were found about 7 o'clock this morning in a meadow field
near Farmer Lott's at Twyford, when it appears that the greatest
part of the letters were taken out of the Bath and Bristol Bags,
and that the following bags were entirely taken away:—
Pewsy.
Ramsbury.
Bradford.
Henley.
Cirencester.
Gloucester.
Ross.
Presteign.
Fairford.
Aberystwith.
Carmarthen.
Pembroke.
Calne.
Trowbridge.
Wallingford.
Reading.
Stroud.
Ledbury.
Hereford.
Northleach.
Lechlade.
Lampeter.
Tenby.
Abergavenny.
Newbury.
Melksham.
Maidenhead.
Wantage.
Wotton-under-Edge.
Tewkesbury.
Leominster.
Cheltenham.
Hay.
Cardigan.
Haverfordwest.
"The person who committed this robbery is supposed to have had an
accomplice, as two persons passed the Postboy on Cranford Bridge
on Horseback prior to the Robbery, one of whom he thinks was the
robber; but it being so extremely dark, he is not able to give
any description of their persons.
"Whoever shall apprehend and convict, or cause to be apprehended
and convicted, the person who committed this Robbery will be
entitled to a reward of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS, over and above the
Reward given by Act of Parliament for apprehending Highwaymen;
or if any person, whether an Accomplice in the Robbery or
knoweth thereof, shall make Discovery whereby the Person who
committed the same may be apprehended and brought to Justice,
such discoverer will upon conviction of the party be entitled to
the Same Reward of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS and will also receive His
Majesty's most gracious Pardon.
"By Command of the Postmaster-General,
"ANTH. TODD, Sec."
It was soon ascertained that the Westons were the robbers, and careful
descriptions of them were at once circulated:
"George Weston is about twenty-nine years of age, five feet seven
inches high, square-set, round-faced, fresh-coloured, pitted
with small-pox, has a rather thick nose, his upper lip rather
thick, his hair of lightest brown colour, which is sometimes
tied behind, and at other times loose and curled; has much the
appearance of a country dealer, or farmer. One of his thumb-nails
appears, from an accident, of the shape of a parrot's bill, and
he is supposed to have a scar on his right hand, from a stroke
with a cutlass."
The younger brother was just as closely described:
"Joseph Weston is about twenty-three years of age, five feet
nine inches high, slender made, of a fair and smooth complexion,
genteel person, has grey eyes and large nose with a scar upon it;
his hair is of a light brown colour, sometimes tied behind, at
other times loose and curled; his voice is strong and he speaks
a little through his nose; has a remarkable small hand and long
fingers."
While these descriptions were staring from every blank wall, George
and Joseph were hiding, in disguise, in the Borough. They had a large
amount of money, realised by their tremendous exertions over that
long journey, and they added judiciously to their store by carrying on
their business of lending money on plate and jewellery, and paying for
the articles in the remaining notes stolen from the Bristol mail. The
famous "Perdita" Robinson was one of those victimised in this way; and,
as a contemporary account says, "lost her diamond shoebuckles which a
certain Heir Apparent presented her with."
It was in October 1781, when paying for some lottery tickets in
Holborn, with stolen notes, that George and Joseph became acquainted
with two pretty girls, cousins, employed as milliners near Red Lion
Square. George gallantly bought some shares for them, and in the
evening took them to Vauxhall Gardens. The delighted girls were told
the two gentlemen were Nabobs just returned from India; and, dazzled
with the wealth they flung about, readily consented to go and live with
them. They were soon, accordingly, all four in residence in a fine
house near Brompton; George adopting the name of "Samuel Watson," and
Joseph passing as "William Johnson."
They left Brompton for a while and migrated to Winchelsea, where they
took the "Friars," a fine house with beautifully wooded grounds. The
foremost furnishers in London, Messrs. Elliot & Co., of 97, New Bond
Street, were given orders for furniture, cutlery, and a generous supply
of plate, and from other firms they procured horses and carriages,
finally establishing themselves at the mansion in December 1781.
While in residence there the ladies conducted themselves with such
propriety, and the gentlemen appeared so distinguished and so wealthy,
that they soon moved in the best society of the neighbourhood. It did
not, apparently, take long in those times, or in the neighbourhood
of Winchelsea, for strangers to obtain a footing in local society,
for all this short-lived social splendour began in December, and
ended in the middle of the following April. The last, sealing touch
of respectability and recognition was when George was elected
churchwarden of the parish church in Easter 1782. From that pinnacle
of parochial ambition, however, he and his were presently cast down,
for Messrs. Elliot & Co., growing anxious about their unpaid bills
for goods delivered, sent two sheriff's officers down to Winchelsea
to interview the brothers. The officers met them at Rye on horseback,
and endeavoured to arrest Joseph. When he refused to surrender, they
tried to dismount him, but the two brothers overawed them by presenting
pistols, and escaped; making their way back to Winchelsea, and thence
travelling at express speed to London, in their own handsome chariot.
Their identity with the Westons and the robbers of the mail was
revealed in that encounter with the sheriff's officers, one of whom
had observed George's peculiarly distorted thumb-nail. Information was
thereupon given, and a redoubled search begun.
They went at once to their old hiding-place in the Borough, and might
again have escaped detection had they been sufficiently careful. But,
gambling for high stakes at the "Dun Horse," they quarrelled violently,
and in the hearing of the ostler used some remarks that led him to
suspect them. He communicated his suspicions to the police at Bow
Street, and although they appear to have become uneasy and to have
then left the Borough, they were traced on April 17th to Clements'
Hotel, in Wardour Street. Mr. Clark, the officer sent to arrest them,
met Mrs. Clements at the entrance and asked if two gentlemen of the
description he gave were in the house. She said she would see, and went
and warned them. Down they came, and, with pistols cocked and presented
at him, walked past as he was standing in the passage, and, without
a word, into the street. Once out of the house, they ran swiftly up
Wardour Street, into Oxford Street, and then doubled into Dean Street
and into Richmond Buildings. Unfortunately for them, this proved to
be a blind alley, and an unpremeditated trap. They hurried out again,
but already the mob was coming down the street after them, and they
had only reached Broad Street when they were overtaken. Both fired
recklessly upon the crowd; no one but a butcher-boy being hit, and he
only slightly grazed under the left ear.
George was then knocked down by a carpenter, with a piece of wood. The
carpenter, we learn, "afterwards jumping upon him, kept him down till
his pistols were taken away."
Meanwhile Joseph had been vanquished in an equally unsportsmanlike way
by a carrier, "who had a large stick, with which he beat him about the
legs."
George was then pitched neck and crop, and still struggling, into a
hackney coach; but Joseph, being more tractable, was permitted to walk
to Bow Street, where, on being searched, he was found to have £240 in
his pockets, all in bank-notes that had been stolen from the mail.
On the day of their arrest they gave a bill of sale to one Lucius
Hughes, who disposed of plate to the amount of £2,500, at the price of
old silver; and jewels to the value of £4,000 were said to have been
sold to a Jew in St. Mary Axe.
After a preliminary examination, the brothers were committed to
separate prisons: Joseph to Tothill Fields Bridewell, and George to the
New Prison. They behaved with great insolence to the Bench, and seemed
to build much upon the postboy having died since the robbery. In court
they actually told Clark, who had arrested them, he was fortunate in
still having his brains in his skull that morning. Their coachman and
footman, attending upon them in the court, in livery, made an imposing
show. They were then remanded, and their wenches were in the meanwhile
arrested at Brompton, and appeared in court on the next hearing. No
evidence being forthcoming against them, they were discharged; but the
Westons were duly committed for trial, which began on May 15th, 1782.
They made a brave appearance in the dock, George being dressed quietly
but fashionably, in black, with his hair finely curled in the latest
style; while Joseph, whose taste was not so subdued, was radiant in a
scarlet coat with gold buttons, and hair "queued à l'Artois."
The trial was unexpectedly postponed, on the application of counsel
for the prosecution, owing to the death of Samuel Walker, and the
difficulty of collecting sufficient evidence; and so they were taken
back to Newgate. There they led a life typical of prison-life all
over England in those days. They entertained their fellow-prisoners,
gambled, and drank, and received their friends. They had plenty of
money, and as Newgate was then no ill place for those whose pockets
were well furnished, they were provided with every luxury that money
could buy. Unfortunately, however, they were heavily ironed: the one
circumstance that seared the souls of those gallant fellows. But, in
spite of these encumbering circumstances, they dreamt of liberty, and a
well-planned attempt to escape was made on July 2nd, the day before the
opening of the new sessions.
Their faithful young women took breakfast with them that morning, and
then left, whereupon one of the brothers called Wright, the warder on
duty at the time, and asked him to get a bottle of port and make a bowl
of negus for some expected company. He then handed him a guinea.
Wright had no sooner gone about this business than they slipped off
their fetters, which they had secretly and with much labour, filed
through. Then they calmly awaited the return of Wright, with the bowl.
It was too large to go through the hatch of their locked and bolted
door, as they had foreseen, and Wright was persuaded to unlock and open
the door and bring it in. When he had done so, the jovial highwaymen
hospitably invited him to take the first drink, and while he was
engaged in thus pleasing himself and themselves at the same time, they
made suddenly at him and pushed him violently over; then slamming the
door and fastening it securely upon him.
[Illustration: THE WESTONS ESCAPING FROM NEWGATE.]
An old woman who sold porter and such-like plebeian drinks to the
meaner prisoners, was at the head of the stone stairs up which they
then rushed, and stood still with amazement at sight of them, whereupon
they overset her and her cans, and then, by a short passage-way, came
to the outer door. They were each armed with a pistol, which their
thoughtful girls had smuggled into their cell. Escaping with them were
also one Lepierre, a suspected spy, and a certain Francis Storey.