THE GAOL CALENDAR (_continued_).
Less atrocious murders--Consequences of ungovernable passion--Mr.
Plunkett--Mr. Bird--A sensitive Guardsman--The Reverend James
Hackman, in passionate despair, murders Miss Reay--Governor
Wall--His severe and unaccommodating temper--Trial of Sergeant
Armstrong--punished by drum-head court-martial and flogged to
death--Wall’s arrest and escape to the Continent--Persons of note
charged with murder--Quin the actor kills Williams in
self-defence--Charles Macklin kills Hallam, a fellow actor at Drury
Lane--Joseph Baretti, author of the ‘Italian Dictionary,’ mobbed in
the Haymarket, defends himself with a pocket-knife, and stabs one
of his assailants--Chronic dangers and riots in the London
streets--Trade terrorism--Turbulent serving-men--Footmen’s riot at
Drury Lane--Footmen frequently turned highwaymen--Hawkins attempts
an alibi--Other alibis--James Maclane, a notorious knight of the
road, once a butler and respectable grocer, has a lodging in St.
James’ Street--Stops Horace Walpole--His capture and fame in
Newgate before execution--William Page, another footman, turned
highway robber--His clever stratagems and disguises--A confederate
betrays him--Arrested in London--Hanged at Maidstone--John Rann,
alias Sixteen-String Jack--His extravagant costumes--Short career
ends in the gallows--- Well-born but dissolute reprobates to the
road--A Baronet and a Lieutenant convicted--William Parsons, a
baronet’s son, related to a Duchess and a naval officer, becomes an
ensign in the 34th--His extravagance--Sells out of the army--Turns
swindler, and is transported to Virginia--Returns and takes to the
road--Is caught and hanged--Paul Lewis, another highwayman, who had
been a King’s officer--Captured by a police officer--William
Norton, who sometimes took a thief, captures William
Belchier--Jonathan Wild, the sham thief-taker and notorious
criminal--His conviction and his career summarized--Once anxious to
become a freeman of the city of London--Pirates and
sea-robbers--Captain Kidd--English Peers accused of
complicity--Kidd’s arrest, trial, and sentence--John Gow and his
career in the ‘Revenge’--His death at Execution Dock--Captain
Massey, an involuntary pirate, through whom others are captured, is
himself hung.
I pass now to murders of less atrocity, the result of temporary and more
or less ungovernable passion, rather than of malice deliberate and
aforethought. In this class must be included the case of Mr. Plunkett, a
young gentleman of Irish extraction, who murdered a peruke-maker, who
asked him an exorbitant price for a wig. Brown had made it to order for
Mr. Plunkett, and wanted seven pounds for it. After haggling he reduced
it to six. Plunkett offered four, and on this being refused, seized a
razor lying handy and cut Brown’s throat.
A somewhat similar case was that of Mr. Edward Bird, a well-born youth,
who had been educated at Eton, and after making the grand tour had
received a commission in a regiment of horse. Unfortunately he led a
wild, dissolute life, associating with low characters. One morning,
after spending the night in a place of public resort, he ordered a bath.
One waiter deputed the job to another, the latter went to Bird to
apologize for the delay. Bird, growing furious, drew his sword and made
several passes at the waiter, who avoided them by holding the door in
his hand, and then escaped down-stairs. Bird pursued, threw the man
down, breaking his ribs. On this the master of the house and another
waiter, by name Loxton, tried to appease Bird, but the latter, frantic
at not having the bath when ordered, fell upon Loxton and ran him
through with his sword. Loxton dropped and died almost instantaneously.
Bird was arrested, committed to Newgate, and eventually tried for his
life. He was convicted and received sentence of death, but great
interest was made to get it commuted to transportation. His powerful
friends might have obtained it but for the protests of Loxton’s
representatives, and Bird was ordered for execution. The night before he
first tried poison, then stabbed himself in several places, but survived
to be taken the following morning to Tyburn in a mourning coach,
attended by his mother and the ordinary of Newgate. At the gallows he
asked for a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff, which “he took with
apparent unconcern, wishing health to those who stood near him. He then
repeated the Apostle’s Creed and was launched into eternity.”
The military were not over-popular at times, when party disputes ran
high, and the soldiery were often exposed to contumely in the streets.
It must be admitted too that they were ready enough to accept any
quarrel fastened upon them. Thus William Hawksworth, a guardsman, while
marching through the park with a party to relieve guard at St. James,
left the ranks to strike a woman who he thought had insulted his cloth.
It was not she, however, but her companion who had cried, “What a stir
there is about King George’s soldiers!” This companion, by name Ransom,
resented the blow, and called Hawksworth a puppy, whereupon the soldier
clubbed his musket and knocked the civilian down. Hawksworth marched on
with his guard; Ransom was removed to the hospital with a fractured
skull, and died in a few hours. But a bystander, having learnt the name
of the offender, obtained a warrant against Hawksworth, who was
committed to Newgate. He was ably defended at his trial, and his
commanding officer gave him an excellent character. But the facts were
so clearly proved that conviction was imperative. For some time he was
buoyed up with the hope of reprieve, but this failed him at the last,
and he went to Tyburn solemnly declaring that Ransom hit him first, that
he had no malice against the deceased, and he hardly remembered leaving
the ranks to strike him.
Two cases may well be inserted here, although belonging to a somewhat
later date. Both were murders committed under the influence of strong
excitement: one was the fierce outburst of passionate despair at
unrequited love, the other the rash action of a quick-tempered man who
vested for the moment with absolute power. The first was the murder of
Miss Reay by the Rev. James Hackman, the second the flogging to death of
the Sergeant Armstrong by order of Colonel Wall, Lieutenant-Governor of
Goree.
Mr. Hackman had held a commission in the 68th Foot, and while employed
on the recruiting service at Huntingdon, had been hospitably received at
Hinchingbroke, the seat of Lord Sandwich. At that time a Miss Reay
resided there under the protection of his lordship, by whom she had had
nine children. Hackman fell desperately in love with Miss Reay, and the
lady did not altogether reject his attentions. A correspondence between
them, which bears every appearance of authenticity, was published after
the murder under the title of ‘Love and Madness,’ and the letters on
both sides are full of ardent protestations. Hackman continued to serve
for some time, but the exile from the sight of his beloved became so
intolerable that he sold out, took orders, and entered the Church,
obtaining eventually the living of Wiverton in Norfolk. He had
determined to marry Miss Reay if she would accept him, and one of the
last letters of the correspondence above quoted proves that the marriage
arrangements were all but completed. On the 1st March, 1779, he
writes,--“In a month or six weeks at farthest from this time I might
certainly call you mine. Only remember that my character now I have
taken orders renders expedition necessary. By to-night’s past I shall
write into Norfolk about the alterations at _our_ parsonage.” But within
a few weeks a cloud overshadowed his life. It is only vaguely indicated
in a letter to a friend, dated the 20th March, in which he hints at a
rupture between Miss Reay and himself. “What I shall do I know
not--without her I do not think I can exist.” A few days later he wrote
to the same friend: “Despair goads me on--death only can relieve me....
What then have I to do, who only lived when she loved me, but cease to
live now she ceases to love?”
At this period it is evident that the idea of suicide only occupied his
over-wrought brain. He wrote on the 7th April,--“When this reaches you I
shall be no more.... You know where my affections were placed; my having
by some means or other lost hers (an idea which I could not support) has
driven me to madness.” So far he does not appear to have contemplated
any violence against Miss Reay, for in his letter he commends her to the
kind offices of his friend. He spent that day in self-communing and in
reading a volume of Dr. Blair’s sermons. In the evening he went from his
lodgings in Duke’s Court, St. Martin’s Lane, toward the Admiralty, and
saw Miss Reay drive by to the Covent Garden Theatre. He followed her
into the theatre and gazed at her for the last time. Then, unable to
retrain the violence of his passion, he returned to his lodgings, and
having loaded two pistols, returned to Covent Garden, where he waited in
the piazza till the play was over. When Miss Reay came out he stepped up
with a pistol in each hand. One he fired at her, and killed her on the
spot, the other he discharged at himself, but without fatal effect. He
was at once arrested, and when his wound had been dressed, was
committed by Sir John Fielding to Tothill Fields, and afterwards to
Newgate. He wrote from prison to the same friend as follows:
“I am alive---- and she is dead. I shot her, shot her, and not
myself. Some of her blood and brains is still upon my clothes. I
don’t ask you to speak to me, I don’t ask you to look at me, only
come hither and bring me a little poison, such as is strong enough.
Upon my knees I beg, if your friendship for me ever was sincere,
do, _do_ bring me some poison.”
Next day he was more composed, and declared that nothing should tempt
him to escape justice by suicide. “My death,” he writes, “is all the
recompense I can make to the laws of my country.” He was tried before
Mr. Justice Blackstone (of the Commentaries), and convicted on the
clearest evidence. A plea of insanity was set up in his defence, but
could not be maintained. His dignified address to the jury had nothing
of madness in it, and it is probable that he had no real desire to
escape the just punishment for his crime. This is shown by his answer to
Lord Sandwich, who wrote:--
_17th April, 1779._
“TO MR. HACKMAN IN NEWGATE.
“If the murderer of Miss ---- wishes to live, the man he has most
injured will use all his interest to procure his life.”
To this Hackman replied from
“_The Condemned Cell in Newgate,
17th April, 1779._
“The murderer of her whom he preferred, far preferred to life,
respects the hand from which he has just received such an offer as
he neither desires nor deserves. His wishes are for death, not
life. One wish he has. Could he be pardoned in this world by the
man he has most injured--oh, my lord, when I meet her in another
world enable me to tell her (if departed spirits are not ignorant
of earthly things) that you forgive us both, that you will be a
father to her dear infants!
“J. H.”
The condemned man continued to fill many sheets with his reflections in
the shape of letters to his friend. But they are all rhapsodical to the
last degree. The 19th April was the day fixed for his execution, and on
that morning he rose at 5 a.m., dressed himself, and spent some time in
private meditation. About 7 a.m. he was visited by Mr. Boswell and some
other friends, with whom he went to the chaplain and partook of the
sacrament. During the procession to Tyburn he seemed much affected, and
said but little. After having hung the usual time his body was carried
to Surgeon’s Hall. He appears to have written a few last words in pencil
at Tyburn, while actually waiting to be turned off.
“My dear Charlie,” he wrote, “farewell for ever in this world. I
die a sincere Christian and penitent, and everything I hope you can
wish me. Would it prevent my example’s having any bad effect if
the world should know how I abhor my former ideas of suicide, my
crime?---- will be the best judge. Of her fame I charge you to be
careful. My poorly will....
“Your dying H.”[163]
Miss Reay was buried at Elstree, Herts., where her grave is still
pointed out.
Twenty years elapsed between the commission of the murder with which
Governor Wall was charged and his trial and atonement. The date of his
execution was 1802, a date which would bring the story within the scope
of a later rather than the present chapter. But while postponing the
particulars of the execution, I propose to deal here with the offence,
as it falls naturally into this branch of my subject. Colonel Wall was
governor and commandant of Goree, a small island off the coast of Africa
close to Cape Verd, and now in the possession of the French. It was
mainly dependent upon England for its supplies, and when these ran
short, as was often the case, the troops received a money compensation
in lieu of rations. A sum was due to them in this way on one occasion
when both the Governor and paymaster were on the point of leaving the
island for England, and a number of men, anxious for an adjustment of
their claims, set off in a body to interview the paymaster at his
quarters. They were encountered _en route_ by the Governor, who
reprimanded them, and ordered them to return to their barracks. An hour
or two later a second party started for the paymaster, at the head of
which was a certain Sergeant Armstrong. The Governor met them as before,
and addressing himself to Sergeant Armstrong, again ordered the men back
to their quarters.
Upon the nature of this demonstration the whole of the subsequent
proceedings hinged. Governor Wall and his witnesses declared it was a
tumultuous gathering, seventy or eighty strong; other testimony limited
the number to about a dozen. Governor Wall alleged that the men with
Armstrong were armed and menacing; others that they comported themselves
in a quiet, orderly manner. It was sworn that Armstrong when spoken to
by the Governor came up to him submissively, hat in hand, addressed him
as “Your Excellency,” used no disrespectful language, and withdrew, with
his comrades, without noise or disturbance. This view was supported by
the evidence of several officers, who swore that they saw no appearance
of a mutiny on the island that day; on the other hand, the Governor
urged that the men had declared they would break open the stores and
help themselves if they were not settled with at once; that they
prevented him from going to the shore, fearing he meant to leave the
island in a hurry; and that they forced the main guard and released a
prisoner. It is difficult to reconcile statements so widely divergent;
but the fact that Governor Wall left the island next day, and took with
him three officers out of the seven in the garrison; that he made no
special report of the alleged mutiny to the military authorities in
London, and did not even refer to it in minute returns prepared and
forwarded at the time, must be deemed very detrimental to Governor
Wall’s case, and no doubt weighed with the jury which tried him. The
only conclusion was that no mutiny existed, but one was assumed merely
to screen the infliction of an unauthorized punishment.
To return to the events on the island. It is pretty certain that
Governor Wall’s mind must have been thrown off its balance after he had
dismissed the party headed by Armstrong. He was either actually
apprehensive for the safety of his command, or was momentarily blinded
by passion at the seeming defiance of discipline, and he felt that he
must make an example if his authority was to be maintained. Although
many old comrades of high rank bore witness at his trial to his great
humanity and good temper, there is reason to fear that to those under
his command he was so severe and unaccommodating as to be generally
unpopular, and this no doubt told against him at his trial. He was not a
strong, self-reliant commander. It is nearly certain that he gave
trifles exaggerated importance, and was only too ready to put in
practice the severest methods of repression he had at hand. In this
instance, however, he did not act without deliberation. It was not
until six in the evening that he had resolved to punish Armstrong as
the ringleader of the mutiny. By that time he had fully laid his plans.
The “long roll” was beat upon the drums, the troops were assembled
hurriedly as in the case of alarm, and a gun-carriage was dragged into
the centre of the parade. The Governor then constituted a drum-head
court-martial, which proceeded to try Armstrong for mutiny, convict, and
sentence him without calling upon him to plead to any charge, or hearing
him in his defence; so that he was practically punished without a trial.
He was ordered eight hundred lashes, which were forthwith inflicted, not
as in ordinary cases by the regimental drummers, whom the Governor
thought were tinged with insubordination, but by the black interpreter
and his assistants; nor was the regulation cat-of-nine-tails used, as
the Governor declared they had all been destroyed by the mutineers, but
with a thick rope’s end, which, according to the surgeon’s testimony,
did more mischief than the cat. Armstrong’s punishment was exemplary. It
was proved that the Governor stood by, threatening to flog the blacks
themselves unless they “laid on” with a will, and crying again and
again, “Cut him to the heart! cut him to the liver!” Armstrong begged
for mercy, but he received the whole eight hundred lashes, twenty-five
at a time; and when he was cast loose, he said that the sick season was
coming on, which with the punishment would certainly do for him. A
surgeon was present at the infliction, but was not called upon to
certify as to Armstrong’s fitness or otherwise for corporal punishment,
nor did he enter any protest. Armstrong was taken at once to hospital,
and his back was found “as black as a new hat.” From the moment of his
reception the doctors had no hope of his recovery: he gradually grew
worse and worse, and presently died.
The day after the punishment Governor Wall left Goree and came to
England, where he arrived in August, 1782. The news of Armstrong’s death
followed him, and various reports as to the Governor’s conduct, which
were inquired into and dismissed. But in 1784 a more detailed and
circumstantial account came to hand, and two messengers were despatched
to Bath by Lord Sidney, then Secretary of State, to arrest Wall. They
apprehended him and brought him as far as Reading in a chaise and four,
where they alighted at an inn. While the officers were at supper he gave
them the slip and got over to France, whence he wrote promising to
surrender in the course of a few months. His excuse for absconding was
that many of those who would be the principal witnesses were his
personal enemies. He continued abroad, however, for some years, residing
sometimes in Italy, more constantly in France, “where he lived
respectably and was admitted into good company.” He affected the society
of countrymen serving in the French army, and was well-known to the
Scotch and Irish Colleges in Paris. In 1797 he returned to England and
remained in hiding, occupying lodgings in Lambeth Court, where his
wife, who was a lady of good family, regularly visited him. He is
described as being unsettled in mind at this time, and even then
contemplating surrender. His means of subsistence were rather
precarious, but he lived at the time of delivering himself up in Upper
Thornhaugh St., Bedford Square. In October, 1801, he wrote twice to Lord
Pelham, stating that he had returned to England for the purpose of
meeting the charge against him. It was generally supposed that, had he
not thus come forward voluntarily, the matter had nearly passed out of
people’s memory, and he would hardly have been molested. He was,
however, arrested on his own letter, committed to Newgate, and tried at
the Old Bailey for the murder of Benjamin Armstrong at Goree in 1782. He
was found guilty and sentenced to death. After several respites and
strenuous exertions to save his life, he was executed in front of
Newgate on the 28th January, 1802. The whole of one day was occupied by
the judges and law officers in reviewing his case, but their opinion was
against him. For an account of the prisoner’s demeanour after sentence
and execution the reader is referred to the chapter on Executions in
vol. ii.
Three persons of note and superior station found themselves in Newgate
about this time upon a charge of murder. The first was James Quin, the
celebrated actor, the popular diner-out and _bon vivant_, who went to
the west coast of England to eat John Dory in perfection, and who
preferred eating turtle in Bristol to London. He made his first hit as
Falstaff in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ He had understudied the part,
but Rich, manager of the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
substituted him for it on an emergency with great reluctance. His next
hit was as Cato, in which, with many other parts, he succeeded Booth.
Quin was modest enough on his first appearance as Cato to announce that
the part would be “attempted by Mr. Quin.” The audience were, however,
fully satisfied with his performance, and after one critical passage was
applauded with shouts of “Booth outdone!” It was through this his great
part of Cato that he was led into the quarrel which laid him open to the
charge of murder. One night an inferior actor named Williams, taking the
part of messenger, said, “Cæsar sends health to Cato,” but pronounced
Cato “Keeto.” Quin, much annoyed, replied instantly with a “gag”--“Would
that he had sent a better messenger.”[164] Williams was now greatly
incensed, and in the Green Room later in the evening complained bitterly
to Quin that he had been made ridiculous, that his professional
prospects were blighted, and that he insisted upon satisfaction or an
apology. Quin only laughed at his rage. Williams, goaded to madness,
went out into the piazza at Covent Garden to watch for Quin. When the
latter left the theatre Williams attacked him with his sword. Quin drew
in his defence, and after a few passes ran Williams through the body.
The ill-fated actor died on the spot. Quin surrendered himself, was
committed, tried, found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to be
burnt in the hand.
Another well-known actor, Charles Macklin, was no less unfortunate in
incurring the stain of blood. He was a hot-headed, intemperate Irishman,
who, when he had an engagement at Drury Lane Theatre, quarrelled with
another actor over a wig. Going down between the pieces into the
scene-room, “where the players warm themselves,” he saw a Mr. Hallam,
who was to appear as Sancho in the ‘Fop’s Fortune,’ wearing a “stock
wig” which he (Macklin) had on the night before. He swore at him for a
rogue, and cried, “What business have you with my wig?” The other
answered that he had as much right to it as Macklin, but presently went
away and changed it for another. Macklin still would not leave the man
alone, and taking the wig, began to comb it out, making grumbling and
abusive remarks, calling Hallam a blackguard and a scrub rascal. Hallam
replied that he was no more a rascal than Macklin was; upon which the
latter “started from his chair, and having a stick in his hand, made a
full lunge at the deceased, and thrust the stick into his left eye;”
pulling it back again he looked pale, turned on his heel, and in a
passion threw the stick on the fire. Hallam clapped his hand to his eye
and said the stick had gone through his head. Young Mr. Cibber, the
manager’s son, came in, and a doctor was sent for; the injured man was
removed to a bed, where he expired the following day. Macklin was very
contrite and concerned at his rash act, for which he was arrested, and
in due course tried at the Old Bailey. Many of the most renowned actors
of the day, Rich, Fleetwood, Quin, Ryan, and others, bore testimony to
his good character and his quiet, peaceable disposition. He also was
found guilty of manslaughter only, and sentenced to be burnt in the
hand.
The third case of killing by misadventure was that of Joseph Baretti,
the author of the well-known Italian and English dictionary. Baretti had
resided in England for some years, engaged upon this work; he was a
middle-aged, respectable man, of studious habits, the friend and
associate of the most noted literary men and artists of the day. He was
a member of the club of the Royal Academicians at that time (1769),
lodged in Soho, and went there one afternoon after a long morning’s work
over his proofs. Finding no one at the club, he went on to the Orange
coffee-house, and returning by the Haymarket to the club, was madly
assaulted by a woman at the corner of Panton Street. Very unwisely he
resented her attack by giving her a blow with his hand, when the woman,
finding by his accent he was a foreigner, cried for help against the
cursed Frenchman, when there was at once a gathering of bullies, who
jostled and beat Baretti, making him “apprehensive that he must expect
no favour nor protection, but all outrage and blows.” There was,
generally, a great puddle at the corner of Panton Street, even when the
weather was fine, and on this particular day it had rained incessantly,
and the pavement was very slippery. Baretti’s assailants tried hard to
push him into the puddle, and at last in self-defence he drew his
pocket-knife, a knife he kept, as he afterwards declared, to carve fruit
and sweetmeats, and not to kill his fellow-creatures with.[165] Being
hard pushed, “in great horror, having such bad eyes,” lest he should run
against some, and his pursuers constantly at him, jostling and beating
him, Baretti “made a quick blow” at one who had knocked off his hat with
his fist; the mob cried “Murder, he has a knife out,” and gave way.
Baretti ran up Oxenden Street, then faced about and ran into a shop for
protection, being quite spent with fatigue. Three men followed him; one
was a constable, who called upon Baretti to surrender. Morgan, the man
whom he had stabbed, three times, as it appeared, “the third wound
having hurt him more than the two former,” was fast bleeding to death.
Baretti was carried before Sir John Fielding; his friends came from the
club and testified to his character, among others Sir Joshua Reynolds
himself, but he was committed to prison. It was urged in Baretti’s
defence that he had been very severely handled; he had a swollen cheek,
and was covered with bruises. Independent witnesses came forward, and
swore that they had been subjected to personal outrage in the
neighbourhood of the Haymarket. A number of personal friends, including
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Fitz-Herbert, and Mr. Edmund
Burke, spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Baretti as “a man of
benevolence, sobriety, modesty, and learning.” In the end he was
acquitted of murder or manslaughter, and the jury gave a verdict of
self-defence.
Inoffensive persons were constantly in danger, day and night, of being
waylaid and maltreated in the streets. Disturbance was chronic in
certain localities, and a trifling quarrel might at any moment blaze
into a murderous riot. On execution days the mob was always rampant; at
times too, when political passion was at fever-heat, crowds of roughs
were ever ready to espouse the popular cause. Thus when the court party,
headed by Lord Bute, vainly strove to crush the demagogue John Wilkes,
and certain prisoners were being tried at the Old Bailey for riot and
wounding, a crowd collected outside the Mansion House carrying a gibbet
on which hung a boot and a petticoat.[166] The Mayor interfered and a
fray began. Weapons were used, some of the Lord Mayor’s servants were
wounded, and one of the prisoners was rescued by the mob. Sometimes the
disturbance had its origin in trade jealousies. A clerk to a weaver’s
club was arraigned with others for tying two weavers back to back,
setting them on horseback, and in a riotous manner driving them through
the streets; their offence being that they had worked under price.
Again, a number of men riotously assembled and destroyed a saw-mill, for
which they were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Newgate. At
the execution of two weavers on Bethnal Green for destroying work on the
looms the mob behaved outrageously as the convicts were being conveyed
from Newgate to Bethnal Green--insulted the sheriffs, pulled up the
gallows, broke the windows, destroyed the furniture, and committed other
outrages in the house of a manufacturer in Spitalfields. The sheriffs
harangued them without effect, and it was not till they were threatened
with calling out the military that they dispersed.
An especially turbulent class were the footmen, chairmen, and
body-servants of the aristocracy. They quarrelled and wrangled and
rioted in the open streets, often in the precincts of the royal
residence, as when a number of them created a disturbance outside
Leicester House during a drawing-room held by the Princess of Wales. The
Footmen’s Riot at Drury Lane Theatre, which occurred in 1737, was a
still more serious affair. It had long been the custom to admit “the
parti-coloured tribe,” as the licensed lacqueys are called in
contemporary accounts, to the upper gallery of that Theatre gratis, out
of compliment to their masters on whom they were in attendance. Thus
established among the gods, they comported themselves with extraordinary
license; they impudently insulted the rest of the audience, who, unlike
themselves, had paid for admission, and “assuming the prerogative of
critics, hissed or applauded with the most offensive clamour.” Finding
the privilege of free entrance thus scandalously abused, Mr. Fleetwood,
the manager, suspended the free list. This gave great offence to the
footmen, who proceeded to take the law into their own hands. “They
conceived,” as it was stated in ‘Fog’s Weekly Journal,’ “that they had
an indefeasible hereditary right to the said gallery, and that this
expulsion was a high infringement of their liberties.” Accordingly, one
Saturday night a great number of them--quite three hundred, it was
said--assembled at Drury Lane doors, armed with staves and truncheons,
and “well fortified with three-threads and twopenny.”[167] The night
selected was one when the performance was patronized by royalty, and the
Prince and Princess of Wales, with other members of the royal family,
were in the theatre. The rioters attacked the stage door and forced it
open, “bearing down all the box-keepers, candle-snuffers,
supernumeraries, and pippin women that stood in the way.” In this
onslaught some five-and-twenty respectable people were desperately
wounded. Fortunately Colonel de Veil, an active Westminster justice,
happened to be in the house, and at once interposed. He ordered the Riot
Act to be read, but “so great was the confusion,” says the account,
“that they might as well have read Cæsar’s ‘Commentaries’.” Colonel de
Veil then got the assistance of some of the guards, and with them seized
several of the principal rioters, whom he committed to Newgate. These
prisoners were looked upon as martyrs to the great cause, and while in
gaol were liberally supplied with all luxuries by the subscription of
their brethren. They were, however, brought to trial, convicted of riot,
and sentenced to imprisonment.
This did not quite end the disturbance. Anonymous letters poured into
the theatre, threatening Fleetwood and vowing vengeance. The following
is a specimen:--
“SIR,
“We are willing to admonish you before we attempt our design; and
provide you use us civil, and admit us into your gallery, which is
our property according to formalities, and if you think proper to
come to a composition this way you’ll hear no further; and if not,
our intention is to combine in a body, incognito, and reduce the
playhouse to the ground. Valueing no detection, we are
“INDEMNIFIED.”
The manager carried these letters to the Lord Chamberlain and appealed
to him for protection. A detachment of the guards, fifty strong, was
ordered to do duty at the theatre nightly, and “thus deterred the saucy
knaves from carrying their threats into execution. From this time,” says
the ‘Newgate Calendar,’ “the gallery has been purged of such vermin.”
The footmen and male servants generally of this age were an idle,
dissolute race. From among them the ranks of the highwaymen were
commonly recruited, and it was very usual for the gentleman’s gentleman,
who had long flaunted in his master’s apparel, and imitated his master’s
vices, to turn gentleman on the road to obtain funds for the faro-table
and riotous living. A large proportion of the most famous highwaymen of
the eighteenth century had been in service at some time or other.
Hawkins, James Maclane, John Rann, William Page, had all worn the livery
coat. John Hawkins had been butler in a gentleman’s family, but lost his
place when the plate chest was robbed, and suspicion fell upon him
because he was flush of money. Hawkins, without a character, was unable
to get a fresh place, and he took at once to the road. His operations,
which were directed chiefly against persons of quality, were conducted
in and about London. He stopped and robbed the Earl of Burlington, Lord
Bruce, and the Earl of Westmoreland, the latter in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
When he got valuable jewels he carried them over to Holland and disposed
of them for cash, which he squandered at once in a “hell,” for he was a
rash and inveterate gambler. Working with two associates, he made his
head-quarters at a public-house in the London Wall, the master of which
kept a livery stable, and shared in the booty. From this point they rode
out at all hours and stopped the stages as they came into town laden
with passengers. One of the gang was, however, captured in the act of
robbing the mail and executed at Aylesbury. After this, by way of
revenge, they all determined to turn mail-robbers. They first designed
to stop the Harwich mail, but changed their mind as its arrival was
uncertain, being dependent on the passage of the packet-boat, and
determined to rob the Bristol mail instead. They overtook the boy
carrying the bags near Slough, and made him go down a lane where they
tied him to a tree in a wet ditch, ransacked the Bath and Bristol bags,
and hurried off by a circuitous route to London, where they divided the
spoil, sharing the bank-notes and throwing the letters into the fire.
Soon after this, the Post-office having learnt that the public-house in
the London Wall was the resort of highwaymen, it was closely watched.
One of Hawkins’ gang became alarmed, and was on the point of bolting to
Newcastle when he was arrested. He was hesitating whether or not he
should confess, when he found that he had been forestalled by an
associate, who had already given information to the Post-office, and he
also made a clean breast of it all. The rest of the gang were taken at
their lodgings in the Old Bailey, but not without a fight, and committed
to Newgate. Hawkins tried to set up an alibi, and an innkeeper swore
that he lodged with him at Bedfordbury on the night of the robbery; but
the jury found him guilty, and he was hanged at Tyburn, his body being
afterwards hung in chains on Hounslow Heath.
The defence of an alibi was very frequently pleaded by highwaymen, and
the tradition of its utility may explain why that veteran and astute
coachman, Mr. Weller, suggested it in the case of ‘Bardell _v._
Pickwick.’ In one genuine case, however, it nearly failed, and two
innocent men were all but sacrificed to mistaken identity. They had been
arrested for having robbed, on the Uxbridge road, a learned
sergeant-at-law, Sir Thomas Davenport, who swore positively to both. His
evidence was corroborated by that of Lady Davenport, and by the coachman
and footman. Also the horses ridden by the supposed highwaymen, one a
brown and the other a grey, were produced in the Old Bailey courtyard,
and sworn to. Yet it was satisfactorily proved that both the prisoners
were respectable residents of Kentish Town; that one, at the exact time
of the robbery, was seated at table dining at some club anniversary
dinner, and never left the club-room; that the other was employed
continuously in the bar of a public-house kept by his mother. It was
proved too that the prisoners owned a brown and a grey horse
respectively. The Judge summed up in the prisoner’s favour, and they
were acquitted. But both suffered severe mental trouble from the unjust
accusation. A few years later the actual robbers were convicted of
another offence, and in the cells of Newgate confessed that it was they
who had stopped Sir Thomas Davenport.
[Illustration: MACLANE.]
A very notorious highwayman, who had also been in service at one time of
his varied career, was James Maclane. He was the son of a dissenting
minister in Monaghan, and had a brother a minister at the Hague. Maclane
inherited a small fortune, which he speedily dissipated, after which he
became a gentleman’s butler, lost his situation through dishonesty,
determined to enlist in the Horse Guards, abandoned the idea, and turned
fortune-hunter. He was a vain man, of handsome exterior, which he decked
out in smart clothes on borrowed money. He succeeded at length in
winning the daughter of a respectable London horse-dealer, and with her
dowry of £500 set up in business as a grocer. His wife dying early, he
at once turned his stock-in-trade into cash, and again looked to win an
heiress, “by the gracefulness of his person and the elegance of his
appearance.” He was at last reduced to his last shilling, and being
quite despondent, an Irish apothecary, who was a daring robber,
persuaded him to take to the highway. One of his earliest exploits was
to stop Horace Walpole when the latter was passing through Hyde Park. A
pistol went off accidentally in this encounter, and the bullet not only
grazed Walpole’s cheek-bone, but went through the roof of the carriage.
At this time Maclane had a lodging in St. James’ Street, for which he
paid two guineas a week; his accomplice Plunkett lived in Jermyn Street.
“Their faces,” says Horace Walpole, “are as well known about St. James
as any gentleman’s who lives in that quarter, and who perhaps goes upon
the road too.”[168] Maclane accounted for his style of living by putting
out that he had Irish property worth £700 a year. Once when he had
narrowly escaped capture he went over to his brother in Holland for
safety, but when the danger was passed he returned and recommenced his
depredations. He made so good a show that he was often received into
respectable houses, and was once near marrying a young lady of good
position; but he was recognized and exposed by a gentleman who knew him.
Maclane continued to rob with greater boldness till the 26th June, 1750.
On this day he and Plunkett robbed the Earl of Eglinton on Hounslow
Heath. Later in the day they stopped and rifled the Salisbury stage, and
among the booty carried off two portmanteaus, which were conveyed to
Maclane’s lodgings in St. James. Information of this robbery was quickly
circulated, with a description of the stolen goods. Maclane had stripped
the lace off a waistcoat, the property of one of the robbed, and
recklessly offered it for sale to the very laceman from whom it had been
purchased. He also sent for another salesman, who immediately recognized
the clothes offered for those which had been stolen, and pretending to
go home for more money, he fetched a constable and apprehended Maclane.
He made an elaborate defence when brought to trial, but it availed him
little, and he was sentenced to death. While under condemnation he
became quite a popular hero. “The first Sunday after his trial,” says
Horace Walpole, “three thousand people went to see him. He fainted away
twice with the heat of his cell. You can’t conceive the ridiculous rage
there is for going to Newgate; and the prints that are published of the
malefactors, and the memoirs of their lives, set forth with as much
parade as Marshal Turennes’.” Maclane suffered at Tyburn amidst a great
concourse.
William Page did a better business as a highwayman than Maclane. Page
was apprenticed to a haberdasher, but he was a consummate coxcomb, who
neglected his shop to dress in the fashion and frequent public places.
His relations turned him adrift, and when in the last stage of distress
he accepted a footman’s place. It was while in livery that he first
heard of what highwaymen could do, and conceived the idea of adopting
the road as a profession. His first exploits were on the Kentish road,
when he stopped the Canterbury stage; his next near Hampton Court. When
he had collected some £200 he took lodgings in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and
passed as a student of law. He learnt to dance, frequented assemblies,
and was on the point of marrying well, when he was recognized as a
discharged footman, and turned out of doors. He continued his
depredations all this time, assisted by a curious map which he had
himself drawn, giving the roads round London for twenty miles. His plan
was to drive out in a phaeton and pair. When at a distance from town he
would turn into some unfrequented place and disguise himself with a
grizzle or black wig and put on other clothes. Then saddling one of his
phaeton horses, he went on to the main road and committed a robbery.
This effected, he galloped back to his carriage, resumed his former
dress, and drove to London. He was often cautioned against himself; but
laughingly said that he had already lost his money once and could now
only lose his coat and shirt. He was nearly detected on one occasion,
when some haymakers discovered his empty phaeton and drove it off with
his best clothes. He had just stopped some people, who pursued the
haymakers with the carriage and accused them of being accomplices in the
robbery. Page heard of this, and throwing the disguise into a well, went
back to town nearly naked, where he claimed the carriage, saying the men
had stripped him and thrown him into a ditch. The coach-builder swore
that he had sold him the carriage, and they were committed for trial,
but Page did not appear to prosecute. Page after this extended his
operations, and in company with one Darwell, an old school-fellow,
committed more than three hundred robberies in three years. He
frequented Bath, Tunbridge, Newmarket, and Scarbro’, playing deep
everywhere and passing for a man of fortune. Darwell and he next
“worked” the roads around London, but while the former was near
Sevenoaks he was captured by Justice Fielding. He turned evidence
against Page, who was arrested in consequence at the Golden Lion near
Hyde Park, with a wig to disguise him in one pocket and his map of the
London roads in another. He was remanded to Newgate and tried for a
robbery, of which he was acquitted; then removed to Maidstone and
convicted of another, for which he was hanged at that place.
John Rann was first a helper, then postboy, then coachman to several
gentlemen of position. While in this capacity he dressed in a peculiar
fashion, wearing breeches with eight strings at each knee, and was hence
nick-named Sixteen-string Jack. Having lost his character he turned
pickpocket, and then took to the road. He was soon afterwards arrested
for robbing a gentleman of a watch and some money on the Hounslow road.
The watch was traced to a woman with whom Rann kept company, who owned
that she had had it from him. Rann denied all knowledge of the
transaction, which could not be brought home to him. He appeared in
court on this occasion in an extravagant costume. His irons were tied up
with blue ribbons, and he carried in his breast a bouquet of flowers “as
big as a broom.” He was fond of fine feathers. Soon afterwards he
appeared at a public-house in Bagnigge Wells, dressed in a scarlet coat,
tambour waistcoat, white silk stockings, and laced hat. He gave himself
out quite openly as a highwayman, and getting drunk and troublesome, he
was put out of the house through a window into the road. Later on he
appeared at Barnet races in elegant sporting style, his waistcoat being
blue satin trimmed with silver. On this occasion he was followed by
hundreds who knew him, and wished to stare at a man who had made himself
so notorious. At last he stopped Dr. Bell, Chaplain to the Princess
Amelia, in the Uxbridge Road, and robbed him of eighteenpence and a
common watch in a tortoiseshell case; the latter was traced to the same
woman already mentioned, and Rann was arrested coming into her house.
Dr. Bell swore to him, and his servant declared that he had seen Rann
riding up Acton Hill twenty minutes before the robbery. Rann was
convicted on this evidence and suffered at Tyburn, after a short career
of four years. It was not the first time he had seen the gallows. A
short time previously he had attended a public execution, and forcing
his way into the ring kept by the constables, begged that he might be
allowed to stand there, as he might some day be an actor in the scene
instead of a spectator.
The road was usually the last resource of the criminally inclined, the
last fatal step in the downward career which ended abruptly at the
gallows. Dissolute and depraved youths of all classes, often enough
gentlemen, undoubtedly well-born, adopted this dangerous profession when
at their wit’s ends for funds. William Butler, who did his work
accompanied by his servant Jack, was the son of a military officer. Kent
and Essex was his favourite line of country, but London was his
head-quarters, where they lived in the “genteelest lodgings, Jack
wearing a livery, and the squire dressed in the most elegant manner.”
A baronet, Sir Simon Clarke, was convicted of highway robbery at
Winchester assizes, with an associate, Lieutenant Robert Arnott;
although the former, by the strenuous exertions of his country friends,
escaped the death penalty to which he had been sentenced. A very
notorious highwayman executed in 1750 was William Parsons, the son of a
baronet, who had been at Eton, and bore a commission in the Royal Navy.
He had hopes of an inheritance from the Duchess of Northumberland, who
was a near relative, but her Grace altered her will in favour of his
sister. He left the navy in a hurry, and abandoned by his friends,
became quite destitute, when his father got him an appointment in the
Royal African Company’s service. But he soon quarrelled with the
governor of James Fort on the Gambia, and returned to England again so
destitute that he lived on three halfpence for four days and drank water
from the street pumps. His father now told him to enlist in the Life
Guards, but the necessary purchase-money, seventy guineas, was not
forthcoming. He then, by personating a brother, obtained an advance on a
legacy which an aunt had left the brother, and with these funds made so
good a show that he managed to marry a young lady of independent
fortune, whose father was dead and had bequeathed her a handsome estate.
His friends were so delighted that they obtained him a commission as
ensign in a marching regiment, the 34th. He immediately launched out
into extravagant expenditure, took a house in Poland Street, kept three
saddle-horses, a chaise and pair, and a retinue of servants. He also
fell into the hands of a noted gambler and sharper, who induced him to
play high, and fleeced him. Parsons was compelled to sell his
commission to meet his liabilities, and still had to evade his creditors
by hiding under a false name.
[Illustration: PARSONS.]
From this time he became an irreclaimable vagabond, put to all sorts of
shifts, and adroit in all kinds of swindles, to raise means. Having
served for some time he shipped as captain of marines on board a
galley-privateer. He returned and lived by forgery and fraud. One
counterfeit draft he drew was on the Duke of Cumberland for £500;
another on Sir Joseph Hankey & Co. He defrauded tailors out of new
uniforms, and a hatter of 160 hats, which he pretended he had
contracted to supply to his regiment. He also robbed, by a pretended
marriage, a jeweller of a wedding and several valuable diamond rings. In
the ’45 he borrowed a horse from an officer intending to join the
rebels, but he only rode as far as Smithfield, where he sold the nag,
and let the officer be arrested as a supposed traitor. He was arrested
for obtaining money on a false draft at Ranelagh, tried at Maidstone,
sentenced to transportation, and despatched to Virginia. There, “after
working as a common slave about seven weeks,” a certain Lord F. rescued
him and took him as a guest into his house. Parsons robbed Lord F. of a
horse and took the highway. With the proceeds of his first robbery he
got a passage back to England. On arriving at Whitehaven, he represented
himself as having come into a large estate, and a banker advanced him
seventy pounds. With this he came on to London, took lodgings in the
West End, near Hyde Park corner, and rapidly got through his cash. Then
he hired a horse and rode out on to Hounslow Heath to stop the first
person he met.
This became his favourite hunting-ground, although he did business also
about Kensington and Turnham Green. Once having learnt that a footman
was to join his master at Windsor with a portmanteau full of notes and
money, he rode out to rob him, but was recognized by an old victim. The
latter let him enter the town of Hounslow, then ordered him to
surrender. He might still have escaped, but the landlord of the inn
where he lodged thought he answered the description of a highwayman who
had long infested the neighbourhood. Parsons was accordingly detained
and removed to Newgate. He was easily identified, and his condemnation
for returning from transportation followed as a matter of course. His
father and his wife used all their interest to gain him a pardon, but he
was deemed too old an offender to be a fit object for mercy.
Paul Lewis was another reprobate, who began life as a king’s officer. He
was the son of a country clergyman, who got him a commission in the
train of artillery; but Lewis ran into debt, deserted from his corps,
and took to the sea. He entered the royal navy, and rose to be first
midshipman, then lieutenant. Although courageous in action, he was
“wicked and base;” and while on board the fleet he collected three
guineas apiece from his messmates to lay in stores for the West Indian
voyages, and bolted with the money. He at once took to the road. His
first affair was near Newington Butts, when he robbed a gentleman in a
chaise. He was apprehended for this offence, but escaped conviction
through an alibi; after this he committed a variety of robberies. He was
captured by a police officer on a night that he had stopped first a lady
and gentleman in a chaise, and then tried to rob a Mr. Brown, at whom he
fired. Mr. Brown’s horse took fright and threw him; but when he got to
his feet he found his assailant pinned to the ground by Mr. Pope, the
police officer, who was kneeling on his breast. It seemed the lady and
gentleman, Lewis’s first victims, had warned Pope that a highwayman was
about, and the police officer had ridden forward quickly and seized
Lewis at the critical moment. Lewis was conveyed to Newgate, and in due
course sentenced to death. “Such was the baseness and unfeeling
profligacy of this wretch,” says the Newgate Calendar, “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 parent, Lewis turned round to his fellow
prisoners, and exultingly exclaimed, ‘I have flung the old fellow out of
another guinea.’”
Pope’s capture of the highwayman Lewis was outdone by that of William
Belchier, a few years previously, by William Norton, a person who,
according to his own account of himself, kept a shop in Wych Street, and
who “sometimes took a thief.” Norton at the trial told his story as
follows. “The chaise to Devizes having been robbed two or three times,
as I was informed, I was desired to go into it, to see if I could take
the thief, which I did on the third of June, about half an hour after
one in the morning. I got into the post-chaise; the post-boy told me
the place where he had been stopped was near the half-way house between
Knightsbridge and Kensington. As we came near the house the prisoner
(Belchier) came to us on foot and said, ‘Driver, stop.’ He held a pistol
and tinder box to the chaise, and said: ‘Your money directly, you must
not stop; this minute, your money.’ I said, ‘Don’t frighten us, I have
but a trifle--you shall have it.’ Then I said to the gentlemen,--there
were three in the chaise,--‘Give your money.’ I took out a pistol from
my coat pocket, and from my breeches’ pocket a five-shilling piece and a
dollar. I held the pistol concealed in one hand and the money in the
other. I held the money pretty hard. He said, ‘Put it in my hat.’ I let
him take the five-shilling piece out of my hand. As soon as he had taken
it I snapped my pistol at him. It did not go off. He staggered back and
held up his hands, and said, ‘Oh Lord! oh Lord.’ I jumped out of the
chaise; he ran away, and I after him about six or seven hundred yards,
and then took him. I hit him a blow on his back; he begged for mercy on
his knees. I took his neckcloth off and tied his hands with it, and
brought him back to the chaise. Then I told the gentlemen in the chaise
that was the errand I came upon, and wished them a good journey, and
brought the prisoner to London.”
No account of the thief-taking or of the criminality of the eighteenth
century would be complete without some reference to Jonathan Wild. What
this astute villain really was may be best gathered from the various
sworn informations on which he was indicted. It was set forth that he
had been for years the confederate of highwaymen, pickpockets, burglars,
shoplifters, and other thieves; that he had formed a kind of corporation
of thieves of which he was head, or director, and that, despite his
pretended efforts at detection, he procured none to be hanged but those
who concealed their booty or refused him his share. It was said that he
had divided the town and country into districts, and had appointed
distinct gangs to each, who accounted to him for their robberies; that
he employed another set to rob in churches during divine service, and
other “moving detachments to attend at court on birthdays and balls, and
at the houses of Parliament.” His chosen agents were returned
transports, who lay quite at his mercy. They could not be evidence
against him, and if they displeased him he could at any time have them
hanged. These felons he generally lodged in a house of his own, where he
fed and clothed them, and used them in clipping guineas or
counterfeiting coin.[169] He himself had been a confederate in numerous
robberies; in all cases he was a receiver of the goods stolen; he had
under his care several warehouses for concealing the same, and owned a
vessel for carrying off jewels, watches, and other valuables to Holland,
where he had a superannuated thief for a factor. He also kept in his
pay several artists to make alterations and transform watches, seals,
snuff-boxes, rings, so that they might not be recognized, which he used
to present to people who could be of service to him. It was alleged that
he generally claimed as much as half the value of all articles which he
pretended to recover, and that he never gave up bank-notes or paper
unless the loser could exactly specify them. “In order to carry out
these vile practices, and to gain some credit with the ignorant
multitude, he usually carried a short silver staff as a badge of
authority from the government, which he used to produce when he himself
was concerned in robbing.” Last of all he was charged with “selling
human blood;” in other words, of procuring false evidence to convict
innocent persons; “sometimes to prevent them from being evidence against
himself, and at other times for the sake of the great reward offered by
the government.” Wild’s career was brought to an abrupt conclusion by
the revelations made by two of his creatures. He absconded, but was
pursued, captured, and committed to Newgate. He was tried on several
indictments, but convicted on that of having maintained a secret
correspondence with felons, receiving money for restoring stolen goods,
and dividing it with the thieves whom he did not prosecute. While under
sentence of death he made desperate attempts to obtain a pardon, but in
vain, and at last tried to evade the gallows by taking a large dose of
laudanum. This also failed, and he was conveyed to Tyburn amidst the
execrations of a countless mob of people, who pelted him with stones and
dirt all the way. Among other curious facts concerning this
arch-villain, it is recorded that when at the acme of his prosperity,
Jonathan Wild was ambitious of becoming a freeman of the city of London.
His petition to this effect is contained among the records of the Town
Clerk’s office, and sets forth that the petitioner “has been at great
trouble and charge in apprehending and convicting divers felons for
returning from transportation from Oct. 1720 ... that your petitioner
has never received any reward or gratuity for such his service, that he
is very desirous of becoming a freeman of this honorable city....” The
names follow, and include Moll King, John Jones, &c., “who were
notorious street robbers.” The petition is endorsed as read Jan. 2nd,
1724, but the result is not stated.
Before I close this chapter I must refer briefly to another class of
highway robbers--the pirates and rovers who ranged the high seas in the
first half of the eighteenth century.[170] In those days there was no
efficient ocean police, no perpetual patrolling by war-ships of all
nations to prevent and put down piracy as a crime noxious to the whole
world. Later, on the ascendancy of the British navy, this duty was more
or less its peculiar province; but till then every sea was infested with
pirates sailing under various flags. The growth of piracy has been
attributed, no doubt with reason, to the narrow policy of Spain with
regard to her transatlantic colonies. To baffle this colonial system the
European powers long tolerated, even encouraged these reckless
filibusters, who did not confine their ravages to the Spanish-American
coast, but turned their hands, like nautical Ishmaels, against all the
world. The mischief thus done was incalculable. One notorious rover,
Captain Roberts, took four hundred sail. They were as clever in
obtaining information as to the movements of rich prizes on the seas as
were highwaymen concerning the traffic along the highroads. They were
particularly cunning in avoiding war-ships, and knew exactly where to
run for supplies. As Captain Johnson tells us, speaking of the West
Indies in the opening pages of his ‘History of Pirates,’ “they have been
so formidable and numerous that they have interrupted the trade of
Europe in those parts; and our English merchants in particular have
suffered more by their depredations than by the united force of France
and Spain in the late war.”
Pirates were the curse of the North American waters when Lord Bellamont
went as Governor of New England in 1695, and no one was supposed to be
more in their secrets at that time, or more conversant with their haunts
and hiding-place, than a certain Captain John Kidd of New York, who
owned a small vessel, and traded with the West Indies. Lord Bellamont’s
instructions were to put down piracy if he could, and Kidd was
recommended to him as a fitting person to employ. For some reason or
other Kidd was denied official status; but it was pointed out to Lord
Bellamont that, as the affair would not well admit delay, “it was worthy
of being undertaken by some private persons of rank and distinction, and
carried into execution at their own expense, notwithstanding public
encouragement was denied to it.” Eventually the Lord Chancellor, Lord
Somers, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Romney, the Earl of Orford,
with some others, subscribed a sum of £6000 to fit out an expedition
from England, of which Kidd was to have the command; and he was granted
a commission by letters patent under the great seal to take and seize
pirates, and bring them to justice. The profits of the adventure, less a
fifth, which went to Kidd and another, were to be pocketed by the
promoters of the enterprise, and this led subsequently to a charge of
complicity with the pirates, which proved very awkward, especially for
Lords Orford and Somers.
Kidd sailed for New York in the Adventure galley, and soon hoisted the
black flag. From New York he steered for Madeira, thence to the Cape of
Good Hope, and on to Madagascar. He captured all that came in his way.
French ships, Portuguese, “Moorish,” even English ships engaged in
legitimate and peaceful trade. Kidd shifted his flag to one of his
prizes, and in her returned to the Spanish main for supplies. Thence he
sailed for various ports of the West Indies, and having disposed of much
of his booty, steered for Boston. He had been preceded there by a
merchant who knew of his piratical proceedings, and gave information to
Lord Bellamont. Kidd was accordingly arrested on his arrival in New
England. A full report was sent home, and a man-of-war, the Rochester,
despatched to bring Kidd to England for trial. As the Rochester became
disabled, and Kidd’s arrival was delayed, much great public clamour
arose, caused and fed by political prejudices against Lord Bellamont and
the other great lords, who were accused of an attempt to shield Kidd. It
was moved in the House of Commons that the “letters patent granted to
the Earl of Bellamont and others respecting the goods taken from pirates
were dishonourable to the king, against the law of nations, contrary to
the laws and statutes of the realm, an invasion of property, and
destructive to commerce.” The motion was opposed, but the political
opponents of Lord Somers and Lord Orford continued to accuse them of
giving countenance to pirates, while Lord Bellamont was deemed no less
culpable. The East India Company, which had suffered greatly by Kidd’s
depredations, and which had been refused[171] letters of marque to
suppress piracy in the Indian Ocean, joined in the clamour, and
petitioned that Captain Kidd “might be brought to speedy trial, and that
the effects taken unjustly from the subjects of the Great Mogul may be
returned to them as a satisfaction for their losses.”
It was ruled at last that Kidd should be examined at the bar of the
House of Commons, with the idea of “fixing part of his guilt on the
parties who had been concerned in sending him on his expedition.” Kidd
was accordingly brought to England and lodged first in the Marshalsea,
the prison of the Admiralty Court, and afterwards committed to Newgate.
It was rumoured that Lord Halifax, who shared the political odium of
Lords Somers and Orford, had sent privately for Kidd from Newgate to
tamper with him, but “the keeper of the gaol on being sent for averred
that it was false.”[172] It is more probable that the other side
endeavoured to get Kidd to bear witness against Lord Somers and the
rest; but at the bar of the House, where he made a very contemptible
appearance, being in some degree intoxicated, Kidd fully exonerated
them. “Kidd discovered little or nothing,” says Luttrell. In their
subsequent impeachment they were, notwithstanding, charged with having
been Kidd’s accomplices, but the accusation broke down. Kidd in the mean
time had been left to his fate. He was tried with his crew on several
indictments for murder and piracy at the Admiralty sessions of the Old
Bailey, convicted and hung.[173] He must have prospered greatly in his
short and infamous career. According to Luttrell, his effects were
valued at £200,000, and one witness alone, Cogi Baba, a Persian
merchant, charged him with robbing him in the Persian Gulf of £60,000.
No case was made out against the above-mentioned peers. Lord Orford set
up in his defence that in Kidd’s affair “he had acted legally, and with
a good intention towards the public, though to his own loss;”[174] and
Lord Somers denied that he had ever seen or knew anything of Kidd. Hume
sums up the matter by declaring that “the Commons in the whole course of
the transaction had certainly acted from motives of faction and
revenge.”
John Gow, who took the piratical name of Captain Smith, was second mate
of the George galley, which he conspired with half the crew to seize
when on the voyage to Santa Cruz. On a given signal, the utterance of a
password, “Who fires first?” an attack was made on the first mate,
surgeon, and supercargo, whose throats were cut. The captain hearing a
noise came on deck, when one mutineer cut his throat, and a second fired
a couple of balls into his body. The ship’s company consisted of twenty:
four were now disposed of, eight were conspirators, and of the remaining
eight, some of whom had concealed themselves below decks and some in the
shrouds, four had joined the pirates. The other four were closely
watched, and although allowed to range the ship at pleasure, were often
cruelly beaten. The ship was rechristened ‘The Revenge’; she mounted
several guns, and the pirates steered her for the coast of Spain, where
several prizes were taken--the first a ship laden with salted cod from
Newfoundland, the second a Scotch ship bound to Italy with a cargo of
pickled herrings, the third a French ship laden with oil, wine, and
fruit. The pirates also made a descent upon the Portuguese coast and
laid the people under contributions.
Dissensions now arose in the company. Gow had a certain amount of sense
and courage, but his lieutenant was a brutal ruffian, often blinded by
passion, and continually fermenting discord. At last he attempted to
shoot Gow, but his pistol missed fire, and he was wounded himself by two
of the pirates. He sprang down to the powder-room and threatened to blow
up the ship, but he was secured, and put on board a vessel which had
been ransacked and set free, the commander of it being desired to hand
the pirate over to the first king’s ship he met, “to be dealt with
according to his crimes.” After this the pirates steered north for the
Orkneys, of which Gow was a native, and after a safe passage anchored in
a bay in one of the islands. While lying there one of his crew, who had
been forced into joining them, escaped to Kirkwall, where he gave
information to a magistrate, and the sheriff issued a precept to the
constables and others to seize ‘The Revenge.’ Soon afterwards ten more
of the crew, also unwilling members of it, laid hands on the long boat,
and reaching the mainland of Scotland, coasted along it as far as Leith,
whence they made their way to Edinburgh, and were imprisoned as pirates.
Gow meanwhile, careless of danger, lingered in the Orkneys, plundering
and ransacking the dwelling-houses to provide himself with provisions,
and carrying off plate, linen, and all valuables on which they could
lay hands.
Arriving at an island named Calf Sound, Gow planned the robbery of an
old schoolmate, a Mr. Fea, whom he sought to entrap. But Mr. Fea turned
the tables upon him. Inviting Gow and several of the crew to an
entertainment on shore, while they were carousing Mr. Fea made his
servants seize the pirates’ boat, and then entering by different doors,
fell upon the pirates themselves, and made all prisoners. The rest,
twenty-eight in number, who were still afloat, were also captured by
various artifices, and the whole, under orders of the Lord Chief
Justice, were despatched to the Thames in H.M.S. Greyhound, for trial at
the Admiralty Court. They were committed to the Marshalsea, and thence
to Newgate, and arraigned at the Old Bailey, where Gow refused to plead,
and was sentenced to be pressed to death. He pretended that he wished to
save an estate for a relation; but when all preparations for carrying
out the sentence were completed, he begged to be allowed to plead, and
“the judge being informed, humanely granted his request.” Gow and six
others were eventually hanged at Execution Dock.
Pirates who fell in with ships usually sought to gain recruits among the
captured crews. The alternative was to walk the plank or to be set
adrift in an open boat, or landed on an uninhabited island. The latter
was the fate of as many in a shipload of convicts taken at sea by
pirates as refused to sign articles. For those who thus agreed under
compulsion a still harder fate was often in store. Captain Massey was an
unfortunate instance of this. While serving in the Royal African Company
he was for some time engaged in the construction of a fort upon the
coast with a detachment of men. They ran short of food, and suffered
frightfully from flux. When at the point of death a passing ship noticed
their signals of distress, and sent a boat on shore to bring them on
board. The ship proved to be a pirate. Captain Massey did not actually
join them, but he remained on board while several prizes were taken.
However, he gave information at Jamaica, the pirate captain and others
were arrested and hanged, and Captain Massey received the thanks of the
Governor, who offered him an appointment on the island. But Massey was
anxious to return to England, whither he proceeded armed with strong
letters of recommendation to the lords of the Admiralty. To his intense
surprise, “instead of being caressed he was taken into custody,” tried,
and eventually executed. His case evoked great sympathy. “His joining
the pirates was evidently an act of necessity, not choice,” and he took
the earliest opportunity of giving up his involuntary associates to
justice--a conduct by which he surely merited the thanks of his country,
and not the vengeance of the law.