(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]wo days after the last trial, the Lord High
Steward stood up and declared that there was nothing more to be done by
virtue of his present commission. The House of Lords then ordered that
a full report of the Earl of Wintoun’s trial should be printed. This
was on Wednesday, March 21st. Mr. Cowper, clerk of the Parliaments,
accordingly appointed Jacob Tonson to print and publish it; and my
Lords ‘forbade any other person to print the same.’ Jacob, forthwith,
issued an edition, handsome in the getting up, and rather high in
price. Immediately, a spurious edition, in six folio pages, tempted the
general public――at two pence! It bore the name of ‘Sarah Popping, at
the Black Raven, Paternoster Row.’ The Lords, angry at this contempt,
ordered Mrs. Popping to be brought before them. On the 13th of April,
the famous antiquary, Sir William Oldys, Gentleman Usher of the Black
Rod, appeared before the House with the statement that he had Sarah
Popping under arrest, but, said Oldys, ‘She is so ill that she is not
in a condition to be brought to the bar; but a person is attending at
the door who can give an account concerning the said Paper.’ Whereupon,
one Elizabeth Cape was brought in, and she deposed to such effect, that
the Lords ordered the immediate arrest of two Fleet-Street publishers
and booksellers,――one, a John Pemberton; the other, the notorious
Edmund Curll.
[Sidenote: _EDMUND CURLL._]
While the deputies of the Gentlemen Ushers of the Black Rod were in
search of Curll and Pemberton, Sarah Popping petitioned the Lords for
a full pardon, on the ground that she, being ill, knew nothing of the
printing of the trial, which had been unwittingly undertaken by her
sister, and ‘it being usual in such cases to discharge the publisher
upon the discovery of the bookseller’――that is of the retailer, such
as Curll was, in this case. The Lords, having all the incriminated
persons before them, on Thursday, the 26th of April, discharged Popping
and Pemberton, ordered that Curll be detained in custody, and issued a
warrant for the arrest of Daniel Bridge, charged with being joined in
the printing of the earl’s trial. Bridge, on the 2nd of May, confessed
to the House that he was the printer of the twopenny edition; and he
accused Curll of having furnished him with the ‘copy’ to print from.
Curll and Bridge were ‘laid by the heels,’ but in a couple of days they
sent up a petition, in which they pleaded utter ignorance of their
Lordships’ prohibition to print any other account of the trial than
that which Tonson alone was authorised to put forth. They acknowledged
that their Lordships were justly offended; and they asked to be set
free, as they had families ‘which must be entirely ruined unless your
Lordships have compassion on them.’ Their Lordships were not hard upon
the offenders; both of whom were to be seen, one afternoon before the
week was out, humbly kneeling as they listened to a sharp reprimand
from the Lord Chancellor. After which process, the offenders paid their
fees, and then walked from Westminster to Fleet Street together. To
Curll, this 1716 was an eventful year. In it were included his first
appearance in the House of Lords, his quarrel with Pope, and the
humiliating indignities which he underwent at the hands and ‘tyrannick
rod’ of the boys in Westminster School.
[Sidenote: _THE NEW POEMS._]
Another publisher took advantage of the State trials to stimulate the
public to purchase three little poems, on the ground that they were
‘Published faithfully, as they were found in a Pocket-Book taken up
in the Westminster Hall the last day of the Lord Wintoun’s Tryal.’
Roberts, the publisher in Warwick Lane, stated in his advertisement
that, upon reading them at the St. James’s coffee-house, they were with
one voice pronounced to be by a _Lady of Quality_. The foreman of the
poetical jury at Button’s, considering the style and thought, declared
that ‘Mr. Gay must be the Man.’ On the other hand, a gentleman of
distinguished merit, who lived not far from Chelsea, protested that the
poems could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of
Homer. The wits at St. James’s were of course nearest the mark, and it
is now known, as Mr. Roberts knew then, that these ‘Court Poems,’ ‘The
Basset Table,’ ‘The Drawing-Room,’ and ‘The Toilet’ were from the pen
of that lively lady, Mary Wortley Montague.
[Sidenote: _PRINCESS OF WALES AND LADY KENMURE._]
Another lady, the widowed Viscountess Kenmure, was otherwise engaged
in the stern prose of life. She prepared a petition to the king in
which she prayed that 150_l._ a year might be added to her jointure,
for the education of her children. She asked for that sum out of her
late lord’s confiscated estate. The young widow earnestly prayed for
an interview with the Princess of Wales. When this was made known to
her royal highness, that lady said, ‘I know that she will burst into a
flood of tears and I shall do the same, and I shall not be able to bear
the sight of so much grief as she will bring with her.’ This way of
declining the interview was made known to the viscountess. Lady Kenmure
eagerly replied that, if the princess would only see her, she would
not shed a single tear nor utter one poor sob. Caroline consented.
She not only received Lady Kenmure with cordial sympathy, but after
some conversation, the princess took her by the hand and led her to
the king’s apartments. On presenting her to the sovereign, Caroline
recommended the poor lady to his generous consideration, and she did
this so well that the king not only granted the petition, but made her
a present of 300_l._ The Princess of Wales again took Lady Kenmure by
the hand back to her own apartments, where she added 200_l._ to the
sum given by the king; and finally, she conducted her interesting
visitor to the very foot of the stairs. The papers state that Lady
Kenmure was subsequently heard to say, ‘Good God! are these the people
that have been represented so odious to us, and for rebelling against
whom I have lost my dear husband? Sure, if this had been known, we had
never been so unfortunate!’ The royal example had beneficial influence.
The Duchess of Marlborough collected subscriptions among her lady
friends, and her grace placed fourteen hundred guineas in the widow’s
hands to carry with her back to Scotland.
[Sidenote: _LUXURY IN NEWGATE._]
The execution of Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater, and the sentence
on Lord Wintoun, sobered the spirits in Newgate, where the too
profuse liberality of the outside Jacobites had caused many of the
captive rebels to put off dignity and decency, for riot, revelry, and
licentiousness. The author of the ‘History of the Press Yard’ states,
that they, after a time, lived profusely and fared voluptuously, by
the help of daily visitors, and of sympathisers who sent their money,
but avoided personally appearing. ‘While it was difficult to change a
guinea almost at any house in the street, nothing was more easy than
to have silver for gold, in any quantity, and gold for silver, in
the prison; those of the fair sex, from persons of the first rank to
tradesmen’s wives and daughters, making a sacrifice of their husbands’
and parents’ rings and other precious movables, for the use of those
prisoners.’ The aid was so reckless that forty shillings for a dish of
early peas and beans, and thirty shillings for a dish of fish, with
the best French wine, ‘was an ordinary regale!’
[Sidenote: _GENERAL FORSTER’S ESCAPE._]
During the first ten days of April the Jacobite sympathy was everywhere
manifested for ‘General Forster,’ who was to be tried on the 18th.
On the 11th of the month, Jacobite London was in ecstacy. In every
Jacobite mouth was the joyous acclaim: ‘Tom Forster is off and away!’
The Whigs damned themselves, the Tories, and Pitt, the keeper of
Newgate, that ‘the rascalliest of the crew had broke bonds.’ The
Government shut up Pitt in one of his own dungeons, offered 1,000_l._
for the recovery of the ‘General,’ and ordered strict examination of
all persons at the different sea-ports attempting to leave England.
Forster did not intend to come in the way of such examination. His
escape was well planned and happily executed. His sharp servant found
means to obtain an impression of Pitt’s master-key, from which another
key was made and conveyed to Forster, without difficulty. Pitt loved
wine, and Forster seems to have had a cellar full of it. He often
invited the governor to get drunk on the contents. One night Pitt got
more drunk than usual, finished the wine, and roared for more. Forster
bade his servant to fetch up another bottle. This was the critical
moment. The fellow was long, and Forster swore he would go and see
what the rascal was at. On going, he locked the unconscious Pitt in
the room, and, the way being prepared by his servant, and turnkeys, as
it would seem, subdued by the ‘oil of palms,’ master and man walked
into the street, where friends awaited them. Pitt soon sounded an
alarm, but everything had been well calculated. A smack lay at Holy
Haven, on the Thames, which had often been employed by the Jacobites in
running between England and France. ◆[Sidenote: _A RIDE FOR LIFE._]◆
At midnight two gentlemen, a lady, and a servant arrived in a coach
at Billingsgate, and made enquiries touching this suspicious vessel.
So ran a popular report. The Dogberrys concluded that Forster was
one of these men, and that he was lying hidden by the river side. He
was, however, far off beyond their reach. He was so well served and
so well protected, that by four in the morning he and five horsemen
gallopped into Prittlewell, near Rochford, in Essex. They quietly put
up at an upland ale-house, and sent for a skipper who expected them.
This man, Shipman, took them three miles below Leigh, where a vessel
awaited them. Men and horses were there embarked at noon, and Shipman
accompanied them to France, on which coast they were safely landed. The
joy of the Jacobites was uncontrollable. The Whigs shook their heads
and doubted if such an escape could have been accomplished without
connivance on the part of persons in high places.
Forster’s escape was so easily effected as to almost warrant a
suspicion that, for service rendered, he was allowed to get away.
Others, however, got off from Newgate and the Tower whom the Government
undoubtedly intended to keep there, with Tyburn in view as their utmost
limit abroad. In the old ballad――
Lord Derwentwater to Forster said:――
Thou hast ruin’d the cause and all betray’d,
For thou did’st vow to stand our friend,
But hast prov’d traitor in the end.
Thou brought’st us from our own country,
We left our home and came with thee;
But thou art a rogue and a traitor both,
And hast broke thy honour and thy oath.’
[Sidenote: _THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER._]
The remaining prisoners and their possible destiny continued to occupy
the public mind. One day, a group of them might be seen on their way
to the Thames, where they were to be shipped for ‘the Carolinas.’ Lord
Carnwath, it was said, would be pardoned, but Lords Widdrington and
Nairn would be transported to the Plantations for seven years, and then
set free on finding bail for their future good behaviour. The captives
in Newgate fought in the court-yard, or laid informations against each
other, while their wives traversed London wearily in search of powerful
friends to liberate them. Great interest was evinced in Lord Wintoun.
This was increased when a morning paper quaintly informed its readers
that ‘as for the Earl of Wintoun, his Counsel having insinuated that he
is not perfect in his Intellectuals, ’tis said he will be confined for
Life!’
The lords, under sentence of death, in the Tower, continued to be
reprieved from time to time. As various alterations in the process
of the trials followed, it was not doubted, ‘Mercurius’ says, ‘but
there had some light been given in return for that grace, by which
further discoveries were made than had been before.’ If this be true,
the baseness of such informers was more detestable than that of the
Rev. Mr. Patten. This man began now to be treated by the public as
a double-dyed rascal; and this treatment urged him to publish his
reasons for turning king’s evidence, in a letter addressed to one of
the Shaftoes, a rebel prisoner in Newgate. The letter is long and very
wide of its pretended purpose. It affects indeed a certain horror of
rebellion against the Church and Throne; and it insinuates that Shaftoe
might do well to follow the example of the writer, who mendaciously
pretended that in becoming a witness against his old confederates, no
promise of pardon or of any advantage was made to him, and that he was
utterly ignorant as to the way in which it might please God that he
should die!
[Sidenote: _PATTEN ON THE PRINCE OF WALES._]
‘I shall mention one particular,’ he says, ‘which has been a matter of
astonishment to me to find out a Falsehood so industriously reported.
I hope it will be so with you when I assure you it was industriously
reported that the Prince of Wales, who was represented to us under
the greatest disadvantages, as to the Shape and Frame of his Person,
is quite the Reverse of all Reflections, for he has really a comely
Appearance, and a Liveliness in his Looks and Gesture, which is very
taking, and speaks a great deal of Goodness. This I beheld with
Admiration at Westminster Hall, when I was present at the Trial of the
Earl of Wintoun.’
Among a batch of 180 Jacobite convicts sent to Maryland, there was
one who was both malefactor and Jacobite. His name was Wriggelsden.
He was such a hater of King George, that he tried to carry off his
Majesty’s plate from the Chapel Royal in Whitehall. The Tory thief
was transported, but the Whig papers in London soon abounded with
complaints that this enemy of kings and men was better off than he
had ever been before. ‘He had got,’ says the News Letter, ‘a cargo of
cutlery ware, and a Mistress like a Woman of Fashion, in rich clothes
and a gold striking watch, with other proper equipage, at Annapolis,
where they live with great show of affluence.’ The Whigs complained
that knaves and traitors should thus flourish. They also complained
that the sentinels at St. James’s Palace neglected to safely guard the
prince and princess; that Tory inn-keepers cursed the king, even on his
coronation-day, and that Nonjurors were not to be trusted, even though
they took the oath of fidelity, like the Rev. Nicholas Zintens, who,
they sneeringly say, ‘took the oath by mere impulse of conscience in
the absence of his wife.’
[Sidenote: _IN AND OUT OF NEWGATE._]
Meanwhile, detachments of Horse Guards patrolled the suburbs, and
delegations of Scotch Presbyterian ministers marched up, day after
day, to St. James’s, to congratulate the king on being securely seated
on his throne. Now and then one of the above guards, yielding to love
of liquor, would drink the Pretender’s health, for a draught of ale,
gratis; and would find himself next day, in Newgate, in the company of
priests whose papers and persons had just been seized by Messengers,
or in the place of rebel-prisoners who had just escaped, or who had
died, as _poor_ captives died, of that loathsome confinement. Captivity
could not tame the bolder spirits. Sunderland, the coffee-house man,
locked up for circulating that inflammatory pamphlet,――‘Robin’s Last
Shift,’――talked more Jacobitism in prison than out of it; while
Flint,――ultra-Jacobite author of the ‘Weekly Remarks,’――wrote more
seditiously in his cell than in his own printing office;――till orders
came down to keep pen, ink, and paper from a man who made such bad use
of them.
[Sidenote: _POLITICS ON THE STAGE._]
As Oxford and Cambridge represented, the first, Tory;――the second, Whig
principles; so Drury Lane Theatre was popular with the Whigs, while
the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields lay under the suspicion of being
Jacobite. The suspicion probably arose from the fact that, in the days
of Queen Anne, one of the company, the handsome actor, Scudamore, had
often gone to St. Germain as an agent of the London Jacobites. The
Lincoln’s Inn Fields’ players, however, repudiated all grounds for
suspicion against their loyalty. Mrs. Knight, on the occasion of her
benefit, published an address in which she told the Jacobites their
money was as good as that of other people, but that their political
principles were _not_ so good. She told the Whigs that her ‘zeal for
government had been expressed in the worst of times.’ At night, she
delivered an epilogue, in the character she had been playing, ‘Widow
Lockit,’ in which politics were thus introduced into the domain of the
drama:――
Whatever t’other House may say to wrong us,
We have, as well as they, some honest Whigs among us,
Who do our Country’s Enemies disdain,
And hate disloyalty as much as Drury Lane.
But there were dramas elsewhere, as interesting as any on the stage.
[Sidenote: _SIMON FRASER, AS A WHIG._]
On the 28th of April, two travellers arrived in town from the North,
whose arrival caused considerable sensation. One was the young Duke
of Hamilton and Brandon, under the care of his uncle, the Earl of
Selkirk. ‘He was destined for Eton, in order to perfect him for one of
the Universities.’ This boy was met in the northern suburbs by about
a hundred noblemen and gentlemen on horseback, and many more noble
and gentle ladies, in coaches, who escorted his hopeful grace to his
house in St. James’s Square. The second, Simon Fraser, afterwards known
as Lord Lovat, came more privately. The king received that faithful
person, two days later, with condescending cordiality. In every tavern,
it was soon known that his Majesty had spoken highly of Fraser’s
services, and had promised to give him marks of his royal favour. Simon
Fraser, on that day, kissed the hands of the king and the Prince of
Wales, after which the ‘Duke of Argyle took him in his own carriage to
pay visits to the various ministers.’
Early in the month of May, Bishop Atterbury, who had not been quite
three years in possession of the see of Rochester, gave unmistakable
signs as to the way _he_ was going. A large body of the Dutch troops
who had served in Scotland, had marched back to London. They were
thence sent down to Gravesend, where they were quartered, till they
sailed to their own country.
[Sidenote: _DUTCH SERVICE IN GRAVESEND CHURCH._]
They were supposed to be God-fearing men; and they had an undoubtedly
pious commander. This Dutch Colonel, one Saturday in May, waited upon
the Rev. Mr. Gibbons (a curate who had in his sole charge the religious
welfare of the place), and asked him for the use of the Church at eight
o’clock on the Sunday morning, that his men might have the benefit
of attending Divine Service, conducted by their own chaplains. The
service, the Colonel said, would be over long before the hour for the
regular Church of England one to begin.
Worthy Mr. Gibbons asked if, on the march from Scotland, English
clergymen had granted the use of their churches for Dutch services
on the Sundays on which the soldiers had halted. He was assured that
such had been everywhere the case. The curate no longer hesitated. The
Dutch were the king’s faithful Christian allies, and they should have
the church for the good purpose desired,――the more particularly as the
churchwardens sanctioned the whole proceeding.
The Dutch soldiers marched to the old edifice accordingly; joined in
the prayers with soldierly devotion; sat covered during the sermon;
and marched back to their parade ground, to the admiration of nearly
all who saw them. The whole affair was the talk of the town; and the
‘High-fliers’ were furious.
Furious too was the Bishop of Rochester. Shortly after the event,
Atterbury had to officiate at a confirmation at Gravesend. On the
moment of his arrival in the church, he sent for the curate, and
demanded how he had dared to grant the use of the church for the Dutch
service, and why he had not first sent to HIM? ‘My lord,’ said the
curate, ‘Christian charity compelled me; the churchwardens sanctioned
it, and the time, too short to allow for deliberation, did not leave me
the opportunity of applying to your lordship.’
[Sidenote: _AIDS TO ESCAPE._]
Atterbury answered in a high tone and acted with a high hand. He
announced that he himself would preach, and he prohibited the curate
from even reading prayers. The prelate’s sermon so exalted his wrath,
that, at the conclusion, he was not satisfied with this suspension of
Mr. Gibbons from duty, but Atterbury turned the poor clergyman out of
his cure! The bishop, however, was made to feel that he had gone too
far. The record of suspension was erased; the dismissal of Mr. Gibbons
from his cure was followed by his restoration, and it is agreeable to
read that, on the great Thanksgiving Day, he preached in his old church
‘an Excellent, Loyal, and Honest Sermon.’
In London itself, loving hearts and planning heads, outside Newgate,
were doing all that sympathy and cunning could effect, for the relief
of those who were inside. Women lingered about the walls, and men
lounged near, ready to obey any call for the deliverance of the
remaining captives. As this seemed more and more hopeless, an attempt
was made on the virtue of a sentinel. A lady offered him 30_l._ in
hand, and a bill (a very questionable bill) for 500_l._ more, the
former for present aid in setting the prisoners free; the latter to be
cashed when they were beyond recapture. The sentinel’s integrity could
not be overcome. He went and swore to the whole story, before the Lord
Mayor. That official put the governor and subordinates on the watch.
The guard was increased. An unceasing vigilance was enjoined; and the
Jacobite prisoners were looked upon as men doomed to the scaffold, or
to some fate as bad, if not worse. Mackintosh, nevertheless, appeared
to be perfectly at his ease; and the equanimity of the old brigadier
gave hope and courage to such other ‘rebels’ as needed them.
[Sidenote: _SHIFTING OF PRISONERS._]
In the first days of May, the public had promise of fresh excitement.
On the 3rd a Committee of Council examined Mr. Harvey, of Combe.
Finding him recovered from the stab he had inflicted on himself, they
sent him from the custody of a messenger to Newgate. This the public
heard. On the following day, they saw Basil Hamilton, a son of Lord
Nairn, and the Honourable Mr. Howard publicly carried, at mid-day,
from the Tower to the same prison. The day’s spectacle was followed by
another just before twilight. Crowds witnessed the brief march of ten
pinioned prisoners, from the Fleet to Newgate also. The expectation of
their trials following close upon this change in no wise affected the
spirits of the Jacobite captives.
[Sidenote: _BREAKING OUT OF NEWGATE._]
Their arrival within the walls of the latter, ill-kept gaol, was
welcomed in the usual way. Anyone detained there could eat or drink
whatever he could pay for. Gold not being wanting, dainties graced the
board, wine flowed, punch was sent round, and the banquet was not
confined to a single day. At that period, Newgate chaplains drank with
the prisoners and gallantly saw their female visitors to the outer
gate. The practical example of such reverend gentlemen was cheerfully
followed by guardians whose vigilance relaxed under the strength of
good liquor. The prisoners were now allowed indulgences beyond what
was usual. They might cool themselves after their drink, by walking
and talking, singing and planning, in the court-yard, till within an
hour of midnight. Evil came of it. On the night of the 4th, the feast
being over, nearly five dozen of the prisoners were walking about the
press-yard. Suddenly, the whole body of them made an ‘ugly rush’ at the
keeper with the keys. He was knocked down, the doors were opened, and
the prisoners swept forth to freedom. All, however, did not succeed in
gaining liberty. As the attempt was being made, soldiers and turnkeys
were alarmed. The fugitives were then driven in different directions.
Brigadier Mackintosh, his son, and seven others overcame all
opposition. They reached the street, and they were so well befriended,
or were so lucky, as to disappear at once, and to evade all pursuit.
They fled in various directions. Most of them knew where safety lay,
others trusted to chance. About fifteen more got also through the gates
into the street, but seven of them were overtaken and brought back.
Thirty others took a wrong turning, into the keeper’s house, which
was immediately entered by the soldiers who drove the whole of them
into a parlour, where the Jacobites attempted a desperate defence.
The soldiers simply fired into the flurried group. The smell of the
powder was stronger than all other argument. They yielded, were carried
within the gaol, and with the other recaptured fugitives, were not only
heavily ironed, and thrust into loathsome holes, but were treated with
exceptional brutality. This treatment was resorted to by the guardians
to compensate for their own carelessness, and to manifest their good
will for the Government.
[Sidenote: _PURSUIT._]
There was a very prevalent idea that only the richest men had escaped.
Seven of the fifteen who got into the street, but who were not so lucky
as to disappear from pursuit as quickly as Mackintosh and his son, took
a wrong turning into Warwick Court, which had no thoroughfare. As they
were returning, all bewildered, yet eager and furious, they were met by
an armed force, were driven into a corner, and there bound tightly and
escorted back to dark dungeons, heavy fetters, and a certainty of the
halter.
Mackintosh took his own method of enlargement so coolly as to lead to
the conviction that if he was helped from without, he was unobstructed
from within. Four of his companions in flight turned down Newgate
Street and were soon lost in Cheapside. The brigadier and two others
turned in an opposite direction. They ‘went softly and boldly,’ so
contemporary prints record, ‘through the Gates of Newgate, where the
Watch and Guards were set, and passed without any examination.’ It is
added that this occurred because the ‘Constables were not come to
the Watch.’ The Dogberrys were the questioners. The military guard
took into their keeping such suspicious persons as Dogberry and Verges
consigned to their ward.
[Sidenote: _HUE AND CRY._]
Who had got clear off was hardly known till the Lord Mayor and Aldermen
had come down, affrighted, to the gaol, and called over the names.
No answer of ‘here’ came from Brigadier William Mackintosh, from his
son, nor from his brother, John Mackintosh; nor from Robert Hepburn,
Charles Wogan, William Dalmahoy, Alexander Dalmahoy, John Turner, and
James Talbot. There were some others who were of minor importance, and
the deputy keeper (Pitt being a prisoner, under suspicion of favouring
the escape of Forster) took the first step towards repairing a serious
fault, by offering money for the recapture of the brigadier especially,
whose escape, it was thought, was the purchased consequence of money
cautiously invested. The brigadier, or ‘William Mackintosh, commonly
called Brigadier Mackintosh,’ was so well described in the placards set
up, in, and about London by the chief turnkey of Newgate, that we seem
to see the man clearly before us:――‘A tall, raw-boned man, about 60
Years of age, fair Complexioned, Beetle-browed, Grey Eyed, speaks broad
Scotch.’ For his recapture the sum of 200_l._ was offered by Bodenham
Rowse, the turnkey.
[Sidenote: _DOMICILIARY VISITS._]
Old Mackintosh and his son safely reached the Thames, where a boat
received them, and took them on board a vessel, from which they were
landed on the French coast. The brigadier’s brother lost his way,
and after some time, was retaken. The Jacobite bards expressed their
feelings in the words,――
――Old Mackintosh and his friends are fled,
And they’ll set the hat on another head;
And whether they are gone beyond the sea,
Or, if they abide in this country,
Tho’ the King would give ten thousand pound,
Old Mackintosh will scorn to be found.
The king, by advice of his Privy Council, proclaimed in the ‘London
Gazette’ that he expected all his loving subjects to join in
recapturing those audacious prisoners at large. The sum of 500_l._ was
to be the guerdon of him who should deliver any one of the prisoners
to the next justice of the peace,――excepting Brigadier Mackintosh. For
that noble quarry the king offered 1,000_l._
There was hot pursuit, chiefly made at hap-hazard, after the fugitives.
Any gentleman heard of in private lodgings, and keeping pretty close
within them, might reckon on having his apartments invaded by the eager
constables. A gentleman was said to be living very quietly in rooms
in St. Martin’s Lane. A group of informers and officers broke in upon
him, and found him to be Mr. Thomas Harley, the brother of the Earl
of Oxford. Now, the former gentleman had been committed to the Gate
House, and was not known to be at large. The keeper of the Gate House
entertained such a regard for his gentleman-prisoner that he allowed
him to live in private lodgings, with an understanding that he was not
to break bounds, but to be within call. This understanding was further
secured by the presence of a keeper, who probably passed as a servant.
The gaoler justified the course he had taken on the ground that the
poor gentleman was in ill-health. The authorities had nothing to say
against this clemency; but Mr. Harley was ordered back into durance.
[Sidenote: _TALBOT RECAPTURED._]
Another prisoner, the ultra-Jacobite Talbot, found a temporary asylum
in a house in Drury Lane. The Whigs styled it ‘a Popish House.’ In a
day or two he removed to a box-maker’s, in a court in Windmill Street,
at the top of the Haymarket. ‘Talbot, with the white hand,’ loved
drink, as was natural in the alleged son, though illegitimate, of
drunken Dick Talbot, once Earl of Tyrconnel, and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. Talbot and the box-maker sent so frequently for considerable
amounts of liquor, to a neighbouring tavern, that mine host expressed
his wonder to the Hebe, who fetched it, as she said, for her master and
for ‘master’s cousin.’ The cousin had come to be a lodger, she added,
but for private reasons she suspected the cousinship. This babble of
this maid-of-all-work awakened the curiosity and the cupidity of her
hearers. The escape of the prisoners, the king’s proclamation, hopes
of reward, flashed into their minds. With a couple of constables they
rushed into the presence of the thirsty tipplers, and had no difficulty
in discovering or in seizing poor Talbot. They carried him before
a Secretary of State, with whose warrant they brought him back to
Newgate. They conveyed the luckless fellow in a sort of brutal triumph.
As soon as the doors of the old prison closed behind him, Talbot was
loaded with double fetters, and was flung into the Condemned Hole,
where he had leisure to curse his outrageous thirst. His captors went
home with the complacent feeling of loyal men who had earned 500_l._ by
bringing a poor devil within reach of the halter.
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF HEPBURN OF KEITH._]
John Mackintosh, the brigadier’s brother, was suddenly come upon at
Rochester, where he had safely arrived with the intention of reaching
the coast. Messengers in search of the fugitive Jacobites were often
roughly treated by Jacobite sympathisers. The latter feigned loyalty
to King George, and pretended to see in the messengers some of the
men who had broken prison. This obstruction facilitated the escape of
several fugitives. Accident helped others, of whom Hepburn of Keith
was one. Hepburn’s wife and family lodged near Newgate. They knew of
the attempt that was to be made, and they prepared for it accordingly.
Hepburn, in the rush from prison, was encountered by a turnkey, whom he
overpowered, and he then gained the street. As he was an utter stranger
in the locality, he did not well know what direction to take. He was
afraid to ask his way lest his speech should betray him. He plunged on
therefore, but not altogether at haphazard. He went on till, on that
May night, he saw in a window a plated flagon, well known in his family
as the Keith Tankard. It was the signal that the fugitive would find
safety within. He entered without hesitation, and found himself in the
arms of his wife and children.
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