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[Illustration: _An Inner Gate._]
THE
CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE
BY
ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
MAJOR LATE 63RD REGIMENT; ONE OF H. M. INSPECTORS OF PRISONS
AUTHOR OF "THE MEMORIALS OF MILLBANK," ETC., ETC.
[Illustration]
_IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. II._
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL
(LIMITED)
1884
[_All rights reserved._]
Bungay:
CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
CONTENTS OF VOL II.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
CRIMES AND CRIMINALS 1
CHAPTER II.
NEWGATE DOWN TO 1818 66
CHAPTER III.
PHILANTHROPY IN NEWGATE 114
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEGINNINGS OF PRISON REFORM 147
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST REPORT OF THE INSPECTORS OF PRISONS 187
CHAPTER VI.
EXECUTIONS (_continued_) 231
CHAPTER VII.
NEWGATE NOTORIETIES 274
CHAPTER VIII.
NEWGATE NOTORIETIES (_continued_) 337
CHAPTER IX.
LATER RECORDS 399
CHAPTER X.
NEWGATE NOTORIETIES 430
CHAPTER XI.
NEWGATE REFORMED 475
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.
AN INNER GATE _Frontispiece_
CHARLES PRICE, _alias_ OLD PATCH 18
JUSTICE HALL IN THE OLD BAILEY _To face_ p. 36
WHIPPING AT THE OLD BAILEY " 50
REV. MR. WHITFIELD PREACHING ON KENNINGTON COMMON _To face_ p. 118
ENTRANCE TO MRS. FRY'S WARD " 143
BELLINGHAM 244
PREPARING FOR AN EXECUTION _To face_ p. 246
EXHIBITION OF BODY OF WILLIAMS " 267
CONSPIRATORS' STABLE IN CATO STREET " 281
FAUNTLEROY IN THE DOCK 297
COURVOISIER 349
EXECUTION SHED (1883) _To face_ p. 427
INTERIOR OF CHAPEL (1880) " 498
CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE.
CHAPTER I.
CRIMES AND CRIMINALS.
State of crime on opening new gaol--Newgate full--Executions very
numerous--Ruthless penal code--Forgery punished with death--Its
frequency--How fostered--Some notable forgers--The first forgery of
Bank of England notes--Gibson--Bolland--The two Perreaus--Dr.
Dodd--Charles Price, _alias_ Old Patch--Clipping still largely
practised--John Clarke hanged for it--Also William Guest, a clerk
in Bank of England--His elaborate apparatus for filing
guineas--Coining--Forty or fifty private mints for making
counterfeits--Always at work--Town and country orders regularly
executed--650 prosecutions for coining in seven years--Offences
against life and property--Streets unsafe--High roads infested by
robbers--No regular police--Inefficiency of watchmen--Assaults on
the weaker sex--Renwick Williams "the monster"--Daring Robberies at
lévees--The Duke of Beaufort robbed by gentleman Harry--George
Barrington, the gentleman thief, frequents Ranelagh, the Palace,
the Opera House--His depredations--He aids authorities to suppress
a mutiny, turns police officer and becomes chief constable of New
South Wales before he dies--Gentlemen of the road ubiquitous and
always busy--Highwaymen put down by the horse patrol--Horse patrol
described--Executions still numerous, but transportation now
adopted as a secondary punishment for lesser offenders--Some of
these described--"Long firm" swindlers--Alexander Day, _alias_
Marmaduke Davenport, Esq.--Female Sharpers--Elizabeth Grieve
pretends to sell places under the Crown--So does David James
Dignam--Traffic in places flourished in this corrupt age--Mrs.
Clarke and the Duke of York--Other forms of swindling--Jacques
defrauds Warden of the Fleet--Juvenile depravity--Increased by
committing the young to Newgate--Various youthful crimes--A girl
for sale--Prize-fighting--Writers in gaol--The North
Briton--Wilkes--The Press oppressed--Mr. Walter of the 'Times' in
Newgate--Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. John Gale Jones--William
Cobbett in Newgate--Also the Marquis of Sligo.
In the years immediately following the erection of the new gaol, crime
was once more greatly in the ascendant. After the peace which gave
independence to the United States, the country was overrun with
discharged soldiers and sailors. They were mostly in dire poverty, and
took to depredation almost as a matter of course. The calendars were
particularly heavy. At the September Sessions of the Old Bailey in 1783,
fifty-eight were convicted for capital offences. The Deputy Recorder, in
passing sentence, remarked that it gave him inexpressible pain, and that
it was truly alarming "to behold a bar so crowded with persons whose
wickedness and imprudence had induced them to commit such enormous
crimes as the laws of their country justly and necessarily punish with
death. Those laws," he added, being thoroughly imbued with the ferocious
spirit of the times, "while they are founded in equity, and executed
with lenity, (!) impartiality, and rectitude, are written in blood." The
exemplary punishment of so many failed to have a very deterrent effect.
In the December Sessions following the number of trials was greater,
although there were not so many capital convictions. Twenty-four
received sentence of death, and ninety were convicted of single
felonies. "Two such sessions," says a contemporary writer, "were never
known before in London." The same depravity, dealt with in the same
ruthless manner, prevailed throughout England. In the Lent Assizes of
1785 the judges on every circuit dealt out death with a liberal hand. At
Kingston there were twenty-one capital sentences, and nine executions.
At Lincoln twelve of the former, and at Gloucester sixteen, with, in
both cases, nine executions; seven executions at Warwick, six at Exeter,
Winchester, and Salisbury, five at Shrewsbury, and so on. The total
number of capital sentences in England alone was two hundred and
forty-two, of whom one hundred and three suffered, and only at Stafford,
Oakham, and Ludlow was there a "maiden assize," or no capital
conviction. At this date there were forty-nine persons lying in Newgate
under sentence of death, one hundred and eighty under sentence of
transportation, and prisoners of other categories, making the total
prison population up to nearly six hundred souls.
Speaking of those times, Mr. Townshend, a veteran Bow Street runner, in
his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1816,[1] declared that
in the years 1781-7 as many as twelve, sixteen, or twenty were hanged
at one execution; twice he saw forty hanged at one time. In 1783 there
were twenty at two consecutive executions. He had known, he said, as
many as two hundred and twenty tried at one sessions. He had himself
obtained convictions of from thirteen to twenty-five for returning from
transportation. Upon the same authority we are told that in 1783 the
Secretary of State advised the King to punish with all severity. The
enormity of the offences was so great, says Mr. Townshend, and "plunder
had got to such an alarming pitch," that a letter was circulated among
judges and recorders then sitting, to the effect that His Majesty would
dispense with the recorders' reports, and that the worst criminals
should be picked out and at once ordered for execution.
The penal code was at this period still ruthlessly severe. There were
some two hundred capital felonies upon the statute book. Almost any
member of parliament eager to do his share in legislation could "create
a capital felony." A story is told of Edmund Burke, that he was leaving
his house one day in a hurry, when a messenger called him back on a
matter which would not detain him a minute: "Only a felony without
benefit of clergy." Burke also told Sir James Mackintosh, that although
scarcely entitled to ask a favour of the ministry, he thought he had
influence enough to create a capital felony.[2] It is true that of the
two hundred, not more than five-and-twenty sorts of felonies actually
entailed execution. It is true too that some of the most outrageous and
ridiculous reasons for its infliction had disappeared. It was no longer
death to take a falcon's egg from the nest, nor was it a hanging matter
to be thrice guilty of exporting live sheep. But a man's life was still
appraised at five shillings. Stealing from the person, or in a dwelling,
or in a shop, or on a navigable river, to that amount, was punished with
death. "I think it not right nor justice," wrote Sir Thomas More in
1516, "that the loss of money should cause the loss of man's life; for
mine opinion is that all the goods in the world are not able to
countervail man's life." Three hundred years was still to pass before
the strenuous efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly bore fruit in the
amelioration of the penal code. In 1810 he carried a bill through the
House of Commons, which was, however, rejected by the Lords, to abolish
capital punishment for stealing to the amount of five shillings in a
shop. His most bitter opponents were the great lawyers of the times,
Lords Ellenborough, Eldon, and others, Lords Chancellors and Lords Chief
Justice, who opposed dangerous innovations, and viewed with dismay any
attempt "to alter laws which a century had proved to be necessary." Lord
Eldon on this occasion said that he was firmly convinced of the wisdom
of the principles and practice of our criminal code. Romilly did not
live to see the triumph of his philanthropic endeavours. He failed to
procure the repeal of the cruel laws against which he raised his voice,
but he stopped the hateful legislation which multiplied capital felonies
year by year, and his illustrious example found many imitators. Within a
few years milder and more humane ideas very generally prevailed. In 1837
the number of offences to which the extreme penalty could be applied was
only seven, and in that year only eight persons were executed, all of
them for murders of an atrocious character.[3]
Forgery, at the period of which I am now treating, was an offence
especially repugnant to the law. No one guilty of it could hope to
escape the gallows. The punishment was so certain, that as milder
principles gained ground, many benevolent persons gladly withdrew from
prosecution where they could. Instances were known in which bankers and
other opulent people compromised with the delinquent rather than be
responsible for taking away a fellow-creature's life.[4] The prosecutor
would sometimes pretend his pockets had been picked of the forged
instrument, or he destroyed it, or refused to produce it. An important
witness sometimes kept out of the way. Persons have gone so far as to
meet forged bills of exchange, and to a large amount. In one case it was
pretty certain they would not have advanced the money had the punishment
been short of death, because the culprit had already behaved
disgracefully, and they had no desire he should escape a lesser
retribution. Prosecutors have forfeited their recognizances sooner than
appear, and have even, when duly sworn, withheld a portion of their
testimony.
But at the time of which I am now writing the law generally took its
course. In the years between 1805 and 1818 there had been two hundred
and seven executions for forgery; more than for either murder, burglary,
or robbery from the person. It may be remarked here that the Bank of
England was by far the most bitter and implacable as regards
prosecutions for forgery. Of the above-mentioned two hundred and seven
executions for this crime, no less than seventy-two were the victims of
proceedings instituted by the Bank. Forgeries upon this great monetary
corporation had been much more frequent since the stoppage of specie
payments, which had been decreed by Parliament in 1797 to save the Bank
from collapse. Alarms of invasion had produced such a run upon it, that
on one particular day little more than a million in cash or bullion
remained in the cellars, which had already been drained of specie for
foreign subsidies and subventions. Following the cessation of cash
payments to redeem its paper in circulation, the Bank had commenced the
issue of notes to the value of less than five pounds, and it was soon
found that these, especially the one-pound notes, were repeatedly
forged. In the eight years preceding 1797 but few prosecutions had been
instituted by the Bank; but in the eight immediately following there
were one hundred and forty-six convictions for the offence. At last,
about 1818, a strong and general feeling of dissatisfaction grew rife
against these prosecutions. The crime had continued steadily to
increase, in spite of the awful penalties conviction entailed. It was
proved, moreover, that note forgery was easily accomplished. Detection,
too, was most difficult. The public were unable to distinguish between
the good and bad notes. Bank officials were themselves often deceived,
and cases were known where the clerks had refused payment of the genuine
article. Juries began to decline to convict on the evidence of
inspectors and clerks, unless substantiated by the revelation of the
private mark, a highly inconvenient practice, which the Bank itself
naturally discountenanced. Efforts were made to improve the quality of
the note, so as to defy imitation; but this could not well be done at
the price, and, as the only effective remedy, specie payments were
resumed, and the one-pound note withdrawn from circulation.[5] But
execution for forgery continued to be the law for many more years.
Fauntleroy suffered for it in 1824;[6] Joseph Hunton, the Quaker
linen-draper, in 1828; and Maynard, the last, in the following year.
I am, however, anticipating somewhat, and must retrace my steps, and
indicate briefly one or two of the early forgers who passed through
Newgate and suffered for the crime. The first case I find recorded is
that of Richard Vaughan, a linen-draper of Stafford, who was committed
to Newgate in March, 1758, for counterfeiting Bank of England notes. He
employed several artists to engrave the notes in various parts, one of
whom informed against him. The value of the note he himself added.
Twenty which he had thus filled up he had deposited in the hands of a
young lady to whom he was paying his addresses, as a guarantee of his
wealth. Vaughan no doubt suffered, although I see no record of the fact
in the Newgate Calendar.
Mr. Gibson's was a curious case. He was a prisoner in Newgate for
eighteen months between conviction and execution, the jury having found
a special verdict, subject to the determination of the twelve judges. As
Gibson remained so long in gaol, it was the general opinion that no
further notice would be taken of the case. The prisoner himself must
have been buoyed up with this hope, as he petitioned repeatedly for
judgment. He had been sentenced in Sept. 1766, and in 1768, at Hilary
Term, the judges decided that his crime came within the meaning of the
law. Gibson had been a solicitor's clerk, who gave so much satisfaction
that he was taken into partnership. The firm was doing a large business,
and among other large affairs was intrusted with a Chancery case,
respecting an estate for which an _ad interim_ receiver had been
appointed. Gibson's way of life was immoral and extravagant. He had
urgent need of funds, and in an evil hour he forged the signature of the
Accountant-General to the Court of Chancery, and so obtained possession
of some of the rents of the above-mentioned estate. The fraud was
presently discovered; Gibson was arrested, and eventually, as already
stated, condemned. "After sentence," says the Calendar, "his behaviour
was in every way becoming his awful situation; ... he appeared rational,
serious, and devout. His behaviour was so pious, so resigned, and in all
respects so admirably adapted to his unhappy situation, that the tears
of the commiserating multitude accompanied his last ejaculation. He was
carried to execution in a mourning coach," an especial honour reserved
for malefactors of aristocratic antecedents and gentle birth.
James Bolland, who was executed in 1772, deserved and certainly obtained
less sympathy. Bolland long filled the post of a sheriff's officer, and
as such became the lessee of a spunging-house, where he practised
boundless extortion. He was a man of profligate life, whose means never
equalled his extravagant self-indulgence, and he was put to all manner
of shifts to get money. More than once he arrested debtors, was paid all
claims in full, and appropriated the money to his own use, yet escaped
due retribution for his fraud. He employed bullies, spies, and indigent
attorneys to second his efforts, some of whom were arrested and
convicted of other crimes with the clothes Bolland provided them still
on their backs. His character was so infamous, that when he purchased
the situation of upper city marshal for £2400, the court of aldermen
would not approve of the appointment. He tried also to succeed to a
vacancy as Sergeant-at-mace, and met with the same objection. The
deposit-money paid over in both these affairs was attached by his
sureties, and he was driven to great necessities for funds. When called
upon to redeem a note of hand he had given, he pleaded that he was short
of cash, and offered another man's bill, which, however, was refused
unless endorsed. Bolland then proceeded to endorse it with his own name,
but it was declared unnegotiable, owing to the villanous character it
bore. Whereupon Bolland erased all the letters after the capital, and
substituted the letters "anks," the name of Banks being that of a
respectable victualler of Rathbone Place, in a large way of trade. When
the bill became due, Banks repudiated his signature, and Bolland, who
sought too late to meet it and hush up the affair, was arrested for the
forgery. He was tried and executed in due course.
The case of the twin brothers Perreau in 1776 was long the talk of the
town. It evoked much public sympathy, as they were deemed to be the
dupes of a certain Mrs. Rudd, who lived with Daniel Perreau, and passed
as his wife. Daniel was a man of reputed good means, with a house in
Harley Street, which he kept up well. His brother, Robert Perreau, was a
surgeon enjoying a large practice, and residing in Golden Square. The
forged deed was a bond for £7500, purporting to be signed by William
Adair, a well-known agent. Daniel Perreau handed this to Robert Drummond
Perreau, who carried it to the Bank, where its validity was questioned,
and the brothers, with Mrs. Rudd, were arrested on suspicion of forgery.
Daniel on his trial solemnly declared that he had received the
instrument from Mrs. Rudd; Robert's defence was that he had no notion
the document was forged. Both were, however, convicted of knowingly
uttering the counterfeit bond. It was, however, found impossible to
prove Mrs. Rudd's complicity in the transaction, and she was acquitted.
The general feeling was, however, so strong that she was the guilty
person, that the unfortunate Perreaus became a centre of interest.
Strenuous efforts were made to obtain a reprieve for them. Robert
Perreau's wife went in deep mourning, accompanied by her three children,
to sue for pardon on their knees from the Queen. Seventy-two leading
bankers and merchants signed a petition in his favour, which was
presented to the King two days before the execution. But all to no
purpose. Both brothers suffered the extreme penalty at Tyburn on the
17th January, 1776, before an enormous multitude estimated at 30,000.
They asserted their innocence to the last.
In the following year a clergyman, who had at one time achieved some
eminence, also fell a victim to the vindictive laws regarding forgery.
Dr. Dodd was the son of a clergyman. He had been a wrangler at
Cambridge, and was early known as a litterateur of some repute. While
still on his promotion, and leading a gay life in London, he made a
foolish marriage, and united himself to the daughter of one of Sir John
Dolben's servants, a young lady largely endowed with personal
attractions, but certainly deficient in birth and fortune. This sobered
him, and he took orders in the year that his 'Beauties of Shakespeare'
was published. He became a zealous curate at West Ham; thence he went to
St. James', Garlick Hill, and took an active part in London church and
charitable work. He was one of the promoters of the Magdalen Hospital,
also of the Humane Society, and in 1763, twelve years after ordination,
he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the King. About the same time
he was presented to a prebend's stall in Brecon Cathedral, and was
recommended to Lord Chesterfield as tutor to his son. He hoped to
succeed to the rectory of West Ham, but being disappointed he now came
to London, and launched out into extravagance. He had a town house, and
a country house at Ealing, and he exchanged his chariot for a coach.
Having won a prize of £1000 in a lottery, he became interested in two
proprietary chapels, but could not make them pay. But just then he was
presented with a living, that of Hockliffe, in Bedfordshire, which he
held with the vicarage of Chalgrove, and his means were still ample.
They were not sufficient, however, for his expenditure, and in an evil
moment he attempted to obtain the valuable cure of St. George's,
Hanover Square, by back-stair influence. The living was in the gift of
the Crown, and Dodd was so ill advised as to write to a great lady at
Court, offering her £3000 if he were presented. The letter was forthwith
passed on to the Lord Chancellor, and the King, George III., hearing
what had happened, ordered Dr. Dodd's name to be struck off the list of
his chaplains. The story was made public, and Dodd was satirized in the
press and on the stage.
Dodd was now greatly encumbered by debts, from which the presentation to
a third living, that of Winge, in Buckinghamshire, could not relieve
him. He was in such straits that, according to his biographer, "he
descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper," and he tried
to obtain relief in bankruptcy, but failed. At length, so sorely pressed
was he by creditors that he resolved to do a dishonest deed. He forged
the name of his old pupil, now Lord Chesterfield, who had since become
his patron, to a bond for £4200. He applied to certain usurers, in the
name of a young nobleman who was seeking an advance. The business was
refused by many, because Dr. Dodd declared that they could not be
present at the execution of the bond. A Mr. Robertson proved more
obliging, and to him Dr. Dodd, in due course, handed a bond for £4200
executed by Lord Chesterfield, and witnessed by himself. A second
witness being necessary, Mr. Robertson signed his name beneath Dr.
Dodd's. The bond was no sooner presented for payment, and referred to
Lord Chesterfield, than it was repudiated. Robertson was forthwith
arrested, and soon afterwards Dr. Dodd. The latter at once, in the hope
of saving himself, returned £3000; he gave a cheque upon his bankers for
£700, a bill of sale on his furniture worth £400 more, and the whole sum
was made up by another hundred from the brokers. Nevertheless Dr. Dodd
was taken before the Lord Mayor and charged with the forgery. Lord
Chesterfield would not stir a finger to help his old tutor, although the
poor wretch had made full restitution. Dr. Dodd, when arraigned,
declared that he had no intention to defraud, that he had only executed
the bond as a temporary resource to meet some pressing claims. The jury
after consulting only five minutes found him guilty, and he was
regularly sentenced to death. Still greater exertions were made to
obtain a reprieve for Dr. Dodd than in the case of the Perreaus. The
newspapers were filled with letters pleading for him. All classes of
people strove to help him; the parish officers went in mourning from
house to house, asking subscriptions to get up a petition to the King,
and this petition, when eventually drafted, filled twenty-three skins of
parchment. Petitions from Dodd and his wife, both drawn up by Dr.
Johnson, were laid before the King and Queen. Even the Lord Mayor and
Common Council went in a body to St. James's Palace to beg mercy from
the King. As, however, clemency had been denied to the Perreaus, it was
deemed unadvisable to extend it to Dr. Dodd.[7] The concourse at his
execution, which took place at Tyburn, was immense. It has been stated
erroneously that Dr. Dodd preached his own funeral sermon. He only
delivered an address to his fellow-prisoners in the prison chapel by the
permission of Mr. Villette, the ordinary. The text he chose was Psalm
li. 3, "I acknowledge my faults; and my sin is ever before me." It was
delivered some three weeks before the Doctor's execution, and
subsequently printed. It is a curious fact that among other published
works of Dr. Dodd, is a sermon on the injustice of capital punishments.
He was, however, himself the chief witness against a highwayman, who was
hanged for stopping him. Among other spectators at the execution of Dr.
Dodd was the Rev. James Hackman, who afterwards murdered Miss Reay.[8]
It is said that a scheme was devised to procure Dodd's escape from
Newgate. He was treated with much consideration by Mr. Akerman, allowed
to have books, papers, and a reading-desk. Food and other necessaries
were brought him from outside by a female servant daily. This woman was
found to bear a striking resemblance to the Doctor, which was the more
marked when she was dressed up in a wig and gown. She was asked if she
would co-operate in a scheme for taking the Doctor's place in gaol, and
consented. It was arranged that on a certain day, Dr. Dodd's irons
having been previously filed, he was to change clothes with the woman.
She was to seat herself at the reading-desk while Dr. Dodd, carrying a
bundle under his arm, coolly walked out of the prison. The plan would
probably have succeeded, but Dodd would not be a party to it. He was so
buoyed up with the hope of reprieve that he would not risk the
misconstruction which would have been placed upon the attempt to escape
had it failed. In his own profession Dr. Dodd was not very highly
esteemed. Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, is said to have observed that
Dodd deserved pity, because he was hanged for the least crime he had
committed.
One of the most notorious depredators in this line, whose operations
long eluded detection, was Charles Price, commonly called Old Patch. He
forged bank-notes wholesale. His plans were laid with the utmost
astuteness, and he took extraordinary precautions to avoid discovery. He
did everything for himself; made his own paper, with the proper
water-mark, engraved his own plates, and manufactured his own ink. His
method of negotiating the forged notes was most artful. He had three
homes; at one he was Price, properly married, at a second he lived
under
[Illustration: CHARLES PRICE, _alias_ OLD PATCH.]
another name with a woman who helped him in his schemes, at a third he
did the actual business of passing his notes. This business was always
effected in disguise; none of his agents or instruments saw him except
in disguise, and when his work was over he put it off to return home.
One favourite personation of his was that of an infirm old man, wearing
a long black camlet cloak, with a broad cape fastened up close to his
chin. With this he wore a big, broad-brimmed slouch hat, and often green
spectacles or a green shade. Sometimes his mouth was covered up with red
flannel, or his corpulent legs and gouty feet were swathed in flannel.
His natural appearance as Price was a compact middle-aged man, inclined
to stoutness, erect, active, and not bad-looking, with a beaky nose,
keen grey eyes, and a nutcracker chin. His schemes were very ingenious.
On one occasion he pretended, in one disguise, to expose a swindler
(himself in another disguise), whom a respectable city merchant
inveigled into his house in order to give him up to the police. The
swindler proposed to buy himself off for £500; the offer was accepted,
the money paid by a thousand-pound note, for which the swindler got
change. The note, of course, was forged. He victimized numbers of
tradesmen. Disguised as an old man, he passed six forged fifty-pound
notes on a grocer, and then as Price backed up his victim in an action
brought against the bank which refused payment of the counterfeits. But
his cleverest coup was that organized against the lottery offices.
Having in one of his disguises engaged a boy to serve him, he sent the
lad, dressed in livery, round the town to buy lottery tickets, paying
for them in large (forged) notes, for which change was always required.
By these means hundreds and hundreds of pounds were obtained upon the
counterfeits. The boy was presently arrested, and a clever plot was laid
to nab the old man his master, but Price by his vigilance outwitted the
police. Another dodge was to hire boys to take forged notes to the Bank,
receive the tickets from the teller, and carry them back to him (Price).
He forthwith altered the figures, passed them on by the same messenger
to the Bank cashier, and obtained payment for the larger amount.
These wholesale forgeries produced something like consternation at the
Bank. It was supposed that they were executed by a large gang, well
organized and with numerous ramifications, although Price, as I have
said, really worked single-handed. The notes poured in day after day,
and still no clue was obtained as to the culprits. The Bow Street
officials were hopelessly at fault. "Old Patch" was advertised for,
described in his various garbs. It was now discovered that he had a
female accomplice. This was a Mrs. Poultney, alias Hickeringill, his
wife's aunt, a tall, rather genteel woman of thirty, with a downcast
look, thin face and person, light hair, and pitted with the small-pox.
Fate at last unexpectedly overtook Old Patch. One of many endorsements
upon a forged note was traced to a pawnbroker, who remembered to have
had the note from one Powel. The runners suspected that Powel was Price,
and that he was a member of Old Patch's gang. A watch was set at the
pawnbroker's, and the next time Powel called he was arrested, identified
as Price, searched, and found to have upon his person a large number of
notes, with a quantity of white tissue-paper, which he declared he had
bought to make into air-balloons for his children. Price was committed
to prison, and a close inquiry made into his antecedents. He was found
to be the man who had decoyed Foote the actor into a partnership in a
brewery, and decamped with the profits, leaving Foote to pay liabilities
to the extent of £500. Then, he had started an illicit still, and had
been arrested and sent to Newgate till he had paid a fine of £1600. He
was released through the intercession of Lord Littleton and Foote, and
forgiven the fine. He next set up as a fraudulent lottery office keeper,
and bolted with a big prize. After this he elaborated his system of
forgery, which ended in the way I have said. Price was alert and cunning
to the last. One of his first acts was to pass out a clandestine letter
to Mrs. Poultney, briefly telling her to "destroy everything." This she
effected by burning the whole of his disguises in the kitchen fire, on
the pretence that the clothes were infected by the plague. The engraving
press was disposed of; the copper plates heated red hot, then smashed
into pieces and thrown with the water-mark wires on to a neighbouring
dust-heap, where they were subsequently discovered. Price attempted to
deny his identity, but to no purpose, and when he saw the grip of the
law tightening upon him, he committed suicide to avoid the extreme
penalty. He was found hanging behind the door of his cell, suspended
from two hat-screws, strengthened by gimlets. Price's depredations, it
was said, amounted to £200,000; but how he disposed of his ill-gotten
gains, seeing that he always lived obscurely, and neither gambled nor
drank, remained an inscrutable secret to the last.
Two deliberate cases of forging Bank of England notes about this time
may be mentioned, although neither of the criminals passed through
Newgate. One was James Elliot, who suffered at Maidstone in 1777, the
other Joshua Crompton, who was executed at Gangley Green, near
Guildford, in 1778.
The circulation of counterfeit paper was not the only kind of monetary
fraud in vogue. The coinage of the realm still suffered. Clipping could
not be quite put down by act of Parliament. The punishment was still
capital, and generally inflicted without hope of reprieve. It was a
crime affected more particularly by workers in the precious metals. Thus
John Clarke, in 1767, was a London watch-case maker of good repute, who
was in the habit of working alone in a private closet. His apprentice,
jealously suspecting him to be engaged in some secret branch of his
trade, bored a hole through the wainscot, and caught his master filing
guineas. The apprentice immediately informed; Clarke was arrested,
convicted, and soon afterwards hanged.
Persons in a higher station, however, succumbed to special temptations.
William Guest was the son of a clergyman living at Worcester, who had
sufficient interest to get him a clerkship in the Bank of England. The
constant handling of piles of gold was too much for Guest's integrity,
and he presently resolved to turn his opportunities to account. Taking a
house in Broad Street Buildings, he devoted the upper part of it to his
nefarious trade. He abstracted guineas from his drawer in the Bank,
carried them home, filed them, then remilled them in a machine he had
designed for the purpose, and returned them--now light weight--to the
Bank. The filings he converted into ingots and disposed of to the
trade. No suspicion of his malpractices transpiring, he was in due
course advanced to the post of teller. But a fellow-teller having
observed him one day picking out new guineas from a bag, watched him,
and found that he did this constantly. On another occasion he was seen
to pay away guineas some of which, on examination, proved to have been
recently filed. They were weighed, and found short weight. To test Mr.
Guest still further, his money-bags were opened one night after hours,
and the contents counted and examined. The number was short, and several
guineas found which appeared to have been recently filed, and which on
weighing proved to be light.
A descent was forthwith made upon Guest's house, and in the upper rooms
the whole apparatus for filing was laid bare. In a nest of drawers were
found vice, files, the milling machine, two bags of gold filings, and a
hundred guineas. A flap in front of the nest of drawers could be let
down, and inside was a skin fastened to the back of the flap, with a
hole in it to button on to the waistcoat, and equip the workman after
the method of jewellers. More evidence was soon forthcoming against
Guest. His fellow-teller had seen him in possession of a substantial bar
of gold; jewellers and others swore to having bought ingots from him,
and an assayer at Guest's trial deposed to their being of the same
standard as the guinea coinage. His guilt was clearly made out to the
jury, and he was sentenced to death. A petition signed by a number of
influential persons was forwarded to the Crown, praying for mercy, but
it was decided that the law ought to take its course. As his crime
amounted to high treason, he went to Tyburn on a sledge, but he suffered
no other penalty than hanging.
The flagitious trade of coining was in a most flourishing condition
during the last decades of the eighteenth and the early part of the
nineteenth centuries. The condition of the national coinage was at this
time far from creditable to the Mint. A great part of both the silver
and copper money in circulation was much worn and defaced. Imitation
thus became much easier than with coins comparatively fresh and new.
Hence the nefarious practice multiplied exceedingly. There were as many
as forty or fifty private mints constantly at work, either in London or
in the principal country towns. The process was rapid, not too
laborious, and extremely profitable. A couple of hands could turn out in
a week base silver coins worth nominally two or three hundred pounds.
The wages of a good workman were as much as a couple of guineas a day.
Much capital was invested by large dealers in the trade, who must have
made enormous sums. One admitted that his transactions in seven years
amounted to the production of £200,000 in counterfeit half-crowns and
other silver coins. So systematic was the traffic, that orders for town
and country were regularly executed by the various manufacturers. Boxes
and parcels of base coin were despatched every morning by coach and
waggon to all parts of the kingdom, like any other goods. The trade
extended to foreign countries.[9] The law, until it was rectified by the
37 Geo. III. cap. 126, did not punish the counterfeiting of foreign
money, and French louis-d'or, Spanish dollars, German florins, and
Turkish sequins were shipped abroad in great quantities. Our Indian
possessions even did not escape, and a manufactory of spurious gold or
silver pagodas was at one time most active in London, whence they were
exported to the East. The number of persons employed in London as
capitalists and agents for distribution alone amounted to one hundred
and twenty at one time; and besides there was a strong force of skilful
handicraftsmen, backed up by a whole army of "utterers" or "smashers,"
constantly busy in passing the base money into the currency. The latter
comprised hawkers, peddlers, market-women, hackney-coach drivers, all of
whom attended the markets held by the dealers in the manufactured
article, and bought wholesale to distribute retail by various devices,
more particularly in giving change. They obtained the goods at an
advantage of about one hundred per cent. When the base money lost its
veneer, the dealers were ready to repurchase it in gross, and after a
repetition of the treatment, issue it afresh at the old rates.
Gold coins were not so much counterfeited as silver and copper, but
there were bad guineas in circulation. The most dexterous method of
coining them was by mixing a certain amount of alloy with the pure
metal. They were the proper weight, and had some semblance of the true
ring, but their intrinsic value was not more than thirteen or fourteen
shillings, perhaps only eight or nine. The fabrication was, however,
limited by the expense and the nicety required in the process. To
counterfeit silver was a simpler operation. Of base silver money there
were five kinds; viz. flats, plated goods, plain goods, castings, and
fig things. The _flats_ were cut out of prepared flattened plates
composed of silver and blanched copper. When cut out the coins were
turned in a lathe, stamped in a press with the proper die, and subjected
to rubbing with various materials, including aquafortis to bring the
silver to the surface, sand-paper, cork, cream of tartar, and last of
all blacking to give the appearance of age. _Plated goods_ were prepared
from copper; the coins cut the proper size and plated, the stamping
being done afterwards. As these coins were most like silver, they
generally evaded detection. _Plain goods_ consisted of copper blanks the
size of a shilling, turned out from a lathe, then given the colour and
lustre of metal buttons, after which they were rubbed with cream of
tartar and blacking. _Castings_, as the word implies, were coins made of
blanched copper, cast in moulds of the proper die; they were then
silvered and treated like the rest. It was very common to give this
class of base money a crooked appearance, by which means they seemed
genuine, and got into circulation without suspicion. The _figs_, or
_fig things_, were the lowest and meanest class, and was confined
chiefly to sixpences. Copper counterfeit money was principally of two
kinds, stamped and plain, made out of base metal; the profit on them
being about a hundred per cent. They were mostly halfpennies; but
farthings were also largely manufactured, the material being real
copper, but the fraud was in their being of light weight, and very thin.
The prosecutions for coining were very numerous. The register of the
solicitor to the Mint recorded as many as 650 in a period of seven
years. The offence of making or uttering, till a very recent date,
constituted petty treason, and met with the usual penalties. These, in
the case of female offenders, included hanging and burning at a stake.
The last woman who suffered in this way was burnt before the debtors'
door, in front of Newgate, in 1788, having been previously strangled. In
the following year, as I have already said, the 30 Geo. III. cap. 48 was
passed, which abolished the practice of burning women convicted of petty
treason.[10] Persons guilty of only selling or dealing in base money
were more leniently dealt with. The offence was long only a
misdemeanour, carrying with it a sentence of imprisonment for a year and
a day, which the culprit passed not unpleasantly in Newgate, while his
friends or relations kept the business going outside, and supplied him
regularly with ample funds.
There was as yet little security for life and property in town or
country. The streets of London were still unsafe; high roads and bye
roads leading to it were still infested by highway robbers. The
protection afforded to the public by the police continued very
inefficient. It was still limited to parochial effort; the watchmen were
appointed by the vestries, and received a bare pittance,--twelve and
sixpence a week in summer, seventeen and sixpence in winter,--which they
often eked out by taking bribes from the women of the town, or by a
share in a burglar's "swag," to whose doings they were conveniently
blind. These watchmen were generally middle-aged, often old and feeble
men, who were appointed either from charitable motives, to give them
employment, or save them from being inmates of the workhouse and a
burthen to the parish. Their hours of duty were long, from night-fall to
sunrise, during which, when so disposed, they patrolled the streets,
calling the hour, the only check on their vigilance being the occasional
rounds of the parish beadle, who visited the watchmen on their various
beats. In spite of this the watchmen were often invisible; not to be
found when most wanted, and even when present, powerless to arrest or
make head against disorderly or evilly-disposed persons.
Besides the watchmen there were the parish constables, nominated by the
court of burgesses, or court leet. The obligation of serving in the
office of constable might fall upon any householder in turn, but he was
at liberty to escape it by buying a substitute or purchasing a "Tyburn
ticket," of which more directly. The parish constables were concerned
with pursuit rather than prevention, with crime after rather than before
the fact. In this duty they were assisted by the police constables,
although there was no love lost between the two classes of officer. The
police constables are most familiar to us under the name of "Bow Street
runners," but they were attached to all the police offices, and not to
Bow Street alone. They were nominated from Whitehall by the Secretary of
State, the minister now best known as the Home Secretary. The duties of
the "runners" were mainly those of detection and pursuit, in which they
were engaged in London and in the country, at home and abroad.
Individuals or public bodies applied to Bow Street, or some other
office, for the services of a runner. These officers took charge of
poaching cases, of murders, burglaries, or highway robberies. Some were
constantly on duty at the Court, as depredations were frequently
committed in the royal palaces, or the royal family were "teased by
lunatics." The runners were remunerated by a regular salary of a guinea
a week; but special services might be recognized by a share in the
private reward offered, or, in case of conviction, by a portion of the
public parliamentary reward of £40, which might be granted by the
bench.[11]
The policy of making these grants was considered questionable. It tended
to tempt officers of justice "to forswear themselves for the lucre of
the reward," and the thirst for "blood-money," as it was called, was
aggravated till it led many to sell the lives of their fellow-creatures
for gain. There were numerous cases of this. Jonathan Wild was one of
the most notorious of the dishonest thief-takers. In 1755 several
scoundrels of the same kidney were convicted of having obtained the
conviction of innocent people, simply to pocket the reward. Their
offence did not give under penal statute, so they were merely exposed in
the pillory, where, however, the mob pelted one to death and nearly
killed another. Again, in 1816, a police officer named Vaughan was
guilty of inciting to crime, in order to betray his victims and receive
the blood-money. On the other hand, when conviction was doubtful the
offender enjoyed long immunity from arrest. Officers would not arrest
him until he "weighed his weight," as the saying was, or until they were
certain of securing the £40 reward. Another form of remuneration was the
bestowal on conviction of a "Tyburn ticket"; in other words, of an
exemption from service in parish offices. This the officer sold for what
it would fetch, the price varying in different parishes from £12 or £14
to £30 or £40.
It was not to be wondered at that a weak and inadequate police force,
backed up by such uncertain and injudicious incentives to activity,
should generally come off second-best in its struggles with the
hydra-headed criminality of the day. Robberies and burglaries were
committed almost under the eyes of the police. It was calculated that
the value of the property stolen in the city in one month (_circa_ 1808)
amounted to £15,000, and none of the parties were even known or
apprehended, although sought after night and day.[12] Such cases as the
following were of frequent occurrence. "Seven ruffians, about eight
o'clock at night, knocked at the door of Mrs. Abercrombie in Charlotte
Street, Rathbone Place, calling out 'Post!' and on its being opened,
rushed in and took from Mrs. A. her jewels and fifty or sixty guineas in
money, with all the clothes and linen they could get. The neighbourhood
was alarmed, and a great crowd assembled, but the robbers sallied forth,
and with swords drawn and pistols presented, threatened destruction to
any who opposed them. The mob tamely suffered them to escape with their
booty without making any resistance." The officers of justice were
openly defied. There were streets, such as Duck Lane, Gravel Lane, or
Cock Lane, in which it was unsafe for any one to venture without an
escort of five or six of his fellows. "They (the ruffians) would have
cut him to pieces if he was alone."
Still more dastardly were the wanton outrages perpetrated upon
unprotected females, often in broad daylight, and in the public streets.
These at one time increased to an alarming extent. Ladies were attacked
and wounded without warning, and apparently without cause. The injuries
were often most serious. On one occasion a young lady was stabbed in the
face by means of an instrument concealed in a bouquet of flowers which a
ruffian had begged her to smell. When consternation was greatest,
however, it was reported that the cowardly assailant was in custody. He
proved to be one Renwick Williams, now generally remembered as "the
monster." The assault for which he was arrested was made in St. James's
Street, about midnight, upon a young lady, Miss Porter, who was
returning from a ball to her father's house. Renwick struck at her with
a knife, and wounded her badly through her clothes, accompanying the
blow with the grossest language. The villain at the time escaped, but
Miss Porter recognized him six months later in St. James's Park. He was
followed by a Mr. Coleman to his quarters at No. 52, Jermyn Street, and
brought to Miss Porter's house. The young lady, crying "That is the
wretch!" fainted away at the sight of him. The prisoner indignantly
repudiated that he was "the monster" who was advertised for, but he was
indicted at the Old Bailey, and the jury found him guilty without
hesitation. His sentence was two years' imprisonment in Newgate, and he
was bound over in £400 to be of good behaviour.
Gentlemen, some of the highest station, going or returning from court,
were often the victims of the depredations committed in the royal
precincts. In 1792 a gang of thieves dressed in court suits smuggled
themselves into a drawing-room of St. James's Palace, and tried to
hustle and rob the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Beaufort, returning from
a levee, had his "George," pendant to his ribbon of the Garter, stolen
from him in the yard of St. James's Palace. The order was set with
brilliants, worth a very large sum of money. The duke called out to his
servants, who came up and seized a gentlemanly man dressed in black
standing near. The "George" was found in this gentleman's pocket. He
proved to be one Henry Sterne, commonly called Gentleman Harry,[13] who,
being of good address and genteel appearance, easily got admission to
the best company, upon whom he levied his contributions.
George Barrington, the notorious pickpocket, also found it to his
advantage to attend levees and drawing-rooms. Barrington, or Waldron,
which was his real name, began crime early. When one of a strolling
company in Ireland, he recruited the empty theatrical treasury and
supplemented meagre receipts by stealing watches and purses, the
proceeds being divided among the rest of the actors. He found thieving
so much more profitable than acting that he abandoned the latter in
favour of the former profession, and set up as a gentleman pickpocket.
Having worked Dublin well, his native land became too hot to hold him,
and came to London. At Ranelagh one night he relieved both the Duke of
Leinster and Sir William Draper of considerable sums. He visited also
the principal watering places, including Bath, but London was his
favourite hunting-ground. Disguised as a clergyman, he went to court on
drawing-room days, and picked pockets or removed stars and decorations
from the breasts of their wearers. At Covent Garden Theatre one night he
stole a gold snuff-box set with brilliants, and worth £30,000, belonging
to Prince Orloff, of which there had been much talk, and which, with
other celebrated jewels, Barrington had long coveted. The Russian prince
felt the thief's hand in his pocket, and immediately seized Barrington
by the throat, on which the latter slipped back the snuff-box. But
Barrington was arrested and committed for trial, escaping this time
because Prince Orloff would not prosecute. He was, however, again
arrested for picking a pocket in Drury Lane Theatre, and sentenced to
three years' hard labour on board the hulks in the Thames.
From this he was released prematurely through the good offices of a
gentleman who pitied him, only to be reimprisoned, but in Newgate, not
the hulks, for fresh robberies at the Opera House, Pantheon, and other
places of public resort. Once more released, he betook himself to his
old evil courses, and having narrowly escaped capture in London,
wandered through the northern counties in various disguises, till he was
at length taken at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Another narrow escape followed,
through the absence of a material witness; but he was finally arrested
for picking a pocket on Epsom Downs, and sentenced to seven years'
transportation. He made an affecting speech at his trial, urging, in
extenuation of his offence, that he had never had a fair chance of
earning an honest livelihood. He may have been sincere, and he certainly
took the first opportunity of trying to do well. On the voyage out to
New South Wales there was a mutiny on board the convict ship, which
would have been successful but for Barrington's aid on the side of
authority. He kept the passage to the quarter-deck single-handed, and
the mob of convicts at bay with a marline-spike, till the captain and
crew were able to get arms and make head against the revolt. As a reward
for his conduct, Barrington was appointed to a position of trust, in
charge of other prisoners at Paramatta. Within a year or two he was
advanced to the more onerous and responsible post of chief constable,
and was complimented by the governor of the colony for his faithful
performance of the duty. He fell away in health, however, and retiring
eventually upon a small pension, died before he was fifty years of age.
The gentlemen of the highway continued to harass and rob all travellers.
All the roads were infested. Two or three would be heard of every
morning; some on Hounslow Heath, some on Finchley Common, some on
Wimbledon Common, some on the Romford Road. Townshend, the Bow Street
runner, declared that on arriving at the office of a morning people came
in one after the other to give information of such robberies. "Messrs.
Mellish, Bosanquet, and Pole, merchants of the city," says a
contemporary chronicle, "were stopped by three highwaymen on Hounslow
Heath. After robbing them, without resistance, of their money and their
watches, one of the robbers wantonly fired into the chaise and mortally
wounded Mr. Mellish." The first successful effort made to put down this
levying of blackmail upon the king's highway was the establishment of
the police horse patrol in 1805. It was organized by the direction of
the chief magistrate at Bow Street, then Sir Nathaniel Conant, and under
the immediate orders of a conductor, Mr. Day. This force consisted of
mounted constables, who every night regularly patrolled all the roads
leading into the metropolis. They worked singly between two stations,
each starting at a fixed time from each end, halting midway to
communicate, then returning. The patrol acted on any information
received _en route_, making themselves known as they rode along to all
persons riding horses or in carriages, by calling out in a loud tone
"Bow Street Patrol." They arrested all known offenders whom they met
with,
[Illustration]
and were fully armed for their own and the public protection. The
members of this excellent force were paid eight-and-twenty shillings a
week, with turnpike tolls and forage for their horses, which, however,
they were obliged to groom and take care of. Marked and immediate
results obtained from the establishment of this patrol. Highway robbery
ceased almost entirely, and in the rare cases which occurred before it
quite died out, the guilty parties were invariably apprehended.
There was as yet no very marked diminution in the number of executions,
but other forms of punishment were growing into favour. Already
transportation beyond the seas had grown into a system. Since the
settlement of New South Wales as a penal colony in 1780, convicts were
sent out regularly, and in increasingly large batches. The period
between conviction and embarkation was spent in Newgate, thus adding
largely to its criminal population, with disastrous consequences to the
health and convenience of the place. Besides these, the most heinous
criminals, there were other lesser offenders, for whom various terms of
imprisonment was deemed a proper and sufficient penalty. Hence gaols
were growing much more crowded, Newgate more especially, as I shall
presently show. For the present I propose to give the reader some of the
types of persons who became lodgers in Newgate, not temporarily, as in
the case of all who passed quickly from the condemned cells to the
gallows, but who remained there for longer periods, whether awaiting
removal as transports, or working out a sentence of imprisonment in the
course of law.
As London, increased in size and life, became more complex, chances
multiplied for rogues and sharpers, who tried with chicane and stratagem
to prey upon society. Swindling was carried out more systematically and
upon a wider scale than in the days of Jenny Diver or the sham German
Princess.[14] A woman named Robinson was arrested in 1801, who, under
the pretence of being a rich heiress, had obtained goods fraudulently
from tradesmen to the value of £20,000. Again, some years later, a gang
resembling somewhat the "long firms" of modern days carried on a
fictitious trade, and obtained goods from city merchants worth £50,000.
There were many varieties of the professional swindler in those days.
Some did business under the guise of licensed and outwardly respectable
pawnbrokers, who _sub rosâ_ were traffickers in stolen goods. Others
roamed the country as hawkers, general dealers, and peddlers,
distributing exciseable articles which had been smuggled into the
country, carrying on fraudulent raffles, purchasing stolen horses in one
county and disposing of them in another. The "duffer" went from door to
door in the town, offering for sale smuggled tobacco, muslins, or other
stuffs, and, if occasion served, passing forged notes or bad money as
small change.
Where the swindler possessed such qualifications as a pleasing manner
and a gentlemanly address, with a small capital to start with, he flew
at higher game. Alexander Day, alias Marmaduke Davenport, Esq., was one
of the first of a long line of impostors who made a great show, in a
fine house in a fashionable neighbourhood, with sham footmen in smart
liveries, and a grand carriage and pair. The latter he got in on
approval, taking care while he used them to be driven to the Duke of
Montague's and other aristocratic mansions. In the carriage too he
called on numbers of tradesmen and gave large orders for goods: yards of
Spanish point-lace, a gold "equipage" or dinner-service, silks in long
pieces, table and other linen enough to furnish several houses. By
clever excuses he postponed payment, or made off with the property by a
second door. Among other things ordered was a gold chain for his
squirrel, which already wore a silver one. The goldsmith recognized the
silver chain as one he had recently sold to a lady, and his suspicions
were aroused. On reference to her she denounced Day as a swindler, who
had cheated her out of a large sum of money. Day was forthwith arrested
and sent to Newgate. At his trial he declared that he meant to pay for
everything he had ordered, that he owned an estate in Durham worth £1200
a year, but that it was heavily mortgaged. The case occupied some time,
but in the end Day was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Newgate,
to stand twice in the pillory, find security for his good behaviour, and
pay a fine of £200.
The cleverest swindles were often effected by the softer sex. Female
sharpers infested all places of public resort. They dressed in the best
clothes, and personating ladies of the highest fashion, attended
entertainments and masquerades; they even succeeded in gaining admission
to St. James's Palace, where they got into the general circle and
pilfered right and left. One woman, the wife of a notorious Chevalier
d'Industrie, was known to have been at court at the King's birthday
(George III.). Her costume was in irreproachable good taste; her husband
attended her in the garb of a dignitary of the Church. Between them they
managed to levy contributions to the extent of £1700, and made off
before these thefts were discovered or suspected. A notable female
sharper was Elizabeth Harriet Grieve, whose line of business was to
pretend that she possessed great influence at court, and promise
preferment. She gave out that she was highly connected: Lord North was
her first cousin, the Duke of Grafton her second; she was nearly related
to Lady Fitz-Roy, and most intimate with Lord Guildford and other peers.
In those days places were shamelessly bought and sold, and tradesmen
retiring from business, or others who had amassed a little property,
invested their savings in a situation under the Crown. When the law at
length laid hands on the Hon. Elizabeth Harriet, as she styled herself,
a great number of cases were brought against her. A coach-carver, whose
trade was declining, had paid her £36 to obtain him a place as clerk in
the Victualling Office. Another man gave her £30 down, with a
conditional bond for £250, to get the place of a "coast" or
"tide"-waiter. Both were defrauded. There were many more proved against
her, and she was eventually sentenced to transportation.
She was only one of many who followed the same trade. David James Dignum
was convicted in 1777 of pretending to sell places under Government, and
sentenced to hard labour on the Thames. Dignum's was a barefaced kind of
imposition. He went the length of handing his victims, in exchange for
the fees, which were never less than a hundred guineas, a stamped
parchment duly signed by the head of the public department, with seals
properly attached. In one case he got £1000 for pretending to secure a
person the office of "writer of the 'London Gazette.'" Of course the
signatures to these instruments were forged, and the seals had been
removed from some legal warrant. When the time came for Dignum's
departure for the hulks, he resolved to go to Woolwich in state, and
travelled down in a post-chaise, accompanied by his negro servant. But
on reaching the ballast lighter on which Dignum was to work, his valet
was refused admittance, and the convict was at once "put to the duty of
the wheelbarrow." He made a desperate effort to get off by forging a
cheque on Drummonds, which he got others to cash. They were arrested,
but their innocence was clearly shown. Dignum had hoped to be brought up
to London for examination. He had thought to change his lot, to exchange
the hulks for Newgate, even at the risk of winding up at Tyburn. But in
this he was foiled, as the authorities thought it best to institute no
prosecution, but leave him to work out his time at the hulks.
That the dishonest and evilly-disposed should thus try to turn the
malversation of public patronage to their own advantage was not strange.
The traffic in places long flourished unchecked in a corrupt age, and
almost under the very eyes of careless, not to say culpable,
administrators. The evil practice culminated in the now nearly forgotten
case of Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke, who undoubtedly profited liberally by her
pernicious influence over the Duke of York when commander-in-chief of
the army. The scandal was brought prominently before the public by
Colonel Wardle, M.P., who charged her with carrying on a traffic in
military commissions, not only with the knowledge, but the
participation, of the Duke of York. A long inquiry followed, at which
extraordinary disclosures were made. Mrs. Clarke was proved to have
disposed of both military and ecclesiastical patronage. She gave her own
footman a pair of colours, and procured for an Irish clergyman the
honour of preaching before the King. Her brokership extended to any
department of state, and her lists of applicants included numbers of
persons in the best classes of society. The Duke of York was exonerated
from the charge of deriving any pecuniary benefit from this disgraceful
traffic; but it was clear that he was cognizant of Mrs. Clarke's
proceedings, and that he knowingly permitted her to barter his patronage
for filthy lucre. Mrs. Clarke was examined in person at the bar of the
house. In the end a vote acquitted the duke of personal corruption, and
the matter was allowed to drop. But a little later Colonel Wardle was
sued by an upholsterer for furniture supplied at his order to Mrs.
Clarke, and the disinterestedness of the colonel's exposure began to be
questioned. In 1814 Mrs. Clarke was sentenced to nine months'
imprisonment for a libel on the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer.
A clever scheme of deception which went very near success was that
perpetrated by Robert Jaques. Jaques filled the post of "clerk of the
papers" to the warden of the Fleet, a place which he had himself
solicited, on the plea that he was a man of experience, able to guard
the warden against the tricks incident to his trust. Jaques admitted
that his own antecedents were none of the best, that he had been
frequently in gaol, but he pleaded that "men like himself, who had been
guilty of the worst offences, had afterwards become the best officers."
No sooner was Jaques appointed than he began to mature a plot against
his employer. The warden of the Fleet by his office became responsible
for the debt of any prisoner in his custody who might escape. Jaques at
once cast about for some one whom he might through a third party cause
to be arrested, brought to the Fleet on a sham action, and whom he
would assist to escape. The third party's business would then be to sue
the warden for the amount of the evaded debt. Jaques applied to a
friend, Mr. Tronson, who had been a servant, an apothecary, a perfumer,
and a quack doctor. Tronson found him one Shanley, a needy Irishman,
short of stature and of fair complexion, altogether a person who might
well be disguised as a woman. Jaques next arranged that a friend should
get a warrant against Shanley for £450. Upon this, Shanley, who was
easily found, being a "dressy young gentleman, fond of blue and gold,"
was arrested and carried to a spunging-house. While there a second writ
was served upon Shanley for £850, at the suit of another friend of
Jaques. Shanley was next transferred to the Fleet on a Habeas, applied
for by a fictitious attorney. The very next Sunday, Jaques gave a
dinner-party, at which his wife, a brother, Mr. John Jaques, and his
wife, with some of the parties to the suits, and of course Shanley, were
present. Later in the day Shanley exchanged clothes with Mrs. John
Jaques, and, personating her, walked out of the prison. It was at a time
when an under turnkey was on duty at the gate, and he let the disguised
prisoner pass without question. By-and-by Mrs. Jaques got back her
clothes, and also left. Shanley had meanwhile proceeded post haste to
Dover, and so reached the continent.
As soon as the escape was discovered, suspicion fell on Jaques's
friends, who were openly taxed with connivance. The matter looked worse
for them when they laid claim to the money considered forfeited by the
disappearance of the debtor, and the law stepped in to prosecute
inquiry. The head turnkey, tracking Shanley to Calais, went in pursuit.
At the same time a correspondence which was in progress between the
conspirators on either side of the Channel was intercepted by order of
the Secretary of State, and the letters handed over to the warden's
solicitors. From these the whole plot was discovered, and the guilt of
the parties rendered the more sure by the confession of Shanley. Jaques
was arrested, tried, and convicted at the Old Bailey, receiving the
sentence of three years' imprisonment, with one public exposure on the
pillory at the Royal Exchange. A curious accident, however, helped to
obtain the premature release of Jaques from Newgate. A Sir James
Saunderson having been robbed of a large sum in cash and notes, portion
of the stolen property was brought into Newgate by some of the thieves,
who were arrested on another charge. The notes were intrusted to Jaques,
who pretended he could raise money on them. Instead of this, he gave
immediate notice to their rightful owner that he had them in his
possession. Jaques afterwards petitioned Sir James Saunderson to
interest himself in his behalf, and through this gentleman's good
offices he escaped the exposure upon the pillory, and was eventually
pardoned.
A peculiar feature in the criminal records of the early part of the
present century was the general increase in juvenile depravity. This was
remarked and commented upon by all concerned in the administration of
justice: magistrates of all categories, police officers, gaolers, and
philanthropists. It was borne out, moreover, by the statistics of the
times. There were in the various London prisons, in the year 1816, three
thousand inmates under twenty years of age. Nearly half of this number
were under seventeen, and a thousand of these alone were convicted of
felony. Many of those sent to prison were indeed of tender years. Some
were barely nine or ten. Children began to steal when they could
scarcely crawl. Cases were known of infants of barely six charged in the
courts with crimes. This deplorable depravity was attributable to
various causes: to the profligacy prevailing in the parish schools; the
cruel and culpable neglect of parents who deserted their offspring,
leaving them in a state of utter destitution, or were guilty of the no
less disgraceful wickedness of using them as instruments for their
nefarious designs; the artfulness of astute villains--prototypes of old
Fagin--who trained the youthful idea in their own devious ways. The
last-named was a fruitful source of juvenile crime. Children were long
permitted to commit small thefts with impunity. The offence would have
been death to those who used them as catspaws; for them capital
punishment was humanely nearly impossible; moreover, the police officers
ignored them till they "weighed their weight," or had been guilty of a
forty-pound crime.[15] The education in iniquity continued steadily.
They went from bad to worse, and ere long became regular inmates of
"flash houses," where both sexes mixed freely with vicious companions of
their own age, and the most daring enjoyed the hero-worship of their
fellows. When thus assembled, they formed themselves into distinct
parties or gangs, each choosing one of their number as captain, and
dividing themselves into reliefs to work certain districts, one by day
and by night. When they had "collared their swag," they returned to
divide their plunder, having gained sometimes as much as three or four
hundred pounds. A list of these horrible dens prepared about this date
showed that there were two hundred of them, frequented by six thousand
boys and girls, who lived solely by this way, or were the associates of
thieves. These haunts were situated in St. Giles, Drury Lane, Chick
Lane, Saffron Hill, the Borough, and Ratcliffe Highway. Others that were
out of luck crowded the booths of Covent Garden, where all slept
promiscuously amongst the rotting garbage of the stalls. During the
daytime all were either actively engaged in thieving, or were revelling
in low amusements. Gambling was a passion with them, indulged in without
let or hindrance in the open streets; and from tossing buttons there
they passed on to playing in the low publics at such games as "put," or
"the rocks of Scylla," "bumble puppy," "tumble tumble," or "nine holes."
Still more demoralizing than the foregoing was the pernicious habit,
commonly, but happily not invariably followed, of committing these
young thieves to Newgate. Here these tyros were at once associated with
the veterans and great leaders in crime. Old house-breakers expatiated
upon their own deeds, and found eager and willing pupils among their
youthful listeners. The elder and more evilly experienced boys soon
debased and corrupted their juniors. One with twenty previous
convictions against him, who had been in Newgate as often, would have
alongside him an infant of seven or eight, sent to gaol for the first
time for stealing a hearth-broom. It was as bad or worse for the
females. Girls of twelve or thirteen were mixed up with the full-grown
felons; one of the latter, as in a known case, who was what we should
style in these days an habitual criminal, and who had been committed
thirty times to Newgate, residing there generally nine months out of
every twelve, was the wardswoman or prisoner-officer, with nearly
unlimited power.
The crying evils of the system had moved private philanthropy to do
something in remedy. Charitable schools, the forerunners of our modern
reformatories, or the germ and nucleus of time-honoured institutions
still flourishing, and worthy all praise, were started. I shall refer to
these more particularly in a later chapter.[16] Other well-meaning
people, each with their own pet scheme, began to theorize and propose
the construction of juvenile penitentiaries, economical imitations
mostly of the great penitentiary which was nearly completed at
Millbank. But juvenile crime still grew and flourished, the offences
were as numerous as ever, and their character was mostly the same. The
most favourite pastime was that of picking pockets. Boys then as now
were especially skilful at this in a crowd; short, active little chaps,
they slipped through quickly with their booty, and passed it on to the
master who was directing the operations. Shop-lifting, again, was much
practised, the dodge being to creep along on hands and feet to the shop
fronts of haberdashers and linen-drapers, and snatch what they could.
Again, there were clever young thieves who could "starr" a pane in a
window, and so get their hands through the glass. But there were boys
convicted of highway robbery, like Joseph Wood and Thomas Underwood, one
fourteen and the other twelve, both of whom were hanged. Another boy,
barely sixteen, was executed for setting his master's house on fire. The
young incendiary was pot-boy at a public-house, and having been
reprimanded for neglect, vowed revenge. Another boy was condemned for
forming one of a gang of boys and girls in a street robbery, who fell
upon a man in liquor. The girls attacked him, and the boys stripped him
of all he had.
Perhaps the most astounding precocity in crime was that displayed by a
boy named Leary, who was tried and sentenced to death at thirteen years
of age for stealing a watch and chain from some chambers in the Temple.
He began at the early age of eight, and progressed regularly from
stealing apples to burglary and household robbery. He learnt the trade
first from a companion at school. After exacting toll from the
tart-shops, he took to stealing bakers' loaves, then money from shop
counters and tills, or breaking shop windows and drawing their contents
through. He often appeared at school with several pounds in his pocket,
the proceeds of his depredations. He soon became captain of a gang known
as Leary's gang, who drove about, armed with pistols, in a cart,
watching for carriages with the trunks fastened outside, which they
could cut away. In these excursions the gang was often out for a week or
more, Leary's share of the profits amounting sometimes to £100. Once,
the result of several robberies in and about London, he amassed some
£350, but the money was partly stolen from him by older thieves, or he
squandered it in gambling, or in the flash houses. After committing
innumerable depredations, he was captured in a gentleman's dining-room
in the act of abstracting a quantity of plate. He was found guilty, but
out of compassion committed to the Philanthropic School. He was
recaptured, however, and eventually sentenced to transportation for
life.
The prevailing tastes of the populace were in these times low and
depraved. Their amusements were brutal, their manners and customs
disreputable, their morality at the lowest ebb. It is actually on record
that little more than a hundred years ago a man and his wife were
convicted of offering their niece, "a fine young girl, apparently
fourteen years of age," for sale
[Illustration: WHIPPING AT THE OLD BAILEY.]
at the Royal Exchange. Mr. and Mrs. Crouch were residents of Bodmin,
Cornwall, to which remote spot came a report that "maidens were very
scarce in London, and that they sold there for a good price." They
accordingly travelled up to town by road, two hundred and thirty-two
miles, and on arrival hawked the poor girl about the streets. At length
they "accosted an honest captain of a ship, who instantly made known the
base proposal they had made to him." The Crouches were arrested and
tried; the man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in Newgate, but
his wife, as having acted under his influence, was acquitted.
Traffic in dead bodies was more actively prosecuted. The wretches who
gained the name of Resurrection men despoiled graveyards to purvey
subjects for the dissecting knife. There were dealers who traded openly
in these terrible goods, and, as has been seen in the chapter on
executions, their agents haggled for corpses at the foot of the gallows.
Sometimes the culprits were themselves the guardians of the sacred
precincts. I find that the grave-digger of St. George's, Bloomsbury, was
convicted, with a female accomplice, of stealing a dead body, and
sentenced to imprisonment. They were also "whipped twice on their bare
backs from the end of King's Gate Street, Holborn, to Dyot Street, St.
Giles, being half a mile." To this crime, and its development in the
persons of Burke and Hare, I shall recur on a later page.
Disorderly gatherings for the prosecution of the popular sports were of
constant occurrence. The vice of gambling was openly practised in the
streets. It was also greatly fostered by the metropolitan fairs, of
which there were eighty annually, lasting from Easter to September, when
Bartholomew Fair was held. These fairs were the resort of the idle and
the profligate, and most of the desperate characters in London were
included in the crowd. Another favourite amusement was bull-baiting or
bullock-hunting. Sunday morning was generally chosen for this pastime. A
subscription was made to pay the hire of an animal from some drover or
butcher, which was forthwith driven through the most populous parts of
the town; often across church-yards when divine service was in progress,
pursued by a yelling mob, who goaded the poor brute to madness with
sharp pointed sticks, or thrust peas into its ears. When nearly dead the
poor beast rejoined its herd, and was driven on to Smithfield market. A
system of bull-baits was introduced at Westminster by two notorious
characters known as Caleb Baldwin and Hubbersfield, otherwise Slender
Billy, which attracted great crowds, and led to drunkenness and scenes
of great disorder.
Towards the close of the eighteenth century a still lower and more
debasing amusement sprang suddenly into widespread popularity. The
patronage of pugilism or prize-fighting was no doubt supposed by many to
be the glorification of the national virtues of courage and endurance.
It was also greatly due to the gradual disuse of the practice of
carrying side-arms, when it was thought that quarrels would be fought
out with fists instead of swords. Hence the "noble art of self-defence,"
as it was styled magniloquently, found supporters in every class of
society. Prize-fights first became fashionable about 1788, following a
great encounter between two noted pugilists, named Richard Humphreys and
Daniel Mendoza, a Jew. Sporting papers were filled with accounts of the
various fights, which peer and pickpocket attended side by side, and
which even a Royal Prince did not disdain to honour. These professional
bruisers owned many noble patrons. Besides, the Prince of Wales, the
Dukes of Clarence and York, the Duke of Hamilton, Lords Barrymore and
others, attended prize-fights and sparring matches at theatres and
public places. A well-known pugilist, who was summoned for an assault at
Covent Garden Theatre, brought forward in his defence the terms of
intimacy he was on with noted people; the very day on which he was
charged, that he had dined at the Piazza Coffee House with General
Gwynne, Colonel McDouel, Captains Barkley and Hanbury, after which they
had all gone to the theatre. These aristocratic friends were, moreover,
ready to be useful at a pinch, and would bail out a pugilist in trouble,
or give him their countenance and support. At the trial of one William
Ward, who had killed a man in a fight, the pugilist was attended by his
patrons in court. The case was a bad one. Ward, on his way to see a
fight in the country, had been challenged by a drunken blacksmith, and
proved to him after a few rounds that he was no match for the trained
bruiser. The blacksmith did not like his "punishment," and tried to
escape into the bar, when his antagonist followed him, and actually beat
him to death. At the trial Ward was found guilty of manslaughter, fined
one shilling, and only sentenced to be imprisoned three months in
Newgate. Yet the judge who inflicted this light punishment condemned
boxing as an inhuman and disgraceful practice, a disgrace to any
civilized nation.
To the foregoing categories of undoubted criminals must be added another
pretty numerous class of offenders, who were at least so deemed by
contemporary codes, and who now frequently found themselves relegated to
Newgate. These were days when the press had far from achieved its
present independence; when writers, chafing under restraints and
reckless of consequence, were tempted into licence from sheer bravado
and opposition; when others far more innocent were brought under the
same ban of the law, and suffered imprisonment and fine for a hardly
unwarrantable freedom of speech. It is to be feared that the frequent
prosecutions instituted had often their origin in political antipathy.
While ministerial prints might libel and revile the opponents of the
governments, journals which did not spare the party in power were
humiliated and brow-beaten, difficulties were thrown in the way of their
obtaining intelligence, and if they dared to express their opinions
freely, "an information _ex officio_," as it was styled, was issued by
the Attorney-General. Prosecution followed, protracted to the bitter
end. Even what seems to us the harmless practice of parliamentary
reporting was deemed a breach of privilege; it was tolerated, but never
expressly permitted. Offending journalists were often reprimanded at the
bar of the House, and any member who felt aggrieved at the language
attributed to him was at liberty to claim the protection of the House.
When legislators and executive were so sensitive, it was hardly likely
that the great ones, the supposed salt of the earth, should be less
thin-skinned. Any kind of criticism upon princes of the blood was looked
upon as rank blasphemy; the morals of a not blameless or too reputable
aristocracy were guaranteed immunity from attack, while the
ecclesiastical hierarchy was apparently not strong enough to vindicate
its tenets or position without having recourse to the secular arm.
As time passed, the early martyrs to freedom of speech, such men as
Prynne Bastwick and Daniel Defoe, were followed by many victims to
similar oppression. One of the first to suffer after Defoe was the
nonjuring clergyman Lawrence Howell, who died in Newgate. He was
prosecuted about 1720 for writing a pamphlet in which he denounced
George I. as a usurper. He was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted, and
sentenced to pay a fine of £500 to the king, to find sureties for an
additional sum, to be imprisoned in Newgate for three years, and during
that term to be twice whipped. He was also to be degraded and stripped
of his gown by the common executioner. Howell asked indignantly of his
judges, "Who will whip a clergyman?" "We pay no deference to your
cloth," replied the court, "because you are a disgrace to it, and have
no right to wear it." The validity of his ordination was also denied by
the court, and as Howell continued to protest, the hangman was ordered
to tear off his gown as he stood there at the bar. The public whipping
was not inflicted, but Howell died soon afterwards in Newgate.
Next came Nathaniel Mist, who was sentenced in 1721 to stand in the
pillory, to pay a fine, and suffer imprisonment for reflecting upon the
action of George I. as regards the Protestants in the Palatinate. His
paper, the 'Weekly Journal' or 'Saturday's Post,' was notoriously
Jacobite in its views. Soon afterwards he came under the displeasure of
the House of Commons for instituting comparisons between the times of
the '15 rebellion and those which followed, and was committed to Newgate
for uttering a "false, malicious, and scandalous libel." This
interference by the House with Mist's publications in a matter which did
not concern its privileges is characterized by Hallam as an
extraordinary assumption of parliamentary power. Tom Paine, whose
rationalist writings gained him much obloquy later on, was one of the
next in point of time to feel the arm of the law. In 1724 he was
convicted of three libels on the Government, fined £100, and imprisoned
for a year. A clergyman, William Rowland, was put in the pillory in
1729 for commenting too freely in print on two magistrates who had
failed to convict and punish prisoners charged with unnatural crimes.
Mr. Rowland was pilloried in his canonical habit, and preached all the
time to the multitude, complaining of the injustice of his sentence,
"whereupon the people, and amongst them were several women, made a
collection for him."
About 1730, newspapers were especially established for purposes of
political party warfare, and each side libelled or prosecuted the other
in turn. The 'Craftsman' about this date sprang into the first rank for
wit and invective. Its editors were constantly in trouble; the statesmen
who supported it had to defend their bantling with their swords. In 1738
the printer, Henry Haines, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for
producing the paper. In 1759 Dr. Shebbeare was fined, put in the
pillory, and imprisoned for three years, his offence being the
publication of what was deemed a scandalous libel in his 'Sixth Letter
to the English People.' Four years later, John Wilkes, M.P., started the
'North Briton,' a Liberal print, in opposition to Smollet's 'Briton,' a
Tory paper, which was subsidized and supported by Lord Bute, then in
power. John Wilkes was no doubt assisted by Lord Temple and John
Churchill the satirist. The 'North Briton' had been intended to assail
Lord Bute's government, but it was not until its forty-fifth number that
the dash and boldness of its contributors attracted general attention.
In this number a writer rashly accused the king of falsehood.[17] The
matter was at once taken up; proceedings were instituted against printer
and publisher, who were arrested, as was also Wilkes. These arrests
subsequently formed the subject of lengthy lawsuits; they were in the
end declared illegal, and all three got heavy damages. Wilkes was,
however, expelled from the House, by whose order the offending numbers
of the 'North Briton' were burnt by the common hangman. But these
measures did not extinguish the 'North Briton,' which was continued as
far as the two hundred and seventeenth number, when Mr. William Bingley,
a bookseller, who at that time owned it, was committed to Newgate, and
kept there a couple of years for refusing to reply to interrogatories
connected with an earlier number of the paper. Wilkes, who had fled to
France to escape imprisonment, next fell under the displeasure of the
House of Lords. The 'London Evening Post,' a paper which had already
come into collision with the Commons for presuming to publish reports of
debates, committed the seemingly venial offence of inserting a letter
from Wilkes, in which he commented rather freely upon a peer of the
realm at that time British Ambassador in Paris. The House of Lords could
not touch Wilkes, but they took proceedings against the printer for
breach of privilege in presuming to mention the name of one of its
members,[18] and fined him £100. The precedent soon became popular, and
in succeeding sessions printers were constantly fined whenever they
mentioned, even by accident, the name of a peer.
Journalism was in these days an ill-used profession. The reign of George
III. must always be remembered as a time when newspapers and those who
wrote them were at the mercy of the people in power. Grant[19] declares
that the despotic and tyrannical treatment of the press during the
several administrations under George III. had no parallel in English
history. The executive was capriciously sensitive to criticism, and
readily roused to extreme measures. No newspaper indeed was safe; the
editors of Liberal prints, or their contributors, who touched on
political subjects were at the mercy of the Attorney-General. Any
morning's issue might be made the subject of a prosecution, and every
independent writer on the wrong side went in daily dread of fine, the
pillory, or committal to Newgate.[20] Among the early records of the
great organ which custom has long honoured with the title of the
"leading journal," are several instances of the dangers journalists ran.
The 'Daily Universal Register,' started by the first Mr. John Walter in
1785, became the 'Times' in 1788. On the 11th July, 1789, the
publisher--at that time Mr. Walter himself--of the paper was tried and
convicted of alleged libels on three royal dukes, York, Gloucester, and
Cumberland, whose joy at the recovery of the king the 'Times' dared to
characterize as "insincere." The sentence decreed and inflicted was a
fine of £50, imprisonment in Newgate for one year, and exposure on the
pillory at Charing Cross. A second prosecution followed, intended to
protect, and if possible rehabilitate, the Prince of Wales, and Mr.
Walter, having been brought from Newgate for the trial, was sentenced to
a further fine of £100, and a like sum for a libel on the Duke of
Clarence. Mr. Walter remained in Newgate for eighteen months, and was
released in March 1791, having been pardoned at the instance of the
Prince of Wales.
Nor was the law invoked in favour of our own princes alone. A few years
later a foreign monarch obtained equal protection, and the editor,
printer, and publisher of the 'Courier' were fined and imprisoned for
stigmatizing the Czar of Russia as a tyrant among his own subjects, and
ridiculous to the rest of Europe. The House of Peers, including the
Bench of Bishops, continued very sensitive. In 1799 the printer of the
'Cambridge Intelligence' was brought to the bar of the House, charged
for reflecting on the speech of the Bishop of Llandaff concerning the
union with Ireland. Lord Grenville moved that the printer should be
fined £100 and committed to Newgate; Lord Holland protested, but it was
justified by Lord Kenyon, and the motion was carried. Lord Kenyon did
not spare the unfortunates arraigned before him for libel. One Thomas
Spence, who published a pamphlet called 'Spence's Restorer of Society,'
in which the abolition of private ownership of land was advocated, and
its investment in parishes for the good of the public at large, was
brought before Lord Kenyon, and sentenced by him to twelve months'
imprisonment and a fine of £50. Another peer, Lord Ellenborough, who
prosecuted Messrs. White and Hart for a libel in 1808, obtained a
conviction against them, and a sentence of three years' imprisonment.
In 1810 the House of Commons distinguished itself by a prosecution which
led to rather serious consequences. At a debate on the Walcheren
expedition, a member, Mr. Yorke, had insisted from day to day upon the
exclusion of strangers, and another, Mr. Windham, had inveighed
violently against press reporting. Upon this a question was discussed at
a debating society known as the "British Forum," as to whether Mr.
Yorke's or Mr. Windham's conduct was the greater outrage on the public
feeling. The decision was given against Mr. Yorke, and the result
announced in a placard outside. This placard was constituted a breach of
privilege, "comment upon the proceedings of the House being deemed a
contravention of the Bill of Rights." A Mr. John Gale Jones confessing
himself the author of the placard, he was forthwith committed to
Newgate. Sir Francis Burdett took Jones' part, and published his
protest, signed, in Cobbett's 'Weekly Register.' The House on this
ordered the Sergeant-at-arms to arrest Sir Francis and take him to the
Tower. Sir Francis resisted, and was carried off by force.[21] A riot
occurred _en route_, the crowd attacked the escort, and the troops
fired, with fatal consequences, upon the crowd. Sir Francis appealed to
the law courts, which in the end refused to take cognizance of the
questions at issue, and he was released, returning home in triumph. Mr.
John Gale Jones claimed to be tried, and refused to leave Newgate
without it; but he was got out by a stratagem, loudly complaining that
he had been illegally imprisoned, and illegally thrust out. Jones was
sentenced in the autumn of the same year to twelve months' imprisonment
in Coldbath Fields Gaol. Another and a better known writer found himself
in Newgate about this time. In 1810 William Cobbett was tried for
animadverting too openly upon the indignity of subjecting English
soldiers to corporal punishment, for which he was sentenced to two
years' imprisonment in Newgate, and a fine of £1000. This was not his
first prosecution, but it was by far the most serious. Shorter sentences
of imprisonment were imposed on his printers and publishers, Messrs.
Hansard, Budd, and Bagshaw.
Some other notable criminals found themselves in Newgate about this
date. In 1809 it became the place of punishment for two Government
officials who were convicted of embezzlement on a large scale. The
first, Mr. Alexander Davison, was employed to purchase barrack-stores
for the Government on commission. He was intrusted with this duty by the
barrack-master general, as a person of extensive mercantile experience,
to avoid the uncertainty of trusting to contractors. Mr. Davison was to
receive a commission of 2-1/2 per cent. Instead of buying in the best
and cheapest markets, he himself became the seller, thus making a profit
on the goods and receiving the commission as well; or, in the words of
Mr. Justice Grose, Davison, when "receiving a stipend to check the
frauds of others, and insure the best commodities at the cheapest rate,
became the tradesman and seller of the article, and had thereby an
interest to increase his own profit, and to commit that fraud it was his
duty to prevent." Davison disgorged some £18,000 of his ill-won profits,
and this was taken into consideration in his sentence, which was limited
to imprisonment in Newgate for twenty-one months. The other delinquent
was Mr. Valentine Jones, who had been appointed commissary-general and
superintendent of forage and provisions in the West Indies in 1795. A
large British force was at that time stationed in the West Indian
Islands, which entailed vast disbursements from the public exchequer.
The whole of this money passed through the hands of Mr. Jones. His
career of fraud began directly he took over his duties. Mr. Higgins, a
local merchant, came to him proposing to renew contracts for the supply
of the troops, but Mr. Jones would only consent to their renewal on
condition that he shared Mr. Higgins' profits. Higgins protested, but
at length yielded. Within three years the enormous sum of £87,000
sterling was paid over to Jones as his share in this nefarious
transaction. Mr. Jones was tried at the King's Bench and sentenced to
three years' imprisonment in Newgate.
Soon afterwards a person of very high rank was committed to Newgate.
This was the Marquis of Sligo, who was convicted of enticing British
men-of-war's men to desert, and sentenced to imprisonment, with a fine
of £5000. Lord Sligo went to Malta soon after leaving College, and there
hired a brig, the 'Pylades,' intending to make a yachting tour in the
Grecian Archipelago. The admiral at Malta and other naval officers
helped Lord Sligo to fit out the 'Pylades,' and he was welcomed on board
the various king's ships. From one of these several trusty seamen were
shortly afterwards missing. Their captain trusted to Lord Sligo's honour
that he had not decoyed these men, and that he would not receive them;
but at that moment the deserters were actually on board the 'Pylades,'
having been enticed from the service by Lord Sligo's servants. The
'Pylades' then went on her cruise along the Mediterranean. Suspicion
seems to have still rested on Lord Sligo, and after leaving Palermo the
'Pylades' was chased and brought to by H.M.S. 'Active.' A boat boarded
the 'Pylades,' her crew was mustered and examined, but the deserters had
been securely hidden in the after hold, and were not discovered. A
little later Lord Sligo sailed for Patmos, where some of the crew
landed and were left behind; among them were the men-of-war's-men,
through whom the whole affair was brought to light. Lord Sligo was
arrested on his return to England, and tried at the Old Bailey. The
evidence was conclusive. In the course of the trial a letter was put in
from Lord Sligo, to the effect that if the business was brought into
court he should do his best to defend himself; if he did not succeed, he
had an ample fortune, and could pay the fines. No money, however, could
save him from incarceration, and in accordance with the sentence of Sir
William Scott, who was supported on the bench by Lord Ellenborough and
Mr. Baron Thompson, the Marquis of Sligo was sent to Newgate for four
months.