county with the birth-place of his leader, in the year 1773, and he was
brought up to the trade of a shoemaker. At the age of sixteen years he
quitted his master, and went to Nottingham, and having lived there until
he had reached the age of nineteen, he proceeded to London. Here he
appears to have taken considerable interest in the politics of the day;
but having, in the year 1803, committed perjury, in swearing himself a
freeholder, in order to enable him to vote for Sir Francis Burdett, as
member for Middlesex, he fled to Scotland, to avoid prosecution. Having
resided there during five years, he then returned to England, and after
a short stay at Rochester, he proceeded once again to the metropolis,
where he became a party to the plot for which Colonel Despard and others
were executed, but escaped their fate, by being temporarily absent from
town. During the war he enlisted into more than half the regiments of
the crown, but he had no sooner received the bounty, than he deserted;
and it appears most extraordinary that he should have so frequently
escaped. In 1818 he commenced his last residence in London, and he then
exhibited violent political feelings. Having become acquainted with
Brunt, he was introduced by him to Edwards, and the assumed violence of
the latter suiting his feelings well, he eagerly closed with every
proposition which he made, however desperate it might be. It is not a
little remarkable that he had always an impression on his mind that he
should be hanged, and he frequently declared his belief to this effect
to his friends. He left a wife and daughter behind him to deplore the
truth of his prediction.
James Ings was the son of a respectable tradesman in Hampshire, and
being possessed of a considerable property, when he came of age, he
married a respectable young woman, and entered into business as a
butcher, at Portsmouth.
Trade growing bad at the termination of the war, and his property having
decreased, some of his tenements were sold, and he came up to London in
1818, with a little ready money, produced by the sale of a house, and
opened a butcher's shop at the west end of the town. He could, however,
get no business, and in a few months gave up the shop; and, with a few
pounds he had left, he opened a coffee-house in Whitechapel.
Here he became involved in great distress, and at last was compelled to
pawn his watch, to enable him to send his wife and children down to
Portsmouth, to her friends, to prevent their starving in London. At the
coffee-house in Whitechapel he sold, besides coffee, political
pamphlets; and having read the different Deistical publications, from
being a churchman he became a confirmed Deist.
He was a most affectionate husband and father; and his desperate
situation, no doubt, was a principal cause of his joining the
Cato-street plot. Edwards, Adams, Thistlewood, and Brunt, had frequently
visited him during the time he kept the coffee and pamphlet shop; and,
when he was in more desperate circumstances, he became a fitter
companion for persons engaged in such an atrocious crime as the one for
which he suffered the sentence of the law.
For some weeks before the Cato-street discovery, Ings was in the utmost
distress, quite penniless; and the means of subsistence were actually
supplied to him by Edwards. At his instigation, also, he hired a room,
in which he lodged, which was sufficiently capacious to contain a very
considerable portion of the arms and ammunition of the gang.
This unfortunate man left a wife and four children to deplore his
ignominious death.
William Davidson was born in the year 1786, at Kingston, in Jamaica, and
was the second son of Mr. Attorney-General Davidson, a man of
considerable legal knowledge and talent. He mother was a native of the
West Indies, and a woman of colour. He was sent to England when very
young, for the purpose of receiving an education suitable to the rank of
his father, and his own prospects: and having obtained the first
rudiments of knowledge, he was sent to an academy, where he studied
mathematics. After some time he was apprenticed to a respectable
attorney at Liverpool, at whose office he remained near three years,
when he became tired of confinement, and ran away from his master. He
now entered on board a merchantman, and on the first voyage was
impressed. He arrived in England about six months afterwards, and wrote
to his father's friend a supplicatory letter, and then, at his own
particular desire, he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in Liverpool.
Davidson, though a man of colour, had a prepossessing person, and was
upon the point of marriage with the daughter of a respectable tradesman
at Liverpool, when, however, the match was broken off by his friends. He
then took a passage on board a West-India merchantman, intending to
return to his father; but he was again impressed on the voyage. On his
return to port, he took the first opportunity of running away, and
having obtained some money from his friends, he got work as a
journeyman, at Litchfield. He subsequently paid his addresses to a Miss
Salt, who was possessed of about 7,000_l._ of her own money, but her
friends disapproving of the match, he became unsettled in his mind, and
indisposed for business; and although his mother supplied him with
1200_l._ to commence trade on his own account, at Birmingham, in the
course of twelve months he spent the whole of that sum, and repaired to
London. Here he again obtained work, and was eventually married to a
Mrs. Lane, a widow, with four children, who lived at Walworth, with
whose assistance he began trade on his own account. Success, however,
did not attend him, and he was compelled to remove to London, and to
take a lodging at Mary-le-bone. While here, he appears to have joined
the conspirators, into whose plans he entered with great willingness. He
left two children of his own, by his wife, both of whom were under four
years of age.
John Thomas Brunt was born in Union-street, Oxford-street; where his
father carried on business as a tailor. He was for some time employed in
the shop of a shoemaker, and he subsequently became an excellent workman
in that business, and up to the age of twenty-three was the chief
supporter of his mother, his father having died while he was yet young.
At that age he married a respectable young woman, named Welch. On the
1st of May 1806, she brought him a boy, who was fourteen years of age on
the day his unfortunate father suffered the sentence of the law. Brunt
was thirty-eight years of age.
The following particulars with regard to Edwards, whose name so
frequently occurs during the preceding narrative, will enable the reader
to form, a just estimate of his character.
It appears that he had been originally a modeller, and kept a little
shop in Fleet-street, where he sold plaster-of-Paris images. His poverty
had been always apparent until a few months previous to the Cato-street
plot, when there is no doubt he accepted the wages of government, and
became a spy. For this office he appears to have been admirably adapted,
as he was shrewd, artful, and unprincipled. His former acquaintance with
the Spenceans procured him the confidence of some of its deluded
members; and through them he got acquainted with Thistlewood and the
others.
There is little doubt that the Cato-street plot was "got up" by him,
although he found the unfortunate men who were hanged willing
instruments in his hands. He furnished the means of providing the
destructive weapons which were found in their possession, and he
actually made the grenades himself; and when Thistlewood had escaped
from Cato-street, he conducted him to the lodgings where he was next day
apprehended.
Immediately after the execution of the traitors, several persons made
depositions before Alderman Wood, stating the numerous attempts of
Edwards to seduce them from their allegiance, and the worthy alderman
applied to the secretary of state to have the villain apprehended, but
he refused to interfere. A motion was made in the House of Commons a few
nights afterwards by the same alderman; but, although some debate took
place upon the subject, no effect was produced other than the exposition
of the system which had been resorted to. An indictment was next
preferred before the grand jury of the county of Middlesex, upon which a
true bill was found; but although a reward of 100_l._ was offered for
the apprehension of Edwards, he was nowhere to be found; and it was
eventually discovered that he had gone to New Brunswick, to avoid the
unpleasant consequences to which his conduct might have subjected him.
JOHN SCANLAN, ESQ., AND STEPHEN SULLIVAN.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF MRS. SCANLAN.
The case of these offenders exhibits the most reckless and horrible
depravity.
Mr. Scanlan, it appears, was the son of a most respectable gentleman,
resident in the county of Limerick, Ireland, and was allied to persons
of the first distinction. His father died during his infancy; and having
early become possessed of a handsome competency, he entered the army. He
held the commission of a lieutenant, and Sullivan, his fellow murderer,
was a soldier under his command. At the conclusion of the war, Mr.
Scanlan was put upon half-pay, and Sullivan being also discharged with a
pension, he accompanied his late commander home, in the capacity of his
servant. He was also a native of Limerick, and though not more than
thirty-two years of age, was much older than his master, who had not
attained twenty-five years.
Young Scanlan, on his way to Limerick, where he proposed residing,
stopped for some time in Dublin; and he there found an opportunity of
ingratiating himself into the favour of a thoughtless but lovely girl of
fifteen years of age, the niece of a Mr. Conery, a ropemaker. The
gentlemanly appearance and polished address of Scanlan, aided by his
protestations of love and tenderness, flattered the vanity of the poor
girl; but she would not listen to him on any but honourable terms. She
acknowledged her partiality for him, and charged him, if he was sincere,
to make her his wife; and to this proposal he affected to consent, after
a condition had been agreed on: which was, that she was to keep her
marriage a secret from her uncle, lest his friends should hear of it--an
event which he seemed to regard as pregnant with ruin to him.
The foolish girl consented to all he chose to enjoin, and in an evil
hour quitted the roof of her kind uncle, carrying off with her one
hundred pounds in notes, and twelve guineas in gold. Her lover pretended
to act honourably, and carried her before an excommunicated priest, who
joined their hands in wedlock. In resorting to what he conceived a means
of escaping from the importunities of Miss Conery, as his wife, he was
under the impression that the marriage would not be binding; but the
knot had scarcely been tied, when he learned that the marriage was valid
by the law of Ireland.
When the fugitive lovers quitted Dublin, they took up their abode in the
romantic village of Glin, situated on the banks of the river Shannon, on
the Limerick side. Scarcely, however, had the honeymoon passed over
their heads, when Scanlan formed the dreadful resolution of getting rid
of his wife. Her beauty, her love, her innocence, appealed to him in
vain; he persisted in his resolution, and too fatally carried it into
effect.
It appears that he was prompted to the dreadful deed by avarice and
ambition: his sister, who had been married to a nobleman in the county
of Limerick, apprized him of a match she was forming for him with an
heiress of wealth and beauty, and requested his acquiescence. Knowing
that he could not avail himself of the proposed advantage while his wife
(for he knew that that was the real character of the woman he had
seduced from her home) was alive, he determined that she should not long
remain an obstacle to his advancement to rank and opulence. Sullivan was
his confidant throughout the whole affair, and to him was intrusted the
execution of his atrocious plan. Scanlan had purchased a pleasure-boat,
in which they used to take excursions on the Shannon. Of this amusement
his wife was very fond; and it was during one of these moments of
recreation, while she should be impressed with the beauty of the
scenery, that the monsters resolved to rob her of that life which
bloomed so exquisitely on her youthful and animated cheek.
One evening, in the July of 1819. Scanlan affected to be called from
home on business, but desired his wife to make Sullivan amuse her for an
hour on the river in the boat. With this request she complied; and
Sullivan, by his master's directions, got ready to execute their horrid
purpose. Having provided a club to knock out her brains, and a rope and
stone to tie to the body to sink it, he proceeded down the river. This
man was treated by his master and mistress with great familiarity, so
that he was not obliged to keep that distance so necessary to good
order, but used every freedom consistent with respect. When the boat had
drifted to a secluded inlet, Sullivan prepared to execute his purpose;
he raised the club in a menacing position, and was about to strike, when
the lovely creature, thinking he only intended to frighten her, gave him
a smile of such innocent sweetness and simplicity, that the assassin was
disarmed. He dropped the instrument of destruction, conducted his
mistress home, and told his unfeeling master that he had not strength to
execute his commands.
The horrid resolution was postponed, but not abandoned. A few evenings
after, Scanlan, accompanied by his wife and Sullivan, went out in the
boat as usual; but the unfortunate woman was never seen alive after.
Scanlan returned to his lodgings, and said that for misbehaving he had
shipped Ellen (his wife's name) on board some vessel, the captain of
which had taken her under his protection. This story was disbelieved;
and a few days discovered their guilt--the corpse of the murdered Ellen
was washed ashore, mutilated in a most shocking manner. The legs were
broken in several places, one arm had been knocked off entirely, and a
rope was tied round her neck. Her skull was fractured in a thousand
pieces, her eyes knocked out of her head, and nearly all her teeth
forced from her mouth. Horrid and deformed as was her once lovely
person, still it was instantly recognised, when the murderers
endeavoured to fly from justice. Of their guilt there could be no doubt;
they were seen together in the boat; Sullivan had sold the murdered
girl's clothes; and he and his master had quarrelled about some money,
in the course of which quarrel Scanlan had been accused of the murder.
Sullivan escaped for twelve months the pursuit of justice; but Scanlan
was almost immediately apprehended, though he had resolved never to be
taken alive. The following August he was tried at the assizes; and being
found guilty, Baron Smith ordered him for almost instant execution, lest
the powerful interest of his family should procure a respite, if he left
him even the period usually allowed to criminals convicted of murder.
The time allotted Scanlan to live was too short to admit of a messenger
going to Dublin and back again, and consequently he was executed, to the
satisfaction of all lovers of justice.
Twelve months after, his guilty servant met a similar fate. Before his
execution he made a full confession, from which the above particulars
are partly taken. Such was the powerful influence of Scanlan's family,
that, though they could not avert his fate, they succeeded in keeping it
a secret from a large portion of the community, for they had influence
enough to prevent an insertion of his case in all the Limerick
newspapers, and it long remained unknown, except in the immediate
neighbourhood of the transaction.
The trial of Sullivan, however, revealed his own and his master's guilt;
and the whole circumstances of the frightful deed then came fully to
light.
This story has supplied the author of "Tales of Irish Life" with the
materials of a most interesting sketch called "The Poor Man's
Daughter."
[Illustration: _The Assassin disarmed by a smile._
P. 02.]
JAMES NESBETT.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF MR. PARKER AND HIS HOUSEKEEPER.
The night of Friday the 3rd of March 1820, was marked by the
perpetration of a murder, not exceeded in point of atrocity by any whose
circumstances are detailed in our Calendar of Crimes. It bears a
striking resemblance to that committed by Hussey; for the victims were
an old gentleman and his housekeeper--a Mr. Thomas Parker, aged seventy,
and Sarah Brown, about forty-five years old.
Mr. Parker had been a working jeweller in London, where he had made a
fortune sufficient to enable him to retire to Woolwich, where he resided
for twenty-three years. His house was situated in Mulgrave-place, Red
Lion Street, at a short distance from the Artillery Barracks. He was an
inoffensive, gentlemanly man, and was much respected by the whole
neighbourhood.
At one o'clock on Saturday morning, the 4th of March, the sentinel on
duty at the north arch of the Artillery Barracks observed a dense smoke
rising from Mr. Parker's house. He gave an alarm; and several of the
artillerymen rushed forth, and found the flames bursting from the
parlour window. The men rapped at the door with great violence, but no
answer was returned. The cry of "Fire" spread; two engines arrived on
the spot, and commenced playing into the window. The men then forced the
street-door, and rushed into the passage; and from thence they went up
stairs into the front room on the first floor. Here the ravages of the
fire were perceptible; the furniture of a bed had been partly consumed;
but in the bed itself there was no appearance of a human being. The men
then ran into the bed-room on the second floor, which was found in
flames; but having extinguished them, they continued their search for
the inmates of the house; but neither Mr. Parker nor his servant could
be found. It was now discovered that the flames were bursting forth with
great violence from the parlour below, and that they were spreading
rapidly to the upper floor; and every exertion became necessary to
procure their suppression. A hole was cut in the floor of the
bed-chamber, through which water was poured; and by this means, added to
the incessant playing of the engines without, the danger was subdued. In
a short time the parlour-door was thrown open, and a man belonging to
the artillery having entered, he perceived a heap of something lying
behind the door. He attempted to lift it up, when he found it to be the
mutilated remains of a human body which was much burnt. A second body,
which proved to be that of a female, was found stretched in the same
place, although not so much disfigured. A further investigation of the
premises now took place, when it was perceived that blankets had been
nailed up against every window, as if to conceal the appearance of the
flames within. Fire had been communicated in three different places--the
parlour on the ground floor; the bed-chamber on the first floor; and the
bed-chamber on the second floor. The drawers about the house were found
standing open, and articles of apparel were lying about; and in the
kitchen, some silver utensils were strewed on the floor. At break of day
the bodies of Mr. Parker and his servant were examined, and it was found
that the former was burnt nearly to a cinder; the left leg and foot, on
which there was a black silk stocking and a shoe, only remained entire.
The skull, however, although the flesh was burnt off, remained whole,
and afforded convincing testimony of murder: on the left side, towards
the back, there was a terrific fracture. The woman lay stretched upon
her face; her apparel was partly consumed, and her hair, which was very
long, was hanging around her in matted and dishevelled locks. A horrible
wound, apparently inflicted with a blunt instrument, was discovered over
her eye, and at the back of her head there were three distinct
fractures. The fact that the whole circumstance was the effect of a
diabolical plot to murder Mr. Parsons and Mrs. Brown, and to conceal the
crime by firing the house, now became obvious; and the utmost exertions
were made by the police to apprehend the perpetrators of the foul deed.
Several persons, whose conduct was deemed suspicious, were taken into
custody; but as the evidence against them was very trifling, they were
discharged. At length, however, the real murderer was apprehended at
Portsmouth, and several articles of Mr. Parker's property were found in
his possession, particularly two watches, some silver spoons, a silver
ladle, &c.
This person went at Portsmouth by the name of James Watson, but his real
name was James Nesbett. He had been in the artillery for twenty-three
years, and after his discharge lived in Woolwich, where his wife kept a
chandler's shop. They had five children; the eldest aged eighteen years,
and the youngest at this time only sixteen months old. Nesbett himself
followed that vicious and dangerous occupation--smuggling; bringing
lace, silk, &c. from France, and carrying back other contraband goods
from this country. In pursuit of this traffic he stopped some time at
Portsmouth, where he cohabited with a girl of the town, who was
afterwards the principal witness against him.
While sleeping with this girl she observed him to be very much troubled
in his mind, as he frequently started in his sleep, and sometimes
terrified her; so much so, that she left him on that account only. He,
however, allured her back by presents; and, to account for the unnatural
agitation in his sleep, he told her that he had killed two men in a
duel, and one woman with a blow; and also promised to communicate
another important secret to her. From this he was prevented by his being
taken into custody; but he had already told her enough to induce the
strongest suspicions as to his guilt.
When brought to Woolwich the people received him with a shout of
exultation--a circumstance which affected him so much, that he was
obliged to be carried before the justices, who were then sitting. He
denied the crime with which he was charged; but after his committal to
Maidstone, he confessed that he had been privy to it, having stood
sentinel at the door while the work of destruction was going on inside.
His accomplices he stated to have been old soldiers, whom he did not
know--a tale as improbable as untrue; for it was distinctly proved that
he was himself the only person engaged.
Nesbett's trial came on July the 28th 1820, when his guilt was
established by a chain of circumstantial evidence so conclusive, that
the jury did not hesitate many minutes about their verdict.
In addition to other facts proved against him, it appeared that when he
first visited Portsmouth, he was remarked for possessing excellent
sight, but that after the murder he wore, whenever he appeared abroad,
spectacles--the identical pair he had taken from Mr. Parker. In addition
to the spectacles, he wore different dresses to disguise himself; but,
notwithstanding all his caution, he was known, and apprehended, not,
however, without much difficulty, for he attempted to shoot the
officers, having a case of pistols loaded to the muzzle. Fortunately he
was prevented from firing, and thus was preserved from having an
additional murder to answer for.
Nesbett's countenance indicated great firmness of purpose, but nothing
of atrocity. During his trial he showed great fortitude and
self-possession, which was not disturbed by his hearing the awful
sentence of the law, which consigned him to an ignominious death.
This wretched criminal was executed according to his sentence on
Pennenden Heath, July the 31st 1820. It is gratifying to know that, in
the interval which elapsed between his condemnation and execution, he
acknowledged the justice of his sentence.
JAMES MACKCOULL, _alias_ MOFFAT.
CONVICTED OF BURGLARY.
The name of this offender is already known to our readers, by his
connexion with his no less notorious compeer, Huffey White, whose case
is already given.
Mackcoull, though he had an honest father, was educated a thief, and
from infancy was initiated into all the mysteries of picking pockets,
shop-lifting, and house-breaking. He was born in the parish of St.
Sepulchre, London, in the year 1763. His father, Benjamin Mackcoull, a
man of good character, was a pocket-book maker; but, being unfortunate
in business, he was appointed a city officer, in which situation he
continued until his death. This poor man did all in his power to bring
his children up in honesty; but, unfortunately, his praiseworthy
exertions proved abortive, in consequence of his wife being a base
unprincipled woman, who might be said to have educated her offspring for
the gallows; for though they all, except one, singularly escaped such an
ignominious death, they are all allowed to have richly merited it.