CHAPTER III

CELEBRATED CRIMES AND CRIMINALS

State of crime on opening new gaol—Newgate full—Executions

very numerous—Ruthless penal code—Forgery punished

with death—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—Offences against life and property—Streets

unsafe—High roads infested by robbers—No regular

police—Daring Robberies at lévees—The Duke of Beaufort robbed

by Gentleman Harry—George Barrington, the gentleman thief,

frequents Ranelagh, the Palace, the Opera House—Highwaymen

put down by the horse patrol—"Long firm" swindlers—Female

Sharpers—Elizabeth Grieve and others pretend to sell

places under the Crown—Other forms of swindling—Juvenile

depravity—A girl for sale—Prize-fighting—Early martyrs to

freedom of speech—Prynne, Bastwick and Daniel Defoe—The Press

oppressed—The "North Briton"—Wilkes—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. The majority were in dire poverty, and

took to depredation almost as a matter of course. The calendars were

particularly heavy. 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, 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 in England.

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. It is true that of the two hundred, not more than

five-and-twenty sorts of felonies actually entailed execution. It is

also true 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 the 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.

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. 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 executions for this

crime, no less than seventy-two were the victims of proceedings

instituted by the Bank of England. Forgeries upon this great monetary

corporation had been much more frequent since the stoppage of specie

payments, which had been decreed by the 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

years which followed 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. But execution for forgery continued

to be the law for many more years. Fauntleroy suffered for it in 1824;

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 for them still on their backs. His character was so

infamous, that when he purchased the situation of upper city marshal

for £2,400, 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 villainous character he 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 £7,500, 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 on their knees for pardon 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 of the 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 £1,000 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 £3,000 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 £4,200. 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 £4,200 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 $3,000; 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. 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 51:3, "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.

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 coöperate 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 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 gray 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 of his dodges was to hire boys

to take forged notes to the Bank, receive the tickets from the teller,

and carry them back to him. 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 £1,600. He was released through the intercession of

Lord Lyttleton 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.

Persons of respectable station, sometimes, 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 must 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 wagon to all parts of the kingdom, like

any other goods. The trade extended to foreign countries. The law,

until it was rectified, did not provide any method of punishment for

the counterfeiting of foreign money, and French louis-d'or, Spanish

dollars, German florins, and Turkish sequins were shipped abroad in

great quantities. The 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 many 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 very 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 were

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 consisted 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 six hundred and fifty in a

period of seven years. The offence of uttering, till a 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 burned before the

debtors' door, in front of Newgate, in 1788, having previously been

strangled. In the following year, as has been already stated, the law

was passed, which abolished the practice of burning women convicted of

petty treason, and thereafter 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," exempting from service. 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.

[Illustration: _Thieving Lane_

(_View of southern end of Thieving Lane, now Bow Street_)

Felons were conveyed through this lane to the gate-house which

stood at the end of Tothill Street. In close proximity to the

prison, it was a resort of thieves, from which it took its

unenviable name.]

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 ilk were convicted of having

obtained the conviction of innocent people, simply to pocket the

reward. Their offence did not come 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 bring, the price varying in different

parishes from £12 to £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 of

1808 amounted to £15,000, and none of the parties were ever known or

apprehended, although sought after night and day. 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 upon its being opened,

rushed in and took 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, as the ruffians would cut him to

pieces if he were 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,[82:1] 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 he 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 offered to

prove it. 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 held the passage to the

quarter-deck single-handed, and kept the mob of convicts at bay with

a marline-spike, till the captain and crew were able to get arms and

finally suppress 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, 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 were 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 become a fixed 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, and Newgate more especially, as

will presently be apparent from a brief review of 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, increasing 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. 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

£1,200 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 birthday

of King George III. Her costume was in irreproachably 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 £1,700, 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

£1,000 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

last 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. 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, prepared about this

date, of these horrible dens showed that there were two hundred of

them, frequented by six thousand boys and girls, who lived solely in

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—women who were what would be styled to-day habitual criminals,

as in the well-known case of one who had been committed thirty times to

Newgate, residing there generally nine months out of every twelve, and

who was the wardswoman or prisoner-officer, with nearly unlimited power.

The crying evils of the system had moved private philanthropy to do

something remedial. Charitable schools were started,—the forerunners

of our modern reformatories, and the nuclei of time-honoured

institutions still flourishing, and worthy of all praise. Other

well-meaning people, each with his own pet scheme, began to theorize

and propose the construction of juvenile penitentiaries, economical

imitations mostly of the great penitentiary which was now 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 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. There were also 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 potboy 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 learned

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, as 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, but escaped, was again caught, 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 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 previously described, 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." There was a great development of this crime later

in the persons of Burke and Hare.

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 his intimacy with a number of noted people; the

very day on which he was charged, he pleaded 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 somewhat numerous class of offenders, who were so deemed by the

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 license 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 rebellion of 1715 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, amongst whom 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. 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, 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

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. 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

encountered. 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 of the paper—at that time Mr. Walter himself—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 these 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

with 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's 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. 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 two and one-half per cent.

Instead of buying in the best and cheapest markets, he became also

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 as

soon as 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 still to have 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[82:1] The sobriquet of Gentleman Harry was also enjoyed by Henry

Simms, a highwayman who frequented the Lewisham and Blackheath roads.

On one occasion, when travelling into Northamptonshire on a rather

fresh horse, a gentleman who was in a post-chaise remarked to him,

"Don't ride so hard, sir, or you'll soon ride away all your estate."

"Indeed I shall not," replied Simms, "for it lies in several counties,"

and dismounting, he challenged the gentleman to stand, and robbed him

of a hundred and two guineas.