Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 30

Mr. Drury, even after receiving sentence, was indulged by the keepers of Newgate in having a room to himself in the Press Yard, which afforded him leisure and privacy for his devotions; and he seemed, especially for the last days of his life, to make proper use of those conveniences by excluding himself from all company and applying earnestly to G.o.d in prayer for the forgiveness of his sins. During the two or three days succeeding that whereon he received sentence, a gentlewoman attended pretty constantly upon him. Who she was we can neither say, nor is it very material; but Mr. Drury appealing to her in the presence of some persons, as to the truth of what he alleged concerning King, the wagoner, she desired to relate what she knew as to that point. The account she gave was to this purpose. Mr. Drury carried me out of town with him in a chaise to Wendover. On the road we were met by the wagoner he speaks on, who desired Mr. Drury to step out, for he wanted to speak with him. Thereupon he complying with the wagoner's request, they walked together to a considerable distance, and there stopping talked to each other very earnestly for some time. As to the subject of their discourse she declared she could say nothing, but as they came back to the chaise, the wagoner said, You need not be afraid, you will be sure to get what you want. To say truth, it was very odd for a single man to rob a wagon to which so many people belonged, in company with several other wagons, without any opposition, though it be likewise true that he did not attempt any of the rest.

Some persons of quality were prevailed on by his earnest solicitations and the circ.u.mstances we have before mentioned to endeavour the procuring him a pardon, but it was in vain; and it would have certainly have been much better for the man if he never had any hopes given him, for though he did not depend as much on promises as men in his miserable condition frequently do, yet the desire of life, sometimes excited the hopes of it, and thereby took off his thoughts from more weighty concerns, or at least made him more languid and confused than otherways he would have been, for the very day before his death he still entertained some expectations of mercy.

The evening before he suffered a woman knocked at his chamber door, and earnestly desired to speak a few words to him. He accordingly came towards the door and asked her what it was she would have to say to him. The woman, after expressing much sorrow for his misfortunes, told him she was desired by a person to whom she had been servant, if the thing were possible, to learn from his own mouth what he had to say against the wagoner. Mr. Drury replied that he had never had any thought of robbing wagons, or any such thing, if the wagoner had not advised and pressed him to it; so that his blood, the loss of his life, and all he had in the world lay upon that man. Then shutting the door he returned to his devotions, and continued to them all the evening and until the night was considerably spent.

As death drew near it seemed not to affect him so much as might be expected. On the morning of his execution he appeared not only easy, but cheerful, attended at the prayers at chapel with much composure, and went out of Newgate without any sign of fright or disturbance of mind. On the road to Tyburn he appeared serious but melancholy, spoke a good deal concerning the errors of his former life, said he had never bees addicted to drinking, but had conversed too much with bad women, which had made his wife jealous, and caused home to be very uneasy. He seemed truly penitent for these offences, as he confessed them without any questions being asked by those about him.

At the place of execution his courage did not forsake him. He still preserved a great deal of serenity in his countenance, and when he was desired to acquaint the people with anything he had to say concerning the crime for which he died, he spoke with a strong voice, and repeated what he had formerly alleged about King, the wagoner, adding that he advised him also to rob the Banbury wagon; and that notwithstanding he talked of his wife's having four pounds about her, yet he took but three s.h.i.+llings, whereon the third indictment was founded, on which he was convicted. He then complained of his wife's unkindness, and both prayed for the spectators, and desired their prayers for him. As he was leaning on the side of the cart, the Ordinary told him that a man had charged him the day before with having married a man's daughter at Norwich, who is still living. Mr. Drury answered, he was reproached by many people, and he forgave them all, he then called to a gentleman who was near the gallows and spoke to him about his estate, which he had before settled. Afterwards he exhorted the people to live virtuously, and be warned by his example, and then submitted patiently to his fate, on Thursday, the third of November, 1726, being at that time of his decease about twenty-eight years of age.

The Life of WILLIAM MILLER, a Highwayman, etc.

As necessary correction is often a method by which, when young people begin to stray into the paths of vice, they are deterred and brought back again into the road of virtue; yet when this is incautiously inflicted or done in a violent manner, it frequently excites worse thoughts than would otherwise probably have entered the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of young people thus punished; and instead of hindering them from committing trivial offences, puts them on doing the worst things imaginable in order to deliver them from a state more hateful to them than death itself.

This criminal William Miller, was the son of very honest parents who lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who took care to give him a good education, and what was much more commendable, a good example. They put him out apprentice to a tradesman at Alnwick, with whom he might have lived tolerably well had it not been for the churlishness of his master's temper, who was continually picking quarrels with him, and thereupon beating him inhumanly. At last an accident happened which supplied a continual fund of anger and resentment and this was on account of William's losing a horse, which, though his friends paid for, yet every time it came into his masters head there was a battle between them; for Miller being now grown pretty big made resistance when he struck him, and not seldom got the better of him, and beat him in his turn. This occasioned such disturbances and falling out between them that at last Miller took a resolution for leaving him for good and all, and determined to live as he could, up and down the country.

At first he was so lucky as to meet with a man who employed him readily, treated him with kindness, and gave him good advice, without accompanying his reproofs with blows; but upon discovering that his man William had not served out his time, but had only five years and a half with his master, he absolutely refused to suffer him to work any longer. It was with great reluctancy that Miller parted with this master, and he became every day after more and more uneasy, because he found no other master would let him work with them, upon the same account; so that by degrees he was reduced to the great necessity in the country, and though he was willing to work, yet could not tell which way to turn his hand.

In the midst of these perplexities, he bethought himself of coming up to London, which he put in execution. On his arrival there he listed himself as a soldier in one of the regiments of Guards, and as it is no very hard matter in this town, got abundance of amorous affairs upon his hands. With one woman he lived a short time after his coming up to London, but her he soon turned off for the sake of another, who was a blacksmith's wife, and whom he married, notwithstanding her first husband was then to his acknowledge alive. This was, indeed, the source of a great part of his misfortunes, since what between the woman's drinking and the money which the husband got out of him for permitting him to live quietly with her, he was (notwithstanding he had learnt a new employment, viz., that of a basket maker) miserably poor; and the woman having brought him a child to increase his expenses, he was at last forced, whether he would or no, to leave her and it both. After this he a.s.sociated with another woman, and at length married her also, with whom he lived quietly enough until the time of his death. These numerous intrigues drew him in consequence into a mult.i.tude of other vices, which both lost him his reputation, and damaged his understanding, especially when he came to drink hard, which he at last did to such a degree that he was seldom or never sober, or if he were, the reflecting on his misfortunes pushed him on getting drunk as fast as he could-a case but too common amongst the meaner sort of people, who as they have no philosophy of learning to support them, endeavour to drown all care by sotting.

Whether Miller really intended to go a-robbing at the time he committed the fact for which he died, or whether drunkenness and the sense, even in that condition which he retained of his misfortune, on a sudden suggested to him the stripping of the old man Nicholas Bourn under the favour of the night, certain it is (though from motives we cannot determine) that he attacked the man and took from him his coat and hat. On the injured person's crying out a watchman ran immediately to his a.s.sistance, and with his pole, notwithstanding Miller drew his bayonet, knocked him down, and so seized him and delivered him up to Justice. At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted for this fact, and the same was very fully and clearly proved against him; yet though he had no friends capable of procuring him either a reprieve or pardon, he had the good luck to remain a considerable s.p.a.ce under condemnation, viz., from one sessions to another, before the report was made, and so had the greater leisure left him for repentance.

During the s.p.a.ce he lay in the condemned hold he expressed a very hearty sorrow for all his offences and particularly regretted his having addicted himself so much to the company of women, which, as it at first led him into expenses, naturally brought him into narrow circ.u.mstances; and his necessities unfortunately put him upon taking the fatal method of supplying himself. Yet in the midst of these tokens of penitence and contrition several women came still about him, so he resolved to send the child he had by the second down to his friends in the country, not doubting, as he said, but that they would take care of it. And for the last of those who went for his wife, he really looked upon her as such, and therefore treated her with more kindness and affection than he did any of the rest. However, doubtless they were no great help to him in his preparations for death. And amongst the other miseries produced, to our view, this is not a small one, that they continue to pursue us even to the last, and fasten so strongly about our thoughts and inclinations that as at first, they defeated all consideration, so in the end they are in danger of preventing a hearty and sincere repentance.

As to the particular fact for which he was to die, he acknowledged himself guilty thereof, but for all that objected to the several circ.u.mstances that were sworn against him at his trial; nor could all the arguments that were used towards him persuade him that those trifling variations (for as he himself represented them they were no more) were not now at all material to him, but that as he justly deserved to die according to his own confession, it signified little to him whether the particular steps taken in his apprehension were exactly stated by the Court or not. As the day of his execution drew near, he receded a little from these objections, and began to set himself in earnest to acquire that calmness with which every reasonable man would desire to meet death. The women he forbid visiting him, refused to eat or drink anything but what was absolutely necessary to support Nature, plied himself regularly and constantly to his devotions, and seemed to have nothing at heart but to reconcile himself to that Divine Being, who by the mult.i.tude of his crimes he had so much offended. To say truth, it was not a little wonderful that a person after continuing for such a length of time in the practice of wickedness and debauchery, should at last be capable of applying himself with such zeal and attention to the duties of a dying man. He yielded up his life the 13th of February, 1727, at Tyburn, being then twenty-six years of age.

The Life of ROBERT HAYNES, a Murderer, etc.

As from a mult.i.tude of instances in the course of these memoirs it has been shown how great a misfortune it is to be dest.i.tute of education, so from the following life it will appear that an improper education is as dangerous as none at all.

Robert Haynes, the criminal whose history we are to give at present, was the son of persons in Ireland, of none of the best circ.u.mstances, who yet afforded him a very good education, causing him to be instructed not only in the Latin, but also in the Greek tongue, in both of which to the day of his death he attained a tolerable knowledge. His father, it seems, though he had done everything for his son in breeding him a scholar, though when he grew up to man's estate he had nothing to give him, and was forced to let him come over to England to list himself in the Foot Guards. His officers gave him always the character of a quiet, inoffensive lad, who injured n.o.body, nor was himself addicted to those vices which are common to the men of his profession. On the contrary, he retained yet strong notions of those religious principles in which he had been educated. He addicted himself much to reading, and though his spirit was not a little broken by the consideration of that low life by which he was obliged to stoop, yet he preserved a becoming spirit and a very gentleman-like behaviour upon all occasions; so that the officers of his regiment very much regretted that misfortune which brought him to an untimely end. Of the occasion of this we come next to speak, since his youth and the regularity of his life prevented any other of his adventures coming to our notice.

It happened one Sunday evening, as he was walking along St. James's Park, with two other soldiers, they met two men and two women. Haynes unluckily kissed one of the women, upon which one of the men turned and broke his head. As was insisted even to the time of the death of this unfortunate person, the swords of both were drawn; however that were, he gave his antagonist a wound in the breast of which he died. For this he was apprehended and committed prisoner to Newgate. At the ensuing sessions of the Old Bailey he was indicted for wilfully murdering Edward Perry, by giving him a wound on the left part of the right breast near the short ribs, of the depth of twelve inches, and of the length of one. He was also indicted a second time on the Statute of Stabbing, and a third time upon the coroner's inquest for wilful murder. On all three of which, notwithstanding his defence, and the witnesses he called, he was found guilty; and although some honourable persons took a great deal of pains to procure a pardon or reprieve for him, yet it proved of no purpose, but he and the afore-mentioned malefactor were put into the death warrant and ordered for execution.

For himself he had little hopes from the endeavours of his friends and therefore behaved himself as if he had had none, being not only constant and devout at the public exercises in the chapel, but also ardent in his devotions in private and by himself. As the youth wanted not good sense, and had not forgot the education he had received in Ireland, so in every respect while under sentence of death he performed what could be expected from a man of courage, and a Christian, under his circ.u.mstances. A minister, out of charity, visited him several times and prayed with him, exhorting him always to make a dear and candid confession of the fact, and, since there were no hopes, not to go to death with a lie between his lips. Yet he persisted still in what he had at first declared, and continued to a.s.sert the truth of that declaration, until the gaol sickness brought him so low, that he was scarce able to speak at all. In this low slate of health he continued until within two or three days of his death, when he began to pick up strength a little; and as soon as he was able to go up the stairs, he attended as usual the devotions of the chapel. In this frame and disposition of heart he remained until the day of his execution came, upon which he appeared not only calm but cheerful, received the Sacrament as is usual with malefactors at the day of their death, and behaved at it in a very pious and religious manner.

When he came to Tyburn he stood up, and intended to have spoken to the people, but finding himself too weak, he referred to a paper which he delivered to Mr. Applebee, a printer, and which contained the substance of what (if he had been able) he would have there spoken; and then, after a few private e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, he easily resigned up his breath at the same time with the other malefactor, being then in the one-and-twentieth year of his age. I thought proper to insert the copy of that letter I have before spoken of, and it follows verbatim.

Good people,

I am to suffer by Law an ignominious death (G.o.d's will be done) which untimely end I never expected. I am a youth and it's above twelve months since I enlisted into his Majesty's Service. The character of my behaviour in that time I will leave to my acquaintance to declare; my character was sufficiently testified at my trial, by gentlemen of worth and honour. I pray G.o.d bless them for their Christian charity. I praise G.o.d my resolution to live uprightly was no constraint; as for the cause I suffer, and the horrid imputation I am charged with which is rendered murder (from my soul I abhor) I now declare as I expect salvation, I am unjustly accused, but I freely forgive my persecutors, as I hope to be forgiven; for what I did was accidental, and in my own vindication. The real truth is as follows:

The two soldiers that were my evidence desired my company to drink with them. As we were returning home through the Park, pa.s.sing by two women, and being warm with liquor, I presumed to give one of them a kiss; the other was a married woman, and resenting my freedom, called out to her husband, Edward Perry deceased, and to Toms that walked before, both entire strangers to me. They returned, Toms advanced towards me speaking abruptly, and struck me over the head and shoulders with a stick, which stunned me; likewise he urged the deceased to quarrel with me. The deceitful Perry enraged, swore he would see me out, and struck me with his sword in his scabbard over the head. He drew his sword and made several pa.s.ses at me, I still retreated till provoked to draw my sword to preserve myself. This affair was in the night. I received a wound in my right hand thumb, and a thrust through my coat. This I declare to be the whole truth, as I shall answer before my great G.o.d; though my persecutors, Toms and the deceased man's wife, swore quite the reverse, which took place to my ruin. I pray G.o.d forgive them their trespa.s.ses, as I hope forgiveness for my own. I pray G.o.d bless my good colonel for his care and endeavours for my safety; I pray G.o.d bless him with length of days and prosperity in all his undertakings. I thank G.o.d, I never wronged man, woman, or child, to my knowledge, nor was I ever inclined to quarrel. I heartily beg of G.o.d pardon and forgiveness for my sins, and I confide in the merits of my dear Saviour, who died for the World. I was baptized and bred a member of the Church of England (though an unworthy and unfortunate one) in which Communion I hope for salvation through my blessed Redeemer.

Sunday, February the 12th, 1726.

Robert Haynes

The Lives of THOMAS TIMMS, THOMAS PERRY, and EDWARD BROWN, Footpads

This poor unhappy man, Thomas Timms, was the son of mean parents in the country and as indifferently educated as he was born, so that his future ill-deeds were capable of some little extenuation. With much to-do his friends and parents raised money enough to put him out apprentice to a chair-carver, with whom he lived easily and honestly during the s.p.a.ce of his apprentices.h.i.+p, coming out of it with the character of an honest religious young lad, which he maintained after he was set up and married. He had probably continued to maintain it to the end of his life if he had not fallen into unhappy circ.u.mstances, by being out of work. This obliged him to come up to Town, where for a while he lived pretty well upon his business; but at last it so far fell off that he was obliged to list himself a soldier in the first regiment of Guards. Notwithstanding this he worked still at his trade, as much as it was possible for him to do, and to perform his duty; but misfortunes still crowding upon him, he grew at first melancholy, and at last took to drinking in the company of bad women, who soon drew him into thinking of taking dishonest methods to obtain money for the support of their debaucheries.

Amongst other of his acquaintance there was a woman who had formerly lived with a very eminent lawyer in the City. It was said she had a greater familiarity with her master than she ought to have had, from whence she took the liberty to cheat him most egregiously, especially by counterfeiting receipts from most of the tradesmen with whom her master had any dealing, by which means she retained in her own hands the money which she should have paid him. Some months after, however, the roguery was discovered, and her master being newly married, he took this opportunity to discharge her suddenly. However, he promised her, if she went into any lodgings, and gave him notice, he would take care she should not want, until she could get herself into some way of business or other.

This gentleman had three clerks, all of good families and good fortunes. The wench, after she was out of the house, first went into a neighbourhood where the eldest of these clerks and his relations were very well known. Here she took upon her to be his wife, and said that they were privately married for fear of disobliging his relations. By the help of this she got so far into credit that she took up near a hundred and twenty pounds worth of things before the least apprehension was had of her being a cheat; and then removing her lodgings, she fixed herself in a first floor within a few doors of the guardian of her master's second clerk. She gave it out there as she had done before, that she was secretly married to this young gentleman; and on the credit thereof she took up near a hundred pounds in silks and s.h.i.+fts. But just as she was on the point of moving off and playing the same game with the third, she was detected and committed to Bridewell. From thence she found means of escape by wheedling one of the keeper's servants, and afterwards took lodgings in the house where this Timms worked.

Whether she had any hand in persuading him to go out robbing or no, I cannot take upon me to say, but soon after, he, with his companions, Perry and Brown, on the 3rd of May, went out with a design to rob upon Hounslow Heath. All that night they lay in the fields; the next morning they met a poor old man, who telling them he had no money, they let him go without misusing him. Not long after they stopped Samuel Sells coming from Windsor, in his chair. He, it seems, kept a public-house there. Him they commanded to deliver, whereupon he gave them three half-crowns, but they toasting upon it that it was too little, he thereupon gave them ten s.h.i.+llings more, which both he and his companions averred was all that they took from him, though Sells at their trial, swore to a much larger sum, and that one of them held a truncheon over him, and threatened him with abundance of oaths in case he made any resistance. All of them denied this part of the charge, even to death, and said that though they had truncheons, yet they made no use of them, but kept them either in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s or under their coats.

Thomas Perry, the second of these malefactors, was born of parents in such wretched circ.u.mstances that when he was grown a good big lad, and death suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed them away, he found himself dest.i.tute of money, of business and even of clothes to cover him. He thereupon traveled up to London, and put himself apprentice to a gla.s.s-grinder, with whom he served his time very honestly and faithfully. Then he married and lived by working very hard in a reputable manner for about a twelve month, after which he listed in the first regiment of Foot Guards, in which he served till the Peace of Utrecht and Flanders, after the conclusion of which he returned to London in the same regiment, in which he continued to serve till this misfortune overtook him. For the last year of his life, he had, it seems, led a more loose and extravagant course than in all his days before, contracting an acquaintance with several women of the town, creatures who are the utter ruin of all such unhappy men, especially of all unlettered unexperienced persons as fall into their snares.

Some little time before he joined with Timms and his other companion in this robbery, he had the misfortune of having his leg bit by a dog at Windsor, where he was quartered. Having no friends, and but a small allowance to subsist on, he fell under great miseries there, and on his return to Town, those who had formerly employed him in gla.s.s-grinding, taking distaste at his rude and wicked behaviour, refused to have anything more to do with him. He readily gave way to the solicitations of Timms, who, as he declared, first proposed their going upon the highway, a crime which hitherto had not entered into Perry's head. However, he yielded too readily thereto, and with the persons who had shared in his crimes, came to share an ignominious and untimely death.

While under sentence, he applied himself with great seriousness and attention both to the public devotions of the chapel and to what was privately read to them in the place of their confinement, so that though he was very illiterate, he was far from being obstinate, and though he wanted the advantages of education, he was not deficient in grace, so we may therefore hope he might obtain mercy.

Edward Brown, the last of these unfortunate criminals, drew his first breath in the city of Oxford, and by the care of his parents, attained to a tolerable degree of knowledge in the Christian faith, as also in writing, reading and whatsoever was necessary in that station of life which his parents designed for him. Being arrived at an age proper to be put out an apprentice, they placed him with a gla.s.s-grinder, to whom he served an apprentices.h.i.+p faithfully, and to his good liking when out of time. He worked hard as a journeyman, married a wife, and lived in reputation and credit for some small s.p.a.ce; but falling unluckily into loose company, he gave himself up entirely to drinking, and running after bad women, which soon ruined him in the country and obliged him to come up to London for the sake of subsistance. How long he had been there, or of what standing his acquaintance was with the other two criminals, I cannot take upon me to say, only he in general was a fellow of greater openness in his behaviour than any of the criminals before mentioned. He said that they had all taken their cups pretty freely together, and had spent every farthing that they had amongst them; it was then resolved to go upon the highway for a supply, but he could not say who was the proposer of the scheme; that he himself had a sword and cane, and the rest truncheons, when they attacked Mr. Sells. He [Sells] gave them at two several times, seventeen s.h.i.+llings, and when they pressed for still more, said he had but eighteen pence about him, and begged they would let him have that to come to town with, which he said they agreed to, and did not offer him any ill-usage whatsoever.

At the same time these unhappy men were under sentence of death, Alexander Jones, John Platt, Mary Reynolds, Silvia Sherlock and Anne Senior were also condemned for several offences, and as is but too common with persons in their condition, all of them entertained strong notions of reprieves or pardons, so that when the death warrant came down, and these three found themselves ordered for execution, they were not a little surprised. But as they had much natural courage they made even that surprise turn to their advantage, and applied themselves with greater earnestness than ever to the duties necessary to be practised by people in their sad state.

When the day of their execution came, they were carried in one cart to Tyburn, and as they had been companions in that single action which had brought all of them to death, so there was n.o.body to share in that unhappy fate with them, nor were they disturbed with the sorrows of other criminals, which often distract one another's devotions at Tyburn. On the contrary, their behaviour was grave and decent, their public devotions were closed with a Psalm, and with many demonstrations of repentance they resigned their lives, on the 11th of August, 1727; Timms being about twenty-eight years of age, Perry near forty, and Brown somewhat less than twenty-four years old, at the time of their execution.

The Life of ALICE GREEN, a Cheat, Thief and Housebreaker

Amongst these melancholy relations of misery and death, I fancy it is some ease to my readers, as well as to myself, when the course of my memoirs leads me to mention a story as full of incidents, and followed by a less tragic end than the rest. This woman, whose life I am about to relate, was the daughter of an under-officer to one of the colleges at Oxford. As the doctrine of making up small salaries by taking up large perquisites prevails there as well as elsewhere, Alice's father made a s.h.i.+ft to keep himself, his wife and five children in a handsome manner out of 60 a year, and what he made besides of his place.

An affectation of gentility had infected the whole family, the old man had a good voice and played tolerably well on the fiddle. This drew abundance of the young smart fellows of the university to his house, and that of course engaged his three daughters to take all the pains they were able to make themselves agreeable. The mother had great hopes that fine clothes and a jaunty air might marry her daughters to some gentlemen of tolerable fortunes, and that one of them, at least, might have a chance of catching a fellow commoner with a thousand or two per annum, for which reason Miss Molly, Miss Jenny, and Miss Alice were all bred to the dancing school, taught to sing prettily, and to touch the spinet with an agreeable air. In short, the house was a mansion of politeness, and except the two brothers, one of which was put out apprentice to a carpenter, and the other to a shoemaker, there was not a person to be seen in it who looked, spoke or acted as became them in their proper station of life. But it is necessary that we should come to a more particular description.

Old Peter, their father, was a man of mean birth, and of a sort of accidental education. From his youth up he had lived in Oxford, and from the time he was able to know anything, within the purlieus of a college, from whence he had gleaned up a few Latin sentences, sc.r.a.ps of poetry, and as the masterpiece of his improvements, had acquired a good knack of punning. All these mighty qualifications were bent to keep a good house, and drinking two or three quarts of strong ale, accompanied with a song, and two or three hours' sc.r.a.ping at night. The mother, again, was the last remnant of a decayed family, who charged its ruin on the Civil Wars. She was exceedingly puffed up with the notions of her birth, and the respect that was due to a person not sprung from the vulgar. Her education had extended no farther than the knowledge of preserving, pickling and making fricasees, a pretty exact knowledge in the several kinds of points and a judgment not to be despised in the choice of lace, silks and ribbons. She affected extravagance that she might not appear mean, and troublesomely ceremonious that she might not seem to want good manners. Clothes for herself and her daughters, a good quant.i.ty of china and some other exuberances of a fancy almost turned mad with the love of finery, made up the circle of what took up her thoughts, the daughters partic.i.p.ating in their parents' tempers. But what was wonderful indeed, the sons were honest, sober, industrious young men.

In the midst of all this mirth and splendour, the father died, and left them all totally without support other than their own industry could procure for them, slender provision indeed! Miss Molly, the eldest, was about twenty-two at the time of her father's death, and her sisters were each of them younger than her, and Alice a year younger than Jenny, and about eighteen. The mother was at her wits' end to know how to procure a living for herself and them, but an old gentleman in one of the colleges, to whom Peter had been very useful, and who therefore retained a grateful sense of his service, was so kind as to give fifty pounds towards putting out the daughters, and took care to see the youngest Alice placed with a mantua-maker in London. Molly fell into a consumption, as was generally said, for the love of a young gentleman who used to spend his evenings at her father's, and who marrying a young lady of suitable birth and fortune to himself, was retired into Shrops.h.i.+re. Jenny ran away with a servitor, and was lost to her mother and her friends; so that Alice had it in her power to be tolerably provided for, if she had inclined to have lived virtuously, and not to have frustrated the offers of a good fortune. But she was wild and silly from her cradle, born without capacity to do good to herself, and indued only with such cunning as served her to ruin others.

The first intrigue she had after her coming up to London was with a young fellow who was clerk to a Justice of the Peace in the neighbourhood. Before be saw Alice he had been a careful, industrious young man, and through his master's kindness had picked up some money; but from the time that his master had a suit of clothes made up with Alice's mistress, and which occasioned her first coming about the house, poor Mr. Philip became the victim of her charms, and moped up and down like a hen that had lost her chickens. It was not long before the Justice's daughters found out his pa.s.sion, and having communicated their discovery to the maids, exposed him to be the laughing stock of the whole house. Never was a poor young fellow so pestered! One asked him whether he liked the wife with three trades? Another was enquiring whether he had cast up the amount of remnants of silk, shreds of lace, and the savings that might be made out of linings, facings, and robings? The Justice took notice that Philip had left off reading the news, and the old lady wondered whether he had forgotten playing upon the organ in her husband's study. But all this served rather to increase than to abate his pa.s.sion, so that he neglected no opportunity of meeting and paying his addresses to his mistress.

Alice was no less careful on her side, and in a short s.p.a.ce it was agreed that she should run away from her mistress, of whom she was grown heartily weary, and that Philip should counterfeit most excessive grief at his loss, in order to prevent the least suspicion of his being privy thereto. Having adjusted this, it was not long before they put their design into execution, and Philip first having provided a lodging for her in Brewer Street, she, on a Sunday in the evening, when all the rest of the family were out, removed from her mistress's house in a court near the Strand, taking all that belonged to her in a hackney-coach, leaving the key at an alehouse. Philip had so good a character that the grief he affected on this occasion pa.s.sed for reality upon all the house, and the flight of Alice had no other effect than to excite a new spring of railery on the loss of his mistress. He laid out the greatest part of what he had saved during five years' service in furnis.h.i.+ng out two rooms for her very neatly, pa.s.sing himself, where she lodged, for the son of a gentleman of fortune in the country, who had married against his friends' consent, and was therefore obliged to keep his wife in a place of privacy until things at home could be made easy.

For some time the lovers lived mighty happily together, and nothing was wanting to complete Philip's wishes than that they were married, for Alice never making such a proposal, now and then disturbed his thoughts, and put him a little out of humour. Things remained in this state with a little alteration for about five months, until an Irish captain coming to lodge pretty near where Philip had placed Alice, he found a way to see her twice or thrice, and being a fellow of a smooth tongue, a handsome person and an immoderate a.s.surance, it was not long before he became master of her affections. The temper of Philip having been always too grave for her, in about three weeks' time she let the captain into the truth of the whole story, and at his persuasion, during the time Philip was at Surrey a.s.sizes, sold off the furniture of her lodgings, and directing a letter to be left for him at his master's house by the Penny Post, moved off with her new gallant.

It would be impossible, should I attempt to describe it, to describe the agony the poor young fellow was in at the receipt of Alice's epistle, in which she told him flatly she was weary of him and had got another gallant; and saying that if he tried to look after her or give her any other uneasiness, she would send a full account of all things to his master. The jilt was sensible this would keep him quiet, for as he depended solely upon his favour, so a story of this sort would have inevitably deprived him of it for ever. It answered her intent, and the force he put upon his pa.s.sions cost him a severe fit of sickness.

Alice, in the meanwhile, indulged for about a week with her Irish captain, at the end of which he beat her and turned her out of doors. It was in vain for her to talk of her goods and her clothes; the captain had carried her amongst a set of his acquaintance, who on the first quarrel called her a thousand foolish English wh.o.r.es, and bid her go back to her Justice's clerk again. In the midst of her affliction, with nothing on but a linen gown, and about three s.h.i.+llings in her pocket, the watchman coming his rounds, found her sitting on the steps at the door where the captain lodged. He asked her what she did there, she said her husband and she had quarrelled and he had shut her out. The watchman was going away, satisfied with the answer, when the captain called out at the window, told him she was a street-walker, and bid him take her away. The landlady confirmed this, and the fellow laying fast hold of her shoulder, compelled her to go with him to the watch-house. However, a s.h.i.+lling procured her liberty and a favourable report to the constable that she was an honest young woman, who had the misfortune to be married to a bad husband, who turned her into the street, and she was afraid would not suffer her to come in again that night. Upon hearing this, the constable bid her sit down by the fire, gave her a gla.s.s of brandy and promised her she should be as safe and as easy as the place would allow her for that night.

But unluckily for Alice, as she went to take the gla.s.s out of the constable's hand, he knew her face, and happening to be the baker who served the mantua-maker with bread, where she lived, the next morning he conducted Mrs. Alice, much against her will, home to her mistress. One of her fellow-apprentices ran with the news to the Justice's, and one of the daughters whispered it in Philip's ears, as he was writing a recognizance in the Justice's book. Philip no sooner heard it but he fell down in a swoon, and about half an hour was spent before they could bring him again to himself. The young lady who had played him the trick, immediately quitted the room, and he opening his eyes, and perceiving her gone, pretended it was a sudden fit, and that he had been used to them when a child.

Much as he had suffered by this ungrateful woman, he took the first opportunity to go to a coffee-house within a door or two of her mistress, in order to learn what had become of her. There was but one person who had been trusted with his ever having visited her at all, and they too, were ignorant that she had ever run away with him. Philip therefore sent for his confidant, from whom he received information, that after snivelling and crying for a hour or two, she took advantage of being left alone in a parlour (although the door was locked), and getting out at the window into the backyard, made a s.h.i.+ft to scramble over the top of the house of office into the court, and so made her escape to the waterside, where her mistress found she had taken a pair of oars. But though they followed her to Falcon Stairs, yet they were not able to retrieve her. Philip at this news was exceedingly grieved, and returned home again very disconsolate on this occasion.

Alice, in the meantime, lurked about in St. George's Fields till evening, and then crossing the bridge, walked on towards St. James's. However dirty and despicable her dress, yet as she had a very pretty face and a very engaging manner of speaking at first sight, she drew in a merchant's book-keeper, as she walked down Cornhill, to carry her to a certain tavern at the corner of Bishopsgate Street; where, after a good supper and a bottle or two of wine, she engaged him to take her to a lodging, and by degrees to give her a great deal of fine clothes, in return for which she flattered him so greatly that he grew as fond of her and as much a fool as ever Philip had been.

In the meantime her sister, who was much of her disposition, had been turned off by a young fellow she had run away with from Oxford, and in a miserable condition had trotted up to town, in order to see whether she could have better luck with another gallant. One night, as she was strolling through Leadenhall Street in her vocation, she saw her sister Alice and the book-keeper who kept her, walking home with a servant, and a candle and lanthorn before them. Jenny did not think fit to speak to them, but d.o.g.g.i.ng them privately home, called upon her sister the next day and was mighty well received. The couple now took every opportunity (notwithstanding the allowance of the book-keeper) to enable Alice to stroll out with her together, and wandered about nightly in quest of adventures, till it began to grow towards ten o'clock, and the fear of a visit from her keeper drove Alice to her lodgings.

This trade, without any remarkable accident, was practised for about three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by sparks they picked up to live pretty easily together, and that no misfortune might go too near their hearts, they fell to drinking a quart of brandy a day. It seems the woman at whose house they lodged was herself given to drinking, and so by treating her they fell into the same vice. The landlady in return was mighty civil to them, and every now and then invited them downstairs to drink with her.