Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 34

Harris seemed a little uneasy at the Ordinary's remonstrating with him that he was more guilty than the rest, inasmuch as he first incited them to the falling into those wretched methods by which they brought shame and ruin upon themselves. He answered that there was little difference in their dispositions, having been all of them addicted for many years to the greatest wickedness which men could practise; that his companions were no less ready than he to fall upon such means of supporting themselves in sensual delights. As he averred this to their faces they did not contradict it, but seemed to take shame to themselves and to sorrow alike for the evils they had committed.

They ended their lives at Tyburn, on the 11th of September, 1728, with all outward signs of true repentance; Owen being twenty, Harris twenty-nine, and Medline thirty-nine years of age at the time of their execution.

[81]

An eminent Whig doctor who was later appointed physician to George II. He was created a baronet in 1739.

The Lives of PETER LEVEE, JOHN FEATHERBY, STEPHEN BURNET, alias BARNET, alias BARNHAM, and THOMAS VAUX, Street-Robbers, Footpads, Thieves, etc.

In the course of these memoirs I have more than once remarked that a ridiculous spirit of vainglory is often the source of those prodigious mischiefs which are committed by those abandoned persons, who addict themselves to open robberies, and the carrying on, as it were, a declared war against mankind. Theft and rapine may to some appear odd subjects for acquiring glory, and yet it is certain that many, especially of the younger criminals, have been chiefly instigated in their most daring attempts from a vain inclination to be much talked of, in order to which this seemed to them the shortest course. But these observations that I have made will be better ill.u.s.trated from the following lives, than they could have been any other way.

Peter Levee was descended from honest and reputable parents, who gave him a very good education, and afterwards bound him out apprentice to a silk weaver; but such as the perverse disposition of this unfortunate Lad, such his love of gaming, and such his continual inclination to debauched company, that nothing better could be expected from him than what afterwards befell him. Yet his understanding was very tolerable, he did not want a sufficient share of wit, and in a word his capacity altogether might have enabled him to have lived very well, if his prodigious vices had not prevented it by hurrying him into misfortunes. It was remarkable in this criminal that his long habit of carrying in the detestable trade of stealing, to which he had incurred himself in every shape as much as possible, had given so odd a cast to his visage that it was impossible for a man to look him in the face without immediately guessing him to be a rogue.

While yet a boy, he had been so accustomed to confinement in the Compter, especially in Wood Street, that he had contracted a friends.h.i.+p with all the under-officers in that prison, who treated him with great leniency as often as he came there. Picking pockets, sneaking goods out of shops, s.n.a.t.c.hing them through windows, and such other petty facts, were the employments of his junior years. As he grew bigger, he grew riper in all sorts of villainy, though never a fellow had worse luck in dishonest attempts, for he was always detected, and very frequently had gone through the lesser punishments of the Law, such as whipping and hard labour. At one time he lay four years in Newgate for a fine, and this finished the course of his villainous education, for from the time he got out, he never ceased to practice robbing in the streets, and on the roads to the villages near London, until he and his companions fell into the hands of Justice, and went altogether to their last adventure at Tyburn.

John Featherby, the second of these criminals, had received a greater share of education than any of the rest. His father had been a man of tolerable circ.u.mstances, and with great care provided that this young fellow should not be ignorant of anything that might be necessary or convenient for him to know in that business for which he designed him, viz., a coach-painter. But he did not live to see him put apprentice to it, which his mother afterwards took care to do, and consequently he had not the misfortune of seeing him live so scandalous a life, and die so shameful a death.

His understanding was tolerable, but his behaviour so rude, boisterous and shocking that he left no room even for that compa.s.sion to which all men are naturally p.r.o.ne when they see persons under sentence of death. The desire of appearing brave and making the figure of a hero in low life was in all probability the occasion of his acting so odd a part, and as he was generally looked upon as their chief by those unfortunate creatures who were of his gang, possibly he put on this ferocity in his manner in order to support his authority, and preserve that respect and superiority of which these wretches are observed to be inexpressibly fond.

Stephen Burnet, alias Barnet, alias Barnham, which was his true name, was a child when he died, and a thief almost from his cradle. His parents, who were people of worth, sent him to school with a design, doubtless, that he should have acquired some good there; but Stephen made use of that time to visit a master of his own choosing, the celebrated Mr. Jonathan Wild, at whose levy he was a pretty constant attendant and while an infant he was a most a.s.siduous companion and a.s.sistant to the famous Blueskin.

My readers may be perhaps inquisitive how an infant of eight years old could in any way a.s.sist a person of Blueskin's profession. For their information, then, perhaps for their security, I must inform them that while Blueskin and one of his companions bought a pair of stockings, or two or three pairs of gloves in a large Shop, Stephen used to creep on all fours under the counter, and march off with goods perhaps to the value of ten, twelve, or twenty pounds. But, alas, he was not the youngest of Mr. Wild's scholars. I myself have seen a boy of six years old tried at the Old Bailey for stealing the rings of an oyster women's fingers as she sat asleep by her tub, and after his being acquitted by the compa.s.sion of the jury, Jonathan took him from the bar, and carrying him back upon the leads, lifted him up in his arms, and turning to the spectators, said, Here's a c.o.c.k of the game for you, of my own breeding up.

But to return to Barnham. His friends no sooner found out the villainy of his inclinations, but they took all methods imaginable to wean him from his vices. They corrected him severely; they offered him any encouragements on his showing the least visible sign of amendment, they put him to seven several trades upon liking. But all this was to no purpose, nothing could persuade him to forsake his old trade, which following with indefatigable industry, he made a s.h.i.+ft to reach the gallows of an old offender, at almost nineteen years of age.

After he, Featherby, Vaux and Levee became acquainted, they suffered no time to be lost in perpetrating such facts as were most likely to supply them with money, roving abroad almost every night, in quest of adventures and returning very seldom without some considerable prey. Perhaps my readers may be inquisitive as to what became of all this money. Why, really, it was spent in drink, gaming and in wh.o.r.es, three articles which ran so high amongst these knight-errants in low life that Barnham and two more found a way to lavish an hundred and twenty pounds on them in three weeks.

On one of his nocturnal expeditions, in company with Levee and Featherby, they robbed one Mr. Brown, in Dean's Court by St. Paul's Churchyard, of a gold watch and thirteen guineas; upon which the gentleman thought fit, it seems, to offer in the newspapers a reward of five guineas for restoring the watch. Not many days after, he received a penny-post epistle from Mr. Barnham, in which he was told that if he came to a field near Sadler's Wells, and brought the promised reward of five guineas along with him, he should there meet a single person at half an hour after six precisely, who would restore him his watch without doing him any injury whatsoever. At the time appointed the gentleman went thither, found Barnham walking alone, well dressed with a laced hat on, who immediately came up to him, and receiving the five guineas presented him with his watch.

Mr. Brown having no more to do with him, immediately turned round about to go back, upon which Barnham produced a pistol ready c.o.c.ked from under his coat. You see, says he, it is in my power to rob you again; but I scorn to break my word of honour. Levee and Featherby, it seems, were posted pretty near and, as they all declared, intended to have shot the gentleman if he had brought anybody with him, or had made the least opposition or noise.

At Kingston a.s.sizes he was tried for a robbery committed in Surrey, but for want of sufficient evidence was acquitted, upon which he returned immediately to his old trade. About three months before he was apprehended for the last time, he came into Little Britain (the place where he was born), produced a silver spoon and fifteen s.h.i.+llings in money, declared it to be the effects of that day's exploits, and then climbing up a lamp-post, thrust his head through the iron circle in which in winter time the lamp is placed, declaring to the neighbours who called him and advised him to reform, that within three months he would do something that should bring him to be hanged in the same place. As to the time he was not mistaken, though he was a little out as to the manner and place of his execution, and we mention this fact only to show the amazing wickedness of so young a man, of which we shall hereafter have occasion to say a great deal more.

Thomas Vaux was a fellow of no education at all. Whether he had been bred to any employment or not I am not able to say, but that which he followed was sweeping of chimneys, the profits of which he eked out with thefts, in which he continued undiscovered for a long s.p.a.ce of time. In himself he was a fellow void of almost every good quality, disliked even by his own companions for his brutal behaviour which he still kept up even under his misfortunes, and ceased not to behave with an obstinate perverseness even to the last moment of his life.

The fact for which all this gang suffered was for robbing one Mr. Clark, at the corner of Water Lane, in Fleet Street,[82] which at their trial, was proved upon them by witnesses in the following manner:

Mr. Clark, the prosecutor, deposed that going in a coach from St. Paul's to the Inner Temple, he saw three or four persons d.o.g.g.i.ng it from a toy-shop at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard; that he scarce lost sight of them until he came to the end of Water Lane, where Barnham and Vaux stopped the coach; he then looked out and saw them very plainly. Levee stepped into the coach, put his hand into his pocket, and tore his breeches down in taking out the things; Featherby all the while holding a pistol to his breast The things they took from him were a silver watch, value four pounds, a diamond ring, three pounds eleven s.h.i.+llings in silver and fourteen guineas.

Then the confessions of Levee and Barnham before Sir William Billers, Knight and Alderman, were read, in which they owned that they committed the robbery on Mr. Clark, and that Featherby and Vaux a.s.sisted therein. Sir William also attested that they made the said confession freely and without any promises made, or being threatened in case of refusal. Thomas Wood swore that going to apprehend Featherby and one Cable, in a house in Blue Boar's Head Alley, in Barbican, they both snapped their pistols at him, but that neither of them went off.

Mary Vaux, wife of the prisoner Thomas Vaux, having first excused herself from giving any testimony against her husband, deposed that she saw the rest of the prisoners commit the robbery at the end of Water Lane, and that Levee got into the coach. Upon which evidence taken altogether the jury found them guilty without going out of the Court.

When they received sentence of death, they all behaved themselves very audaciously, except Levee who appeared penitent, and excused himself of the misbehaviour he had been guilty of at his trial. During the time they remained under sentence of death in Newgate, this last mentioned criminal, Levee, appeared truly sensible of that miserable state in which he was. He attended the public devotion at Chapel with great seriousness, except when his audacious companions pulled him and disturbed him, when he would sometimes smile. As he had pa.s.sed through the former part of his life without thought or reflection, so he seemed now awakened all at once to a just sense of his sins. In a word, he did every thing which so short a s.p.a.ce could admit of, to convince those who saw him that he minded only the great business he had to do, viz., the making of his peace with that G.o.d who he had so much offended.

Featherby, as has been said, persisted in that brutal behaviour for which he had been remarkable amongst his gang. At chapel he disturbed the congregation by throwing sticks at a gentleman, laughing and talking to his companions, sometimes insulting and beating those who were near him, and in fine encouraged the rest of his companions to behave in such a manner that the keepers were reduced to the necessity of causing them all four to be chained and nailed down in the old condemned hold, for fear of their committing some murder or other before they died, which they often threatened they would do. There they continued for three or four days, until upon the promise of amendment and behaving better for the future, they were released, brought back again to their respective cells, and at times of public devotion up to chapel.

When the death warrant came down, Featherby pretended to be much more moved than could be expected, seemed in dreadful agonies at the remembrance of his former wicked and impudent behaviour, prayed with great fervency, and said he hoped that G.o.d would yet have mercy on him. Barnham continued unmoved to the last. He did, indeed, abstain from ill-language and disturbing people at chapel, but employed his time in his cell, in composing a song to celebrate the glorious actions of himself and his companions. This was work he very much valued himself upon, and sending for the person who usually prints the dying speeches, he desired it might be inserted, but it containing incitements to their companions to go on in the same trade, in the strongest terms he was capable of framing them in, his design was frustrated, and they were not published.

Vaux behaved a little more civilly after their being stapled down in the condemned hold, but throughout the time of his confinement appeared to be a very obstinate and incorrigible fellow. Levee was twenty-four years old; Featherby about the same age; Barnham near nineteen; and Vaux twenty-three, at the time they suffered, being on the 11th of November, 1728, in company with nine other malefactors.

A Paper written by Featherby's own hand, which he delivered to the Ordinary of Newgate in the Chapel immediately before they went to be executed.

As it is my sad misfortune to come to this untimely end, I think it my duty to acknowledge the justice of Almighty G.o.d, and that of my country, and I humbly implore pardon of the Divine Goodness, and forgiveness of all that I have injured, or any ways offended. It is a sad reflection upon my spirit that I have had the blessing and advantage of honest and pious parents, whose tender care provided for my education, so that I might have lived to G.o.d's glory, their comfort and my own lasting felicity. But I take shame to myself, and humbly acknowledge that by the evil ways I of late followed I neglected my duty to my great Creator, and brought grief to my dear and tender mother. And having thus far, and much more, effended against G.o.d and man, I hope and earnestly desire, that no prudent nor charitable person will reflect upon my good mother, or any other friend or relation for my shameful end.

John Featherby

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Now called Whitefriars Street.

The Life of THOMAS NEEVES, Street-Robber and Thief

There are some persons so amazingly dest.i.tute of reason, so exceedingly stupid, and of so sleepy a disposition of mind, that neither advice, nor danger, nor punishment are capable of awaking them; they pa.s.s through life in a continual lethargy of wickedness, nor can they be obliged to open their eyes even when at the point of death.

How shocking, how horrid soever such a character may be, certain it is that the criminal Neeves, of whom we are now speaking, deserved no better. His parents, though mean, had not omitted the care of his education so far but that he had learned to read and write, which they thought qualification sufficient for the business in which they intended to breed him, viz., a cane chair-maker, to which employment they put him apprentice. He did not serve out his time with his master, for having got into an acquaintance with some lewd, debauched persons, he, whose inclination from his youth turned that way, went totally into all their measures, and quitting all thoughts of an honest livelihood, thought of nothing but picking and stealing.

He a.s.sociated himself with a woman of the same calling, who probably furthered him in all his attempts, in consideration of which he married her, and they were both together in Newgate for their several offences. In the former part of this volume[83] we have mentioned his becoming a witness against several street-robbers, who were executed upon his evidence; of whom George Gale, alias Kiddy George, Thomas Crowder, James Toon, and John Hornby, denied the commission of those particular facts which he swore upon them, and Richard Nichols (who was a grave sober man) went to death and took it upon his salvation, that he was never concerned either in that act for which he died, or in any other of the same kind during the course of his life.

As the town naturally abhors perjuries which affect men's lives, and are not very well affected towards evidences even when they do not exceed the truth, so the misfortune of Neeves being a second time apprehended, instead of creating pity, gave the public a general satisfaction. At the sessions following his confinement he was indicted for privately stealing out of the shop of Charles Lawrence a corduroy coat value thirteen s.h.i.+llings. In respect of this robbery, the prosecutor deposed that Thomas Neeves, about seven in the evening, came into his shop, he being a salesman, and enquired for a dimity waistcoat; one accordingly was shown him, but they not at all agreeing in the price, Neeves on a sudden turned towards the door, and having with some earnestness cursed the prosecutor, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a coat and ran away. Upon which Mr. Lawrence followed him, crying out, Stop Thief! which Neeves himself also bawled out as loud as he could until he was taken. Upon this evidence the jury found him guilty.

Under sentence of death his behaviour was much of a piece with what it was before. As to his confession, he would make none, saying he would give no occasion for books or ballads to be made about him. Even in chapel he behaved himself so rudely that he occasioned great disturbance, and put the keepers under a necessity of treating him with more severity than was usual to persons under his miserable condition. When alone in his cell he expressed great diffidence of the mercy of G.o.d, seemed to be in a slate of despair, and though he was often pressed to declare whether depositions he had given against the afore-mentioned street robbers were true or not, he either waived making an answer, or used so much evasion or equivocation that it still remained doubtful whether he swore truth or no.

As his end drew yet nearer, he appeared more and more confused and uneasy, but not a bit more penitent or ready to confess, notwithstanding that several persons, and some of them of distinction had applied to him in the cells and earnestly exhorted him to that purpose. He also drank excessively, though so near his end, and his conscience so loaded with such a weight of horrible offences.

Yet it is very probable that he would have been much more tractable in his temper and ingenuous in his confessions, if he had not been continually visited and kept warm by a certain bad woman he at that time owned for his wife. This wretched creature was employed by some persons who thought themselves in danger if Neeves should once become truly penitent, to keep him full of idle thoughts and delusive promises to the very hour of his death, in which (from the temper of the fellow), they flattered themselves his cowardice would make them safe. In which wicked design both they and she succeeded but too well, for he continued careless, obstinate and impenitent to the last moment of his life, and at the place of execution staggered and was scarce able to stand, bawling out to a man in a coach who was to carry away his body, until the Ordinary reprimanded him and told him he believed he had drunk too much that morning; to which Neeves answered, No indeed, Sir, I only took a dram. He then besought him that a Psalm might be sung, which request of his being complied with, he yet could not forbear smiling while they were singing.

AN EXECUTION IN SMITHFIELD MARKET (From the Newgate Calendar)

The father and wife of Mr. Nichols, the barber so often mentioned, got into the cart and earnestly enquired whether the deposition he had given against him was the truth or not. Neeves, thereupon, with tears in his eyes owned that it was not, and thence fell into a greater agony than he had ever been perceived in before, beseeching G.o.d to have mercy on him for shedding innocent blood, into which he had been induced by the persuasion of others, who represented it to him as a means for getting money both for them and him, owning that he never saw Nichols in his life before they were at the justices together. After this he cried two or three times unto G.o.d to forgive him, and so was turned off with the rest on the 27th of February, 1729, being then about twenty-eight years of age.

[83]

See page 445.

The Lives of HENRY GAHOGAN and ROBERT BLAKE, Coiners

Notwithstanding the number of those who have been executed for this offence, yet of late years we have had frequent instances of persons who rather than groan under the burden of poverty or labour hard to get an honest livelihood, have chosen this method of supplying their extravagances and consequently have run their heads into a halter.

Henry Gahogan, an Irishman of mean parents (who had however bestowed so much education upon him that he attained writing a very fair hand), in order to get his bread set up the business of a writing-master in that part of Ireland, where there were few masters to strive against him. Here he behaved for some time so well, that he got the reputation of being an honest industrious young man; but whether business fell off, or that his roving temper could no longer be kept within bounds, the papers I have do not authorise me to determine.

He went upon his travels, and pa.s.sed through a great part of Europe in the quality, as may be conjectured, of a gentleman's servant, until two or three years before his death, about which time he brought over the art of coining into England, which he had been taught by a countryman of his, as an easy and certain resource whenever his difficulties should straiten him so far as to make its a.s.sistance necessary. This happened no very long time after his coming over thence, for in a short time his extravagancies reduced him so much that one of his countrymen thought he did him a great service in recommending him to one Blake, for an usher, which Blake at that time set up to teach young gentlemen to fence, having a school for that purpose near the Temple.

Thither Gahogan came accordingly, and after staying for two days successively, and finding no scholars came, he opened the case to his master that was to have been and told him how easy it was to get money and live well, provided they had but utensils for coining, and soon after he showed him a specimen of his art, which he performed so dexterously that at first sight they promised themselves prodigious matters therefrom. They engaged one Ferris, who formerly had wrote as a clerk to a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn and the Temple, but adventuring to trust another person with that secret, he soon after made a confession and impeached them all. Upon which this Gahogan, Blake and the before-mentioned Ferris, together with two women, came to be tried for this offence on an indictment of high treason.

The evidence was very clear, and notwithstanding the a.s.surance with which Blake and Gahogan behaved at the bar, and the perplexed defence which was made by Ferris (who fancied himself so sure of being acquitted that he directed horses to be hired in order to his going down to a country a.s.sizes, there to a.s.sist as solicitor for a notorious offender), the jury, after a short stay, brought them in guilty, but acquitted the women, of whom the one was the mother of this Gahogan and the other the mistress or wife of the said Robert Blake, of whom we are next to speak.

He was by birth also of the Kingdom of Ireland, his parents being people of some condition, who gave him a very good education and afterwards put him out apprentice to a linendraper. After he was out of his time he married a woman with some little fortune, by whom he had three children, and after misusing her greatly, went away from her into England. Here he led a loose, debauched life, and subsisted himself, to give it the best phrase, rather upon the ingenuity of his head than the industry of his hands. Here he found means to draw aside a farmer's daughter, to whom he was married, and whom he involved so far in his misfortunes, as to bring her to the bar with himself for high treason, where her marriage was so far of service to her that it excused her from bearing a share in his conviction.

After they were found guilty, Gahogan expressed much penitence and sorrow, acknowledged the heinous offences of which he had been guilty, and expressed particular concern for the ill-usage he had given his poor mother, whom he had often beaten and abused, for whom he was once committed to Bridewell on that score, which effectually ruined what little reputation be had left. Before the day of execution came he was exceedingly poor and dest.i.tute, so that he had scarce clothes wherewith to cover him, or food sufficient to preserve that life which was so suddenly to be finished at the gallows. As far as we are able to judge from the man's outward behaviour, he was a sincere and hearty penitent, only it was with great difficulty he forgave the persons concerned in his prosecution, which however at last he declared he did, and pa.s.sed with great resignation and piety, though by a violent death from this world to another, and we may charitably hope, a better.