Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 35

As to Blake, his behaviour was not so much of a piece at first, but when he perceived death inevitable, notwithstanding his having procured a reprieve for a week, and thereby escaped dying with his companion Gahogan, the prospect of his approaching dissolution wrought so far upon him that with much seeming penitence he made a frank confession of all his offences, reflecting chiefly on himself for having deserted his wife, and living for so many years with other women. When the week for which he had procured a reprieve was expired, he was carried alone on a hurdle, which is usual in cases of high treason, and being come to the place of execution he stood up and spoke to those who were present in the following terms:

Good People,

I am brought here justly to suffer death for an offence the nature of which I did not so well comprehend at the time I committed it. I have been the greatest of all sinners, addicted to every kind of l.u.s.t, and guilty of every manner of crime, excepting that of murder only. You that are a.s.sembled here to see the unfortunate exit of an unhappy man, take warning from my fate, and avoid falling into those extravagancies which necessarily bring persons to those straits which have forced me upon taking undue courses for a supply. This is the end proposed by the Law for making me a spectacle, and I pray G.o.d with my last breath that you may make that use of it.

After this he betook himself to some private devotions, and then suffered with great constancy and resignation of mind. He was executed on the 31st of March, 1729, being then about thirty-eight years of age. Gahogan died on the 24th of the same month, being then thirty years of age.

The Life of PETER KELLEY, alias OWEN, alias NISBET, a Murderer

Whether there be really any gradation in crimes, or whether we do not mistake in supposing the transgression of one Law of G.o.d more heinous than that of another, would be a point too difficult and too abstract for us to enter into, but as human nature is more shocked at the shedding of blood than at any other offence, we may be allowed to treat those who are guilty of it as b.l.o.o.d.y and unnatural men, who besides their losing all respect towards the laws of G.o.d, show also a want of that compa.s.sion and tenderness which seems incident to the human species.

The unhappy person of whom we are now to speak, was by birth an Irishman, and his true name Mackhuen, but upon his coming over into England he thought fit to change it for Owen, thereby inclining to avoid being taken for any other person than an Englishman. His parents were, it seems, persons so low in the world that they could not afford him any education, so that he was unable either to write or read at the time of his death. However, they put him out apprentice to a weaver, with whom having served his time, he came over to England, and worked for a little time at his trade. But growing idle, and being always inclined to sotting, he chose rather to go errands, or to do anything rather than work any longer.

It seems he played with great dexterity upon two jews' harps at a time, and this serving to entertain people of as loose and idle a disposition as himself, he thereby got a good deal of money, or least drink (which was to him all one, for without it he could not live), and his delight in an alehouse was so great that he seldom cared to be out of it. People in such houses finding they got money by his playing upon the jews' harp, and thereby keeping people longer at the pot than otherwise they were inclined to stay, used to encourage Peter by helping him to errands; but amongst all the persons who were so kind as to supply his necessities, there was one Nisbet, an old joiner in the neighbourhood, who was never weary of doing him kindnesses. Having repeated these often and for a long time together, Kelley at last began to call the old man father, and there seemed to be an inviolable friends.h.i.+p between them, Peter always preserving some respect towards him, though he seemed to have lost it towards everybody else.

One night, however, or rather morning, for it was near two o'clock, Kelley came with many signs of terror and confusion to the watch-house, and there told the constable and attendants that old Nisbet was murdered and lay weltering in his bed and a razor by him. The watch, knowing Peter to be a wild, half-witted drunken fellow, gave little heed to his discourse, and so far they were from crediting it that they turned him out of the watch-house, and bid him get about his business. In the morning old Nisbet's lodgers not hearing him stir at his usual hour, went to the door, and there made a noise in order to awake him. Having no answer upon that, they sent for a proper officer and broke the door open, where they found the old man with his throat cut in a most barbarous fas.h.i.+on, overflowed with the torrent of his own blood, which was yet warm. No sooner did the particulars of this horrid murder begin to make a noise, but the watch calling to mind what Kelley had told them, immediately suspected him for the murder, and caused him quickly to be apprehended and committed to Newgate.

On the trial the strongest circ.u.mstances imaginable appeared against him, so much that the jury, without much hesitation, found him guilty, and he, after a pathetic speech from the Bench, of the nature and circ.u.mstances of his b.l.o.o.d.y crime, received sentence of death with the rest. Under conviction he appeared a very stupid creature, though as far as his capacity would give him leave he showed all imaginable signs of penitence and sorrow, and attended with great gravity and devotion at the public service in the chapel, notwithstanding he professed himself to be in the communion of the Church of Rome. He acknowledged the deceased Mr. Nisbet to have been extraordinarily kind and charitable to him, even to as great a degree as if he had been his own child, but as to the murder, he flatly denied his committing it, or his having any knowledge of its being committed; and though he was strongly pressed as to the nature of those circ.u.mstances on which the jury had found him guilty, and which were so strong as to persuade all mankind that their verdict was just, yet he continued still in the same mind, protesting his own clearness from that b.l.o.o.d.y and detestable crime. In this disposition of mind he suffered at Tyburn, being at that time about forty years of age or somewhat under.

The Lives of WILLIAM MARPLE and TIMOTHY COTTON, Highwaymen

That violence with which, in this age, young people pursue the gratification of their pa.s.sions without considering how far they therein violate the laws of G.o.d and their country, is the common and natural source of those many and great afflictions which fall upon them; and though they do now always bring them to such exemplary punishment as befel the criminal whose memoirs we have undertaken to transmit to posterity, yet they fail not of making them exceedingly uneasy and grievously unhappy, consequences unavoidably entailed on these destructive pleasures, so contrary to the nature of man's soul, and so derogatory from that excellence to the attainment of which he was created. Although one would imagine these observations must naturally occur at some time or other to the minds of persons who ever think at all concerning the design of their own being yet experience convinces us that they very seldom do, and if they do, they make but very little impression.

William Marple, the first of these criminals, was descended from parents of very tolerable fortune, as well as unblemished reputation. Their care had not only gone so far in providing him with useful and common learning, but had also been careful in bestowing on him an excellent education in schools both in town and country. The use he made of them you will quickly hear, which cannot however be mentioned as a reflection on his unhappy parents, who were as industrious to have him taught good, as he was in pursuing evil.

When he grew to years capable of being put out to business, the unsettled giddiness of his temper sufficiently appeared, for being put out to three several trades at his own request, he could not bring himself to any of them, but went at last to a fourth which was that of a joiner, with whom he stayed a considerable s.p.a.ce. But before the expiration of his time he fell in love with a young woman and married her, which coming with other stories to his master's ears, occasioned such difference that they parted.

Marple was prodigiously fond of his new married wife, and what is a pretty rare circ.u.mstance in this age, his fondness proved the greatest advantage possible to him, for the young woman being in herself both virtuous and industrious, her temper (as it is natural for us to imitate what we love) made so great an impression upon Marple that from a wild, loose and extravagant young man, he became a sober, diligent and honest workman, labouring hard to get his bread, and living at home with his wife in the greatest tranquility and with the utmost satisfaction. But the agreeable beauty of this scene was soon darkened, or rather totally destroyed, by the death of his wife; for no sooner were the transports of his melancholy over than he returned to his old course of life. And in order to efface effectually that grief which still hung over him, he removed out of town to an adjacent village, where he quickly contracted an intimate acquaintance with a young woman, and thereby almost at once put all thoughts of sorrow and honesty quite out of his head. This creature was of a very different disposition from Marple's late wife. She had no regard for the man, farther than she was able to get money out of him; and provided she had wherewith to buy her fine clothes and keep her in handsome lodgings, she gave herself no trouble how he came by it, and this carriage of hers in a short time put him upon illegal methods of obtaining money.

Who were his first companions in his robberies is not in my power to say; it was generally looked upon that one Rouden seduced him, but Marple declared this to be false, and perhaps the best account that can be given is that he was led to it by his own evil inclinations, and his necessities in which they had brought him. However it were, during the time he practised going upon the road n.o.body committed more robberies than he himself did, preying alike upon all sorts of people, and taking from the poor what little they had, as well as plundering the rich of what they could much better spare.

In Marylebone Fields he and his companion Cotton met with a poor woman with a basket on her head, who gained her livelihood by selling joints of meat to gentlemen's families. The first thing they did was to search her basket, in which there was a fine leg of mutton, which these gentlemen thought fit to dress and eat next day for dinner. They then commanded her to deliver her money, which she declared was a thing out of her power, because she had none about her; upon which they took her pocket and turned it out, where finding seven s.h.i.+llings, Marple struck and abused the woman for daring to tell him a lie.

Amongst the rest of the acquaintance that Marple picked up, was a young man who had a very rich uncle who, though he was very willing to do anything which might be for the real good of his nephew, did not think it at all reasonable to waste his fortune in the supply of the young man's extravagances. This spark, with another, acquainted Marple how easy a thing it would be to rob the old man of a considerable sum of money. They readily came into the project, and accordingly it was put into execution; Marple and the nephew actually committing the robbery, and the other man standing at the door till they came out. The booty they got was about thirty-six guineas, which they divided into three parts. In a very short time, Marple was apprehended and committed to Newgate for this very fact. However, the old man would not prosecute him, because he would not expose his relation.

Yet this was no warning to Marple who continued his old trade, and committed thirty or forty robberies in a very short s.p.a.ce. Drinking was a vice he abhorred, and the chief cause for which he addicted himself to this life of rapine was his a.s.sociating himself with all sorts of lewd women, amongst whom he became acquainted with the infamous Elizabeth Lion,[84] mistress to Jack Shepherd, who grew quickly too impudent and abusive for Marple's conversation, for when he fell under his misfortunes he declared that she was the vilest and most abominable wretch that ever lived. However, to the immodest, lascivious carriage of this woman, he owed the sudden dislike he took to that sort of cattle; which became so strong that he no longer frequented their company, but married a second wife, a young woman of a handsome person, of a good character, and who, as he said, was totally ignorant of the measures he took for getting money.

Timothy Cotton, the second of these malefactors, was descended of mean, yet honest parents, who in his infancy had not spared to give him a very good education, and bred him to get an honest livelihood to the trade of a poulterer. In this, when he grew up, he was for a time very industrious, and got thereby sufficient to have maintained himself and his family, as well as he could reasonably expect; but happening unluckily to call into the acquaintance and conversation of lewd women, they soon took up so much of his thoughts, his time and his money, that he was obliged to think of easier methods of getting it than those to which hitherto he had applied himself. For it is a truth deducible from uninterrupted experience that a wh.o.r.e is not to be maintained at the same easy expense with a wife. Cotton found this to his cost, for he had not committed above five robberies, of which three were with his companion Marple, who had been his schoolfellow, before he was apprehended.

The first of their exploits, I have already told you, was plundering the poor woman's basket. The second was upon the Hampstead Road, where they stopped the coach and robbed the pa.s.sengers. Three gentlemen coming by on horseback, Marple presented his pistol, and commanded them to ride off as hard as they could; but the fear with which they were seized made them so far mistake his words as to apprehend he bid them deliver, and so they went very readily to work, putting their hands into their pockets to satisfy his demands. But Marple having no guess of their intention, and perceiving them to stand still, repeated his order to them to ride off, with greater vehemency than before, which as soon as they apprehended they very readily complied with, and rode off as hard as their horses would carry them. A little while after this they robbed one Stout, who was servant to Captain Trevor, of his hat, two pounds of b.u.t.ter, his buckles, five and sixpence in money, and some other trivial things. For this fact they were both apprehended, and at the next sessions at the Old Bailey tried and convicted upon very full evidence.

Under sentence of death Marple appeared with less concern than is usually seen in persons under such unfortunate circ.u.mstances. He however confessed a mult.i.tude of offences with which he was not charged, as well as that particular crime for which he was convicted. He said he had never any strong inclination to drunkenness or gaming, but that addicting himself to the company and conversation of bad women had been the sole occasion of all his misfortunes. He particularly regretted his want of respect towards his parents, and especially towards his mother, who had given him the best of advice, though he had trifled with and abused it. He said that he often struck and abused those whom he robbed, but not so as to endanger their lives, and therefore he hoped they would forgive him, and join their prayers with his for his forgiveness at the hand of G.o.d.

Cotton was more tender and more penitent, expressed great sorrow for his numerous offences, and besought Almighty G.o.d to accept of a sincere, though late repentance. They both of them protested that their wives had not anything to do with their affairs, that they never advised them, nor were so much as privy to the offences they had committed. Then both of them suffered with much penitence and resignation, on the 24th of March, 1729, Marple being about thirty, and Cotton near twenty-five years of age.

[84]

See page 182.

The Life of JOHN UPTON, a Pirate; including also the history of that sort of people, particularly the crew under Captain Cooper, in the Night Rambler

No laws in any civilized nations are more severe than those against piracy, nor are they less severely executed, and the criminals who suffer by them are usually the least pitied, or rather the most detested of all who come to die an ignominious death by the sentence of the Law. Of old they were styled hostes humani generis, and the oldest systems we have of particular inst.i.tutions have treated them with a rigor suitable to their offence. With respect to those who fall into the hands of British justice, it must be remarked that they usually plead as an excuse for what they have done their being forced into pirates' service, and as it is well known that numbers are really forced into crimes they detest, so the lenience of our judicators generally admit whatever proofs are probable in such a case. But where the contrary appears, and the acts of piracy plainly arise from the wicked dispositions of the offenders, the Royal Mercy is less frequently extended to them than to any other sort of criminal whatever.

As to the prisoner of whom we are to speak, John Upton was born at Deptford, of very honest parents who gave him such an education as fitted their station, and that in which they intended to breed him. When grown up to be a st.u.r.dy youth, they put him out apprentice to a waterman, with whom he served out his time faithfully, and with a good character. Afterwards he went to sea and served for twenty-eight years together on board a man-of-war, in the posts of either boatswain or quartermaster. Near the place of his birth he married a woman, took a house and lived very respectably with her during the whole course of her life, but she dying while he was at sea, and finding at his return that his deceased wife had run him greatly in debt, clamours coming from every quarter, and several writs being issued out against him, he quitted the service in the man-of-war, and went immediately in a merchantman to Newfoundland. There by agreement he was discharged from the s.h.i.+p and entered himself for eighteen pounds per annum into the service of a planter in that country in order to serve him in fis.h.i.+ng and furring, the chief trade of that place; for Newfoundland abounding with excellent harbours, there is no country in the world which affords so large and so plentiful a fishery as this does. However its climate renders it less desirable, it being extremely hot in the summer and as intensely cold in the winter, when the wild beasts roam about in great numbers, and furnish thereby an opportunity to the inhabitants of gaining considerably by falling them, and selling their furs.

Upton having served his year out was discharged from his master, and going to New England, he there, in the month of July, 1725, s.h.i.+pped himself on board the Perry merchantman bound for Barbadoes. The s.h.i.+p was livred and loaded again, the captain designing them to sail for England, whereupon Upton desired leave to go on board his Majesty's s.h.i.+p Lynn, Captain Cooper. But Captain King absolutely refusing to discharge him in order thereto, on the ninth of November, 1725, he sailed in the aforesaid vessel for England.

On the twelfth of the same month, off Dominica, they were attacked by a pirate sloop called the Night Rambler, under the command of one Cooper. The pirate immediately ordered the captain of the Perry galley to come on board his s.h.i.+p, which he and four of his men did, and the pirate immediately sent some of his crew on board the Perry galley, who effectually made themselves masters thereof, and as Upton said, used him and the rest of the persons they found on board with great inhumanity and baseness, a thing very common amongst those wretches. Upton also insisted that as to himself, one of the pirate's crew ran up to him as soon as they came on board and with a cutla.s.s in his hand, said with an oath, You old son of a b.i.t.c.h, I know you and you shall go along with us or I'll cut out your liver, and thereupon fell to beating him fore and aft the deck with his cutla.s.s.

The same evening he was carried on board the pirate sloop, where, according to his journal, three of the pirates attacked him; one with a pistol levelled at his forehead demanded whether he would sign their articles, another with a pistol at his right ear, swore that if he did not they would blow out his brains, while a third held a couple of forks at his breast, and terrified him with the continual apprehensions of having them stabbed into him. Whereupon he told them that he had four young infants in England, to whom he thought it his duty to return, and therefore begged to be excused as having reason to decline their service, as well as a natural dislike to their proceedings. Upon which, he said, he called his captain to take notice that he did not enter voluntarily amongst them. Upon this the pirate said they found out a way to satisfy themselves by signing for him, and this, he constantly averred, was the method of his being taken into the crew of the Night Rambler, where he insisted he did nothing but as he was commanded, received no share in the plunder, but lived wholly on the s.h.i.+p's allowance, being treated in all respect as one whom force and not choice had brought amongst them.

But to return to the Perry galley, which the pirates carried to the Island of Aruba, a maroon or uninhabited island, or rather sand bank, where they sat the crew ash.o.r.e and left them for seventeen days without any provision, except that the surgeon of the pirate now and then brought them something in his pocket by stealth. On the tenth of December the pirates saw a sail which proved to be a Dutch sloop, which they took, and on board this Upton and two others who had been forced as well as himself were put, from whence as he said, they made their escape. After abundance of misfortunes and many extraordinary adventures, he got on board his Majesty's s.h.i.+p Nottingham, commanded by Captain Charles Cotterel, where he served for two years in the quality of quartermaster. He was then taken up and charged with piracy, upon which he was indicted at an Admiralty sessions held in the month of May, 1729, when the evidence at his trial appeared so strong that after a short stay the jury found him guilty.

But his case having been very differently represented, I fancy my readers will not be displeased if I give them an exact account of the proofs produced against him.

The first witness who was called on the part of the Crown was Mr. Dimmock, who had been chief mate on board the Perry galley, and he deposed in the following terms:

On the twelfth of November, 1725, we sailed from Barbadoes on the Perry galley bound for England. On the 14th, about noon, we were taken by the Night Rambler, pirate sloop, one Cooper commander. Our captain and four men were ordered on board the pirate sloop, part of the pirate's crew coming also on board the Perry. Wherein they no sooner entered, but the prisoner at the bar said, Lads, are ye come? I'm glad to see ye; I have been looking out for ye for a great while. Whereupon the pirates saluted him very particularly, calling him by his name, and the prisoner was as busy as any of the rest in plundering and stripping the s.h.i.+p on board of which he had served, and the rest who belonged to it, the very next day after being made boatswain of the pirate. The same day I was carried on board the pirate sloop, tied to the gears and received two hundred lashes with a cat o' nine tails which the prisoner Upton had made for that purpose; after which they pickled me, and the prisoner Upton stabbed me in the head near my ear with a knife, insomuch that I could not lay my head upon a pillow for fourteen days, but was forced to support it upon my hand against the table; and when some of the pirate's crew asked me how I did, upon my answering that I was as bad as a man could be and live, the prisoner, Upton, said D--n him, give him a second reward.

It was also further deposed by the same gentleman that at the island of Aruba, the prisoner was very busy in stripping the Perry galley of the most useful and valuable parts of her rigging, carrying them on board the pirate, and making use of them there. He had also in his custody several things of value, and particularly wearing apparel, belonging to one Mr. Furnell, a pa.s.senger belonging to the said Perry galley; and when it was debated amongst the pirates, and afterwards put to the vote, whether the crew of the said galley should have their vessel again or no, John Upton was not only against them, but also proposed burning the said vessel, and tying the captain and mate to one of the masts in order to their being burnt too.

Mr. Eaton, the second mate of the s.h.i.+p, was the next witness called. He confirmed all that had been sworn by Mr. Dimmock, adding that the day they were taken the pirates asked if he would consent to sign their articles, which he refused. Whereupon they put a rope about his neck, and hoisted him up to the yard's arm, so that he totally lost his senses. He recovered them by some of the pirate's crew p.r.i.c.king him in the fleshy parts of his body, while others beat him with the flat of their swords. As soon as they perceived he was a little come to himself they put the former question to him, whether he would sign their articles. He answered, No, a second time. One of the crew thereupon s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pistol, and swore he would shoot him through the head; but another of them said, No, d--n him, that's too honourable a death; he shall be hanged. Upon this they pulled him up by the rope again, and treated him with many other indignities, and at last in the captain's cabin, pulled a cap over his eyes and clapped a pistol to his head; then he expected nothing but immediate death, a person having almost jabbed his eye out with the muzzle of the pistol, but at last they did let him go. He swore, also, that when the pirates' articles were presented to him to sign, he saw there the name of John Upton, he being well acquainted with his hand.

Mr. Furnell, a pa.s.senger in the s.h.i.+p, was the third evidence against the prisoner. He deposed to the same effect with the other two, adding that John Upton was more cruel and barbarous to them than any of the other pirates, insomuch that when they were marooned, and under the greatest necessities for food, Upton said, D--n them, let them be starved, and was the most active of all the rest in taking the goods, and whatever he could lay his hands on out of the Perry galley.

In his defence the prisoner would fain have suggested that what the witnesses had sworn against him was chiefly occasioned by a malicious spleen they had against him. He a.s.serted that he was forced by the pirates to become one of their number and was so far from concerned with them voluntarily that he proposed to the mate, after they were taken, to regain the s.h.i.+p, urging that there were but thirteen of the pirates on board, and they all drunk, and no less than nine of their own men left there who were all sober; that the mate's heart failed him, and instead of complying with his motion, said, This is a dangerous thing to speak of; if it should come to the pirates' ears we shall be all murdered, and therefore entreated the prisoner not to speak of it any more. The mate denied every syllable of this, and so the prisoner's a.s.sertions did not weigh at all with the jury. After they had brought in their verdict, Mr. Upton said to those who swore against him, Lord! What have you three done?

Under sentence of death he behaved himself with much courage, and yet with great penitence. He denied part of the charge, viz., that he was willingly one of the pirates, but as to the other facts, he confessed them with very little alteration. He averred that the course of his life had been very wicked and debauched, for which he expressed much sorrow, and to the day of his death behaved himself with all outward mark of true repentance. At the place of execution, he was asked whether he had not advised the burning of the Perry galley, with Captain King and the chief mate on board. He averred that he did not in any shape whatsoever either propose or agree to an act of such a sort. Then, after some private devotions, he submitted to his sentence, and was turned off on the 16th day of May, 1729, being then about fifty years of age.

The Life of JEPTHAH BIGG, an Incendiary, and Writer of Threatening Letters

I have already taken notice in the life of Bryan Smith[85] of the Act of Parliament on which the proceedings against these letter-writers are grounded. One would be surprised that after more examples than one of that kind, people should yet be found so foolish as well as wicked as to carry on so desperate an enterprise, in which there is scarce any probability of meeting with success; yet this unfortunate person of whom we are now to speak, who was descended of mean parents, careful however of giving him a very good education, fell upon this project, put into his head by being a little out of business, and so in one moment cancelled all his former honesty and industry, and hazarded a life which soon after became forfeited.

His friends had put him out apprentice to a gunstock maker, to which he served out his time honestly and with a good character. Afterwards he continued to work at his business with several masters and tolerable reputation, until about a year before the time of his death, when he was out of work, by reason he had disobliged two or three persons for whom he had wrought, and had also been guilty of some extravagancies which had brought him into narrow circ.u.mstances. These straits it is to be supposed put him upon the fatal project of writing a letter to Mr. Nathaniel Newman, senior, a man of a very good fortune, threatening him that unless he sent the sum of eighty-five guineas to such a place, he would murder him and his wife, with other b.l.o.o.d.y and barbarous expressions. This not having its effect, he wrote him a second letter by the penny post, demanding one hundred guineas, with grievous threatenings in case they were not sent. This soon made a very great noise about town, and put Mr. Newman upon all methods possible for detecting the author of these villainous epistles, and as everybody almost looked upon it as a common case, to which any gentleman who is supposed to be rich might be liable, such indefatigable pains were taken that in a short time the whole mystery of iniquity was discovered and Bigg apprehended.

At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted capitally for this offence, and after the counsel for the prosecutor had fully opened the heinous nature of the crime, Peter Salter was the first witness called to prove it upon the prisoner. He deposed that Jepthah Bigg came to him where he was at work in the Minories, and desired him to go with him, having something to say to him of consequence; whereupon the witness would have gone to the sign of the s.h.i.+p where he used, but the prisoner would needs go to the Sieve in the Little Minories. There he communicated to him his design, and then prevailed on Salter to go to the Shoulder of Mutton alehouse at Billingsgate, where Bigg directed him to call for drink, and to wait until a porter came to him with a parcel directed to John Harrison, when if he suspected anything, he should come to the prisoner at the King's Head alehouse, on Fish Street Hill. This the evidence performed punctually, whereupon Bigg sent him a second time to the Blackboy, in Goodman's Fields, where a second parcel was left, though of no value. Whereupon Bigg would have had the evidence Salter concerned in a third letter to the same purpose, but Salter declined it and dissuaded him as much as lay in his power, from continuing to venture on such hazardous things. Upon which the prisoner replied, You need not fear. Nothing can hurt you; my life is in your hands; but if ever you reveal the matter, you shall share the same fate.

John Long, servant to Mr. Newman, deposed that he delivered two penny post letters to his master on the 20th and 27th of March. Other witnesses swore as to the sending of the parcels, and the jury on the whole, seeing the fact to be well proved against the prisoner, found him guilty.

Under sentence of death at first the poor man behaved himself like one stupid. He pretended that he did not know the offence that he had committed was capital, and afterwards exclaimed against the hardness of the Law which made it so; but some little pains being taken with him in those points, he was soon brought over to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, and the reasonableness of that Statute which enacted it into a capital offence.

As the day of his death drew nigh he was still more and more drowned in stupidity and lost to all thought or concern for this world or that to come, at least as to outward appearance. Some said he was a Roman Catholic, but while the poor wretch retained his senses, he said nothing that could give any ground for a suspicion of that sort. He heard the discourses which the Ordinary made to him, with as much patience as the rest did, and when he visited him in the cell, did not express any uneasiness thereat. Indeed, in the pa.s.sage to execution, there were two fellows in the cart who would fain have had the minister desist from his duty, urging the same reason, that the criminal was in communion with another Church. The man, himself, seemed stupid and speechless all the way, yet when he was turned off, the reverend Ordinary tells us, he went off the stage crying out aloud, O Lord! etc. This seems to me a very indecent way of concluding a dying speech, but as it is that which is generally used, I shall not stay to bestow any further reflections upon it. He died on the 19th of May, 1729, being about twenty-five years of age.

[85]

See page 221.

The Life of THOMAS JAMES GRUNDY, a Housebreaker

When we meet with accounts of persons doubly remarkable for the mult.i.tude of their offences and the tenderness of their age, it is almost impossible for us to determine whether we should most pity or detest a mind so preternaturally abandoned to wickedness as to transcend its usual course, and make itself remarkable as a sinner, before taken notice of as a man.