Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 6

As Shaw had formerly declared his wife's ill-conduct had been the first occasion of his falling into those courses which had proved so fatal to him, he still retained so great an antipathy to her on that account, as not to be able to pardon her, even in the last moments of his life, in which he would neither confess, nor positively deny the murder for which he died. He was then about twenty-eight years of age, and died the same day with the last-mentioned malefactor, Smith.

[16]

This discourse between the magistrates is obscure. I have been unable to clear it.

[17]

This was the public-house at the Battle Bridge (King's Cross) end of Gray's Inn Road.

The Life of WILLIAM COLTHOUSE, a Thief and Highwayman

William Colthouse was born in Yorks.h.i.+re, had a very good education for a person of his rank and especially with regard to religious principles, of which he retained a knowledge seldom to be met with among the lower cla.s.s of people; but he was so unhappy as to imbibe in his youth strange notions in regard to civil government, hereditary rights having been much magnified in the latter end of the late Queen's reign. William amongst others was violent attached thereto, and fancied it was a very meritorious thing to profess his sentiments, notwithstanding they were directly opposite to those of persons then in power. Some declarations of this sort occasioned his being confined in Newgate, and prosecuted for speaking seditious words in the beginning of King George the First's reign. His Newgate acquaintances taught him quickly their arts of living, and he was no sooner at liberty than he put them into execution, he and his brother living like gentlemen on their expeditions on the road; till unfortunately committing a robbery on Hounslow Heath together, they were both closely pursued, the other taken, and William narrowly escaped by creeping into a hollow tree.

After the execution of his brother, Colthouse being terribly affected therewith, retired to Oxford, and there worked as a journeyman joiner, determining with himself to live honestly for the future, and not by a habit of ill-actions go the same way as one so nearly related to him had done before. But as his brother's death in time grew out of his remembrance, so his evil inclinations again took place, and he came up to London with a full purpose of getting money at an easier rate than working.

Soon after his arrival his Jacobite principles brought him into a great fray at an alehouse in Tothill Fields, Westminster, where some soldiers were drinking, and who on some disrespectful words said of the Prince, caught up Colthouse and threw him upon a red-hot gridiron, thereby making a scar on his cheek and under his left eye. By this he came to be taken for a person who murdered a farmer's son in Philpot Lane, in Hamps.h.i.+re, when he was charged with which he not only denied, but by abundance of circ.u.mstances rendered it highly probable that he did not commit it, there being, indeed, no other circ.u.mstance which occasioned that suspicion but the likeness of the scar in his face, which happened in the manner I told you.

While he lay under condemnation, a report reached his ear that his two brothers in the country were also said to be highwaymen; he complained grievously of the common practice that was made by idle people raising stories to increase the sorrows of families which were so unhappy as to have any who belonged to them come to such a death as his was to be. As to his brothers, he declared himself well satisfied that the younger was a sober and religious lad, and as for the elder, though he might have been guilty of some extravagance, yet he hoped and believed they were not of the same kind with those which had brought him to ruin. However, that he might do all the good which his present sad circ.u.mstance would allow, he wrote the following letter to his brethren in the country.

Dear Brothers,

Though the nearness of my approaching death ought to shut out from my thoughts all temporal concerns, yet I could not compose my mind into that quietness with which I hope to pa.s.s from this sinful world into the presence of the Almighty, before I had thus exorted you to take particular warning from my death, which the intent of the Law to deter others from wickedness hath decreed to be in a public and ignominious manner. Amidst the terrors which the frailty of human nature (shocked with the prospect of so terrible an end) makes my afflicted heart to feel, even these sorrows are increased, and all my woes doubled by a story which is spread, I hope without the least grounds of truth, that ye, as well as I, have lived by taking away by force the property of others.

Let the said examples of my poor brother, who died by the hand of Justice, and of me, who now follow him in the same unhappy course, deter you not only from those flagrant offences which have been so fatal unto us, but also from those foolish and sinful pleasures in which it is but too frequent for young persons to indulge themselves. Remember that I tell you from a sad experience, that the wages of sin, though in appearance they be sometimes large and what may promise outward pleasure, yet are they attended with such inward disquiet as renders it impossible for those to have received them to enjoy either quiet or ease. Work, then, hard at your employments, and be a.s.sured that sixpence got thereby will afford you more solid satisfaction than the largest acquisitions at the expense of your conscience. That G.o.d may, by His grace, enable you to follow this my last advice, and that He may bless your honest labour with plenty and prosperity is the earnest prayer of your dying brother

William Colthouse

Till the day of his execution he had denied his being accessory to the intended escape by forcing the prison, but when he came to Tyburn, he acknowledged that a.s.sertion to be false, and owned that he caused the two pistols to be provided for that purpose. He was about thirty-four years of age at the time he suffered, which was on the 8th of February, 1722, with Burgess, Shaw and Smith.

The Life of WILLIAM BURRIDGE, a Highwayman

In the course of these lives I have more than once observed that the vulgar have false notions of courage, and that applause is given to it by those who have as false notions of it as themselves, and this it was in a great measure which made William Burridge take to those fatal practices which had the usual termination in an ignominious death. He was the son of reputable people, who lived at West Haden in Northamptons.h.i.+re, who after affording him a competent education, thought proper to bind him to his father's trade of a carpenter. But he, having been pretty much indulged before that time, could not by any means be brought to relish labour, or working for his bread.

Burridge was a well-made fellow, and of a handsome person, as well as great strength and dexterity, which he had often exercised in wrestling and cudgel-playing which gained him great praise amongst the country fellows at wakes and fairs, where such prizes are usually given. Therefore giving himself up almost wholly to such exercises, he used frequently to run away from his parents, and lie about the country, stealing poultry, and what else he could lay his hands on to support himself. His father trying all methods possible to reclaim him and finding them fruitless, as his last refuge turned him over to another master, in hopes that having there no mother to plead for him, a course of continued severities might perhaps reclaim him. But his hopes were all disappointed, for instead of mending under his new master, William gave himself over to all sorts of vices, and more especially became addicted to junketting with servant-wenches in the neighbourhood, who especially on Sundays when their masters were out, were but too ready to receive and entertain him at their expense.

But these adventures made him very obnoxious to others, as well as his master, who no longer able to bear his lying out of night, and other disorderly practices, turned him off, and left him to s.h.i.+ft for himself. He went home to his friends, but going on still in the same way, they frankly advised him to s.h.i.+p himself on board a man-of-war in order to avoid that ill-fate which they then foresaw, and which afterwards overtook him. William, though not very apt to follow good counsel, yet approved of this at last when he saw some of his companions had already suffered for those profligate courses to which they were addicted.

He s.h.i.+pped himself, therefore, in a squadron then sailing for Spain under the command of Commodore Cavendish, on board whose s.h.i.+p he was when an engagement happened with the Spaniards in Cadiz Bay. The dispute was long and very sharp, and Burridge behaved therein so as to meet with extraordinary commendations. These had the worst effect upon him imaginable, for they so far puffed him up, that he thought himself worthier of command than most of the officers on the s.h.i.+p, and therefore was not a little uneasy at being obliged to obey them. This hindered them from doing him any kindness, which they would otherwise perhaps have done in consideration of his gallant behaviour against the enemy. At his return into England he was extremely ambitious of living without the toil of business, and therefore went upon the highway with great diligence, in order to acquire a fortune by it, which when he had done, he designed to have left it off, and to have lived easily and honestly upon the fruits of it. But, alas! these were vain hopes and idle expectations, for instead of acquiring anything which might keep him hereafter, he could scarce procure a present livelihood at the hazard both of his neck and his soul, for he was continually obliged to hide himself, through apprehension, and not seldom got into Bridewell or some such place, for brawls and riots.

This William Burridge was the person who with Nat Hawes made their escape out of New Prison, by the a.s.sistance of a woman, as the life of that malefactor is before related.[18] And as he saved himself then from the same ignominious death which afterwards befell him, so he escaped it another time by becoming evidence against one Reading, who died for the life offences. As to Burridge, he still continued the same trade, till being taken for stealing a bay gelding belonging to one Mr. Wragg, he was for that offence finally condemned at the Old Bailey. While under sentence, as he had been much the greatest and oldest offender of any that were under the same fate, so he seemed to be by much the most affected and the most penitent of them all; and with great signs and sorrow for the many crimes he had committed, he suffered on the 14th of March, 1722, with five other persons at Tyburn, being then about thirty-four years of age.

[18]

See page 59.

The Life of JOHN THOMSON, a thief, Highwayman, etc.

John Thomson was born at Carlisle, but was brought with his friends to London. They, it seems, were persons of no substance, and took little care of their son's education, suffering him, while a lad, to go often to such houses as were frequented by ill-people, and such as took dishonest methods to get money. Such are seldom very dose in their discourse when they meet and junket together, and Thomson, then a boy, was so much pleased with their jovial manner of life, eating well and drinking hard, that he had ever a bias that way, even when he was otherways employed, till he was fifteen years old, leading such an idle and debauched life that, as he himself expressed it, he had never heard of or read a Bible or other good book throughout all that s.p.a.ce.

A friend of his was then so kind as to put him out apprentice to a weaver, and he might have had some chance of coming into the world in an honest and reputable way, but he had not continued with his master any long time before he listed himself in the sea service, during the Wars in the late Queen's time, and served on board a squadron which was sent up the Baltic to join the Danes. This cold country, with other hards.h.i.+ps he endured, made him so out of humour with a sailor's life that though he behaved himself tolerably well when on board, yet he resolved never to engage in the same state, if once discharged and safe on sh.o.r.e.

Upon his coming back to England, he went to work at his trade of a weaver, and being for a while very sensible of the miseries he had run through on board the man-of-war, he became highly pleased with the quiet and easy way in which he got his bread by his business, thinking, however, that there was no way so proper to settle him as by marrying, which accordingly he did. But he was so unfortunate that though his wife was a very honest woman, yet the money he got not being sufficient to maintain them, he was even obliged to take to the sea again for a subsistence, and continued on board several s.h.i.+ps in the Straits and Mediterranean for a very considerable s.p.a.ce, during which he was so fortunate as to serve once on board an enterprising captain, who in less than a year's s.p.a.ce, took nineteen prizes to a very considerable value. And as they were returning from their cruise, they took a French East India s.h.i.+p on the coast of that kingdom, whose cargo was computed at no less than a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Thomson might certainly, if he would, have saved money enough to have put himself into a creditable method of life as many of his s.h.i.+pmates had done, and so well did the captain improve his own good fortune that on his return he retired into the country, where he purchased an estate of fifteen hundred pounds per annum.

But Thomson being much altered from the usual bent of his temper by his being long accustomed at sea to blood and plunder, so when he returned home, instead of returning to an honest way of living, he endeavoured to procure money at the same rate by land which he had done at sea, and for that purpose a.s.sociated himself with persons of a like disposition, and in their company did abundance of mischief. At last he and one of his a.s.sociates pa.s.sing over Smithfield between twelve and one in the morning, on the second of March, they perceived one George Currey going across that place very much in drink. Him they attacked, though at first they pretended to lead him safe home, drawing him to a proper place out of hearing of the houses, where they took from him a s.h.i.+rt, a wig and a hat, in doing which they knocked him down, stamped upon his breast, and in other respects used him very cruelly. Being apprehended soon after this fact, he was for it tried and convicted.

In the s.p.a.ce between that and his death, he behaved himself very penitently, and desired with great earnestness that his wife would retire into the country to her friends, and learn by his unhappy example that nothing but an honest industry could procure the blessing of G.o.d. This he a.s.siduously begged for her in his prayers, imploring her at the same time that he gave her this advice, to be careful of her young son she had then at her breast, not only as to his education, but also that he might never know his father's unhappy end, for that would but damp his spirits, and perhaps force him upon ill-courses when he grew up, from an apprehension that people might distrust his honesty and not employ him. He professed himself much afflicted at the past follies of his life, and with an outward appearance of true penitence, died on the fourth of May, 1722, in the thirty-third year of his age, at Tyburn.

The Life of THOMAS REEVES, a Notorious Highwayman and Footpad

As it is not to be denied that it is a singular blessing to a nation where no persecution is ever raised against persons for their religion, so I am confident that the late Free Thinking principles (as they have been called) have by their being spread amongst the vulgar, contributed greatly to the many frauds and villainies which have been so much complained of within these thirty years, and not a little to encouraging men in obtaining a subsistence and the gratification of their pleasures by rapines committed upon others rather than live in a laborious state of life, in which, perhaps, both their birth and circ.u.mstances concurred to fix them.

Thomas Reeves was a very remarkable as well as very unfortunate instance of that depravity in moral principles of which I have been speaking. By his friends he was bred a tinman, his father, who was of that profession, taking him as an apprentice but using him with the most indulgent fondness and never suffering him to want anything which was in his power to procure for him, flattered himself with the hopes of his becoming a good and happy man. It happened very unfortunately for Reeves that he fell, when young, into the acquaintance of some sceptical persons who made a jest of all religion and treated both its precepts and its mysteries as inventions subservient to priestcraft. Such notions are too easily imbibed by those who are desirous to indulge their vicious inclinations, and Reeves being of this stamp, greedily listened to all discourses of such a nature.

Amongst some of these companions who had cheated him out of his religion, he found some also inclined to practise the same freedom they taught, encouraged both by precept and example. Tom soon became the most conspicuous of the gang. His boldness and activity preferred him generally to be a leader in their adventures, and he had such good luck, in several of his first attempts, that he picked up as much as maintained him in that extravagant and superfluous manner of life in which he most of all delighted. One John Hartly was his constant companion in his debauches, and generally speaking an a.s.sistant in his crimes. Both of them in the evening of the ninth of March, 1722, attacked one Roger Worebington, near Sh.o.r.editch, as he was going across the fields on some business. Hartly gave him a blow on the head with his pistol, after which Reeves bid him stand, and whistling, four more of the gang came up, seized him, and knocked him down. They stripped him stark naked and carried away all his clothes, tying him hand and foot in a cruel manner and leaving him in a ditch hard by. However he was relieved, and Reeves and Hartly being soon after taken, they were both tried and convicted for this fact.

After the pa.s.sing sentence, Reeves behaved himself with much indifference, his own principles stuck by him, and he had so far satisfied himself by considering the necessity of dying, and coined a new religion of his own, that he never believed the soul in any danger, but had very extensive notions of the mercy of G.o.d, which he thought was too great to punish with eternal misery those souls which He had created. This criminal was, indeed, of a very odd temper, for sometimes he would both pray and read to the rest of the prisoners, and at other times he would talk loosely and divert them from their duty, often making enquiries as to curious points, and to be informed whether the soul went immediately into bliss or torment, or whether, as some Christians taught, they went through an intermediate state? All which he spoke of with an unconcernedness scarce to be conceived, and as it were rather out of curiosity than that he thought himself in any danger of eternal punishment hereafter.

Hartly, on the other hand, was a fellow of a much softer disposition, showed very great fear, and looked in great confusion at the approach of death. He got six persons dressed in white to go to the Royal Chapel and pet.i.tion for a pardon, he being to marry one of them in case it had been procured, but they failed in the attempt, and he appeared less sensible than ever when he found that death was not to be evaded.

At the place of execution, Reeves not only preserved that resolution with which he had hitherto borne up against his misfortunes, but when the mob pushed down one of the horses that drew the cart, and it leaning sideways so that Reeves was thereby half hanged, to ease himself of his misery he sprung over at once and finished the execution.

Hartly wept and lamented exceedingly his miserable condition, and the populace much pitied him, for he was not twenty years of age at the time he died; but Reeves was about twenty-eight years of age, when he suffered, which was at the same time with John Thomson, before mentioned.

The Life of RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, a Footpad and Street robber

Though there have been some instances of felons adhering so closely together as not to give up one another to Justice, even for the sake of saving life, yet are such instances very rare, and examples of the contrary very common.

Richard Whittingham was a young man of very good natural inclinations, had he not been of too easy a temper, and ready to yield to the inducements of bad women. His friends had placed him as an apprentice to a hot-presser, with whom he lived very honestly for some time; but at last, the idle women with whom he conversed continually pressing him for money in return for their lewd favours, he was by that means drawn in to run away from his master, and subsist by picking pockets. In the prosecution of this trade, he contracted an infamous friends.h.i.+p with Jones, Applebee and Lee, three notorious villains of the same stamp, with whom he committed abundance of robberies in the streets, especially by cutting off women's pockets, and such other exploits. This, he pretended, was performed with great address and regularity, for he said that after many consultations, 'twas resolved to attack persons only in broad streets for the future, from whence they found it much less troublesome to escape than when they committed them in alleys and such like close places, whereupon a pursuit once begun, they seldom or never missed being taken. He added, that when they had determined to go out to plunder, each had his different post a.s.signed him, and that while one laid his leg before a pa.s.senger, another gave him a jolt on the shoulders, and as soon as he was down a third came to their a.s.sistance, whereupon they immediately went to stripping and binding those who were so unlucky as thus to fall into their hands. Upon Applebee's being apprehended, and himself impeached, Whittingham withdrew to Rochester, with an intent to have gone out of the kingdom, but after all he could not prevail with himself to quit his native country.

On his return to London, he fled for sanctuary to the house of his former master, who treated him with great kindness, supplied him with work, sent up his victuals privately, and did all in his power to conceal him. But Jones and Lee, his former companions, found means to discover him as they had already impeached him, and so, on their evidence and that of the prosecutor, he was convicted of robbing William Garnet, in the area of Red Lion Square, when Applebee knocked him down, and Jones and Lee held their hands upon his eyes, and crammed his own neck-cloth down his throat.

When he found he was to die, he was far from behaving himself obstinately, but as far as his capacity would give him leave, endeavoured to pray, and to fit himself for his approaching dissolution. He had married a young wife, for whom he expressed a very tender affection, and seemed more cast down with the thoughts of those miseries to which she would be exposed by his death, than he was at what he himself was to suffer.

During the time he lay in the condemned hold, he complained often of the great interruptions those under sentence of death met with from some prisoners who were confined underneath, and who, through the crevice, endeavoured as usual, by talking to them lewdly and profanely, to disturb them even in their last moments. At the place of execution he wept bitterly, and seemed to be much affrighted at death and very sorry for his having committed those crimes which brought him thither. He was but nineteen years old when he suffered, which was on the 21st of May, 1722.

The Life of JAMES BOOTY, a Ravisher

Such is the present depravity of human nature that we have sometimes instances of infant criminals and children meriting death by their crimes, before they know or can be expected to know how to do anything to live. Perhaps there was never a stronger instance of this than in James Booty, of whom we are now speaking. He was a boy rather without capacity than obstinate, whose inclinations, one would have expected, could hardly have attained to that pitch of wickedness in thought, which it appeared both by evidence and his own confessions, he had actually practised. His father was a peruke-maker in Holborn, and not in so bad circ.u.mstances but that he could have afforded him a tolerable education, if he had not been s.n.a.t.c.hed away by death. Thus his son was left to the care of his mother, who put him to a cabinet-maker, where he might have been bound apprentice if the unhappy accident (for so indeed I think it may be called) had not intervened. It seemed his master had taken a cousin of his, a girl of about fifteen or somewhat more, for a servant. This girl went into the workshop where the boy lay, under pretence of mending his coat, which he had torn by falling upon a hook as he stumbled over the well of the stairs; but instead of darning the hole, she went to bed to the boy, put out the candle, and gave him the foul distemper.

Not knowing what was the matter with him, but finding continual pains in his body, he made a s.h.i.+ft at last to learn the cause from some of the workmen. Not daring to trust even his mother with what was the matter with him, instead of applying to a proper person to be cured, he listened as attentively as he could to all discourses about that distemper, which happened frequently enough amongst his master's journeymen. There he heard some of the foolish fellows say that lying with any person who was sound would cure those who were in such a condition. The extreme anguish of body he was in excited him to try the experiment, and he injured no less than four or five children, between four years old and six, before he committed that act for which he was executed.

He one day carried his master's daughter, Anne Milton, a girl of but five years and two months old, to the top of the house, and there with great violence abused her and gave her the foul disease. The parents were not long before they made the discovery of it, and the child telling them what Booty had done to her, they sent for a surgeon who examined him, and found him in a very sad condition with venereal disease. Upon this he was taken up and committed to Newgate, and upon very full evidence was convicted at the next sessions, and received sentence of death; from which time to the day before he was executed, he was afflicted with so violent a fever as to have little or no sense. But then coming to himself, he expressed a confused sense of religion and penitence, desired to be instructed how to go to Heaven, and showed evident marks of his inclination to do anything which might be for the good of his soul.

At the place of execution he wept and looked dejected, said his mother had sought diligently for the wench who did him the injury, and was the cause of his doing it to so many others; but that although the girl was known to live in Westminster after she left his master, yet his mother was never able to find her. Thus was this young creature removed from the world by an ignominious death at Tyburn, on the 21st May, 1722, being then somewhat above fifteen years old.

The Life of THOMAS BUTLOCK, alias BUTLOGE, a Thief

The foolish pride of wearing fine clothes and making a figure has certainly undone many ordinary people, both by making them live beyond what their labour or trade would allow, and by inducing them to take illegal methods to procure money for that purpose.

Thomas Butlock, otherwise Butloge, which last was his true name, was born in the kingdom of Ireland, about thirty miles east of Dublin, whither his parents had gone from Ches.h.i.+re (which was their native country) with a gentleman on whom they had a great dependence, and who was settled in Ireland. Though their circ.u.mstances were but indifferent, yet they found means to raise as much as put their son apprentice to a vintner in Dublin, and probably, had he ever set up in that business they would have done more. But he had not been long ere what little education he had was lost, and his morals corrupted by the sight of such lewd scenes as pa.s.sed often in his master's house. However the man was very kind to him, and in return Thomas had so great esteem and affection for his master that when he broke and come over to hide himself at Chester, Butloge frequently stole over to him with small supplies of money and acquainted him with the condition of his family, which he had left behind.

In this precarious manner of life, he spent some time, until finding it impossible for him to subsist any longer by following his master's broken fortunes, he began to lay out for some new employment to get his bread. But after various projects had proved unsuccessful when they came to be executed, he was forced to return into Ireland again, where not long after, he had the good fortune to marry a substantial man's daughter which retrieved his circ.u.mstances once more.