Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 8

Some of these fellows, it seems, valued themselves much on the ferocity they exerted in the war they carried on against the rest of mankind, amongst which Wilkinson might be justly reckoned, being ever ready to second any b.l.o.o.d.y proposal, and as unwilling to comply with any good-natured one. An instance of this happened in the case of two gentlemen whom Shaw, he and Burridge attacked near Highgate. Not contented with robbing them of about forty s.h.i.+llings, their watches and whatever else about 'em was valuable, Wilkinson, after they were dismounted, knocked one of them into a ditch, where he would have strangled him with his hand if one of his comrades had not hindered him. The man pleaded all the while the other held him, that he was without arms, incapable of making any resistance, and that it was equally base and barbarous to injure him, who neither could, nor would attempt to pursue him. Though this fact was very fully proved, yet Wilkinson strongly denied it, as indeed he did almost everything, though nothing was more notorious than that he had lived by these wicked courses for a very considerable time.

Having had occasion to mention this gang with whom Wilkinson was concerned, it may not be improper to acquaint my readers with an adventure of one Calhagan and Disney, two Irish robbers of the same crew. One of them had persuaded a gentleman's housekeeper, of about thirty-five, that he was extremely in love with her, pa.s.sing at the same time for a gentleman of fortune in the kingdom of Ireland, the brogue being too strong upon his tongue for him to deny his country. He met her frequently, and made her not a few visits, even at her master's house, taking care all the while to keep up the greatest form of ceremony, as though to a person whom he designed to make his wife. His companion attended on him with great respect as his tutor or gentleman, appearing at first very much dissatisfied with his making his addresses to a woman so much beneath him, but as the affair went on pretending to be so much taken with her wit, prudence and genteel behaviour, that he said his master had made an excellent choice, and advised him to delay his marriage no longer than till he had settled his affairs with his guardian, naming as such a certain n.o.ble lord of unquestioned character and honour. These pretences prevailing on the credulity of an old maid, who like most of her species was fond of the company of young fellows, and in raptures at the thoughts of a lover, she thought it a prodigious long while till these accounts were made up, enquiring wherever she went, when such a lord would come to town. She heard, at last, with great satisfaction, that he would certainly come over from Ireland that summer.

The family in which she lived, going out of town as usual, left her in charge of the house; as there was n.o.body but herself and an under maid, her lover often visited her, and at last told her that on such a day my Lord had appointed to settle his affairs and to deliver up all his trust. The evening of this day, the gentleman and his tutor came and brought with them a bundle of papers and parchments, which they pretended were the instruments which had been signed on this occasion. After making merry with the housekeeper and the maid on a supper which they had sent from the tavern, the elder of them at last pulls out his watch, and said, Come, 'tis time to do business, 'tis almost one o'clock. Upon which the other arose, seized the housekeeper, to whom he had so long paid his addresses, and clapped an ivory gag into her mouth, while his companion did the same thing by the other. Then putting out all the candles, having first put one into a dark lanthorn they had brought on purpose, they next led the poor creatures up and down the house, till they had shown them the several places where the plate, linen, jewels and other valuable things belonging to the family were laid. After having bundled up these they threw them down upon the floor, tied their ankles to one another, and left them hanging, one on one side, and the other on the other side of the parlour door; in which posture they were found the next day at noon, at the very point of expiring, their blood having stagnated about their necks, which put them into the greatest danger.

But to return to Wilkinson. One night, he with his companions Lincoln and William Lock came up with one Peter Martin, a poor pensioner of Chelsea College, whom they stopped. Wilkinson held him down and Lincoln knocked him down on his crying out for help; afterwards taking him up, he would have led him along, and Wilkinson p.r.i.c.ked him with his sword in the shoulders and b.u.t.tocks for some time, to make him advance, till William Lock cried out to them, How should ye expect the man to go forward when he is dead.

For this murder and for a robbery committed by them with Carrick and Carrol they were both capitally convicted. Wilkinson behaved himself to the time of his execution very morosely, and when pressed, at the place of execution, to unburden his conscience as to the crime for which he died, he answered peremptorily that he knew nothing of the murder, nor of Lincoln who died with him, until they were apprehended; adding, that as to hanging in chains he did not value it, but he had no business to tell lies, to make himself guilty of things he never did. Three days and three nights before the time of his death, he abstained totally from meat and drink, which rendered him so faint that he had scarce strength enough to speak at the tree.

James Lincoln, who died with him for the aforesaid cruel murder, was a fellow of a more docile and gentle temper than Wilkinson, owned abundance of the offences he had been guilty of, and had designed, as he himself owned, to have robbed the Duke of Newcastle of his gaiter ornaments, as he returned from the instalment. Notwithstanding these confessions, he persisted, as well as Wilkinson, in utterly denying that he knew anything of the murder of the pensioner, and saying that he forgave William Lock who had sworn himself and them into it. Wilkinson was at the time of his execution about thirty-five years old, and James Lincoln somewhat under. They died at the same time with the afore-mentioned malefactor, Wilson, at Tyburn.

[20]

This was near Clerkenwell Green. It was a famous Bear Garden and the scene of various prize-fights to which public challenges were issued. Cunningham quotes a curious one for the year 1722:-"I, Elizabeth Wilkinson, of Clerkenwell, having had some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite her to meet me on the stage and box with me for three guineas, each woman holding half-a-crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops her money to lose the battle" (this was to prevent scratching). The acceptance ran, "I, Hannah Hyfield, of Newgate Market, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, G.o.d willing, to give her more blows than words, desiring home blows and from her no favour."

The Life of MATTHIAS BRINSDEN, a Murderer

Though all offences against the laws of G.o.d and the land are highly criminal in themselves, as well as fatal in their consequences, yet there is certainly some degree in guilt; and petty thieveries and crimes of a like nature seem to fall very short in comparison of the atrocious guilt of murder and the imbrueing one's hands in blood, more especially when a crime of so deep a dye in itself is heightened by aggravating circ.u.mstances.

Matthias Brinsden, who is to be the subject of our present narration, was a man in tolerable circ.u.mstances at the time the misfortune happened to him for which he died. He had several children by his wife whom he murdered, and with whom he had lived in great uneasiness for a long time. The deceased Mrs. Brinsden was a woman of a great spirit, much addicted to company and not a little to drinking. This had occasioned many quarrels between her and her husband on the score of those extravagancies she was guilty of, Mr. Brinsden thinking it hard that she should squander away his money when he had a large family, and scarce knew how to maintain it.

Their quarrels frequently rose to such a height as to alarm the neighbourhood, the man being of a cruel, and the woman of an obstinate temper, and it seemed rather a wonder that the murder had not ensued before than that it happened when it did, they seldom falling out and fighting without drawing blood, or having some grievous accident or other happening therefrom. Once he burnt her arms with a red-hot iron, and but a week before her death he ran a great pair of scissors into her skull, which covered her with blood, and made him and all who saw her think he had murdered her then. But after bleeding prodigiously she came a little to herself, and on the application of proper remedies recovered. Brinsden, in the meanwhile fled, and was hardly prevailed with to return, upon repeated a.s.surances that she was in no danger, promising himself that if she escaped with life then, he would never suffer himself to be so far transported with pa.s.sion as to do her an injury again.

The fatal occasion of that quarrel which produced the immediate death of the woman, warm with liquor, and in the midst of pa.s.sion, and which soon after brought on a shameful and ignominious end to the man himself, happened by Mrs. Brinsden's drinking cheerfully with some company at home, and after their going away, demanding of her husband what she should have for supper? He answered, bread and cheese; to which the deceased replied that she thought bread and cheese once a day was enough, and as she had eaten it for dinner, she would not eat it for supper. Brinsden said, she should have no better than the rest of his family, who were like to be contented with the same, except his eldest daughter for whom he had provided a pie, and towards whom on all occasions he showed a peculiar affection, occasioned as he said, from the care she took of his other children and of his affairs, though malicious and ill-natured people gave out that it sprang from a much worse and, indeed, the basest of reasons.

On the discourse I have mentioned between him and his wife, Mrs. Brinsden in a violent pa.s.sion declared she would go to the general shop and sup with her friends, who were gone from her but a little before. He, therefore, having got between her and the door, having the knife in his hand with which he cut the bread and cheese, and she still persisting with great violence in endeavouring to go out, he threw her down with one hand and stabbed her with the other. This is the account of this b.l.o.o.d.y action as it was sworn against him at his trial by his own daughter, though he persisted in it that what she called throwing down was only gently laying her on the bed after she received the blow, which as he averred happened only by chance, and her own pressing against him as the knife was in his hand. However that was, he sent for basilicon and sugar to dress the wound, in hopes she might at least recover so far as to declare there was no malice between them, but those endeavours were in vain, for she never spoke after.

In the meanwhile, Brinsden took occasion during the bustle that this sad accident occasioned, and fled to one Mr. Kegg's at Shadwell Dock, where, though for some small s.p.a.ce he continued safe, yet the terrors and apprehensions he was under were more choking and uneasy than all the miseries he experienced after his being taken up. Such is the weight of blood, and such the dreadful condition of the wicked.

At his trial he put on an air of boldness and intrepidity, saying that though the clamour of the town was very strong against him, yet he hoped it would not make an impression to his disadvantage on the jury, since the death of his wife happened with no premeditated design. The surgeon who examined the wound, having deposed that it was six inches deep, he objected to his evidence by observing that the knife, when produced in Court, was not quite so long. He pleaded also, very strongly, the insupportable temper of his wife, and said she was of such a disposition that nothing would do with her but blows. But all this signifying little, the evidence of this daughter appearing also full and direct against him, the jury showed very small regard to his excuses, and after a short reflection on the evidence, they found him guilty.

Under sentence he behaved himself indolently and sottishly, doing nothing but eat his victuals and doze in his bed; thinking it at the same time a very great indignity that he should be obliged to take up with those thieves and robbers who were in the same state of condemnation with himself, always behaving himself towards then very distantly, and as if it would have been a great debas.e.m.e.nt to him if he had joined with them in devotion.

His daughter who had borne witness against him at his trial, came to him at chapel and begged his forgiveness, even for having testified the truth. At first he turned away from her with much indignation; the second day she came, after great entreaty and persuasion of his friends, he at last muttered out, I forgive you. But the girl coming the third day and earnestly desiring he would kiss her, which at first he refused, and at last turning to her and weeping lamentably, he took her in his arms, and said: For Christ's sake, my child, forgive me. I have robbed you of your own mother. Be a good child, rather die than steal, never be in a pa.s.sion, but curb your anger. Honour your mistress, for she will be both a father and a mother to you. Pray for your father and think of him as well as you can.

At the place of execution he composed himself to suffer with as much patience as he could, and while the rest threw books and handkerchiefs to their friends, he seemed wrapped up in a profound meditation, out of which he drew himself as soon as prayers began and a.s.sisted with much cheerfulness and attention. When they were ended he stood up and desiring the Ordinary to repeat after him the following speech, which he dictated word for word as I have transcribed it, seeming most pa.s.sionately affected with the reflection the world had cast on himself and daughter, as my readers will perceive from the speech itself. After the making of which, he was immediately turned off, on the sixteenth of July, 1722.

The last speech of Matthias Brinsden

I was born of kind parents, who gave me learning, and went apprentice to a fine-drawer. I had often jars which might increase a natural waspishness in my temper. I fell in love with Hannah, my late wife, and after much difficulty won her, she having five sisters at the same time. We had ten children (half of them dead) and I believe we loved each other dearly, but often quarrelled and fought. Pray good people mind, I had no malice against her, nor thought to kill her, two minutes before the deed, but I designed only to make her obey me thoroughly, which the Scripture says all wives should do. This I thought I had done, when I cut her skull on Monday, but she was the same again by Tuesday.

Good people, I request you to observe that though the world has spitefully given out that I carnally and incestuously lay with my eldest daughter, I here solemnly declare, as I am entering into the presence of G.o.d, I never knew whether she was man or woman, since she was a babe. I have often taken her in my arms, often kissed her, sometimes given her a cake or a pie, when she did any particular service beyond what came to her share, but never lay with her, or carnally knew her, much less had a child by her. But when a man is in calamities and is hated like me, the women will make surmises into certainties. Good Christians pray for me, I deserve death, I am willing to die, for though my sins are great, G.o.d's mercies are greater.

The Life of EDMUND NEAL, a Footpad

Of all the unhappy wretches whose ends I have recorded that their examples may be of the more use to mankind, there is none perhaps which be more useful, if well considered, than this of Edmund Neal Though there be nothing in it very extraordinary, yet it contains a perfect picture of low pleasures for which men sacrifice reputation and happiness, and go on in a voluptuous dream till they awake to temporal and, but for the mercy of G.o.d, to eternal death.

This Edmund Neal was the son of a father of the same name, a blacksmith in a market town in Warwicks.h.i.+re. He was one of those mechanics who, from a particular observance of the foibles of human nature, insinuate themselves into the good graces of those who employ them, and from being created as something even beneath a servant, grow up at last into a confidence to which it would not be improper to affix the name of a friend. This Edmund Neal senior had by this method climbed (by a little skill he had in horses) from paring off their hoofs, to directing of their riders, until in short there was scarce a sporting squire in the neighbourhood but old Edmund was of his privy council. Yet though he got a vast deal of money, he took very little care of the education of his son, whom he scarce allowed as much learning as would enable him to read a chapter; but notwithstanding this, he carried him about with him wherever he went, as if the company of gentlemen, though he was unable to converse with them, would have been sufficient to improve him.

The scenes young Neal saw at the houses whither his father carried him, filled him with such a liking to debauchery and such an irreclaimable pa.s.sion for sensual pleasures, as was the source from whence his following misfortunes flowed. For what, as he himself complained, first gave him occasion to repine at his condition, and filled him with wandering inclinations of pursuing an idle and extravagant life, was the forcing of him to go apprentice to a tailor, a trade for which he had always the greatest aversion, and contempt. No sooner, therefore, was he placed out apprentice, but the young fellows of that occupation whom he had before derided and despised, now ridiculed him in their turns, and laughed at the uneasiness which they saw his new employment caused him. However, he lived about four years with his master, being especially induced thereto by the company of a young man who worked there, and who used to amuse him with stories of intrigues in London, to which Neal listened with a very attentive ear.

This London companion more and more inclined him to vice, and the history he gave of his living with a woman-who cheated her other cullies to maintain him, and at last for the sake of a new sweetheart, stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country-the relation, I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them. And as ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he wanted. This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.

These practices quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally dest.i.tute of money, friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two s.h.i.+llings in his pocket. He took a solitary walk to that end of the town which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman who asked him to go with her to London. He not knowing what to do with himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain they set out together. The woman was very kind to him on the road, and poor Edmund flattered himself that money was so plentiful in London as to render it impossible for him to remain without it. But he was miserably mistaken when he arrived there. He went to certain public-houses of persons whom he had known in the country, who instead of using him civilly, in a day or two's time were thrusting him out of doors. Some common wh.o.r.es, also, finding him to be a poor country fellow, easily seduced him and kept him amongst them for a stallion, until, between their l.u.s.t and their diseases, they had put him in a fair road to the grave.

Tired out with their vices, which were even too gross for a mind so corrupted as his was, he chose rather to go and live with a brewer and carry out drink. But after living for some time with two masters of that occupation, his mind still roving after an easier and pleasanter life, he endeavoured to get it at some public-house; which at last he with much ado effected at Sadlers Wells.[21] This appeared so great a happiness that he thought he should never be tired of a life where there was so much music and dancing, to which he had been always addicted; and, as he phrased it himself, he thought he was in another world when he got with a set of men and maids in a barn with a fiddle among them.

However, he at last grew tired of that also; and resolving to betake himself to some more settled and honest employment, he hired himself to a man who kept swine, and there behaved himself both with honesty and diligence. But his master breaking a little time after he had been with him, though as he affirmed without his wronging him in the least, he was reduced to look for some new way of maintaining himself. This being about the time of the late Rebellion,[22] and great encouragement being then offered for those who would enter themselves in the late king's service at sea, Neal accepted thereof, and s.h.i.+pped himself on board the Gosport man-of-war, which sailed to the Western Islands of Scotland. What between the cold and the hard fare he suffered deeply, and never, as be said, tasted any degree of comfort till he returned to the West of England The Rebellion being then over, Neal with very great joy accepted his discharge from the service, and once more in search of business came up to London.

The reputation of an honest servant he had acquired from the hog merchant he had formerly lived with, quickly procured him a place with another of the same trade, with him he lived too (as was said) very honestly; and having been trusted with twenty or thirty pounds at a time, was always found very trusty and faithful. But happening, unluckily, to work here with one Pincher, who in the course of his life had been as unhappy as himself, they thereupon grew very intimate together, and being a couple of fellows of very odd tempers, after having got half drunk at the Hamps.h.i.+re Hog, they took it into their heads that there was not in the world two fellows so unhappy as themselves. The subject began when they were maudlin, and as they grew quite drunk, they came to a resolution to go out and beat everybody they met, for being happier than themselves.

The first persons they met in this expedition were a poor old man whose name was Dormer and his wife. The woman they abused grossly, and Pincher knocked the man down, though very much in years, Neal afterwards rolling him about, and either took or shook out of his pocket all the money he had, which was but three pence farthing. For this unaccountable action they were both apprehended, tried and convicted, with three other persons, in the November sessions, 1722. But their inhuman behaviour to the old man made such an impression on the Court to their disadvantage, that when the death warrant came down, they two only were appointed for execution.

At the near approach of death, Neal appeared excessively astonished, and what between fear and concern, his senses grew disordered. However, at the place of execution he seemed more composed than he had been before, and said that it was very fit he should die, but added he suffered rather for being drunk than any design he had either to rob or use the man cruelly. As for William Pincher, his companion both in the robbery and its punishment, he seemed to be the counterpart of Neal, a downright Norfolk clown, born within six miles of Lynn and by the kindness of a master of good fortune, taken into his house with an intent to breed him up, on his father's going for a soldier. At first he behaved himself diligently and thereby got much into the favour of his master, but falling into loose company and addicting himself to sotting in alehouses, his once kind and indulgent master, finding him incorrigible, dismissed him from his service, and having given him some small matter by way of encouragement, he set out for London. Here he got into the business before mentioned, and said himself, that he might have lived very comfortably thereon, if he had been industrious and frugal; but that addicting himself to his old custom of sitting continually in an alehouse had drawn him into very great inconveniences. In order to draw himself out of these he thought of following certain courses, by which, as he had heard some company where he used say, a young man might get as much money as he could spend, let him live as extravagantly as he would. This occasioned his persuading Neal into that fatal undertaking which cost them their lives. His behaviour under sentence was irreproachable, being always taken up either in reading, praying or singing of Psalms, performing all things that so short a s.p.a.ce would give him leave to do, and showing as evident marks of true repentance as perhaps any unhappy person ever did in his condition.

Thus these two companions in misfortune suffered together on die last day of the year 1722, Edmund Neal being then about thirty years of age, and Pincher about twenty-six.

[21]

This was opened, about 1680, by a certain Sadler, as a public music-room and house of entertainment. The discovery of a spring of mineral water in the garden attracted general attention and the place soon became a place of popular resort.

[22]

The Jacobite rising of 1715.

The Life of CHARLES WEAVER, a Murderer

Hastiness of temper and yielding to all the rash dictates of anger, as it is an offence the most unworthy a rational creature, so it is attended also with consequences as fatal as any other crime whatever. A wild expression thrown out in the heat of pa.s.sion has often cost men dearer than even a real injury would have done, had it been offered to the same person. A blow intended for the slightest has often taken away life, and the sudden anger of a moment produced the sorrow of years, and has been, after all, irreparable in its effect.

Charles Weaver, of whom we are now speaking, was the son of parents in very good circ.u.mstances in the city of Gloucester, who put him apprentice to a goldsmith. He served about four years of his time with his master, and having in that s.p.a.ce run out into so much lewdness and extravagance that his friends refused any longer to supply or to support him, he then thought fit to go into the service of the Queen, as a soldier, and in that capacity went over with those who were sent into America to quell the Indians. These people were at that time instigated by the French to attack our plantations on the main near which they lay. The greater part of these poor creatures were without European arms, yet several amongst them had fusees, powder and ball from the French, with which, being very good marksmen, they did abundance of mischief from their ambuscades in the woods.

At the time Weaver served against them, they were commanded by one Ouranaquoy, a man of a b.l.o.o.d.y disposition, great courage and greater cunning. He had commanded his nation in war against another Indian nation, from whom he took about forty prisoners, who according to the Indian custom were immediately destined to death; but being prevailed upon, by the presence of the French, to turn his arms against the English, on the confines of whose plantations he had gained his last victory, Ouranaquoy having sent for the prisoners he had taken before him, told them that if they would fall upon a village about three miles distant, he would not only give them their liberty, but also such a reward for the scalp of every Englishman, woman or child, they brought. They readily agreed on these terms and immediately went and plundered the village.

The English army lay about seven miles off, and no sooner heard of such an outrage committed by such a nation, but they immediately attacked the people to whom the prisoners belonged, marching their whole army for that purpose against the village, which if we may call it so, was the capital of their country. By this policy Ouranaquoy gained two advantages, for first he involved the English in a war with the people with whom they had entertained a friends.h.i.+p for twenty years, and in the next place gained time, while the English army were so employed, to enter twenty-five miles within their country, destroying fourscore whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any considerable mischief to the people against whom they marched, had learnt the stratagem by which they had been deceived by Ouranaquoy) returned suddenly into his country, and exercised such severities upon the people thereof that to appease and make peace with the English the chiefs sent them the scalps of Ouranaquoy, his three brothers and nine sons.

On Weaver's return into England from this expedition, he s.h.i.+pped himself again as a recruit for that army which was then commanded by the Earl of Peterborough in Spain. He served also under the Duke of Ormond when his grace took Vigo, and Weaver had the good luck to get some hundred pounds for his share in the booty, but that money which he, in his thoughts, had designed for setting himself up in England, being insensibly squandered and decayed, he was obliged to list himself again, and so became a second time spectator of the taking of Vigo under the Lord Cobham.[23]

While he served in the second regiment of Foot-guards, he behaved himself so well as to engage his officer to take him into his own house, where he lived for a considerable s.p.a.ce; and he had been twice actually reviewed in order to his going into the Life-guards, when he committed the act for which he died, which according to the evidence given at his trial happened thus. He was going into a boat in company with Eleanor Clark, widow, and Edward Morris. After they were in the boat, some words arising, the woman bid Weaver pay Morris what he owed him, upon which Weaver in a great pa.s.sion got up, and endeavoured to overturn the boat with them all. But Thomas Watkins, the waterman, preventing that, Weaver immediately drew his sword, and swore he would murder them all, making several pa.s.ses at them as if he had firmly intended to be as good as his word. The men defended themselves so well as to escape hurt, and endeavoured all they could to have preserved the woman, but Weaver making a pa.s.s, the sword entered underneath her left shoulder, and thereby gave her a wound seven inches deep, after which she gave but one groan and immediately expired. For this b.l.o.o.d.y fact Weaver was tried and convicted, and thereupon received sentence of death.

During the s.p.a.ce between the pa.s.sing of sentence and its execution an accident happened which added grievously to all his misfortunes. His wife, big with child, coming about a fortnight before his death to see him in Newgate, was run over by a dray and killed upon the spot. Weaver himself, though in the course of the life he had led he had totally forgot both reading and writing, yet came duly to prayers, and gave all possible marks of sorrow and repentance for his misspent life, though he all along pretended that the woman's death happened by accident, and that he had had no intent to murder her. He suffered the 8th day of February, 1722-3, being at that time about thirty years of age.

[23]

See page 49.

The Life of JOHN LEVEE, a Highwayman, Footpad, etc.

There is a certain busy sprightliness in some young people which from I know not what views, parents are apt to encourage in hopes of its one day producing great effects. I will not say that they are always disappointed in their expectations, but I will venture to p.r.o.nounce that where one bold spirit has succeeded in the world, five have been ruined, by a busy turbulent temper.

This was the case with this criminal, John Levee, who, to cover the disgrace his family suffered in him, called himself Junks. His father was a French gentleman, who came over with King Charles II at the Restoration, taught French to persons of distinction in court, and particularly to some of that prince's natural children. For the convenience of his scholars, he kept a large boarding-school in Pall Mall, whereby he acquired such a fortune as enabled him to set up for a wine merchant. In this capacity he dealt with France for many years to the amount of thousands per annum. His children received the best education that could be given them and never stirred out of doors but with a footman to attend them.

But Mr. Levee, the merchant, falling into misfortunes by some of his correspondents' failures, withdrew from his family into Holland; and this son John being taken by the French Society, in order to be put out apprentice and provided for, being induced thereto by the boy's natural vivacity and warmth of temper in which he had been foolishly encouraged, they sent him to sea with a captain of a man-of-war. He was on board the Ess.e.x when Sir George Byng, now Viscount Torrington, engaged the Spaniards at Messina.[24] He served afterwards on board the squadron commanded by Sir John Norris in the Baltic, and when he returned home, public affairs being in a more quiet state, his friends thought it better for him to learn merchants' accounts than to go any more voyages, where there was now little prospect of advantage.