Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed Part 7

But Butloge had always, as he expressed it, an aspiring temper, which put him upon crossing the seas again upon the invitation of a gentleman who, he pretended was a relation, and belonged to the Law, by whose interest he was in hopes of getting into a place. Accordingly, when he came to London, he took lodgings and lived as if he was already in possession of his expectation, which bringing his pocket low, he accepted the service of Mr. Claude Langley, a foreign gentleman, who had lodged in the same house. It cannot be exactly determined how long he had been in his service before he had committed the fact for which he died, but as to the manner it happened thus.

Mr. Langley, as well as all the rest of the family, being out at church, Butloge was sitting by himself in his master's room, looking at the drawers, and knowing that there was a good sum of ready money therein. It then came into his head what a figure he might cut if he had all that money. It occurred to him, at the same time, that his master was scarce able to speak any English, and was obliged to go over to France again in a month's time; so that he persuaded himself that if he could keep out of the way for that month, all would be well, and he should be able to live upon the spoil, without any apprehension of danger. These considerations took up his mind for half an hour; then he put his scheme into execution, broke open the drawers and took from thence twenty-seven guineas, four louis d'ors, and some other French pieces. As soon as he completed the robbery, and was got safe out of town, he went directly to Chester, that he might appear fine (as he himself said) at a place where he was known. His precaution being so little, there is no wonder that he was taken, or that the fact appearing plain, he should be convicted thereon.

After sentence was pa.s.sed, he laid aside all hopes of life, and without flattering himself as too many do, he prepared for his approaching end. Whatever follies he might have committed in his life, yet he suffered very composedly on the 22nd day of July, 1722, being then about twenty-three years of age.

The Life of NATHANIEL JACKSON, a Highwayman

The various dispositions of men make frequent differences in their progress, either in virtue or vice; some being disposed to cultivate this or that branch of their duty with peculiar diligence, and others, again, plunging themselves in some immoralities they have no taste for.

But as for this unfortunate criminal, Nathaniel Jackson, he seemed to have swept all impurities with a drag net, and to have habituated himself to nothing but wickedness from his cradle. He was the son of a person of some fortune at Doncaster, in Yorks.h.i.+re, who died when his son Nat was very young, but not, however, till he had given him some education. He was bound by a friend, in whose hands his father left his fortune, to a silk-weaver at Norwich, with whom he lived about three years; but his master restraining his extravagancies, and taking great pains to keep him within the bounds of moderation, Jackson at last grew so uneasy that he ran away from his master, and absconded for some time. But his guardian at last hearing where he was, wrote to him, and advised him to purchase some small place with his fortune, whereon he might live with economy, since he perceived he would do no good in trade. Jackson despised this advice, and instead of thinking of settling, got into the Army, and with a regiment of dragoons went over into Ireland.

There he indulged himself in all the vices and l.u.s.ts to which he was p.r.o.ne, living in all those debaucheries to which the meanest and most licentious of the common soldiers are addicted; but he more especially gave himself up to lewdness and the conversation of women. This, as it led him into abundance of inconveniences, so at last it engaged him in a quarrel with one of his comrades which ended in a duel. Jackson had the advantage of his antagonist and hacked and wounded him in a most cruel manner. For this, his officers broke him, and he thereby lost the fifteen guineas which he had given to be admitted into the troop; and as men are always apt to be angry with punishment, however justly they receive it, so Jackson imputed his being cas.h.i.+ered to the officers' covetousness, the crime he had committed pa.s.sing in his own imagination for a very trivial action.

Having from this accident a new employment to seek, he came over to his guardian and stayed with him a while. But growing very soon weary of those restraints which were put upon him there, as he had done at those under his Norwich master, he soon fell into his old courses, got into an acquaintance with lewd women and drunken fellows, with whom he often stayed out all night at the most notorious bawdy houses. This making a great noise, his friends remonstrated in the strongest terms, pointing out to him the wrong he did himself; but finding all their persuasions ineffectual, they told him plainly he must remove. Upon this he came up to London, not without receiving considerable presents from his so much abused friends.

The town was an ill place to amend a man who came into it with dispositions like his. On the contrary, he found still more opportunities for gratifying his l.u.s.tful inclinations than at any time before, and these lewd debaucheries having reduced him quickly to the last extremity, he was in a fair way to be prevailed on to take any method to gain money. He was in these said circ.u.mstances when he met accidentally with John Morphew, an old companion of his in Ireland, and soon after, as they were talking together, they fell upon one O'Brian in a footman's garb, also their acquaintance in Ireland.

He invited them both to go with him to the camp in Hyde Park, and at a sutler's tent there, treated them with as much as they would drink. When he had paid the reckoning, turning about, d'ye see, boys, says he, how full my pockets are of money? Come, I'll teach you to fill yours, if you are but men of courage. Upon this out they walked towards Hampstead, between which place and St. Pancras they met one Dennet, whom they robbed and stripped, taking from him a coat and a waistcoat, two s.h.i.+rts, some hair, thirteen pence in money, and other things. This did not make O'Brian's promise good, all they got being but of inconsiderable value, but it cost poor Jackson his life, though he and Morphew had saved Dennet's when O'Brian would have killed him to prevent discoveries; for Jackson being not long after apprehended, was convicted of the fact, but O'Brian, having timely notice of his commitment, made his escape into Ireland.

As soon as sentence was pa.s.sed, Jackson thought of nothing but how to prepare himself for another world, there being no probability that interest his friends could make to save him. He made a very ingenious confession of all he knew, and seemed perfectly easy and resigned to that end which the Law had appointed for those who, like him, had injured society. He was about thirty years old at the time of his death, which was on the 18th of July, 1722, at Tyburn.

The Life of JAMES, alias VALENTINE CARRICK, a Notorious Highwayman and Street Robber

Though it has become a very common and fas.h.i.+onable opinion that honour may supply the place of piety, and thereby preserve a morality more beneficial to society than religion, yet if we would allow experience to decide, it will be no very difficult matter to prove that when persons have once given way to certain vices (which in the polite style pa.s.s under the denomination of pleasures) rather than forego them they will quickly acquire that may put it in their power to enjoy them, though obtained at the rate of perpetrating the most ignominious offences. If there had not been too much truth in this observation we should hardly find in the list of criminals persons who, like James Carrick, have had a liberal education, and were not meanly descended, bringing themselves to the most miserable of all states and reflecting dishonour upon those from whom they were descended.

This unfortunate person was the son of an Irish gentleman, who lived not far from Dublin, and whom we must believe to have been a man of tolerable fortune, since he provided as well for all his children as to make even this, who was his youngest, an ensign. James was a perfect boy at the time when his commission required him to quit Ireland to repair to Spain, whither, a little before, the regiment wherein he was to serve had been commanded. As he had performed his duty towards the rest of his children, the father was more than ordinarily fond of this his youngest, whom therefore he equipped in a manner rather beyond that capacity in which he was to appear upon his arrival at the army. In his person James was a very beautiful well-shaped young man, of a middle size, and something more than ordinarily genteel in his appearance, as his father had taken care to supply him abundantly for his expenses; so when he came into Spain he spent his money as freely as any officer of twice his pay. His tent was the constant rendezvous of all the beaux who were at that time in the camp, and whenever the army were in quarters, n.o.body was handsomer, or made a better figure than Mr. Carrick.

Though we are very often disposed to laugh at those stories for fictions which carry in them anything very different from what we see in daily experience, yet as the materials I have for this unfortunate man's life happen both to be full and very exact, I shall not scruple mentioning some of his adventures, which I am persuaded will neither be unpleasant, nor incapable of improving my readers.

The regiment in which Carrick served was quartered at Barcelona, after the taking of that place by the English troops[19] who supported the t.i.tle of the present Emperor to the crown of Spain. The inhabitants were not only civil, but to the last degree courteous to the English, for whom they always preserved a greater esteem than for any other nation. Carrick, therefore, had frequent opportunities for making himself known and getting into an acquaintance with some of the Spanish cavaliers, who were in the interest of King Charles. Amongst these was Don Raphael de Ponto, a man of fortune and family amongst the Catalans, but, as is usual with the Spaniards, very amorous and continually employed in some intrigue or other. He was mightily pleased with Carrick's humour, and conceived for him a friends.h.i.+p, in which the Spaniards are perhaps more constant and at the same time more zealous, than any other nation in Europe. As Carrick had been bred a Roman Catholic and always continued so, notwithstanding his professing the contrary to those in the Army, so he made no scruple of going to Ma.s.s with his Spanish friend, which pa.s.sed with the English officers only as a piece of complaisance.

Vespers was generally the time when Don Raphael and his English companion used to make their appointments with the ladies, and therefore they were very punctual at those devotions, from a spirit which too often takes up young minds. It happened one evening, when after the Spanish custom they were thus gone forth in quest of adventures, a duenna slipped into Don Raphael's hand a note, by which he was appointed to come under such a window near the convent, in the street of St. Thomas, when the bell of the convent rang in the evening, and was desired to bring his friend, if he were not afraid of a Spanish lady. Don Raphael immediately acquainted his friend, who you may be sure was ready to obey the summons.

When the hour came, and the convent bell rang, our sparks, wrapped up in their cloaks, slipped to their posts under a balcony. They did not wait long there, before the same woman who delivered the note to Don Raphael made her appearance at the window, and throwing down another little billet, exhorted them to be patient a little, and they should not lose their labour. The lovers waited quiet enough for about a quarter of an hour, when the old woman slipped down, and opened a door behind them, at which our sparks entered with great alacrity. The old woman conduced them into a very handsome apartment above stairs, where they were received by two young ladies, as beautiful as they could have wished them. Compliments are not much used on such occasions in Spain, and these gentlemen, therefore, did not make many before they were for coming to the point with the ladies, when of a sudden they heard a great noise upon the stairs, and as such adventures make all men cautious in Spain, they immediately left the ladies, and retiring towards the window, drew their swords. They had hardly clapped their backs against it, before the noise on the stairs ceasing, they felt the floor tremble under their feet, and at last giving way, they both fell into a dark room underneath, where without any other noise than their fall had made, they were disarmed, gagged and bound by some persons placed there for that purpose. When the rogues had finished their search, and taken away everything that was valuable about them, even to ripping the gold lace off Carrick's clothes, they let them lie there for a considerable time, and at last removed them in two open chests to the middle of the great marketplace, where they left them to wait for better fortune. They had not remained there above a quarter of an hour, before Carrick's sergeant went the rounds with a file of musketeers. Carrick hearing his voice, made as much noise as he was able, and that bringing the sergeant and his men to the place where they were set, their limbs and mouths were immediately released from bondage.

The morning following, as soon as Carrick was up, the Spanish gentleman's major domo came to wait upon him, and told him that his master being extremely ill, had desired him to make his compliments to his English friend in order to supply the defects of the letter he sent him, which by reason of his indisposition was very short. Having said this, the Spaniard presented him with a letter, and a little parcel, and then withdrew. Carrick did not know what to make of all this, but as soon as the stranger was withdrawn, opened his packet in order to discover what it contained. He found in it a watch, a diamond ring, and a note on a merchant for two hundred pieces-of-eight, which was the sum Carrick (to make himself look great) said he had lost by the accident. The note at the same time informing him that Don Raphael de Ponto thought it but just to restore to him what he had lost by accompanying him in the former night's adventures.

After Carrick returned into England, though he had no longer his commission, or indeed any other way of living, yet he could not lay aside those vices in which hitherto he had indulged himself. When he had any money he entertained a numerous train of the most abandoned women of the town, and had also intrigues at the same time with some of the highest rank of those prost.i.tutes. To the latter he applied himself when his pocket first began to grow low, and they supplied him as long, and as far as they were able. But, alas! their contributions went but a little way towards supporting his expenses. Happening about that time to fall into an acquaintance with Smith, his countryman, after a serious consultation on ways and means to support their manner of living, they came at last to a resolution of taking a purse on the road, and joined company soon afterwards with Butler, another Irish robber, who was executed some time before them on the evidence of this very Carrick. When Carrick's elder brother heard of this in Ireland, he wrote to him in the most moving terms, beseeching him to consider the sad end to which he was running headlong, and the shame and ignominy with which he covered his family and friends, exhorting him at the same time not to cast away all hopes of doing well, but to think of returning to Dublin, where he a.s.sured him he would meet him, and provide handsomely for him, notwithstanding all that was past.

But Carrick little regarded this good advice, or the kind overtures made him by his brother. No sooner had he procured his liberty but he returned to his old profession, and committed a mult.i.tude of robberies on Finchley Common, Hounslow and Bagshot Heaths, spending all the money he got on women of the town, at the gaming table, and in fine clothes, which last was the thing in which he seemed most to delight. But money not coming in very quick by these methods, he with Molony, Carrol and some others of his countrymen, began to rob in the streets, and by that means got great sums of money. They continued this practice for a long s.p.a.ce of time with safety, but being one night out in Little Queen Street, by Lincoln's Inn Fields, between one and two in the morning they stopped a chair in which was the Hon. William Young, Esq., from whom they took a gold watch, valued at 50, a sword, and forty guineas in money. Carrick thrust his pistol into the chair, Carrol watched at a distance, while Molony, perceiving the gentleman hesitate a little in delivering, said with a stern voice, Your money, sir! Do you trifle? It was a very short time after the commission of this robbery that both he and his companion Molony were taken, Carrol making a timely escape to his native kingdom. While James Carrick remained in Newgate, his behaviour was equally singular and indecent, for he affected to pa.s.s his time with the same gaiety in his last moments as he had spent it in the former part of his days.

Throngs of people, as it is but too much the custom, came to see him in Newgate, to whom, as if he had intended that they should not lose their curiosity, he told all the adventures of his life, with the same air and gaiety as if he had been relating them at some gaming ordinaries. This being told about town, drew still greater heaps of company upon him, which he received with the same pleasantness; by which means he daily increased them, and by that means the gain of the keepers at Newgate, who took money to show him. Upon this he said to them merrily one day: You pay, good folks, for seeing me now, but if you had suspended your curiosity 'till I went to Tyburn, you might have seen me for nothing. This was the manner in which he talked and lived even to the last, conversing until the time of his death with certain loose women who had been his former favourites, and whom no persuasions could engage him to banish from his presence while he yet had eyes, and could behold them in his sight.

At the place of execution, where it often happens that the most daring offenders drop that resolution on which they foolishly value themselves, Carrick failed not in the least. He gave himself genteel airs (as Mr. Purney, the then Ordinary, phrases it) in placing the rope about his neck, smiled and bowed to everybody he knew round him, and continued playing a hundred little tricks of the same odd nature, until the very instant the cart drove away, declaring himself to be a Roman Catholic, and that he was persuaded he had made his peace with G.o.d in his own way. In this temper he finished his life at Tyburn, on the 18th of July, 1722, being then about twenty-seven years of age.

[19]

This was in 1705, by an expedition commanded by the Earl of Peterborough.

The Life of John MOLONY, a Highwayman and Street Robber

John Molony was an Irishman likewise, born at Dublin and sent to sea when very young. He served in the fleets which during the late Queen's reign sailed into the Mediterranean, and happening to be on board a s.h.i.+p which was lost, he with some other sailors, was called to a very strict account for that misfortune, upon some presumption that they were accessory thereto. Afterwards he sailed in a vessel of war which was fitted out against the pirates, and had therein so good luck that if his inclinations had been honest, he might certainly have settled very handsomely in the world. But that was far from his intention; he liked a seaman's pleasures, drinking and gaming, and when on sh.o.r.e, lewd women, the certain methods of being brought to such ways of getting money as end in a shameful death.

When abroad, his adventures were not many, because he had little opportunity of going on sh.o.r.e, yet one happened in Sicily which made a very great impression upon him, and which it may not therefore be improper to relate. There were two merchants at Palermo, both young men, and perfectly skilled in the arts of traffic; they had had a very liberal education, and had been constant friends and companions together. The intimacy they had so long continued was cemented by their marriage with two sisters. They lived very happily for the s.p.a.ce of about two years, and in all probability might have continued to do so much longer, had not the duenna who attended one of their wives, died, and a new one been put in her place. Not knowing the young ladies' brothers, upon their speaking to them at Church, she gave notice of it to the husband of her whom she attended, and he immediately posting to his neighbour, the woman told them both that their wives, notwithstanding all she could say, were talking to two well-dressed cavaliers, which the duenna who waited on the other, notwithstanding the duties of her post, saw without taking any notice. This so exasperated the jealousy of the Sicilians that without more ado they ran to the church, and meeting with their spouses coming out from thence with an air of gaiety, seized them, and stabbed them dead with a little dagger, which for that purpose each had concealed under his coat. Then flying into the church for sanctuary, they discovered their mistake, when one of them, seized with fury at the loss of a wife of whom he was so extravagantly fond, stabbed the other, though not mortally, and with many repeated wounds murdered the duenna, whose rash error had been the occasion of spilling so much blood.

Upon Molony's return to England, he was totally out of all business, and minded nothing but haunting the gaming tables, living on the charity of his fortunate countrymen when his luck was bad, and relieving them, in turn, when he had a favourable run at dice. It was at one of these houses that he became acquainted with Carrick, and the likeness of their tempers creating a great intimacy, after a short knowledge of one another they joined with Carrol, a fellow as wicked as themselves, but much more cruel, and were all concerned in that robbery for which Carrick and Molony died.

When these two criminals came to be tried at the Old Bailey, their behaviour was equally ludicrous, silly and indecent; affecting to rally the evidence that was produced against them, and to make the people smile at their premeditated bulls. Carrick, was a lean, fair man, and stood at the left hand corner of the bar; Molony was a larger built man, who wore a browner wig. Carrick took occasion to ask Mr. Young, when he stood up to give his evidence, which side of the chair it was he stood on, when he robbed him. Mr. Young answered him, that he stood on the right side. Why now, what a lie that is, returned Carrick, you know Molony, I stood on the left. Before the people recovered themselves from laughing at this, Molony asked him what coloured wig he took him to have on at the time the robbery was committed; being answered it was much the same colour with that he had on then, There's another story, quoth Molony, you know, Carrick, I changed wigs with you that morning, and wore it all day.

Yet after sentence was pa.s.sed, Molony laid aside all airs of gaiety, and seemed to be thoroughly convinced he had mistaken the true path of happiness. He did not care to see company, treated the Ordinary civilly when he spoke to him, though he professed himself a Papist, and was visited by a clergymen of that Church.

As he was going to the place of execution, he still looked graver and mote concerned; though he did not fall into those agonies of sighing and tears as some do, but seemed to bear his miserable state with great composedness and resignation, saying he had repented as well as he could in the short time allowed him, suffering the same day with the two last mentioned malefactors.

The Life of THOMAS WILSON, a Notorious Footpad

It happens so commonly in the world, that I am persuaded that none of my readers but must have remarked that there is a certain settled and stupid obstinacy in some tempers which renders them capable of persevering in any act, how wicked and villainous soever, without either reluctancy at the time of its commission, or a capacity of humbling themselves so far as to acknowledge and ask pardon for their offences when detected or discovered. Of this rugged disposition was the criminal we are now to speak of.

Thomas Wilson was born of parents not in the worst of circ.u.mstances, in the neighbourhood of London. They educated him both in respect of learning and other things as well as their capacity would give them leave; but Thomas, far from making that use of it that they desired, addicted himself wholly to ill practices, that is to idleness, and those little crimes of spoiling others, and depriving them of their property, which an evil custom has made pa.s.s for trivial offences in England. But it seems the parents of Wilson did not think so, but both reprimanded him and corrected him severely whenever he robbed orchards, or any other such like feats as pa.s.sed for instances of a quick spirit and ingenuity in children with less honest and religious parents.

But these restraints grew quickly so grievous to Thomas's temper, that he, observing that his parents, notwithstanding their correction, were really fond of him, bethought himself of a method of conquering their dislike to his recreations. Therefore stealing away from his home, he rambled for a considerable s.p.a.ce in the world, subsisting wholly upon such methods as he had before used for his recreation. But this project was so far from taking effect, that his parents, finding him incorrigible, looked very coldly upon him, and instead of fondling him the more for this act of disobedience, treated him as one whom they foresaw would be a disgrace to their family and of whom they had now very little or no hope.

Wilson perceiving this, out of the natural sourness of his temper resolved to abandon them totally, which he did, and went to sea without their consent or notice. But men of his cast being very ill-suited to that employment, where the strictest obedience is required towards those who are in command, Wilson soon brought himself into very unhappy circ.u.mstances by his moroseness and ill-behaviour; for though he was but thirteen when he went to sea, and never made but one voyage to the Baltic, yet in that s.p.a.ce he was fourteen times whipped and pickled and six times hung by the heels and lashed for the villainies he committed on the s.h.i.+p.

Upon this return into England, he was so thoroughly mortified by this treatment that he went home to his friends, and as far as his surly humour would give him leave, made his submission and promised more obedience and better behaviour for the future. They then took him in, and were in some hopes that they should now reclaim him. Accordingly they placed him with a sawyer, by Fleet Ditch, which at his first coming to the business seemed to him to be a much lighter work than that he had endured in the s.p.a.ce of his being at sea. He served four years honestly, indeed, and with as much content as a person of his unsettled mind could enjoy in any state; but at the end of that s.p.a.ce, good usage had so far spoiled him that he longed to be at liberty again, though at the expense of another sea voyage. Accordingly, leaving his master, he went away again on board of a merchantman bound for the Straits. During the time which the s.h.i.+p lay in port for her loading, he contracted some distemper from the heat of the country, and his immoderate love of its wine and the fruits that grow there. These brought him very low, and he falling at the same time into company of some bad women, made an addition to his former ails by adding one of the worst and most painful of all distempers to the miseries he before endured.

In this miserable condition, more like a ghost than a man, he s.h.i.+pped himself at last for England in a vessel, the captain of which out of charity gave him his pa.s.sage home. The air of that climate in which he was born, recovered him to a miracle. Soon after which being, I suppose, cured also of those maladies which had attended the Spanish women's favours, he fell in love with a very honest industrious young woman, and quickly prevailed with her to marry him. But her friends discovering what a profligate life he led, resolved she should not share in the misfortunes such a measure would be sure to draw upon him, wherefore they took her away from him. How crabbed soever this malefactor might be towards others, yet so affectionately fond was he of his wife that the taking of her away made him not only uneasy and melancholy, but drove him also into distraction. To relieve his grief, at first he betook himself to those companies that afterwards led him to the courses which brought on his death, and in almost all the villainies he committed afterwards he was hardly ever sober, so much did the loss of his wife, and the remorse of his course of the life he led affect him, whenever he allowed himself coolly to reflect thereon.

The crew he had engaged himself in were the most notorious and the most cruel footpads which for many years had infested the road. The robberies they committed were numerous and continual, and the manner in which they perpetrated them base and inhuman. For, seldom going out with pistols (the sight of which serves often to terrify pa.s.sengers out of their money, without offering them any other injury than what arises from their own apprehensions) these villains provided themselves with large sticks, loaded at the end with lead; with these, from behind a hedge, they were able to knock down pa.s.sengers as they walked along the road, and then starting from their covert, easily plunder and bind them if they thought proper. They had carried on this detestable practice for a long s.p.a.ce in almost all those roads which lead to the little villages whither people go for pleasure from the hurry and noise of London.

Amongst many other robberies which they committed, it happened that in the road to Bow they met a footman, whom without speaking to, they knocked down as soon as they had pa.s.sed him. The fellow was so stunned with the fall, and so frighted with their approach, that be made not the least resistance while they took away his money and his watch, stripped him of his hat and wig, his waistcoat and a pair of silver buckles; but when one of them perceiving a ring of some value upon his finger, went to tear it off, he begged him in the most moving terms to leave it, because it had been given to him by his lady, who would never forgive the loss of it. However it happened, he who first went to take it off, seemed to relent at the fellow's repeated entreaties, but Wilson catching hold of the fellow's hand, dragged it off at once, saying at the same time, Sirrah, I suppose you are your lady's stallion, and the ring comes as honestly to us as it did to you.

A few days after this adventure, Wilson being got very drunk, thought he would go out on the road himself, in hopes of acquiring a considerable booty without being obliged to share it with his companions. He had not walked above half an hour, before he overtook a man laden with several little glazed pots and other things, which being tied up in a cloth, he had hung upon the end of a stick and carried on his shoulder. Wilson coming behind him with one of those loaded sticks that I have mentioned, knocked him down by the side of the ditch, and immediately secured his bundle. But attempting to rifle him farther, his foot slipped, he being very full of liquor, and he tumbled backwards into the ditch. The poor man took that opportunity to get up and run away, and so soon as he could recover himself, Wilson retreated to one of those evil houses that entertain such people, in order to see what great purchase he had got; but upon opening the cloth, he was not a little out of humour at finding four pots, each filled with a pound of rappee snuff, and as many galley pots of scented pomatum.

Some nights after this expedition, he and one of his companions went out on the like errand, and had not been long in the fields before they perceived one Mr. Cowell, near Islington. Wilson's companion immediately resolved to attack him, but Wilson himself was struck with such a terror that he begged him to desist, from an apprehension that the man knew him; but that not prevailing with his a.s.sociate, they robbed him of a hat and wig, and about a s.h.i.+lling in money. Wilson was quickly apprehended, but his companion having notice thereof, saved himself by a flight into Holland. At the ensuing sessions Wilson was indicted, not only for this fact, but for many others of a like nature, to all of which he immediately pleaded guilty, declaring that as he had done few favours to mankind, so he would never expect any.

After sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced upon him, he laid aside much of his stubbornness, and not only applied himself to the duties of religion which are recommended to persons in his unhappy condition to practice, but also offered to make any discoveries he was able which might tend to satisfying the Justice of his country or the benefit of society. In pursuance of which he wrote a paper, which he delivered with much ceremony at the place of execution, and which though penned in none of the best styles, I have yet thought convenient to annex in his own words.

Being questioned with respect of several of his companions who are very well known, but whom, notwithstanding all the search had been made after them, no discovery could be made so as they might be apprehended and brought to justice, Wilson declared that as for three of the most notorious, they had made their escape into Holland some time before he was apprehended; two others were in Newgate for trivial offences, and another (whom he would not name) was retired into Warwicks.h.i.+re, had married there, and led a very honest and industrious life.

At the place of execution he seemed less daunted than any of the malefactors who suffered with him, showed himself several times by standing up to the spectators, before the rope was fastened about his neck, and told them that he hoped they would give no credit to any spurious accounts which might be published of him; because whatever he thought might be necessary for them to know, he had digested in a paper which he had delivered the Sunday before he died, in order to be communicated to the public. He added, that since he had been in the cart, he had been informed that one Phelps had been committed to Newgate for a robbery mentioned by him in his paper. He said, as he was a dying man, he knew nothing of Phelps, and that he was not in any manner whatsoever concerned in that robbery for which he had been apprehended. He then put the rope about his neck, and submitted to his death with great resolution, being then about twenty years of age, and the day he suffered the 26th of July, 1722.

The Paper delivered by the above mentioned criminal the day before his execution.

I, Thomas Wilson, desire it may be known that I was in a horse-way that lies between Highgate and Hornsey, where meeting a man and a woman, they enquired the way to Upper Holloway. We directed them across the fields; meantime we drank two pints of ale to hearten us, then followed them, and robbed them of two s.h.i.+llings and some half pence, the woman's ap.r.o.n, her hat and coloured handkerchief. We left them without misusing them, though there were thoughts of doing it. My companion that robbed with me is gone to Holland upon hearing I was taken up, though I should not have impeached him, but his friends lived in Holland. Another robbery we committed was by a barn in the footpath near Pancras Church of a hat and tie-wig, and cane, and some goods he was carrying, but we heard he had a considerable sum of money about him; but he ran away and I ran after him, but I being drunk he escaped, and I was glad to get off safe. We robbed two other men near Copenhagen House of a coat and waistcoat. I committed many street robberies about Lincoln's Inn. For these and for all other sins, I pray G.o.d and Man to pardon me, especially for shooting the pistol off before Justice Perry, at my friend's adversary, and am very glad I did not kill him.

The Lives of ROBERT WILKINSON and JAMES LINCOLN, Murderers and Footpads

Robert Wilkinson, like abundance of other unhappy young men, contracted in his youth a liking to idleness, and an aversion to all sorts of work and labour, and applied himself for a livelihood hardly to anything that was honest. The only employment he ever pretended to was that of a prize fighter or boxer at Hockley-in-the-Hole,[20] where, as a fellow of prodigious dexterity, though low in stature, and very small limbed, he was much taken notice of. And as is usual for persons who have long addicted themselves to such a way of living, he had contracted an inhumanity of temper which made him little concerned at the greatest miseries be saw others suffer, and even regardless of what might happen to himself. The set of villains into whose society he had joined himself, viz., Carrick who was executed, Carrol who made his escape into Ireland, Lincoln of whom we shall speak afterwards, Shaw and Burridge before mentioned, and William Lock, perpetrated together a prodigious number of villainies often attended with cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y acts.