Chapter XIV: Part 14

Mr. Bruce does not name John Avery as the pirate, but this must be the case spoken of in his Life. It will be noticed that the dates do not accord. The capture of the pilgrim vessel took place in the winter of 1693-4, and, according to Johnson, it was not till after the Peace of Ryswick, 10 September, 1697, that Avery made the capture, and it was in consequence of this treaty that he was able to get hold of the vessels. From the date 1693 the pilgrims were annually conveyed to Jedda by ships of the Company, so that Avery could not have captured one of them after that date. Charles Johnson must have blundered in his facts.

The sum demanded by Avery for the release of the pilgrims was three hundred thousand pounds, and he got it.

He had already established himself at Perim, and levied toll on all vessels passing in and out of the Red Sea, but after this affair, when large rewards were offered by the Company and by the British Government for his capture, he deemed it advisable to change his quarters and establish himself in Madagascar.

As the four vessels were steering their course, he sent on board each of the sloops, desiring the captains to come to his vessel and meet in council. They did so, and he told them that he had a proposal to make. The treasure of which they were possessed would not be sufficient for all; they might be separated by bad weather, in which case the sloops, if either of them should fall in with any large armed vessels would be taken or sunk, and the treasure on board lost as well. As for himself, he and the _Duchess_, his consort, were strong enough to hold their own against any ship they were likely to meet on the high seas, and he proposed, therefore, that all the spoil should be put on board his ship, each chest sealed with three seals, whereof each was to keep one, and to appoint a rendezvous in case of separation. This proposal seemed reasonable and was agreed to, and the treasure was conveyed on board Avery’s vessel, and the chests sealed. They kept company that day and the next, the weather being fine; and during this time Avery tampered with his men. “What should hinder us,” said he, “from going to some strange country where we are not known, and living on shore all the rest of our days in plenty?” They understood his design, and all agreed to bilk their new allies in the sloops and other vessel. Accordingly they took advantage of the night, changed their course, and next morning the sloops and _Duchess_ found themselves deserted in mid-ocean. Avery and his men resolved to make the best of their way to America, and there change their names, and purchase settlements, and spend the rest of their days at ease.

The first land they made was the island of Providence, then quite recently settled, and there they disposed of their vessel, under the pretence that the _Duke_ had been fitted out as a privateer, but that having met with no success, Avery said that he had received orders from the owners to dispose of her to the best advantage. He soon met with a purchaser, and immediately bought a sloop. In this vessel he and his mates embarked. They touched at several ports, where no one suspected them, and some of the crew went on shore and dispersed about the country, and with the dividends given them by Avery, settled there.

At length he arrived at Boston, in New England, and there again some of the crew left to establish themselves, and no doubt founded there some of the Bostonian families now flourishing. Avery advised those who remained to sail for Ireland. He had concealed and kept for himself a great store of diamonds that had been secured in the ship of the Mogul, and which his present comrades had not known how to value. These he could not dispose of in New England, but hoped to realize in Ireland.

On their voyage they avoided St. George’s Channel, and sailing north, put into one of the northern ports. There they disposed of the sloop and separated; some went to Dublin, others to Cork. Some afterwards obtained their pardon from King William.

Avery was afraid to dispose of his diamonds in Ireland, lest inquiry should be made as to how he had come by them. He therefore crossed over to England, to Bideford; and knowing of a man in Bristol who was an old acquaintance, and whom he thought he could trust, he sent to appoint a meeting in Bideford. The man came, and after consultation the friend advised that the jewels should be entrusted to certain Bristol merchants, who being men of wealth and credit, no suspicion would be aroused if they disposed of them. No better plan could be devised, Avery consented, the merchants were communicated with and came to Bideford, where they received the diamonds, undertook to sell them and remit the money to Avery, reserving to themselves a commission; and to this he consented. He now changed his name and took up his residence at Bideford, attracting no notice, but communicating with some of his relations. After a while his money was spent, and not a word reached him from the merchants. He wrote to them, and they sent him a supply of money--not much, doled out from time to time. At last he could endure this no longer, and went to Bristol to see the merchants, who coolly told him that if he troubled them any further they would disclose to the authorities who he was; “so that our merchants were as good pirates on land as he was at sea.”

Whether alarmed at their threats, or that he fancied he had been seen and recognized by some old comrades in Bristol, is not known; but he crossed into Ireland, where he remained till destitute. Then in despair he worked his way over before the mast in a trading vessel to Plymouth, and thence made his way on foot to Bideford, where a few days later he fell ill and died without so much money in his pocket as would buy him a coffin.

In the meantime, the companions in the _Duchess_ and the two sloops when deserted by Avery, finding that they were running short of provisions, made their way to Madagascar. On their course they fell in with a privateer sloop, commanded by Captain Tew, who had just captured a large vessel bound from India to Arabia, with three hundred soldiers on board besides seamen. By this prize his men shared £3000 apiece. Tew and the crew of the _Duchess_ and the sloops agreed together to form a settlement in Madagascar. According to (_b_) the pirates established themselves on the east coast, lat. 15° 30′, where there was a bay and an island before it.

Probably Antongil Bay is meant. They built a fort, finding the natives divided up into clans under their several chiefs, who were incessantly at war with one another--“So,” says Johnson, “they sometimes joyned one sometimes another; but wheresoever they sided, they were sure to be victorious; for the Negroes here had no Fire arms; so that at length these Pirates became so terrible to the Negroes, that if two or three of them were only seen on one Side, when they were going to engage, the opposite Side would fly without striking a Blow. By this means they not only became feared, but powerful; all the Prisoners of War they took to be their slaves; they married the most beautiful of the Negro women, not one or two only but as many as they liked. Their Slaves they employ’d in planting Rice, in Fishing, Hunting, etc. Besides which, they had abundance of others, who lived, as it were, under their protection. Now they began to divide from one another, each living with his own Wives, Slaves and Dependants, like a separate Prince; and, as Power and Plenty naturally beget Contention, they sometimes quarrelled with one another, and attacked each other at the Head of their several Armies. But an Accident happened, which oblig’d them to unite again for their common Safety. They grew wanton in Cruelty, and nothing was more Common than, upon the slightest Displeasure, to cause one of their Dependants to be tied to a tree, and shot thro’ the Heart.[18] This occasioned the Negroes to conspire together, to rid themselves of these Destroyers, all in one Night; and as they lived separately, the Thing might easily have been done, had not a Woman, who had been the Wife or Concubine of one of them, run nearly twenty Miles, in three Hours, to discover the Matter to them. Immediately upon the Alarm, they ran together as fast as they could; so that when the Negroes approached them, they found them up in Arms, and retired without making any Attempt. This Escape made them very cautious from that Time.”

Thenceforth they fortified their dwellings and converted them into citadels.

“Thus Tyrant-like they lived, fearing and feared by all; and in this situation they were found by Captain Woods Rogers when he went to Madagascar in the _Delicia_, a ship of forty guns, with a Design of buying Slaves in order to sell them to the Dutch at Batavia or New Holland. He happened to touch upon a part of the Island where no Ship had been seen for seven or eight Years before; here he met with some of the Pyrates, when they had been upon the Island above 25 Years, having a large motly Generation of Children and Grandchildren descended from them, there being, at that Time, eleven of them remaining alive.... Thus he left them as he found them, in a great Deal of dirty State and Royalty, but with fewer Subjects than they had. One of these great Princes had formerly been a Waterman upon the Thames, where having committed a Murder, he fled to the West Indies, and was of the number of those who run away with the Sloops; the rest had been all foremast men, nor was there a Man amongst them, who could either read or write.”

Such is Captain Charles Johnson’s account. There are several difficulties about accepting his narrative about Avery. From whom could he have obtained the story? Possibly a part of it from the pirates who obtained their pardon from William III, but not as to the end of John Avery.

The story as told in (_c_) is quite different. According to Adrian van Broeck, Avery did not desert the _Consort_, the _Duchess_, nor the sloops, but all together went to Madagascar and settled there. In that settlement, his wife, the daughter of the Mogul, bore him a son, and died of a broken heart.

The second in command was a M. de Sales, who after a while, impatient at being second, organized a revolt among the Frenchmen who were there, captives from a French vessel taken by the pirates. As soon as the watch-bell sounded they were to seize the principal fort, and not spare any man, woman, or child. One of de Sales’ crew, named Picard, betrayed the plot to a Cornishman named Richardson, who told it to Avery, and precautions were taken to surround the French on parade, and make all prisoners. Avery had every man impaled who had been engaged in the conspiracy.

Avery was anxious to obtain his pardon, and wrote a letter to Captain Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George, near Madras, which he was to transmit to England, but the East India Company would not present it to the Government.

Avery next attacked and destroyed Fort Ste. Marie of the French East India Company on the north of Madagascar.

Adrian van Broeck managed to make his escape from the settlement on board an East India Company vessel; and with that the narrative abruptly terminates.

The two narratives are irreconcilable, and where the truth lies is impossible to determine. It is conceivable that after van Broeck’s visit--if it ever took place--Avery may have made his way to England to dispose of his jewels, but we have no dates in the Dutchman’s narrative, and no dates, and no authority quoted by Johnson for his account of the last days of Avery. No reliance whatever can be placed on Defoe’s _Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery_, “the King” in Madagascar, 1720. Consequently the end of Avery remains, and probably will remain, a mystery unsolved. Andrew Brice in his _Geographical Dictionary_, published in 1759, under the heading of “Madagascar,” says: “Pirates have had stations in these Harbours, among whom was Avery, so much talked of 40 or 50 years ago.” Had Avery died at Bideford, Brice as a Devonshire man would most likely have heard of it. Salmon, in his _Universal Traveller_, 1759, says: “What became of Avery himself I could never learn; but it is probable he is dead, or remains concealed in the Island of Madagascar to this time; for he can expect no Mercy from any of the Powers of Europe, if he should fall into their hands, but as to being in such circumstances, as to lay the Foundation of a New State or Kingdom in this Island, this report possibly deserves little Credit. We should have heard more of him after so many years elapsed, if he had made any figure there.”

According to Captain Johnson’s account, as we have seen, a Captain Wood Rogers of the _Delicia_, a ship of forty guns, touched at Madagascar with a design of purchasing slaves, and came on the settlement of the crews of the two other vessels, but did not meet with Avery himself.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT

The life of this impostor or self-deluded woman is not pleasant to write or to read, and it is only because in such a collection including Devonshire oddities and unworthies she could not be excluded that her story is here given.

Joanna was a native of Gittisham, the daughter of William and Hannah Southcott, respectable people, the father a very small farmer. She was baptized at Ottery St. Mary, on 6 June, 1750. There was nothing remarkable in her during the first forty years of her life. She was in domestic service, and then moved to Exeter, where she entered the household of an upholsterer, in 1790.

What turned her head was the visit of a revivalist Methodist preacher, who, combining the most fiery evangelic preaching with laxity of morals, lived in adultery with her mistress, and endeavoured to seduce the daughter. But his ministrations in the pulpit were acceptable. He shrieked and threatened till sometimes the whole congregation fell flat and rigid on the floor, when he would walk in and out among them and revive them by assuring them they had received pardon for all their sins, were elect vessels, and that their election was sealed in heaven. He would declare that there never was a man so highly favoured of God as himself, and that he would not thank God to make him other than what he was, unless he made him greater than every other man on earth, and placed supreme power in his hands; and he boasted, when he heard of the death of a man who had derided his mission, that he had prayed this man to death.

Published by Jane Townley London. Drawn and Engraved from life by Wm Sharp

Isaiah Ch. LXV & LXVI., JOANNA SOUTHCOTT, Jan^y. 1812

_Published according to Act of Parliament Jany 12th 1812 by Jane Townley London._]

All the servants in the house were afraid of this preacher; but Joanna affirmed that he had no power over her, and that she was wont to think that the room was full of spirits when he was engaged in prayer. But though she fancied this man had no power over her, he certainly had, and turned her into a fanatic, intoxicating her with his own spiritual pride.

When first she went to Exeter, she attended the services in the cathedral, but she left the Church and joined the Wesleyans in 1791, as she affirmed, by Divine command, for she was already beginning to see visions. The ministers of the sect frequented her master’s shop, and took a good deal of notice of Joanna, and this encouraged her to launch forth in the course she afterwards pursued. In 1792 she stated that she had had a vision of the Lord, and a meeting of Methodist preachers was summoned to discuss her spiritual condition. It concluded by their signing a paper to the effect that her calling was of God.

One of the Methodist preachers in Exeter was named Pomeroy, and he at first more than half believed in her mission. She gave him a number of sealed packets, which she told him contained her prophecies, and desired him to keep them till a time she mentioned, when they were to be opened and would prove the truth of her claim to inspiration.

The minister received the precious papers; but afterwards, when Joanna publicly announced that he was a believer and a recipient of her prophecies, he got frightened, and committed the unopened predictions to the flames. “From that time,” says Southey, “all the Joannians, who are now a considerable number, regard him as the arch-apostate. He is the Jehoiakim, who burnt Jeremiah’s roll; he is their Judas Iscariot, a second Lucifer. They call upon him to produce those prophecies, which she boldly asserts, and they implicitly believe, have all been fulfilled, and therefore would convince the world of the truth of her mission. In vain does Mr. Pomeroy answer that he has burnt these unhappy papers: in an unhappy hour for himself did he burn them! Day after day long letters are dispatched to him, sometimes from Joanna herself, sometimes from her brother, sometimes from one of her four-and-twenty elders, filled with exhortation, invective, texts of Scripture, and denunciations of the law in this world and the devil in the next; and these letters the prophetess prints, for the very sufficient reason--that all her believers purchase them. Mr. Pomeroy sometimes treats them with contempt; at other times he appeals to their compassion, and beseeches them, if they have any bowels of Christian charity, to have compassion on him and let him rest.”

Meanwhile, the falling away of this believer was abundantly compensated to Joanna by the accession of other adherents, both lay and clerical. Among the persons of superior station in the world who became ardent disciples was the Rev. T. P. Foley, incumbent of Old Swinford, in Leicestershire, who should have written his name Folly, not Foley.

In 1792 she had a serious illness, and went to Plymtree to recruit. When she was recovered she set to work again with renewed vigour. She pretended to have found, whilst sweeping the house, a die with J.S. on it between two stars, and this she used henceforth for sealing her prophecies and her passports to heaven.

But she had other disappointments, beside the defection of Mr. Pomeroy. One of his elders, Elias Carpenter, of Bermondsey, after going a certain way with her, fell off. This, however, was later. He was followed by six others. Thereupon she wrote and printed five letters of denunciation and woe to the back-sliders.

By the sale of her sealed passports to heaven Joanna obtained a very respectable revenue, and from being a poor working drudge she blossomed out into a woman of substance. Her followers in Exeter were recognized by the peculiarity of their dress, somewhat in the fashion of that of the Quakers, the men being particularly distinguished by wearing a long beard at a time when beards were not generally adopted.

In 1798 she moved to Bristol, and in 1801 began to publish books of prophecies and warnings, which were eagerly purchased by her followers. In 1802 she moved to London, where she was patronized by Sharp, the engraver, and had other influential friends, Brothers, the fanatic, who had proclaimed himself the promised Messiah, and a certain Miss Cott, whom he admitted to be the daughter of King David and the future Queen of the Hebrews. But Richard Brothers was sent to Bridewell, and those who had believed in him, amongst others an M.P., Mr. Halhead, member for Lymington, were drifting about in quest of some new delusion. Joanna suited them to a nicety, and they rallied about her.

The books which she sent forth into the world were written partly in prose, partly in rhyme, all the prose and most of the rhyme being given forth as the direct words of the Almighty. It is not possible to conceive that any persons could have been deluded by such rambling nonsense, did one not know that human folly is like the Well of Zemzem that is inexhaustible. Joanna’s handwriting was illegibly bad; so that at last she found it advisable to pretend that she had received orders from heaven to discard the pen, and deliver her oracles verbally, and the words flowed from her faster than the scribes could write them down. Her prophecies were words, and words only, a rhapsody of texts and vulgar applications; the verse the vilest doggerel ever written, and the rhyme and grammar equally bad. She made a pretty penny, not only by the sale of her books, but also by her “Certificates for the Millennium,” and her “Sealings of the Faithful,” passports to paradise. Of these she sold between six and seven thousand, some at twelve shillings, but most at a guinea; and she continued the sale until a woman, Mary Bateman, a Leeds murderess, who had poisoned a Mrs. Perigo, and had attempted to poison Mr. Perigo, was hanged in 1809, and it was ascertained that this poisoner had been furnished by Joanna with one of her passports to paradise.

In 1813, she first announced that she was to become the mother of Shiloh, that she was the Woman spoken of in the Apocalypse as having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; the twelve stars were twelve evangelists or apostles whom she sent abroad to declare her revelations. In herself, she asserted, the scheme of redemption would be completed, by woman came the fall of man, and by woman must come his restoration. She was the Bride, the promised seed who was to bruise the serpent’s head. The evening-star was placed in the firmament to be her type. The immediate object of her call was to destroy the devil; of this Satan was fully aware; and that it might not be said he had foul play, a regular dispute of seven days was agreed upon between him and Joanna, in which she was to be alone; the conditions were that if she held out her argument for seven days, Satan should retire from troubling the earth, but if she yielded, then his kingdom was to stand. Accordingly, she went alone into a solitary house for this contest. Joanna on this occasion was her own secretary, and the _procès verbal_ of the conference was printed from her manuscript. She set down all Satan’s blasphemies with the utmost frankness, and the proficiency he displayed in vulgar language and Billingsgate abuse is surprising.

Of all Joanna’s books this is the most curious. The conference terminated like most theological disputes. Both parties grew warm; but Joanna’s tongue was more lightly slung on its pivots, and she talked Satan out of all patience. She gave him, as he complained, ten words to his one, and allowed him no time to speak. All men, he said, were already tired of her tongue, and now she had tired the devil.

This was not unreasonable; but he proceeded to abuse the whole sex, which would be ungracious in any one, but in him was peculiarly ungrateful. He said that no man could tame a woman’s tongue; it were better to dispute with a thousand men than with one woman.

Once she declared that she had scratched the devil’s face with her nails, and had even bitten off one of his fingers, and that his blood tasted sweet.

When she announced to the world her pregnancy, her followers were filled with breathless expectation. Presents came pouring in for the coming Shiloh. One wealthy proselyte sent a cradle that cost £200, manufactured by Seddons, a cabinet-maker of repute in Aldersgate Street; another sent a pap-spoon that cost £100; and that nothing might be lacking at this accouchement laced caps, infant’s napkins, bibs, mantles, some of white satin, pap-boats, caudle-cups arrived. A Bible also, richly bound, was not forgotten as a present to the coming Messiah. The cradle is now in Salford Museum.

But what was most extraordinary of all is that a regular London physician, a Dr. Richard Reece, having on the 7th of August, 1814, visited Joanna, “to ascertain the probability of her being in a state of pregnancy, as then given out,” declared his opinion to be that she was perfectly right in the view she had taken of her situation, and according to his own admission in a four-shilling pamphlet, entitled _A Correct Statement of the Circumstances, etc._, which he published, declared his belief in the fact. No wonder that after this the Rev. Mr. Foley, who had headed a deputation that waited on the doctor to obtain an authentic declaration of the conclusion to which he had come after his first visit, and the whole body of the believers were frantic with exultation and confidence; and that even a portion of the hitherto incredulous public began to have misgivings, and not to know very well what to think of the matter.

When Dr. Reece first saw the prophetess she expected to lie-in in a few weeks; months however passed without bringing the looked-for event. Further, to strengthen the delusion, it was unblushingly asserted that a number of medical men of the highest reputation had been called in, and that they had expressed their opinion affirmatively as to her pregnancy.

Dr. Sims, however, published a statement to this effect in the _Morning Chronicle_ of September 3, 1814: “I went to see her on August 18th, and after examining her, I do not hesitate to declare, it is my firm opinion, that the woman called Joanna Southcott is not pregnant; and, before I conclude this statement, I feel it right to say, that I am convinced the poor woman labours under strong mental delusion.”

A Mr. Want, also, a surgeon, who was called in by Dr. Reece, unhesitatingly declared his opinion that she was not in the family way, as also that there were no hopes of her recovery.

Before her death, which took place on the 27th of December, she had been confined to her bed for above ten weeks. During this time she had lived in a state of mental exaltation, but towards the end her courage failed. A scene in the chamber of the dying woman, which Dr. Reece relates that he witnessed on the 19th of November, is not without pathos.

Five or six of the believers, who had been waiting, having been admitted, “She desired them to be seated round her bed; when, spending a few minutes in adjusting the bed-clothes with seeming attention, and placing before her a white handkerchief, she thus addressed them, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following words: ‘My friends, some of you have known me nearly twenty-five years, and all of you not less than twenty. When you have heard me speak of my prophecies, you have sometimes heard me say that I doubted my inspiration. But, at the same time, you would never let me despair. When I have been alone it has often appeared delusion; but when the communications were made to me I did not in the least doubt. Feeling, as I now do feel, that my dissolution is drawing near, and that a day or two may terminate my life, it all appears a delusion.’ She was by this exertion quite exhausted, and wept bitterly.” She then, the doctor proceeds to inform us, after some further discourse about her death and funeral, wept again, and some of those present also shed tears; but after a little while, one of them, Mr. Howe, spoke up, and said: “Mother, your feelings are human. We know you are a favoured woman of God, and that you will produce the promised child, and whatever you may say to the contrary will not diminish our faith.”

This assurance, we are told, revived her, and from crying she fell to laughing. She however then made her will.

Immediately on her decease, Dr. Reece wrote to the editor of the _Sunday Monitor_, which had lent itself to become an organ of the Joannites:--

“Agreeably to your request, I send a messenger to acquaint you, that Joanna Southcott died this morning precisely at 4 a.m. The believers in her mission, supposing that the vital functions are only suspended for a few days, will not permit me to open the body until some symptom appears, which may destroy all hopes of resuscitation.”

In fact, in 1792, Joanna had published a prophecy to the effect that she, the mother of Shiloh, previous to his birth would be as dead for four days, and at the end of that period would revive and be delivered. No sooner was she dead than her friends proceeded to wrap her body in warm blankets, to place bottles of hot water at her feet, and by keeping the room warm, to endeavour to preserve the vital spark.

Manchester Street was thronged by a crowd watching the house, and inquiries respecting her resuscitation were constant and anxious. To all inquiries the answer given was consolatory. On Saturday the crowd again assembled early, before 4 a.m., and the most zealous pronounced their positive conviction that she would come to life again that day.

But the prescribed period of four days and nights elapsed, and so far was the body from exhibiting appearances of a temporary suspension of animation, that it began to display a discoloration which at once brought home to conviction the fact that the wretched Joanna was but mortal. Preparations were made to dissect her remains. A summons was issued to the surgeons who had expressed a wish to be present, and at 2 p.m. fifteen gentlemen assembled; in addition were the apostle Tozer, Colonel Harwood, and one or two other of Joanna’s followers and proselytes. Ann Underwood was in the ante-room, much chagrined at the disappointment of her hopes, and the breakdown of her convictions.

The examination of the body showed that Joanna Southcott had been suffering from dropsy, which had killed her.

The adherents of the prophetess, who had awaited the event, skulked off in great tribulation, and were happy to escape the populace, who were outrageous towards any whom they suspected of adhering to the sect of Joanna. This excusable indignation had nearly proved fatal in the morning to an old lady who had rapped at the door of the house, to make inquiries as to whether Joanna was already resuscitated. No sooner was she suspected to be a disciple, than she was assailed with mud and cabbage stalks.

Some glimmerings of sanity had lightened the mind of Joanna previous to her death, and she had indited a will, in which she professed that she had been a deceiver, prompted to play her part by the devil, and directing that after her death, cradle, caudle-cups, pap-boats, etc., that had been sent for the use of the coming Shiloh, should be returned to the donors. She was buried in Marylebone burying-ground on 2 January, 1815. On her stone was inscribed:--

In Memory of Joanna Southcott,
who departed this life December 27, 1814, aged 60 years.

While through all my wondrous days,
Heaven and earth enraptured gaze,
While vain sages think they know
Secrets _thou_ alone canst show,
Time alone will tell what hour
Thou’lt appear in greater power!

The composition evidently of one of her dupes, hoping on still. She was really aged sixty-four years. Her tombstone was shattered by the great gunpowder explosion in the Regent’s Park Canal in 1874. The delusion was not at an end with the death and burial of Joanna. Sharp, the engraver, ever after maintained that she was not really dead, and would rise again and become the mother of Shiloh. When he was sitting to Haydon for his portrait, he predicted that Joanna would reappear in the month of July, 1822.

“But suppose she should not?” said Haydon.

“I tell you that she will,” retorted Sharp; “but if she should not, nothing would shake my faith in her divine mission.”

Those who were near Sharp during his last illness, state that in this belief he died.

Nor was he singular. Some of her one hundred thousand adherents fell away, but a great many remained, waiting in yearly expectation for her reappearance. The men bound themselves by a vow not to shave their beards till her resurrection. It need scarcely be said that they descended to their graves unshorn.

Under the date of January, 1817, the _Annual Register_ quotes the following notice of the proceedings of the sect from a Lincoln newspaper of the day: “An interdict arrived at Newark, on Sunday, the 19th instant, from a disciple of the Conclave at Leeds, inhibiting those of the faith, amongst other things, from attending to their ordinary business during the ensuing eight or nine days; and a manufacturer’s shop at that place is at this time entirely deserted, and the business of many small dealers suspended in consequence.” This was due to the expectation of the resuscitation of Joanna.

Leeds was one of the strongholds of Joannism, and several of the founder’s publications are dated from that place.

Two years after this, in January, 1817, the London disciples made a remarkable outbreak. One morning, having assembled somewhere in the West End of the metropolis, they made their way to Temple Bar, passing through which, they set forward in procession through the City, each decorated with a white cockade, and wearing a small star of yellow riband on the left breast. In this guise, led by one of their number, carrying a brazen trumpet ornamented with light blue ribands, while two boys marching by his side bore each a flag of silk, they proceeded along Fleet Street, up Ludgate Hill, and thence through St. Paul’s Churchyard to Bridge Row, followed by the rabble in great force. Here, having reached what they considered to be the centre of the great city, they halted; and then their leader sounded his trumpet, and roared out that the Shiloh, the Prince of Peace, was come again to the earth; to which a woman who was with him, and who was said to be his wife, responded with another wild cry of “Woe! woe! to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the coming of Shiloh.” This terrific vociferation was repeated several times, and joined in by the rest of the party. But at last the mob, which now completely blocked up the street, from laughing and shouting proceeded to pelting the enthusiasts with mud and harder missiles. They struggled to make their escape, or to beat off their assailants; this led to a general fight; the flags were torn, and the affray ended in the trumpeter and his wife, five other men and the two boys of the party, after having been rolled in the mire, being rescued from the fury of the multitude by the constables, and conveyed to the Compter.

When they were brought up the next day before the alderman at Guildhall, they maintained that they were only obeying the commands of God in acting as they had done. Their spokesman, the trumpeter, who turned out to be one Sibley, a City watchman, who appeared to exercise great authority over the others, said that he had proclaimed the second coming of the Shiloh in the same manner and with the same authority as John the Baptist, who had announced the first coming; and his wife asserted that she had had the Shiloh in her arms four times. In the end they were all sent back to prison, to be detained till they could find security for their peaceful demeanour in future.

A remnant of the sect, the Jezreelites, lingered on for long at Chatham, remarkable for the general singularity of their manners and appearance.

The Joannites are now almost, if not wholly, extinct, leaving room for some newer outbreak of religious folly.

If we did not live at a period when such charlatans as Dr. Dowie and Mrs. Eddy have appeared, drawn about them crowds of adherents, and conjured tens of thousands of pounds out of their pockets, we should have supposed that such irruptions of religious mania, such eagerness to believe in a lie, such credulous clinging to an impostor, were a thing of the remote past. But the fools, like the poor, are always with us, and--

Still Dunce the Second reigns like Dunce the First.

_From the original in the collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq._]

_Reproduced from the original print in the collection of A. M. Broadley. Esq._]

The question presents itself to the mind whether Joanna was a conscious impostor, or whether she was self-deluded. With her dying confession and her will before us, it would seem that she knew that she was imposing on the credulity of men and women. She had seen a debauched and dissolute Methodist preacher in her master’s house pose as an apostle and as inspired, and draw crowds and convince them that he was an oracle of God. She imitated him, and found that her imitation was successful, and also that it paid well. She was able to command thousands of pounds from her dupes, and it flattered her vanity to be appreciated as one half divine.

She had occasional qualms of conscience, but her devotees had more faith in her than she had in herself, and they overbore every feeble attempt to retrace her steps.

The authorities for her life are numerous.

Southey has given a full account of her in _Letters from England by
Dom M. A. Espriella_. London, 1806.

A full account of the dissection of her body is given in _Notes and
Gleanings_, VI, 15 December, 1891. Exeter, 1891.

A reproduction of one of her Passports to Heaven made out to
Richard Hubbard, is in _Devon Notes and Queries_, Vol. II. Exeter,
1903.

_Memoirs of the Life and Mission of Joanna Southcott_, to which
is added a sketch of the Rev. W. Tozer, /M.J.S./, with
portrait. London, 1814.

_Life of Joanna Southcott the Prophetess: her Astounding Writings,
etc., with Caricature Portrait._ London, 1814.

_The Life of Joanna Southcott, the Prophetess, etc., with Portrait
and View of the Crib for the Expected Messiah._ London, 1814.

Fairburn’s edition of the _Prophetess_. Portrait and Prints.
London, 1814.

_The Life and Prophecies of Joanna Southcott, from her Infancy to
the Present Time, etc._ Portrait. London.

_The Life of Joanna Southcott, illustrative of her supposed
Mission, etc._ By D. Hughson, /LL.D./ Portrait. London, 1814.

_Full Particulars of the Last Moments of the Pretended Prophetess,
Joanna Southcott._ London, 1815.

_A Correct Statement of the Circumstances that attended the last
illness and death of Mrs. Southcott._ By Richard Reece, m.d.
London, 1815.

_A Complete Refutation of the Statements and Remarks._ Published by
Dr. Reece, relative of Mrs. Southcott. London, 1815.

_The Case of Joanna Southcott, as far as it came under his
professional observation, impartially stated._ By P. Mathias,
Surgeon and Apothecary. Portrait. London, 1815.

_The Life and Death of Joanna Southcott, with the particulars of
her will, and an account of her dissection._ Woodcut. London (n.d.).

_Memoirs of the Life and Mission of Joanna Southcott._ Portrait.
London, 1814.

There are other tracts, but these are the principal.

/Note./--Mr. A. M. Broadly, of Bridport, kindly supplies the
following note:--

Stourbridge, in the second decade of the nineteenth century, was
a stronghold of the followers of Joanna Southcott. Amongst them
was the Rev. T. P. Foley, a member of one of the leading county
families of the district. In the spring of 1814 the coming of
the Shiloh was announced, and a crib and a pap-bowl were among
the presents which were made by the faithful. The pap-bowl was
presented in June, and was engraved by Lowe of Birmingham. It
has on it a portrait, cherubim in rays of light, the dove with
the olive branch, and a crowned child leading a lion, with two
repetitions of “Glory to God.” The reverse of the bowl contains,
within two branches of laurel and oak, the following inscription:
“A Token of Love to the Prince of Peace. From the Believers of
Joanna Southcott’s Divine Mission in Stourbridge and its vicinity.”

THE STOKE RESURRECTIONISTS

In the year 1829 Mr. Warburton introduced a Bill into the House of Commons for the prevention of the unlawful disinterment of human bodies and for the regulation of schools of anatomy. The horrible revelations of the murders--at least thirty--committed by Burke and Hare, in Edinburgh, for the sake of providing subjects for the purposes of anatomy to lecture on, had produced a profound emotion. The Bill passed the House of Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords.

So long as the European war continued, the period of time required for the completion of the education of medical students, so as to fit them for the service in the Army or Navy, was unduly short, and the study of anatomy was consequently much neglected. At that time the dissecting-rooms were supplied by men who in general exhumed bodies. The trade was lucrative; one resurrectionist at his death left nearly £6000 to his family. Another resurrectionist, after a long career, withdrew in 1817. He had attended the army in the Peninsula and in France as a licensed sutler, and after a battle went over the field extracting the teeth of those who had fallen and such as were dying, and disposed of them to dentists in England. With the produce of these sales he built a large hotel at Margate. A leading resurrectionist once received £144 for twelve subjects in one evening. Sir Astley Cooper expended hundreds of pounds in the purchase of bodies and in advancing money to screen these useful auxiliaries of the anatomical school. To obtain the liberation of one he paid £160.

The proper education of a surgeon demanded that he should be acquainted with anatomy, and the only provision made by the legislature was that the bodies of criminals who had been executed should be handed over to the schools. This did not furnish by any means an adequate number, and the professors of anatomy were obliged to have recourse to the professional purveyor of corpses, knowing well enough, or suspecting, whence they came.

A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter, and several of the profession were had up for examination.

Here is the evidence of one resurrectionist, condensed:--

“A man may make a good living at it if he is a sober man, and acts with judgment. I should suppose there are at present in London between forty and fifty men that have the name of raising subjects. If you are friends with a grave-digger, the thing will be all right to know what bodies to get; if you are not, you cannot get them. The largest number of bodies I have got were twenty-three in four nights. It was only in one year that I got one hundred. Perhaps the next year I did not get above fifty or sixty. When I go to work I like to get those of poor people buried from the workhouses, because, instead of working for one subject, you may get three or four. I do not think, during the time I have been in the habit of working for the schools, I got half a dozen of wealthier people.”

A second said: “The course I should take would be to have the workhouse subjects; we can get them out of the burial-ground without any difficulty whatever.”

One of the largest dealers was Israel Cohen, commonly called Izzy, a Jew, well known to surgeons and sextons. By the surgeons he was patronized; of the sextons he was the patron; and so complete was the understanding between the profession to which he belonged and those with which he was connected, that the interest of all three was advanced by coalition. He was a square-built, resolute ruffian, with features indicative of his Hebrew origin, black whiskers, and a squint.

The Plymouth medical men memorialized the Government in 1827 relating to the necessity they were in of having human bodies for dissection, and the inadequacy of the legitimate supply. “In other countries,” they said, “the dissection of the dead, so necessary to the well-being of the living, is permitted and protected; and is actually prosecuted, without shocking any existing prejudice or violating the sanctities of the dead. It follows either that the professional gentlemen of this kingdom must be contented with a very inferior medical education, or that they must resort to the Continent to obtain that information which is denied to them by the laws of Great Britain.” The alternative of having recourse to resurrectionists they did not refer to. The memorial produced no results.

In the recent alterations of Princetown Church, it was found that no inconsiderable number of the graves of the French prisoners who died during incarceration were empty. There can be little doubt that the bodies were disposed of to the surgeons in Plymouth. It was generally supposed that the body-snatchers in exhuming a corpse first proceeded, as would a novice, in excavating the whole grave, and having arrived at the coffin would then force off the lid and so get possession of the body. But this would have been too slow an operation. To do the job expeditiously they cleared away the earth above the head of the coffin only, taking care to leave that which covered the rest of the coffin undisturbed. As soon as about one-third of the chest was thus exposed, they forced a very strong crowbar between the end of the coffin and the lid, and easily prised it open. It usually happened at this stage of the proceedings that the superincumbent weight of earth on the other portion of the coffin-lid caused it to be snapped across. As soon as this was effected the body was drawn out, the death-gear removed from it and replaced in the coffin, and finally the body was tied up in a bundle or thrust into a sack and taken away, the whole operation lasting not over a quarter of an hour.

Very generally a hackney coach or a spring cart was in waiting to receive the body. When corpses were sent from the country to London they were generally packed in barrels or hat-crates. But when one was to be taken to a dissecting-room in the same town it was laid on a large piece of green baize, the four corners were tied together, and so the body was rolled up in a bundle. The body-snatcher would then, dressed as a porter, swing the load over his shoulder, and often, even in broad daylight, carry it to its place of destination through the most crowded streets.

Every means which ingenuity could suggest was put in practice to obtain bodies which had not been buried. For this purpose the men, when they heard of the body of a person being found--drowned, for instance, and lying to be owned--trumped up a story of an unfortunate brother or sister, humbugged a coroner’s jury, and thus obtained possession of the body. In this sort of trickery the wives of the men were often employed, as their application was attended to with less suspicion, and it was never difficult to impose on the parochial officials, who were always anxious to avoid the expense of burying the deceased. Subjects were thus occasionally procured, but they were more frequently obtained by pretending relationship to persons dying without friends in hospitals and workhouses. As the bodies thus obtained were much fresher than those which had been buried, they produced generally, independent of the teeth, as much as twelve guineas each.

At the commencement of a new term at the hospitals, the lecturers on anatomy were beset by the leading dealers in subjects, and “fifty pounds down, and nine guineas a body,” was often acceded to. The larger sum down secured to the lecturer the exclusive supply of that dealer’s wares. The competition for subjects was great, and in some cases twenty pounds were paid for a single corpse in good condition.

Stoke Church and yard lay solitary amid waste land. It had a wall round it, but no houses very near, and there were no oil lamps burning in the road that passed it.

A strong suspicion was entertained that the graves there had been rifled, and were so continually, and it was proposed to the parish authorities to have lamps and organize a night watch. But the officials shrank from the expense, and many people reasoned that it were well to allow the resurrectionists to get bodies from graves, as bodies the surgeons must have, rather than run the risk of inducing these scoundrels to imitate the proceedings of Burke by killing individuals for the purpose. Within a stone’s throw of Mill Bridge was a commodious residence called Mount Pleasant, with Stonehouse Lake or Creek on one side, and Stoke Church on the other. A man, apparently well to do, a Mr. Gosling, took the house, and brought in a somewhat mixed party of men and women. The neighbours thought the family was peculiar, but as he was a pleasant-spoken man and the ladies of the party were affable and sympathetic, and as he paid his way with punctuality, they were content. Indeed, they were more than content. The females of the Gosling household attended every funeral, and expressed their tenderest feelings of regard and pity for the mourners, asked all particulars about the deceased, his or her age, and what malady had hurried the lamented one to his grave, as also occasionally whether the deceased had good teeth. At night, immediately after every funeral, the men of the party stole forth, furnished with crowbar and spades, and equipped with a sack or two, and made their way into the graveyard, where they worked by the light of a dark lantern. The sexton had been squared, and he had not made the grave very deep, nor had he heaped the earth thickly over it.

But the gang did not confine operations to the last interment. They opened other graves, and if the corpses were too much decomposed to be of any commercial value they contented themselves with drawing all their teeth.

Sometimes it happened that the subjects when removed to Mount Pleasant underwent rapid decomposition. Then they were buried in the garden, and restored to the graveyard on the next visit.

Neighbours now began to notice that lights were burning in Mount Pleasant at all times of the night. It was also remarked that the grave mounds bore a suspicious look of having been tampered with--not those recently made only, but others more ancient.

In the nearest house was a shrewd, observant servant-girl, and the lights, the way they moved about at night in the rooms of the villa--not in the bedrooms, but downstairs, at times when every one else was asleep--aroused her suspicions. Her bedroom window commanded the villa of Gosling and Co., and wake at what time she might or however early in the morning before daybreak, there the lights were. She resolved on keeping watch; and she stationed herself where, unseen, she could observe proceedings. Towards midnight she saw dark figures emerge from Mount Pleasant and make their way to Stoke Church. Follow she did not. Her courage was not equal to that; but she waited and watched till the figures stole back, and on this occasion she distinctly saw sacks being carried on the backs of two of the men. She now remembered that she had often noticed packing-cases and casks being taken from the villa to the water’s edge and placed on a barge apparently waiting there for its load. In the morning the girl told her master what she had seen, and he at once apprised the police.