Chapter XI: Part 11

When put into the condemned hold, he prevailed upon one Fowls, who was also under sentence, to lift him up to the iron spikes placed over the door which looks into the lodge. A woman of large make attending without, and two others standing behind her in riding hoods, Jack no sooner got his head and shoulders through between the iron spikes, than by a sudden spring his body followed with ease, and the women taking him down gently, he was without suspicion of the keepers (although some of them were drinking at the upper end of the lodge) conveyed safely out of the lodge door, and getting a hackney coach went clear off before there was the least notice of his escape, which, when it was known, very much surprised the keepers, who never dreamt of an attempt of that kind before.

As soon as John breathed the fresh air, he went again briskly to his old employment, and the first thing he did was to find out one Page, a butcher of his acquaintance in Clare Market, who dressed him up in one of his frocks, and then went with him upon the business of raising money. No sooner had they set out, but Shepherd remembering one Mr. Martin, a watchmaker near the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street, he prevailed upon his companion to go thither, and screwing a gimlet fast into the post of the door, they then tied the knocker thereto with a spring, and then boldly breaking the windows, they snatched three watches before a boy that was in the shop could open the door, and so marched clear off, Shepherd having the impudence, upon this occasion, to pass underneath Newgate.

However, he did not long enjoy his liberty, for strolling about Finchley Common, he was apprehended and committed to Newgate, and was put immediately in the Stone Room, where they put him on a heavy pair of irons, and then stapled him fast down to the floor. Being left there alone in the sessions time (most of the people in the gaol then attending at the Old Bailey) with a crooked nail he opened the lock, and by that means got rid of his chain, and went directly to the chimney in the room, where with incessant working he got out a couple of stones and by that means climbed up into a room called the Red Room, where nobody had been lodged for a considerable time. Here he threw down a door, which one would have thought impossible to have been done by the strength of man (though with ever so much noise); from hence with a great deal to do, he forced his passage into the chapel. There he broke a spike off the door, forcing open by its help four other doors. Getting at last upon the leads, he from thence descended gently (by the help of the blanket on which he lay, for which he went back through the whole prison) upon the leads of Mr. Bird, a turner who lives next door to Newgate; and looking in at the garret window, he saw the maid going to bed. As soon as he thought she was asleep, he stepped downstairs, went through the shop, opened the door, then into the street, leaving the door open behind him.

In the morning, when the keepers were in search after him, hearing of this circumstance by the watchman, they were then perfectly satisfied of the method by which he went off. However, they were obliged to publish a reward and make the strictest enquiry after him, some foolish people having propagated a report that he had not got out without connivance. In the meanwhile, Shepherd found it a very difficult thing to get rid of his irons, being obliged to lurk about and lie hid near a village not far from town, until with much ado he fell upon a method of procuring a hammer and taking his irons off.

_(From the Annals of Newgate)_]

He was no sooner freed from the encumbrance that remained upon him, than he came secretly into the town that night, and robbed Mr. Rawlin's house, a pawnbroker in Drury Lane. Here he got a very large booty, and amongst other things a very handsome black suit of clothes and a gold watch. Being dressed in this manner he carried the rest of the goods and valuable effects to two women, one of whom was a poor young creature whom Shepherd had seduced, and who was imprisoned on this account. No sooner had she taken care of the booty but he went among his old companions, pickpockets and whores in Drury Lane and Clare Market. There being accidentally espied fuddling at a little brandy-shop, by a boy belonging to an alehouse, who knew him very well, the lad immediately gave information upon which he was apprehended, and reconducted, with a vast mob, to his old mansion house of Newgate, being so much intoxicated with liquor that he was hardly sensible of his miserable fate. However, they took effectual care to prevent a third escape, never suffering him to be alone a moment, which, as it put the keepers to a great expense, they took care to pay themselves with the money they took of all who came to see him.

In this last confinement it was that Mr. Shepherd and his adventures became the sole topic of conversation about town. Numbers flocked daily to behold him, and far from being displeased at being made a spectacle of, he entertained all who came with the greatest gaiety that could be. He acquainted them with all his adventures, related each of his robberies in the most ludicrous manner, and endeavoured to set off every circumstance of his flagitious life as well as his capacity would give him leave, which, to say truth, was excellent at cunning, and buffoonery, and nothing else.

Nor were the crowds that thronged to Newgate on this occasion made up of the dregs of the people only, for then there would have been no wonder; but instead of that they were persons of the first distinction, and not a few even dignified with titles.[48] 'Tis certain that the noise made about him, and this curiosity of persons of so high a rank, was a very great misfortune to the poor wretch himself, who from these circumstances began to conceive grand ideas of himself, as well as strong hopes of pardon, which encouraged him to play over all his airs and divert as many as thought it worth their while by their presence to prevent a dying man from considering his latter end, who instead of repenting of his crimes, gloried in rehearsing them.

Yet when Shepherd came up to chapel, it was observed that all his gaiety was laid aside, and he both heard and assisted with great attention at Divine Service, though upon other occasions he avoided religious discourse as much as he could; and depending upon the petitions he had made to several noblemen to intercede with the king for mercy, he seemed rather to aim at diverting his time until he received a pardon, than to improve the few days he had to prepare himself for his last.

On the 10th of November, 1724, he was by _Certiorari_ removed to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, at Westminster. An affidavit being made that he was the same John Shepherd mentioned in the record of conviction before him, Mr. Justice Powis awarded judgment against him, and a rule was made for his execution on the 16th.

Such was the unaccountable fondness this criminal had for life, and so unwilling was he to lose all hopes of preserving it, that he framed in his mind resolutions of cutting the rope when he should be bound in the cart, thinking thereby to get amongst the crowd, and so into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and from thence to the Thames. For this purpose he had provided a knife, which was with great difficulty taken from him by Mr. Watson, who was to attend him to death. Nay, his hopes were carried even beyond hanging, for when he spoke to a person to whom he gave what money he had remaining out of the large presents he had received from those who came to divert themselves at Shepherd's Show, or Newgate Fair, he most earnestly entreated him that as soon as possible his body might be taken out of the hearse which was provided for him, put into a warm bed, and if it were possible, some blood taken from him, for he was in great hopes that he might be brought to life again; but if he was not, he desired him to defray the expenses of his funeral, and return the overplus to his poor mother. Then he resumed his usual discourse about his robberies and in the last moments of his life endeavoured to divert himself from the thoughts of death. Yet so uncertain and various was he in his behaviour that he told one whom he had a great desire to see on the morning that he died, that he had then a satisfaction at his heart, as if he were going to enjoy two hundred pounds _per annum_.

At the place of execution, to which he was conveyed in a cart, with iron handcuffs on, he behaved himself very gravely, confessing his robbery of Mr. Philips and Mrs. Cook, but denied that he and Joseph Blake had William Field in their company when they broke open the house of Mr. Kneebone. After this he submitted to his fate on the 16th of November, 1724, much pitied by the mob.[49]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] While in Newgate he sat for his portrait to Sir James Thornhill.

[49] Over 200,000 persons witnessed his execution at Tyburn,
and a riot which broke out concerning the disposal of his corpse
was quelled by soldiers with fixed bayonets.

The Life of LEWIS HOUSSART, the French Barber, a Murderer

As there is not any crime more shocking to human nature or more contrary to all laws human and divine than murder, so perhaps there has been few committed in these last years accompanied with more odd circumstances than that for which this criminal suffered.

Lewis Houssart was born at Sedan, a town in Champaigne in the kingdom of France. His own paper says that he was bred a surgeon and qualified for that business. However that were, he was here no better than a penny barber, only that he let blood, and thereby got a little and not much money. As to the other circumstances of his life, my memoirs are not full enough to assist me in speaking thereto. All I can say of him is that while his wife, Anne Rondeau, was living, he married another woman, and the night of the marriage before sitting down to supper, he went out a little space. During the interval between that and his coming in, it was judged from the circumstances that I shall mention hereafter, that he cut the throat of the poor woman who was his first wife, with a razor. For this being apprehended he was tried at the Old Bailey, but for want of proof sufficient was acquitted.

Not long after he was indicted for bigamy, i.e., for marrying his second wife, his first having been yet alive. Scarce making any defence upon this indictment he was found guilty. He said thereupon, it was no more than he expected, and that he did not trouble himself to preserve so much as his reputation in this respect; for in the first place he knew they were resolved to convict him, and in the next, he said, where there was no fault, there was no shame; that his first wife was a Socinian, an irrational creature, and was entitled to the advantages of no nation nor people because she was no Christian, and accordingly the Scripture says, with such a one have no conversation, no, not so much as to eat with them. But an appeal was lodged against him by Solomon Rondeau, brother and heir to Anne his wife, yet that appearing to be defective, it was quashed, and he charged upon another, whereunto joining issue upon six points they came to be tried at the Old Bailey, where the following circumstances appeared upon the trial.

First, that at the time he was at supper at his new wife's house, he started on a sudden, looked aghast and seemed to be very much frightened. A little boy deposed that the prisoner gave him money to go to his own house in a little court, and fetch the mother of the deceased Anne Rondeau to a gentleman who would be at such a place and wait for her. When the mother returned from that place and found nobody wanting her, or that had wanted her, she was very much out of humour at the boy's calling her; but that quickly gave way to the surprise of finding her daughter murdered as soon as she entered the room. This boy who called her was very young, yet out of the number of persons who were in Newgate he singled out Lewis Houssart, and declared that he was the only man among them who gave him money to go on the errant for old Mistress Rondeau.

Upon this and several other corroborating proofs, the jury found him guilty, upon which he arraigned the justice of a Court which hitherto had been preserved without a taint, declaring that he was innocent, and that they might punish if they would, but they could not make him guilty, and much more to the like effect; but the Court were not troubled with that, so he scarce endeavoured to make any other defence.

While in the condemned hold amongst the rest of the criminals, he behaved himself in a very odd manner, insisted upon it that he was innocent of the fact laid to his charge, threw out most opprobious language against the Court that condemned him, and when he was advised to lay aside such heats of passionate expressions, he said he was sorry he did not more fully expose British justice upon the spot at the Old Bailey, and that now since they had tied up his hands from acting, he would at least have satisfaction in saying what he pleased.

When this Houssart was first apprehended he appeared to be very much affected with his condition, was continually reading good books, praying and meditating, and showing the utmost signs of a heart full of concern, and under the greatest emotions, but after he had once been convicted, it made a thorough change in his temper. He quite laid aside all the former gravity of his temper and gave way, in the contrary, to a very extraordinary spirit of obstinacy and unbelief. He puzzled himself continually, and if Mr. Deval, who was then under sentence, would have given leave, attempted to puzzle him too, as to the doctrines of a future state, and an identical resurrection of the body. He said he could not be persuaded of the truth thereof in a literal sense; that when the individual frame of flesh which he bore about him was once dead, and from being flesh became again clay, he did not either conceive or believe that it, after lying in the earth, or disposed of otherwise perhaps for the space of a thousand years, should at the last day be reanimated by the soul which possessed it now, and become answerable even to eternal punishment for crimes committed so long ago. It was, he said, also little agreeable to the notions he entertained of the infinite mercy of God, and therefore he chose rather to look upon such doctrines as errors received from education, than torment and afflict himself with the terrors which must arise from such a belief. But after he had once answered as well as he could these objections, Mr. Deval refused to harken a second time to any such discourses and was obliged to have recourse to harsh language to oblige him to desist.

In the meanwhile his brother came over from Holland, on the news of this dreadful misfortune, and went to make him a visit in the place of his confinement while under condemnation, going to condole with him on the heavy weight of his misfortunes. Upon which, instead of receiving the kindness of his brother in the manner it deserved, Houssart began to make light of the affair, and treated the death of his wife and his own confinement in such a manner that his brother leaving him abruptly, went back to Holland more shocked at the brutality of his behaviour than grieved for the misfortune which had befallen him.

It being a considerable space of time that Houssart lay in confinement in Newgate and even in the condemned hold, he had there, of course, abundance of companions. But of them all he affected none so much as John Shepherd, with whom he had abundance of merry and even loose discourse. Once particularly, when the sparks flew very quickly out of the charcoal fire, he said to Shepherd, _See, see! I wish these were so many bullets that might beat the prison down about our ears, and then I might die like Sampson._

It was near a month before he was called up to receive sentence, after which he made no scruple of saying that since they had found him guilty of throat-cutting, they should not lie, he would verify their judgment by cutting his own throat. Upon which, when some who were in the same sad state with himself, pointed out to him how great a crime self-murder was, he immediately made answer that he was satisfied it was no crime at all; and upon this he fell to arguing in favour of the mortality of the soul, as if certain that it died with the body, endeavouring to cover his opinions with false glosses on that text in Genesis where it is said, that God breathed into man a living soul. From hence he would have inferred that when a man ceased to live, he totally lost that soul, and when it was asked of him where then it went, he said, he did not know, nor did it concern him much.

The standers-by, who notwithstanding their profligate course of life had a natural abhorrence of this theoretical impiety, reproved him in very sharp terms for making use of such expression, upon which he replied, _Ay! would you have me believe all the strange notions that are taught by the parsons? That the devil is a real thing? That our good God punishes souls for ever and ever? That Hell is full of flames from material fire, and that this body of mine shall feel it? Well, you may believe it if you please, but it is so with me that I cannot._

Sometimes, however, he would lay aside these sceptical opinions for a time, talk in another strain, and appear mightily concerned at the misfortunes he had drawn upon his second wife and child. He would then speak of Providence, and the decrees of God with much seeming submission, would own that he had been guilty of many and grievous offences, say that the punishment of God was just, and desire the prayers of the minister of the place, and those that were about him.

When he reflected on the grief it would give his father, near ninety years old, to hear of his misfortunes and that his son should be shamefully executed for the murder of his wife, he was seen to shed tears and to appear very much affected; but as soon as these thoughts were a little out of his head, he resumed his former temper and was continually asking questions in relation to the truth of the Gospel dispensation, and the doctrines therein taught of rewards and punishments after this life.

Being a Frenchman and not perfectly versed in our language, a minister of the Reformed Church of that nation was prevailed upon to attend him. Houssart received him with tolerable civility, seemed pleased that he should pray by him, but industriously waved aside all discourses of his guilt, and even fell out into violent passions if confession was pressed upon him as a duty. In this strange way he consumed the time allowed him to prepare for another world.

The day before his execution he appeared more than ordinarily attentive at the public devotions in the chapel. A sermon was then made with particular regard to that fact for which he was to die; he heard that also seemingly with much care, but when he was asked immediately after to unburden his conscience in respect of the death of his wife, he not only refused it, but also expressed a great indignation that he should be tormented as he called it, to confess a thing of which he was not guilty.

In the evening of that day the foreign minister and he whose duty it was to attend him, both waited upon him at night in order to discourse with him on those strange notions he had of the mortality of the soul, and a total cessation of being after this life. But when they came to speak to him to this purpose, he said they might spare themselves any arguments upon that head, for he believed a God and a resurrection as firmly as they did. They then discoursed to him of the nature of a sufficient repentance, and of the duty incumbent upon him to confess that great crime for which he was condemned, and thereby give glory unto God. He fell at this into his old temper, and said with some passion, _If you will pray with me, I'll thank you, and pray with you as long as you please; but if you come only to torture me with my guilt, I desire you would let me alone altogether._

His lawyers having pretty well instructed him in the nature of an appeal, and he coming thereby to know that he was now under sentence of death, at the suit of the subject and not of the King, he was very assiduous to learn where it was he was to apply for a reprieve; but finding it was the relations of his deceased wife from whom he was to expect it, he laid aside all those hopes, as conceiving it rightly a thing impossible to prevail upon people to spare his life, who had almost undone themselves in prosecuting him.

In the morning of the day of execution he was very much disturbed at being refused the Sacrament, which as the minister told him, could not be given him by the canon without his confession. Yet this did not prevail; he said he would die without receiving it, as he had before answered a French minister, who said, _Lewis Houssart, since you are condemned on full evidence, and I see no reason but to believe you guilty, I must, as a just pastor, inform you that if you persist in this denial, and die without confession, you can look for nothing but to be d----;_ to which Houssart replied, _You must look for damnation to yourself for judging me guilty, when you know nothing of the matter._

This confused frame of mind he continued in until he entered the cart for his execution, persisting in a like declaration of innocence all the way he went, though sometimes intermixed with short prayers to God to forgive his manifold sins and offences.

At the place of execution he turned very pale and grew very sick. The ministers told him they would not pray by him unless he would confess the murder for which he died. He said he was very sorry for that, but if they would not pray by him he could not help it, he would not confess what he was totally ignorant of. Even at the moment of being tied up he persisted and when such exhortations were again repeated, he said: _Pray do not torment me, pray cease troubling me. I tell you I will not make myself worse than I am._ And so saying, he gave up the ghost without any private prayer when left alone or calling upon God or Christ to receive his spirit. He delivered to the minister of Newgate, however, a paper, the copy which follows, from whence my readers will receive a more exact idea of the man from this, his draught of himself, than from any picture I can draw.

The Paper delivered by Lewis Houssart at his death.

I, Lewis Houssart, am forty years old, and was born in Sedan, a town
in Champaigne, near Boullonois. I have left France above fourteen
years. I was apprentice to a surgeon at Amsterdam, and after
examination was allowed by the college to be qualified for that
business, so that I intended to go on board a ship as surgeon, but I
could never have my health at sea. I dwelt sometime at Mæstricht, in
the Dutch Brabant, where my aged father and brother now dwell. I
travelled through Holland and was in almost every town. My two
sisters are in France and also many of my relations, for the earth
has scarce any family more numerous than ours. Seven or eight years
have I been in London, and here I met with Anne Rondeau, who was
born at the same village with me, and therefore I loved her. After I
had left her, she wrote to me, and said she would reveal a secret. I
promised her to be secret, and she told me she had not been chaste,
and the consequence of it was upon her, upon which I gave her my
best help and assistance. Since she is dead I hope her soul is
happy.

Lewis Houssart

The Life of CHARLES TOWERS, a Minter in Wapping

Notwithstanding it must be apparent, even to a very ordinary understanding, that the Law must be executed both in civil and criminal cases, and that without such execution those who live under its protection would be very unsafe, yet it happens so that those who feel the smart of its judgment (though drawn upon them by their own misdeeds, follies or misfortunes which the Law of man cannot remedy or prevent) are always clamouring against its supposed severity, and making dreadful complaints of the hardships they from thence sustain. This disposition hath engaged numbers under these unhappy circumstances to attempt screening themselves from the rigour of the laws by sheltering in certain places, where by virtue of their own authority, or rather necessities, they set up a right of exemption and endeavour to establish a power of preserving those who live within certain limits from being prosecuted according to the usual course of the Law.

Anciently, indeed, there were several sanctuaries which depended on the Roman Catholic religion, and which were, of course, destroyed when popery was done away by Law. However, those who had sheltered themselves in them kept up such exemption, and by force withstood whatever civil officers attempted to execute process for debt, and that so vigorously that at length they seemed to have established by prescription what was directly against Law. These pretended privileged places increased at last to such an extent that in the ninth year of King William, the legislature was obliged to make provision by a clause in an Act of Parliament, requiring the sheriffs of London, Middlesex, and Surrey, the head bailiff of the Dutchy Liberty, or the bailiff of Surrey, under the penalty of one hundred pounds, to execute with the assistance of the _posse comitatus_ any writ or warrant directed to them for seizing any person within any pretended privilege place such as Whitefriars, the Savoy, Salisbury Court, Ram Alley, Mitre Court, Fuller's Rents, Baldwin's Gardens, Montague Close or the Minories, Mint, Clink, or Dead Man's Place.[50] At the same time they ordered the assistance for executing the Law, of any who obey the sheriff or other person or persons in such places as aforesaid, with very great penalties upon persons who attempt to rescue persons from the hands of justice in such place.

This law had a very good effect with respect to all places excepting those within the jurisdiction of the Mint, though not without some struggle. There, however, they still continued to keep up those privileges they had assumed, and accordingly did maintain them by so far misusing persons who attempted to execute processes amongst them, by ducking them in ditches, dragging them through privies or "lay stalls," accompanied by a number of people dressed up in frightful habits, who were summoned upon blowing a horn. All which at last became so very great a grievance that the legislature was again forced to interpose, and by an act of the 9th of the late King, the Mint, as it was commonly called, situated in the parish of St. George's, Southwark, in the county of Surrey, was taken away, and the punishment of transportation, and even death, inflicted upon such who should persist in maintaining there pretended privileges.

Yet so far did the Government extend its mercy, as to suffer all those who at the time of passing the Act were actually shelterers in the Mint (provided that they made a just discovery of their effects) to be discharged from any imprisonment of their persons for any debts contracted before that time. By this Act of Parliament, the privilege of the Mint was totally taken away and destroyed.

The persons who had so many years supported themselves therein were dissipated and dispersed. But many of them got again into debt, and associating themselves with other persons in the same condition, with unparalleled impudence they attempted to set up (towards Wapping) a new privileged jurisdiction under the title of the Seven Cities of Refuge. In this attempt they were much furthered and directed by one Major Santloe, formerly a Justice of Peace, but being turned out of commission, he came first a shelterer here, and afterwards a prisoner in the Fleet. These people made an addition to these laws which had formerly been established in such illegal sanctuaries, for they provided large books in which they entered the names of persons who entered into their association, swearing to defend one another against all bailiffs and such like. In consequence of which, they very often rescued prisoners out of custody, or even entered the houses of officers for that purposes. Amongst the number of these unhappy people, who by protecting themselves against the lesser judgments of the Law involved themselves in greater difficulties, and at last drew on the greatest and most heavy sentence which it could pronounce, was him we now speak of.

Charles Towers was a person whose circumstances had been bad for many years, and in order to retrieve them he had turned gamester. For a guinea or two, it seems, he engaged for the payment of a very considerable debt for a friend, who not paying it at his time, Towers was obliged to fly for shelter into the Old Mint, then in being. He went into the New, which was just then setting up, and where the Shelterers took upon them to act more licentiously and with greater outrages towards officers of Justice than the people in any other places had done. Particularly they erected a tribunal on which a person chosen for that purpose sat as a judge with great state and solemnity. When any bailiff had attempted to arrest persons within the limits which they assumed for their jurisdiction, he was seized immediately by a mob of their own people, and hurried before the judge of their own choosing. There a sort of charge or indictment was preferred against him, for attempting to disturb the peace of the Shelterers within the jurisdiction of the Seven Cities of Refuge. Then they examined certain witnesses to prove this, and thereupon pretending to convict such bailiff as a criminal, he was sentenced by their judge aforesaid to be whipped or otherwise punished as he thought fit, which was executed frequently in the most cruel and barbarous manner, by dragging him through ditches and other nasty places, tearing his clothes off his back, and even endangering his life.

One West, who had got amongst them, being arrested by John Errington, who carried him to his house by Wapping Wall, the Shelterers in the New Mint no sooner heard thereof, but assembling on a Sunday morning in a great number, with guns, swords, staves, and other offensive weapons, they went to the house of the said John Errington, and there terrifying and affrighting the persons in the house rescued John West, pursuant, as they said, to their oaths, he being registered as a protected person in their books of the Seven Cities of Refuge. In this expedition Charles Towers was very forward, being dressed with only a blue pea-jacket, without hat, wig or shirt, with a large stick like a quarter-staff in his hand, his face and breast being so blackened that it appeared to be done with soot and grease, contrary to the Statute made against those called The Waltham Blacks, and done after the first day of June, 1723, when that Statute took place.

Upon an indictment for this, the fact being very fully and dearly proved, notwithstanding his defence, which was that he was no more disguised than his necessity obliged him to be, not having wherewith to provide himself clothes, and his face perhaps dirty and daubed with mud, the jury found him guilty, and he thereupon received sentence of death.

Before the execution of that sentence, he insisted strenuously on his innocence as to the point on which he was found guilty and condemned, viz., having his face blacked and disguised within the intent and meaning of the Statute, but he readily acknowledged that he had been often present and assisted at such mock courts of justice as were held in the New Mint, though he absolutely denied sitting as judge when one Mr. Westwood, a bailiff, was most abominably abused by an order of that pretended court. He seemed fully sensible of the ills and injuries he had committed by being concerned amongst such people, but often said that he thought the bailiffs had sufficiently revenged themselves by the cruel treatment they had used the riotous persons with, when they fell within their power, particularly since they hacked and chopped a carpenter's right arm in such a manner that it was obliged to be cut off; had abused others in so terrible a degree that they were not able to work, or do anything for their living. He himself had received several large cuts over the head, which though received six weeks before, yet were in a very bad condition at the time of his death.

As to disguises, he constantly averred they were never practised in the New Mint. He owned they had had some masquerades amongst them, to which himself amongst others had gone in the dress of a miller, and his face all covered with white, but as to any blacking or other means to prevent his face being known when he rescued West he had none, but on the contrary was in his usual habit as all the rest were that accompanied him. He framed as well as he could a petition for mercy, setting forth the circumstances of the thing, and the hardship he conceived it to be to suffer upon the bare construction of an Act of Parliament. He set forth likewise, the miserable condition of his wife and two children already, she being also big of a third. This petition she presented to his Majesty at the Council Chamber door, but the necessity there was of preventing such combinations for obstructing justice, rendered it of no effect. Upon her return, and Towers being acquainted with the result, he said he was contented, that he went willingly into a land of quiet from a world so troublesome and so tormenting as this had been to him. Then he kneeled down and prayed with great fervency and devotion, after which he appeared very composed and showed no rage against the prosecutor and witnesses who had brought on his death, as is too often the case with men in his miserable condition.

On the day appointed for his execution, he was carried in a cart to a gallows whereon he was to suffer in Wapping, the crowd, as is not common on such occasions, lamenting him, and pouring down showers of tears, he himself behaving with great calmness and intrepidity. After prayers had been said, he stood up in the cart, and turning towards the people, professed his innocence in being in a disguise at the time of rescuing Mr. West, and with the strongest asserverations said that it was Captain Buckland and not himself who sat as judge upon Mr. Jones the bailiff, though, as he complained, he had been ill-used while he remained a prisoner upon that score. To this he added that for the robberies and thefts with which he was charged, they were falsities, as he was a dying man. Money indeed, be said, might be shaken out of the breeches pocket of the bailiff when he was ditched, but that whether it was or was not so, he was no judge, for he never saw any of it. That as to any design of breaking open Sir Isaac Tilliard's house, he was innocent of that also. In fine, he owned that the judgment of God was exceeding just for the many offences he committed, but that the sentence of the Law was too severe, because, as he understood it, he had done nothing culpable within the intent of the Statute on which he died. After this, he inveighed for some time against bailiffs, and then crying with vehemency to God to receive his spirit, he gave up the ghost on the 4th of January, 1724-5.

However the death of Towers might prevent people committing such acts as breaking open the houses of bailiffs, and setting prisoners at liberty, yet it did not quite stifle or destroy those attempts which necessitous people made for screening themselves from public justice, insomuch that the Government were obliged at last to cause a Bill to be brought into Parliament for the preventing such attempts for the future, whereupon in the 11th year of the late King, it passed into a law to this effect:

That if any number of persons not less than three, associate themselves together in the hamlet of Wapping, Stepney, or in any other place within the bills of mortality, in order to shelter themselves from their debts, after complaint made thereof by presentment of a grand jury, and should obstruct any officer legally empowered and authorised in the execution of any writ or warrant against any person whatsoever, and in such obstructing or hindering should hurt, wound or injure any person; then any offender convicted of such offence, should suffer as a felon and be transported for seven years in like manner as other persons are so convicted. And it is further enacted by the same law that upon application made to the judge of any Court, out of which the writs therein mentioned are issued, the aforesaid judge, if he see proper, may grant a warrant directly to the sheriff, or other person proper to raise the _posse comitatus_, where there is any probability of resistance. And if in the execution of such warrant any disturbance should happen, and a rescue be made, then the persons assisting in such rescue, or who harbour or conceal the persons so rescued, shall be transported for seven years in like manner as if convicted of felony, but all indictments upon this statute are to be commenced within six months after the fact committed.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Ram Alley was on the south side of Fleet Street, between
Sergeants' Inn and Mitre Court; Fuller's Rents is now Fulwood
Place, Holborn; Baldwin's Gardens runs from Gray's Inn Road to
Leather Lane; Montague Close was on the Southwark side, near
London Bridge; Dead Man's Place was a crooked street at the east
end of Bankside.

The Life of THOMAS ANDERSON, a Scotch Thief

Amongst a multitude of tragical adventures it is with some satisfaction that I mention the life of a person who was of the number of those few which take warning in time, and having once felt the rod of affliction, fear it ever afterwards.

Thomas Anderson was the son of reputable parents in the city of Aberdeen, in Scotland. His father was of the number of those unhappy people who went over to Darien when the Scots made their settlement there in the reign of the late King William, his son Thomas being left under the care of his mother then a widow. By this his education suffered, and he was put apprentice to a glazier, although his father had been a man of some fashion, and the boy always educated with hopes of living genteelly. However, he is not the first that has been so deceived, though he took it so to heart that at first going to his master his grief was so great as had very nigh killed him. He continued, however, with his master two years, and then making bold with about nine guineas of his, and thirteen of his mother's, he procured a horse and made the greatest speed he could to Edinburgh.

Tom was sensible enough that he should be pursued, and hearing of a ship ready to sail from Leith for London, he went on board it, and in five days' time having a fair wind they arrived in the river of Thames. As soon as he got on shore Tom had the precaution to take lodging in a little street near Bur Street in Wapping, there he put his things; and his stock now being dwindled to twelve guineas, he put two of them in his fob, with his mother's old gold watch, which he had likewise brought along with him, and then went out to see the town. He had not walked far in Fleet Street, whither he had conveyed himself by boat, but he was saluted by a well-dressed woman, in a tone almost as broad as his own. Conscious of what he had committed he thought it was somebody that knew him and would have taken him up. He turned thereupon pale, and started. The woman observing his surprise, said, _Sir, I beg your pardon I took you for one Mr. Johnson, of Hull, my near relation; but I see you are not the same gentleman, though you are very like him._

Anderson thereupon taking heart, walked a little way with her, and the woman inviting him to drink tea at her lodgings, he accepted it readily, and away they went together to the bottom of Salisbury Court, where the woman lived. After tea was over, so many overtures were made that our new-come spark was easily drawn into an amour, and after a considerable time spent in parley, it was at last agreed that he should pass for her husband newly come from sea; and this being agreed upon, the landlady was called up, and the story told in form. The name the woman assumed was that of Johnson, and Tom consequently was obliged to go by the same. So after compliments expressed on all sides for his safe return, a supper was provided, and about ten o'clock they went to bed together.

Whether anything had been put in the drink, or whether it was only owing to the quantity he had drunk, he slept very soundly until 11 o'clock in the morning, when he was awakened by a knocking at the door; upon getting up to open it, he was a little surprised at finding the woman gone and more so at seeing the key thrown under the door. However, he took it up and opened it: his landlady then delivered him a letter, which as soon as she was gone he opened, and found it to run in these terms:

Dear Sir,

You must know that for about three years I have been an unfortunate
woman, that is, have conversed with many of your sex, as I have done
with you. I need not tell you that you made me a present of what
money you had about you last night, after the reckoning over the way
at The George was paid. I told my landlady when I went out this
morning that I was going to bring home some linen for shirts; you
had best say so too, and so you may go away without noise, for as I
owe her above three pound for lodging, 'tis odds but that as you
said last night you were my husband, she will put you in trouble,
and that I think would be hard, for to be sure you have paid dear
enough for your frolic. I hope you will forgive this presumption,
and I am yours next time you meet me.

Jane Johnson

Tom was not a little chagrined at this accident, especially when he found that not only the remainder of the two guineas, but also his mother's gold watch, and a gold chain and ring was gone into the bargain. However, he thought it best to take the woman's word, and so coming down and putting on the best air he could, he told his landlady he hoped his wife would bring the linen home time enough to go to breakfast, and that in the meanwhile he would go to the coffee-house, and read the news. The woman said it was very well, and Tom getting to the waterside, directed them to row to the stairs nearest to his lodging by Bur Street, ruminating all the way he went on the accident which had befallen him.

The rumours of Jonathan Wild, then in the zenith of his glory, had somehow or other reached the ears of our North Briton. He thereupon mentioned him to the watermen, who perceiving that he was a stranger, and hoping to get a pot of drink for the relation, obliged him with the best account they were able of Mr. Wild and his proceedings. As soon, therefore, as Anderson came home, he put the other two guineas in his pocket, and over he came in a coach to the Old Bailey, where Mr. Wild had just then set up in his office, Mr. Anderson being introduced in form, acquainted him in good blunt Scotch how he had lost his money and his watch. Jonathan used him very civilly, and promised his utmost diligence in recovering it. Tom being willing to save money, enquired of him his way home by land on foot, and having received instructions he set out accordingly. About the middle of Cheapside a well-dressed gentleman came up to him. _Friend_, says he, _I have heard you ask five or six people, as I followed you, your way to Bur Street. I am going thither and so if you'll walk along with me, 'twill save you the labour of asking further questions._

Tom readily accepted the gentleman's civility, and so on they trudged, until they came within twenty yards of the place, and into Tom's knowledge. _Young man_, then says the stranger, _since I have shown you the way home you must not refuse drinking a pint with me at a tavern hard by, of my acquaintance._ No sooner were they entered and sat down, but a third person was introduced into their company, as an acquaintance of the former. A good supper was provided, and when they had drunk about a pint of wine apiece, says the gentleman who brought him thither to Anderson, _You seem an understanding young fellow. I fancy your circumstances are not of the best. Come, if you have a tolerable head and any courage, I'll put you in a way to live as easy as you can wish._

Tom pricked up his ears upon this motion, and told him that truly, as to his circumstances, he had guessed very right, but that he wished he would be so good as to put him into any road of living like a gentleman. _For to say the truth, sir_, says he, _it was with that view I left my own country to come up to London._

_Well spoken, my lad_, says the other, _and like a gentleman thou shalt live. But hark ye, are you well acquainted with the men of quality's families about Aberdeen? Yes, sir_, says he. _Well then_, replied the stranger, _do you know none of them who has a son about your age? Yes, yes_, replied Tom, _My Lord J---- sent his eldest son to our college at Aberdeen to be bred, and he and I an much alike, and not above ten days difference in our ages. Why then_, replied the spark, _it will do, and here's to your honour's health. Come, from this time forward, you are the Honourable Mr. ----, son and heir apparent to the Right Honourable, the Lord ----._

To make the story short, these sharpers equipped him like the person they put him upon the town to be, and lodging him at the house of a Scotch merchant who was in the secret, with no less than three footmen all in proper livery to attend him. In the space of ten days' time, they took up effect upon his credit to the amount of a thousand pounds. Tom was cunning enough to lay his hands on a good diamond ring, two suits of clothes, and a handsome watch, and improved mightily from a fortnight's conversation with these gentlemen. He foresaw the storm would quickly begin, the news of his arrival under the name he had assumed, having been in the papers a week; so to prevent what might happen to himself, he sends his three footmen on different errands, and making up his clothes and some holland shirts into a bundle, called a coach and drove off to Bur Street, where having taken the remainder of his things that had been there ever since his coming to town, he bid the fellow drive him to the house of a person near St. Catherine's, to whom he had known his mother direct letters when in Scotland.

Yet recollecting in the coach that by this means he might be discovered by his relations, he called to the coachman before he reached there, and remembering an inn in Holborn, which he had heard spoken of by the Scotch merchant, where he had lodged in his last adventure, bid the fellow drive thither, saying he was afraid to be out late, and if he made haste he would give him a shilling. When he came thither and had had his two portmanteaus carried into the inn, pretending to be very sick he went immediately upstairs to bed, having first ordered a pint of wine to be burnt and brought upstairs.

Reflecting in the night on the condition he was in and the consequence of the measures he was taking, he resolved with himself to abandon his ill-courses at once and try to live honestly in some plantation of the West Indies. These meditations kept him pretty much awake, so that it was late in the morning before he arose. Having ordered coffee for his breakfast, he gave the chamberlain a shilling to go and fetch the newspapers, where the first thing he saw was an account of his own cheat in the body of the paper, and at the end of it an advertisement with a reward for apprehending him. This made him very uneasy, and the rather because he had no clothes but those which he had taken up as aforesaid; so he ordered the chamberlain to send for a tailor, and pretended to be so much indisposed that he could not get out. When the tailor came, he directed him to make him a riding suit with all the expedition he could. The tailor promised it in two days' time. The next day, pretending to be still worse, he sent the chamberlain to take a place for him in the Bristol coach, which being done, he removed himself and his things early in the morning to the inn where it lay, and set out the next day undiscovered for Bristol.

Three days after his arrival he met with a captain bound for the West Indies, with whom having agreed for a passage, he set sail for Jamaica. But a fresh gale at sea accidentally damaging their rudder, they were obliged to come to an anchor in Cork, where the captain himself and several other passengers went on shore. Anderson accompanied him to the coffee-house, where calling for the papers that last came in, he had like to have swooned at the table on finding himself to have been discovered at Bristol, and to have sailed in such a ship the day before the persons came down to apprehend him in order to his being carried back to London.