Chapter XI: Part 11

A short acquaintance, it appears, was sufficient to excite the flame of passion in the mind of the gallant captain, as well as of Miss Blandy; and ere long, their troth was plighted, that they would be for ever one. The captain, however, felt the importance of forestalling any information which might reach the ears of his new love of the existence of any person who possessed a better right to his affections than she; and he therefore informed her that he was engaged in a disagreeable lawsuit with a young lady in Scotland who had claimed him as her husband; but he assured her that it was a mere affair of gallantry, of which the process of the law would in the course of a very short time relieve him. This disclosure being followed by an offer of marriage, Cranstoun was referred to Mr. Blandy, and he obtained an easy acquiescence on his part in the wishes expressed by the young lady.

At this juncture, an intimation being conveyed to Lord Ker of the proceedings of his nephew, his lordship took instant steps to apprise Mr. Blandy of the position of Cranstoun. Prejudice had, however, worked its end as well with the father as the daughter, and the assertion of the intended bridegroom of the falsehood of the allegations made was sufficient to dispel all the fears which the report of Lord Ker had raised. But although Captain Cranstoun had thus temporarily freed himself from the effects of the imputation cast upon him, he felt that some steps were necessary to get his first marriage annulled, and he at length wrote to his wife, requesting her to disown him for a husband. The substance of this letter was, that, having no other way of rising to preferment but in the army, he had but little ground to expect advancement there, while it was known he was encumbered with a wife and family; but could he once pass for a single man, he had not the least doubt of being quickly promoted, which would procure him a sufficiency to maintain her as well as himself in a genteeler manner than now he was able to do. "All, therefore, (adds he) I have to request of you is, that you will transcribe the enclosed copy of a letter, wherein you disown me for a husband; put your maiden name to it, and send it by the post. All the use I shall make of it shall be to procure my advancement, which will necessarily include your own benefit. In full assurance that you will comply with my request, I remain your most affectionate husband."

Mrs. Cranstoun, ill as she had been treated by her husband, and little hope as she had of more generous usage, was, after repeated letters had passed, induced to give up her claim, and at length sent the desired communication. On this, an attempt was made by him to annul the marriage, this letter being produced as evidence; but the artifice being discovered, the suit was dismissed, with costs. Mr. Blandy soon obtained intelligence of this circumstance, and convinced now of the falsehood of his intended son-in-law, he conveyed a knowledge of it to his daughter; but she and her mother repelled the insinuations which were thrown out, and declared, in obedience to what they had been told by the gallant captain, that the suit was not yet terminated, for that an appeal to the House of Lords would immediately be made. Soon after this, Mrs. Blandy died, and her husband began now to show evident dislike for Captain Cranstoun's visits; but the latter complained to the daughter of the father's ill-treatment, and insinuated that he had a method of conciliating his esteem; and that when he arrived in Scotland he would send her some powders proper for the purpose; on which, to prevent suspicion, he would write "Powders to clean the Scotch pebbles."

Cranstoun sent her the powders, according to promise, and Mr. Blandy being indisposed on the Sunday se'nnight before his death, Susan Gunnel, a maid-servant, made him some water-gruel, into which Miss Blandy conveyed some of the powder, and gave it to her father; and repeating this draught on the following day, he was tormented with the most violent pains in his bowels.

The disorder, which had commenced with symptoms of so dangerous a character, soon increased; and the greatest alarm was felt by the medical attendants of the old gentleman, that death alone would terminate his sufferings. Every effort was made by which it was hoped that his life could be saved; but at length, when all possibility of his recovery was past, his wretched daughter rushed into his presence, and in an agony of tears and lamentations, confessed that she was the author of his sufferings and of his inevitable death. Urged to account for her conduct, which to her father appeared inexplicable, she denied, with the loudest asseverations, all guilty intention. She repeated the tale of her love, and of the insidious arts employed by Cranstoun, but asserted that she was unaware of the deadly nature of the powders, and that her sole object in administering them was to procure her father's affection for her lover. Death soon terminated the accumulated misery of the wretched parent, and the daughter had scarcely witnessed his demise, ere she became an inmate of a jail.

At the ensuing assizes at Oxford, Miss Blandy was indicted for the wilful murder of her father, and was immediately found guilty, upon the confession which she had made. She addressed the jury at great length, repeating the story which she had before related; but all was of no avail, and sentence of death was passed.

After conviction, the wretched young woman behaved with the utmost decency and penitence. She spent the night before her execution in devotion; and at nine in the morning of the 6th of April 1752, she left her apartment to be conducted to the scaffold, habited in a black bombasin dress, her arms being bound with black ribands. On her ascending the gallows, she begged that she might not be hanged high, "for the sake of decency;" and on her being desired to go a little higher, expressed her fear that she should fall. The rope being put round her neck, she pulled her handkerchief over her face, and was turned off on holding out a book of devotions, which she had been reading.

The crowd of spectators assembled on this occasion was immense; and when she had hung the usual time she was cut down, and the body being put into a hearse, was conveyed to Henley, and interred with her parents, at one o'clock on the following morning.

It will be proper now to return to Cranstoun, who was the original contriver of this horrid murder. Having heard of Miss Blandy's commitment to Oxford jail, he concealed himself some time in Scotland, and then escaped to Boulogne, in France. Meeting there with Mrs. Ross, who was distantly related to his family, he acquainted her with his situation, and begged her protection; on which she advised him to change his name for her maiden name of Dunbar. Some officers in the French service, who were related to his wife, hearing of his concealment, vowed revenge, if they should meet with him, for his cruelty to the unhappy woman: on which he fled to Paris, from whence he went to Furnes, a town in Flanders, where Mrs. Ross had provided a lodging for his reception. He had not been long at Furnes when he was seized with a severe fit of illness, which brought him to a degree of reflection to which he had been long a stranger. At length he sent for a father belonging to an adjacent convent, and received absolution from his hands, on declaring himself a convert to the Romish faith.

Cranstoun died on the 30th of November, 1752; and the fraternity of monks and friars looked on his conversion as an object of such importance, that solemn mass was sung on the occasion, and the body was followed to the grave not only by the ecclesiastics, but by the magistrates of the town.

JOHN M'CANELLY AND LUKE MORGAN.

EXECUTED FOR BURGLARY.

These men were of that class who usually visit England during harvest, from the sister kingdom, and who, if they possessed honesty, would prove most useful to the community of this country.

It appears that in the year 1751, Mr. Porter, a farmer of great respectability, residing in Cheshire, had engaged a number of Irish people to assist in gathering his harvest, when on one evening in the month of August he was alarmed, while sitting at supper, by hearing that they had attacked his house. Every effort was employed by him and his family to oppose the entry of their assailants, but their power being small, in the course of a few minutes the doors were burst in, and they found themselves surrounded by a gang, whose ferocious demands for money or blood convinced them of the uselessness of resistance. Mr. Porter, however, for a while delayed meeting the demands which were made upon him, in the hope that some assistance might arrive; but his ruffian assailants bound him with cords, and threatened instant destruction if his money and plate were not instantly brought forth. Miss Porter at this moment made her appearance, supplicating for the life of her parent, when she in turn was seized and bound, and was compelled to discover the chest in which the valuables were kept.

In the confusion created by these proceedings, the youngest daughter, a girl of thirteen, whose presence of mind and courage were alike admirable, made her escape, and determined to procure some assistance to repel the attack which had been made; and running into the stable, she got astride the bare back of a horse, with the halter only in his mouth, and galloping over hedges and ditches, so as to avoid the house, from which she might be seen by the villains, she rode to Pulford, a village at a short distance, to inform her eldest brother of the danger to which their relations at the farm were exposed. Young Porter, with a friend named Craven, (whose conduct certainly was the very opposite of his name,) immediately resolved upon attacking the villains in turn, and, with the girl, set off at full speed to render such aid as lay in their power. On their reaching the farm, they discovered a fellow on the watch, whom they instantly killed with so little noise as to create no alarm, and then proceeding to the parlour, they found four others in the very act of placing old Mr. Porter on the fire, having deprived him of his clothes, in order to extort from him a confession of the depository of his money, his daughter being on her knees at their side praying for his life. The appearance of two strangers was sufficient to induce the villains at once to desist from their horrid purpose; and being now violently attacked, they were compelled to use their utmost exertions to defend themselves. A desperate conflict took place, but one of the robbers being felled senseless to the ground, and the others wounded and deprived of their arms, they jumped through the window and ran off.

They were instantly pursued by the young men, and the alarm having by this time been given, M'Canelly and Morgan were secured on Chester bridge, having a silver tankard in their possession which they had stolen from Mr. Porter's house. A fellow named Stanley, who turned out to be ringleader in this desperate attack, was subsequently apprehended on board a vessel bound for the West Indies, at Liverpool: and with M'Canelly, Morgan, and a youth named Boyd, who had been left in the house, was committed to Chester jail for trial.

They were indicted at the ensuing assizes held in March, 1752, and after a long investigation, were found guilty and sentenced to death; but Boyd, in whose case some mitigating circumstances were proved, was respited, and his punishment eventually commuted to transportation for life.

On the night before the execution, Stanley slipped his irons, and got clear off from the jail, not without some suspicion that his escape was connived at by the keeper.

On the 25th May, 1752, M'Canelly and Morgan were brought out of prison in order to be hanged. Their behaviour was as decent as could be expected from persons of their station. They both declared that Stanley, who escaped, was the sole contriver of the robbery. They died in the Catholic faith, and were attended by a priest of that persuasion.

ELIZABETH JEFFRIES AND JOHN SWAN.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

The case of these offenders is one of the greatest atrocity. It appears that the female was the niece of a gentleman of respectability residing at Walthamstow, who, having acquired an ample fortune, and having no children, adopted his brother's daughter, and made a will in her favour, bequeathing to her nearly his whole estate. The girl, however, returned her uncle's kindness with ingratitude, and having heard him declare that he would alter his will on account of her bad behaviour, she determined to

prevent his carrying his design to her detriment into execution by murdering him. She soon discovered her inability to complete this project single-handed, and she gained the assistance of her accomplice in the crime, John Swan, who was in the employment of her uncle, and with whom there is good reason to believe she was on terms of intimacy. They endeavoured to suborn a simple fellow named Matthews to assist them, but although the promise of a large reward at first staggered him, his terrors eventually steeled him against the temptations held out to him. The night of the 3rd July, 1751, was fixed upon for the completion of this villany; and at the trial, which took place at Chelmsford, before Mr. Justice Wright, on the 11th March, 1752, the following facts were proved:

Matthews having travelled from Yorkshire was accidentally met in Epping Forest by Mr. Jeffries, who gave him employment as an assistant to Swan, who was his gardener. After he had been at work only four days, he was sent up stairs by Miss Jeffries to wipe a chest of drawers, and she followed him, and asked him if he was willing to earn one hundred pounds? He answered that he was, "in an honest way;" on which she desired him to go to Swan. He accordingly joined him in the garden, and he offered him seven hundred pounds to murder their master. He acquiesced; and on his being dismissed two days afterwards, Swan gave him half a guinea to buy a brace of pistols; but having spent the money given to him, he was ordered to meet Miss Jeffries and Swan at Walthamstow on the Tuesday following, at ten o'clock at night, the object being then to carry out their intentions with respect to the murder.

When he arrived, he found the garden door on the latch; and going into the pantry, he hid himself behind a tub till about eleven o'clock, when Swan brought him some cold boiled beef. About twelve Miss Jeffries and Swan came to him; when the latter said, "Now it is time to knock the old miser, my master, on the head;" but Matthews relented and said, "I cannot find it in my heart to do it." Miss Jeffries then immediately replied, "You may be d--d for a villain, for not performing your promise!" And Swan, who was provided with pistols, also loudly abused him, and said he had a mind to blow his brains out for the refusal. Swan then produced a book, and insisted that Matthews should swear that he would not discover what had passed: and he did so, with this reserve, "unless it was to save his own life." Soon after this Matthews heard the report of a pistol; when getting out of the house by the back way, he crossed the ferry, and proceeded to Enfield Chase. Immediately afterwards Miss Jeffries appeared at the door of the house, and called out for assistance, and some of the neighbours going in, they found Mr. Jeffries dying, but they failed in discovering any thing which could lead to the supposition of any person having quitted the house. Violent suspicions in consequence arose, and Miss Jeffries was taken into custody, but no evidence arising to criminate her, she was discharged, and immediately administered to her uncle's estate and took possession of his property. Renewed suspicions, however, were raised, and Matthews having been discovered, Jeffries and Swan were apprehended. Upon this testimony a verdict of Guilty was returned.

After conviction Elizabeth Jeffries made the following confession:--

"I, Elizabeth Jeffries, do freely and voluntarily confess that I first enticed and persuaded John Swan and Thomas Matthews to undertake and perpetrate the murder of my deceased uncle, which they both consented to do the first opportunity. That on the third day of July 1751, myself and John Swan (Matthews, to my knowledge, not being in the house) agreed to kill my said uncle; and, accordingly, after the maid was gone to bed, I went into John Swan's room, and called him, and we went down together into the kitchen, and having assisted Swan in putting some pewter and other things into a sack, I said I could do no more, and then I went into my room; and afterwards Swan came up, as I believe, and went into my uncle's room and shot him; which done, he came to my door and rapped. Accordingly I went out in my shift, and John Swan opened the door and let me out. That done, I alarmed the neighbourhood. And I do solemnly declare that I do not know that any person was concerned in the murder of my deceased uncle but myself and John Swan; for that Matthews did not come to my uncle's house the day before, or night in which the murder was committed as I know of.

"ELIZABETH JEFFRIES."

"Taken and acknowledged March 12, 1752."

Swan for some time expressed great resentment at Miss Jeffries's confession; but when he learned that he was to be hung in chains he began to relent, and seemed at length to behold his crime in its true light of enormity.

On the day of execution the convicts left the prison at four in the morning, Miss Jeffries being placed in a cart and Swan on a sledge. The unfortunate woman repeatedly fainted on her way to the gallows; and having fallen into a fit, had not recovered when she was turned off. The execution took place near the six-mile-stone on Epping Forest on the 28th of March 1752; and the body of Miss Jeffries having been delivered to her friends for interment, the gibbet was removed to another part of the forest, where Swan was hung in chains.

DOCTOR ARCHIBALD CAMERON.

EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON.

The Scottish rebellion had been suppressed nearly eight years, and England had, during that time, enjoyed internal peace, when Doctor Cameron fell a victim to his exertions in the cause of the Pretender. Doctor Cameron was the brother of the chief of the Highland clan of the same name; and it appears that having studied successively at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, and Leyden, he returned to Scotland admirably qualified to practise the profession of medicine, to which he had been brought up. Although educated in a manner which rendered him fit to mix in the best society of the day, he took up his residence in the district of Lochaber, where, in a short time, he was married to a lady of respectable family. Universally esteemed, and beloved by his neighbours for his zealous and effectual services in the civilisation of the manners of his countrymen, and for his generous conduct in the attendance of the sick poor, he was residing in the bosom of his family, when the rebellion of 1745 broke out, which laid waste the country, and introduced misery and wretchedness to many a happy home. The chief of the Camerons was a zealous friend to Prince Charles; and although he firmly believed that any attempt at the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne of England must prove abortive, yet being pledged to assist his prince, he generously sacrificed his own feelings, and appeared in arms at the head of nearly twelve hundred men. Thus arrayed he sent for his brother to undertake the medical charge of his troops; but although the doctor urged every argument which could be raised against so rash an undertaking as that which was proposed, he was at length compelled to forego all further resistance, and to attend the army in his professional capacity, although he absolutely refused to accept any commission. Thus circumstanced, Doctor Cameron was remarkable throughout the whole advance and retreat of the rebel army for the humanity and assiduity with which he attended all, whether friend or foe, who required his aid. And when the battle of Culloden put an end to all the hopes of the Pretender, he and his brother escaped to France in a vessel belonging to that kingdom. While in France, the doctor was appointed physician to a French regiment, of which his brother obtained the command; but the latter dying about two years afterwards, he joined Ogilvie's regiment in Flanders.

In the meantime proceedings had been taken against the rebel leaders in England, many of whom had forfeited their lives to the offended laws of their country, and by an act of attainder passed in the year 1746, for the effectual punishment of persons concerned in the rebellion, the life of Doctor Cameron was declared to be forfeited. In the years 1750 and 1752, subscriptions were entered into in Scotland for the support of those persons who had escaped into foreign countries, and Doctor Cameron having already more than once visited his native country, finally in the latter year came over to Scotland, for the purpose of procuring some permanent relief for himself and his suffering fellow-countrymen abroad. Rumours were soon set afloat that he was in Scotland, and a detachment of Lord George Beaufort's regiment was sent in search of him. Being made acquainted with the vicinity of his hiding-place, but being unable for a considerable time to discover its exact locality, the soldiers were unable to secure their prisoner; but at length perceiving a little girl, who appeared to be acting as a scout, they followed her until she met a boy, who was evidently employed in a similar capacity, to whom they observed that she whispered something. They directly pursued the boy, but being unable to reach him, they presented their guns, threatening to shoot him if he did not immediately stop. Having then secured his person, they menaced him with instant death if he did not inform them of the hiding-place of Dr. Cameron. The boy pointed to the house where he was concealed, and the unfortunate gentleman was directly placed under arrest, and was then immediately sent to Edinburgh, and from thence subsequently to London, where he was placed in confinement in the Tower. Upon his examination before the Privy Council, he denied that he was the person mentioned in the Act of Attainder; but being brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench on the 17th of May, he acknowledged that he was the person who had been attainted; on which Lord Chief Justice Lee pronounced sentence in the following terms:--"You, Archibald Cameron, of Lochiel, in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, must be removed from hence to his Majesty's prison of the Tower of London, from whence you came, and on Thursday, the 7th of June next, your body to be drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, there to be hanged, but not till you are dead,--your bowels to be taken out, your body quartered, your head cut off, and affixed at the king's disposal,--and the Lord have mercy on your soul!"

After his commitment to the Tower he begged to see his wife, who was then at Lille, in Flanders; and, on her arrival, the meeting between them was inexpressibly affecting. The unfortunate lady wept incessantly; and on her going to take her final leave of her husband, on the morning of execution, she was attacked with fits, which left her only after grief had deprived her of her senses.

On the morning of the 7th June, 1753, the unhappy man was carried to Tyburn to be executed. He was dressed in a light-coloured coat, red waistcoat and breeches, and a new bag-wig. He looked much at the spectators in the houses and balconies, as well as at those in the street, and bowed to several persons with whom he was acquainted. He was attended at the scaffold by a clergyman of the Church of England; and before his being turned off, he declared that he was at peace with all men, and that he died firmly hoping for the forgiveness of his sins through the merits of his blessed Redeemer. When his body had hung during twenty minutes it was cut down, and the heart was taken out and burned, but the sentence was not further fulfilled. On the following Sunday, his remains were interred in a large vault in the Savoy chapel.

Dr. Cameron, it appears, was the last person who suffered punishment on account of connection with the rebellion of Scotland; and of all those who were concerned in it, probably he least of all deserved the unhappy fate which befel him. The very small, and apparently unwilling part which he took in the proceedings, should have screened him from condign punishment, more especially at a period when all appearance of discontent having vanished, no further harm was to be apprehended.

CAPTAIN JOHN LANCEY.

EXECUTED FOR BURNING HIS SHIP.

Captain Lancey was a native of Biddeford, in Devonshire, and was respectably connected. At an early age, he exhibited a predilection for a seafaring life, and having served his apprenticeship, he was employed as mate of a vessel belonging to Mr. Benson, a rich merchant of Biddeford, at that time M.P. for Barnstaple.

Having married a sister of Benson's, Lancey was soon advanced to the command of the vessel; and on his return from a voyage, he was surprised at receiving an order from his employer to refit as soon as possible, Mr. Benson saying that he would insure the vessel for twice her value, and that Lancey should destroy her. The latter hesitated at first to assent to this extraordinary proposition, and for a time the suggestion was not again mentioned; but another opportunity being afforded to Benson, on his brother-in-law dining with him, he plied him with wine, and having pointed out to him the poverty to which his family might be reduced in case of his refusal, by his being dismissed from employment, the unhappy man at length yielded to his persuasions.

A ship was now fitted out, and bound for Maryland: goods to a large amount were shipped on board, but re-landed before the vessel sailed, and a lading of brick-bats taken in by way of ballast; and the vessel had not been long at sea before a hole was bored in her side, and a cask of combustible ingredients set on fire with a view to destroy her. The fire no sooner appeared than the captain called to some convicted transports, then in the hold, to inquire if they had fired the vessel; but this appears to have been only a feint to conceal the real design. The boat being hoisted out, all the crew got safely on shore; and then Lancey repaired immediately to Benson to inform him of what had passed. The latter instantly despatched him to a proctor, before whom he swore that the ship had accidentally taken fire, and that it was impossible to prevent the consequences which followed.

The crime was soon afterwards discovered, however, and Lancey was taken into custody; but, secure in his anticipation of protection from Benson, he did not express much concern at his situation. His employer, in the mean time, was perfectly aware of the consequences which would fall upon him, and fled to avoid them; and his unhappy dupe being brought to trial, was capitally convicted, and received sentence of death. He subsequently lay in prison for about four months, during which time he pursued his devotional exercises with the utmost regularity, and was hanged on the 7th June, 1754, at Execution Dock, in the 27th year of his age.

NICOL BROWN.

EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE.

This malefactor appears to have suffered for a crime as savagely ferocious as it was deliberate. He was a native of Cramond, near Edinburgh, where he was decently educated, and was apprenticed to a butcher; but his taste tending towards a seafaring life, he entered on board a man-of-war as a sailor, and remained in that situation for four years. On his return, he married the widow of a respectable butcher, who had left her a decent fortune.

Taking to a habit of drinking, he seldom came home sober at night; and his wife following his example, he used frequently to beat her for copying his own crime. This conduct rendered both parties obnoxious to their acquaintance; and the following revolting anecdote of Brown will incontestably prove the unfeeling brutality of his nature.

About a week after the execution of Norman Ross (already mentioned) for murder, Brown had been drinking with some company at Leith, till, in the height of their jollity, they boasted what extravagant actions they could perform. Brown swore that he would cut off a piece of flesh from the leg of the dead man and eat it. His companions, drunk as they were, appeared shocked at the very idea; while Brown, to prove that he was in earnest, procured a ladder, which he carried to the gibbet, and cutting off a piece of flesh from the leg of the suspended body of Ross, brought it back, broiled and ate it.

The circumstances of the crime for which he was executed were as follow.

After having been drinking at an alehouse in the Canongate, he went home at about eleven at night, in a high degree of intoxication. His wife was also much in liquor; but, though equally criminal himself, he was exasperated against her, and struck her so violently that she fell from her chair. The noise of her fall alarmed the neighbours; but, as frequent quarrels had happened between them, no immediate notice was taken of the affair. In about fifteen minutes, the wife was heard to cry out "Murder! help! fire! the rogue is murdering me!" and the neighbours, now apprehending real danger, knocked at the door; but no person being in the house but Brown and his wife, admission was refused. The woman, meantime, was heard to groan most shockingly, and a person looking through the keyhole, saw Brown holding his wife to the fire. He was called on to open the door, but refused to do so; and the candle being extinguished, and the woman still continuing her cries, the door was at length forced open. When the neighbours went in, they beheld her a most shocking spectacle, lying half naked before the fire, and her flesh in part broiled. In the interim, Brown had got into bed, pretending to be asleep, and when spoken to, appeared ignorant of the transaction. The woman, though so dreadfully burnt, retained her senses, and accused her husband of the murder, and told in what manner it was perpetrated. She survived till the following morning, still continuing in the same tale, and then expired in the utmost agony.

The murderer was now seized, and being lodged in the jail of Edinburgh, was brought to trial and capitally convicted.

On August the 14th, 1754, he was attended to the place of execution at Edinburgh by the Rev. Dr. Brown; but to the last he denied having been guilty of the crime for which he suffered.

After execution he was hung in chains; but the body was stolen from the gibbet, and thrown into a pond, where being found, it was exposed as before. In a few days, however, it was again stolen; and though a reward was offered for its discovery, it was not again found.

EDWARD MORGAN.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

The circumstances which came out on the trial of Edward Morgan, at the assizes of Glamorgan, were these:--According to annual custom, he had been invited by Mr. Rees Morgan, of Lanvabon, his cousin, to spend the Christmas holidays. He had partaken of the first day's festivity, and retired to bed along with a young man, apprentice to Mr. Rees Morgan. No sooner had he laid his head upon the pillow, to use his own expression, than the devil whispered him to get up and murder the whole family, and he determined to obey.

He first made an attempt on the apprentice, his bedfellow; but he struggled so far as to effect his escape, and hid himself. The murderer then provided himself with a knife, which he sharpened on a stone as deliberately as the butcher uses his steel; and thus prepared, he softly crept to the bedchamber of his host and hostess, and cut their throats in their sleep. He then proceeded to the bed of their beautiful daughter, with whom the monster had but an hour before been sporting and playing, and with equal expedition, and by the same means, robbed her of life. Not satisfied, however, with these deeds of blood, he seized a firebrand, and proceeded to the barn and outhouses, setting fire to them all; and, to complete the sum of his crime, he fired the dwelling-house, after plundering it of some articles.

"The Gloucester Journal," of the year 1757, describes the property consumed by fire on this melancholy occasion to have been "the dwelling-house, a barn full of corn, a beast-house, with twelve head of cattle in it."

It was at first conjectured that the unfortunate people had perished in the conflagration. Their murdered bodies, it is too true, were consumed to ashes; but the manner of their death was subsequently proved, partly by what the concealed apprentice overheard, but chiefly from the murderer's own confession. Morgan was executed at Glamorgan, April the 6th, 1757.

THE REV. JOHN GRIERSON AND THE REV. MR. WILKINSON

TRANSPORTED FOR UNLAWFULLY PERFORMING THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY.

Among the singular customs of our forefathers, arising in a great measure from their indifference to decorum, one of the most remarkable was matrimony, solemnised, we were going to say, but the fittest word would be "performed," by the parsons in the Fleet prison, to which reference has already frequently been made. These clerical functionaries were disreputable and dissolute men, mostly prisoners for debt, who, to the great injury of public morals, dared to insult the dignity of their holy profession by marrying in the precincts of the Fleet prison, at a minute's notice, any persons who might present themselves for that purpose. No questions were asked, no stipulations made, except as to the amount of the fee for the service, or the quantity of liquor to be drunk on the occasion. It not unfrequently happened, indeed, that the clergyman, the clerk, the bride groom and the bride, were drunk at the very time the ceremony was performed. These disgraceful members of the sacred calling had their "plyers," or "barkers," who, if they caught sight of a man and woman walking together along the streets of the neighbourhood, pestered them as the Jew clothesmen in the present day tease the passers-by in Holywell Street, with solicitations, not easily to be shaken off, as to whether they wanted a clergyman to marry them. Mr. Burn, a gentleman who has recently published a curious work on the Fleet Registers, says he has in his possession an engraving (published about 1747) of "A Fleet Wedding between a brisk young Sailor and Landlady's daughter at Rederiff." "The print," he adds, "represents the old Fleet market and prison, with the sailor, landlady, and daughter, just stepping from a hackney-coach, while two Fleet parsons in canonicals are contending for the job. The following verses are in the margin:

"Scarce had the coach discharg'd its trusty fare,
But gaping crowds surround th' amorous pair;
The busy Plyers make a mighty stir,
And whisp'ring cry, D'ye want the Parson, Sir?
Pray step this way--just to the Pen in Hand,
The Doctor's ready there at your command:
This way (another cries), Sir, I declare,
The true and ancient Register is here:

"Th' alarmed Parsons quickly hear the din,
And haste with soothing words t' invite 'em in:
In this confusion jostled to and fro,
Th' inamour'd couple know not where to go,
Till, slow advancing from the coach's side,
Th' experienc'd matron came, (an artful guide,)
She led the way without regarding either,
And the first Parson splic'd 'em both together."

One of the most notorious of these scandalous officials was a man of the name of George Keith, a Scotch minister, who, being in desperate circumstances, set up a marriage-office in May-Fair, and subsequently in the Fleet, and carried on the same trade which has since been practised in front of the blacksmith's anvil at Gretna Green. This man's wedding-business was so extensive and so scandalous, that the Bishop of London found it necessary to excommunicate him. It has been said of this person and "_his journeyman_," that one morning, during the Whitsun holidays, they united a greater number of couples than had been married at any ten churches within the bills of mortality. Keith lived till he was eighty-nine years of age, and died in 1735. The Rev. Dr. Gaynham, another infamous functionary, was familiarly called the Bishop of Hell.

"Many of the early Fleet weddings," observes Mr. Burn, "were _really_ performed at the chapel of the Fleet; but as the practice extended, it was found more convenient to have other places, within the Rules of the Fleet, (added to which, the Warden was forbidden, by act of parliament, to suffer them,) and, thereupon, many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or houses as a chapel! The parsons took the fees, allowing a portion to the plyers, &c.; and the tavern-keepers, besides sharing in the money paid, derived a profit from the sale of liquors which the wedding-party drank. In some instances, the tavern-keepers _kept a parson on the establishment_, at a weekly salary of twenty shillings! Most of the taverns near the Fleet kept their own registers, in which (as well as in their own books) the parsons entered the weddings." Some of these scandalous members of the highest of all professions were in the habit of hanging signs out of their windows with the words "WEDDINGS PERFORMED CHEAP HERE."

Keith, of whom we have already spoken, seems to have been a bare-faced profligate; but there is something exceedingly affecting in the stings of conscience and forlorn compunction of one Walter Wyatt, a Fleet parson, in one of whose pocket-books of 1716 are the following secret (as he intended them to be) outpourings of remorse:--

"Give to every man his due, and learn ye way of Truth."

"This advice cannot be taken by those that are concerned in ye Fleet marriages; not so much as ye Priest can do ye thing yt it is just and right there, unless he designs to starve. For by lying, bullying, and swearing, to extort money from the silly and unwary people, you advance your business and get ye pelf, which always wastes like snow in sunshiney day."

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The marrying in the Fleet is the beginning of eternal woe."

"If a clerk or plyer tells a lye, you must vouch it to be as true as ye Gospel, and if disputed, you must affirm with an oath to ye truth of a downright damnable falsehood.--Virtus laudatur & algetr."[9]

"May God forgive me what is past, and give me grace to forsake such a wicked place, where truth and virtue can't take place unless you are resolved to starve."

But this very man, whose sense of his own disgrace was so deep and apparently so contrite, was one of the most notorious, active, and money-making of all the Fleet parsons. His practice was chiefly in taverns, and he has been known to earn nearly sixty pounds in less than a month.

With such facilities for marriage, and such unprincipled ministers, it may easily be imagined that iniquitous schemes of all sorts were perpetrated under the name of Fleet weddings. The parsons were ready, for a bribe, to make false entries in their registers, to ante-date weddings, to give fictitious certificates, and to marry persons who would declare only the initials of their names. Thus, if a spinster or widow in debt desired to cheat her creditors by pretending to have been married before the debt was contracted, she had only to present herself at one of the marriage-houses in the Fleet, and, upon payment of a small additional fee to the clergyman, a man could instantly be found on the spot to act as bridegroom for a few shillings, and the worthless chaplain could find a blank place in his Register for any year desired, so that there was no difficulty in making the necessary record. They would also, for a consideration, obliterate any given entry. The sham bridegrooms, under different names, were married over and over again, with the full knowledge of the clerical practitioners. If, in other instances, a libertine desired to possess himself of any young and unsuspecting woman, who would not yield without being married, nothing was easier than to get the service performed at the Fleet without even the specification of names; so that the poor girl might with impunity be shaken off at pleasure. Or if a parent found it necessary to legitimatise his natural children, a Fleet parson could be procured to give a marriage-certificate at any required date. In fact, all manner of people presented themselves for marriage at the unholy dens in the Fleet taverns,--runaway sons and daughters of peers,--Irish adventurers and foolish rich widows,--clodhoppers and ladies from St. Giles's,--footmen and decayed beauties,--soldiers and servant-girls,--boys in their teens and old women of seventy,--discarded mistresses, "given away" by their former admirers to pitiable and sordid bridegrooms,--night-wanderers and intoxicated apprentices,--men and women having already wives and husbands,--young heiresses conveyed thither by force, and compelled, _in terrorem_, to be brides,--and common labourers and female paupers dragged by parish-officers to the profane altar, stained by the relics of drunken orgies, and reeking with the fumes of liquor and tobacco! Nay, it sometimes happened that the "contracting parties" would send from houses of vile repute for a Fleet parson, who could readily be found to attend even in such places and under such circumstances, and there unite the couple in matrimony!

Of what were called the "Parish Weddings" it is impossible to speak in terms of sufficient reprobation. Many of the churchwardens and overseers of that day were in the frequent practice of "getting up" marriages in order to throw their paupers on neighbouring parishes. For example, in the _Daily Post_ of the 4th July, 1741, is the following paragraph:--

"On Saturday last the churchwardens for a certain parish in the city, in order to remove a load from their own shoulders, gave forty shillings, and paid the expense of a Fleet marriage, to a miserable blind youth, known by the name of Ambrose Tally, who plays on the violin in Moorfields, in order to make a settlement on the wife and future family in Shoreditch parish. To secure their point they sent a parish-officer to see the ceremony performed. One cannot but admire the ungenerous proceeding of this city parish, as well as their unjustifiable abetting and encouraging an irregularity so much and so justly complained of, as these Fleet matches. Invited and uninvited were a great number of poor wretches, in order to spend the bride's parish fortune."

In the _Grub Street Journal_ for 1735, is the following letter, faithfully describing, says Mr. Burn, the treachery and low habits of the Fleet parsons:--

"SIR,--There is a very great evil in this town, and of dangerous consequence to our sex, that has never been suppressed, to the great prejudice and ruin of many hundreds of young people every year, which I beg some of your learned heads to consider of, and consult of proper ways and means to prevent for the future. I mean the ruinous marriages that are practised in the liberty of the Fleet and thereabouts, by a set of drunken swearing parsons, with their myrmidons, that wear black coats, and pretend to be clerks and registers to the Fleet. These ministers of wickedness ply about Ludgate-hill, pulling and forcing people to some pedling ale-house or a brandy-shop to be married, even on a Sunday stopping them as they go to church, and almost tearing their clothes off their backs. To confirm the truth of these facts I will give you a case or two which lately happened.

"Since Midsummer last a young lady of birth and fortune was deluded and forced from her friends, and, by the assistance of a wry-necked swearing parson, married to an atheistical wretch, whose life is a continued practice of all manner of vice and debauchery. And since the ruin of my relation, another lady of my acquaintance had like to have been trepanned in the following manner. This lady had appointed to meet a gentlewoman at the Old Playhouse in Drury-lane, but extraordinary business prevented her coming. Being alone when the play was done, she bade a boy call a coach for the city. One dressed like a gentleman helps her into it, and jumps in after her. 'Madam,' says he, 'this coach was called for me, and since the weather is so bad, and there is no other, I beg leave to bear you company. I am going into the city, and will set you down wherever you please.' The lady begged to be excused; but he bade the coachman drive on. Being come to Ludgate-hill, he told her his sister, who waited his coming but five doors up the court, would go with her in two minutes. He went, and returned with his pretended sister, who asked her to step in one minute, and she would wait upon her in the coach. Deluded with the assurance of having his sister's company, the poor lady foolishly followed her into the house, when instantly the sister vanished, and a tawny fellow in a black coat and black wig appeared. 'Madam, you are come in good time; the Doctor was just a-going.'--'The Doctor!' says she, horribly frighted, fearing it was a madhouse: 'what has the Doctor to do with me?'--'To marry you to that gentleman. The Doctor has waited for you these three hours, and will be payed by you or that gentleman before you go!'--'That gentleman,' says she, recovering herself, 'is worthy a better fortune than mine,' and begged hard to be gone. But Doctor Wryneck swore she should be married, or if she would not, he would still have his fee, and register the marriage from that night. The lady, finding she could not escape without money or a pledge, told them she liked the gentleman so well, she would certainly meet him to-morrow night, and gave them a ring as a pledge, which, says she, 'was my mother's gift on her death-bed, enjoining that if ever I married it should be my wedding-ring.' By which cunning contrivance she was delivered from the black Doctor and his tawny crew. Some time after this I went with this lady and her brother in a coach to Ludgate-hill in the day-time, to see the manner of their picking up people to be married. As soon as our coach stopped near Fleet Bridge, up comes one of the myrmidons. 'Madam,' says he, 'you want a parson?'--'Who are you?' says I.--'I am the clerk and register of the Fleet.'--'Show me the chapel.' 'At which comes a second, desiring me to go along with him. Says he, 'That fellow will carry you to a pedling alehouse.' Says a third, 'Go with me; he wilt carry you to a brandy-shop.' In the interim comes the Doctor. 'Madam,' says he, 'I'll do your job for you presently!'--'Well, gentlemen,' says I, 'since you can't agree, and I can't be married quietly, I'll put it off 'till another time:' so drove away. Learned sirs, I wrote this in regard to the honour and safety of my own sex: and if for our sakes you will be so good as to publish it, correcting the errors of a woman's pen, you will oblige our whole sex, and none more than, sir,

"Your constant reader and admirer, "VIRTUOUS."

Such are but a few of the iniquities practised by the ministers of the Fleet. Similar transactions were carried on at the Chapel in May Fair, the Mint in the Borough, the Savoy, and other places about London; until the public scandal became so great, especially in consequence of the marriage at the Fleet of the Hon. Henry Fox with Georgiana Caroline, eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond, that at length,--not, however, without much and zealous opposition,--a Marriage Bill was passed, enacting that any person solemnising matrimony in any other than a church or public chapel, without banns or license, should, on conviction, be adjudged _guilty of felony_, and be transported for fourteen years, and that all such marriages _should be void_. This act was to take effect from the 25th of March, 1754.

Upon the passing of this law, Keith, the parson who has already been alluded to, published a pamphlet entitled, "Observations on the Act for Preventing Clandestine Marriages." To this he prefixed his portrait. The following passages are highly characteristic of the man:--

"'Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing,' is an old proverb, and a very true one; but we shall have no occasion for it after the 25th day of March next, when we are commanded to read it backwards, and from that period (fatal indeed to Old England!) we must date the declension of the numbers of the inhabitants of England."--"As I have married many thousands, and consequently have on those occasions seen the humour of the lower class of people, I have often asked the married pair how long they had been acquainted; they would reply, some more, some less, but the generality did not exceed the acquaintance of a week, some only of a day, half a day," &c.--"Another inconveniency which will arise from this act will be, that the expense of being married will be so great, that few of the lower class of people can afford; for I have often heard a Fleet-parson say, that many have come to be married when they have but had half-a-crown in their pockets, and sixpence to buy a pot of beer, and for which they have pawned some of their clothes."--"I remember once on a time, I was at a public-house at Radcliff, which then was full of sailors and their girls; there was fiddling, piping, jigging, and eating: at length, one of the tars starts up, and says, 'D--n ye, Jack, I'll be married just now; I will have my partner, and....' The joke took, and in less than two hours ten couple set out for the Fleet. I staid their return. They returned in coaches, five women in each coach, the tars, some running before, others riding on the coach-box, and others behind. The cavalcade being over, the couples went up into an upper room, where they concluded the evening with great jollity. The next time I went that way I called on my landlord and asked him concerning this marriage adventure. He at first stared at me, but recollecting, he said those things were so frequent that he hardly took any notice of them; for, added he, it is a common thing when a fleet comes in, to have two or three hundred marriages in a week's time, among the sailors." He humorously concludes, "If the present Act in the form it now stands should (which I am sure is impossible) be of service to my country, I shall then have the satisfaction of having been the occasion of it, because the compilers thereof have done it with a pure design of suppressing my _Chapel_, which makes me the most celebrated man in this kingdom, though not the greatest."

The passing of the Marriage Act put a stop to the marriages at May Fair; but the day before the Act came into operation (Lady-day 1754)[10] sixty-one couple were married there.[11]

It would exceed the limits of this brief sketch were we to give the _official_ history of the different scandalous ministers who thus disgraced themselves, and impiously trifled with one of our most sacred institutions. That some of these wretched adventurers were merely pretended clergymen is certain; but it cannot be denied that many of them were actually in holy orders.