Tom, Joseph Blake, _alias_ Blueskin, Charles Grace, James Sikes, to
whose name his companions tacked their two favourite syllables, Hell and
Fury) not knowing how to dispose of the goods they had taken, made use
of one William Field for that purpose, who Shepherd in his ludicrous
style, used to characterise thus: that he was a fellow wicked enough to
do anything, but his want of courage permitted him to do nothing but
carry on the trade he did, which was that of selling stolen goods when
put into his hands.

But Blake and Shepherd finding Field somewhat dilatory, not thinking it
always safe to trust him, they resolved to hire a warehouse and lodge
their goods there, which accordingly they did, near the Horseferry in
Westminster. There they placed what they had taken out of Mr. Kneebones'
house, and the goods made a great show there, whence the people in the
neighbourhood really took them for honest persons, who had so great a
wholesale business on their hands as occasioned their taking a place
where they by convenient for the water.

Field, however, importuned them (having got scent they had such a
warehouse) that he might go and see the goods, pretending that he had it
just now in his power to sell them at a very great price. They
accordingly carried him thither and showed him the things. Two or three
days afterwards, though he had not courage enough to rob anybody else,
Field ventured to break open the warehouse, and took every rag that had
been lodged there; and not long after, Shepherd was apprehended for the
fact and tried at the next sessions of the Old Bailey.

His appearance there was very mean, and all the defence he offered to
make was that Jonathan Wild had helped to dispose of part of the goods
and he thought it was very hard that he should not share in the
punishment. The Court took little notice of so insignificant a plea and
sentence being passed upon him, he hardly made a sensible petition for
the favour of the Court in the report, but behaved throughout as a
person either stupid or foolish, so far was he from appearing in any
degree likely to make the noise he afterwards did.

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.

[Illustration: JACK SHEPPARD IN THE STONE ROOM IN NEWGATE

_(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 Maestricht, 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