of the like nature at Paris, for which he had been obliged to fly, but
he absolutely denied that, and seemed to think the story derived its
birth from the Baron, who, he said, was an apothecary's son, and from
his acquaintance with his father's trade, knew the secret of expunging
waters. He added, that his airs of innocence were very unjust, he having
been guilty of abundance of such tricks, and the Countess of many more
than he. Thus, as is very common in such cases, these unhappy people
blackened one another. But the Baron and the Countess had the advantage,
since by their testimony poor Schmidt was despatched out of the way, and
'tis probable their credit at the time of his execution, was not in any
great danger of being hurt by his character of them.

When he came to Tyburn, being attended in the cart by the Lutheran
minister whom I have so often mentioned, he was forced to be held up,
being so weak as not to be able to stand alone. He joined with the
prayers at first, but could not carry on his attention to the end,
looking about him, and staring at the other prisoners, with a curiosity
that perhaps was never observed in any other prisoner in his condition
what-so ever; neither his looks not his behaviour seemed to express so
much terror as was struck into others by the sight of his condition. So
after recommending to the minister by letter, to inform his aged mother
in Germany of his unhappy fate, he requested the executioner to put him
to death as easily as he could. He then submitted to his fate on the 4th
of April, 1724, being in the forty-fifth year of his age.




The Life of PETER CURTIS, a Housebreaker, etc.


Peter Curtis, _alias_ Friend, was born of honest but industrious parents
in the country, at a very great distance from London. Finding a method
to get him put apprentice to a ship's carpenter, they were very much
pleased therewith, hoping that they had settled him in a trade in which
he might live well, and much beyond anything they could have expected to
have done for him.

But Peter himself was of a very different opinion, for from the hour he
came to it he greatly disliked his profession, and though he went to sea
with his master once or twice, yet he failed not to take hold of the
first opportunity to set himself at liberty by running away from him.
From that time he devoted himself to live a life of pleasure, having
contracted an obstinate aversion to business and to everything which
looked like labour; though, as be acknowledged, the hand of Providence
hindered him from accomplishing his wish, making this life that he chose
a greater burden and hardship to him than that which he had
relinquished.

He found means to get into gentlemen's service, and lived in them with
tolerable reputation and credit for the space of several years. At last
he was resolved to go to sea again, but he had so unconquerable an
aversion to his own trade that he chose rather going in the capacity of
a trumpeter, having learnt how to play on that instrument at one of his
services. He sailed on board the _Salisbury_, in that expedition Sir
George Byng made to the Straits of Messina, when he attacked and
destroyed the Spanish Fleet.[39] There Peter had the good luck to escape
without any hurt, though there were many killed and wounded on board
that ship. He afterwards served in a regiment of dragoons, where by
prudent management he saved no less than fourscore pounds. With this he
certainly had it in his power to have put himself in some way of doing
well, but he omitted it, and falling into the company of a lewd woman,
she persuaded him to take lodgings with her, and they lived together for
some space as man and wife.

During this time he made a shift to be bound for one of his companions,
for a very considerable sum, which the other had the honesty to leave
him to pay. The creditor, upon information that Curtis was packing up
his awls[40] to go to sea, resolved to secure him for his debt. But not
being able to catch him upon a writ, he made up a felonious charge
against him, and having thereupon got him committed to the Poultry
Compter, as soon as the Justice had discharged him, he got him taken for
the debt, and recommitted to the same place. Here he was soon reduced to
a very melancholy condition, having neither necessaries of life not any
prospect of a release. The wretched company with which such prisons are
always full, corrupted him as to his honesty, and taught him first to
think of making himself rich by taking away the properties of others.

When he came out of prison, upon an agreement with his creditor, he soon
got into service with Mr. Fluellen Aspley, a very eminent chinaman by
Stocks Market.[41] When he was there, the bad woman with whom he still
conversed, was continually dunning his ears with how easy a matter it
was for him to make himself and her rich and easy by pilfering from his
master, telling him that she and her friends in the country would help
him off with a thousand pounds worth of china, if need were, and baiting
him continually, not to lose such an opportunity of enriching them. The
fellow himself was averse to such practices, and nothing but her
continual teasing could have induced him ever to have entertained a
design of so base a nature.

At last he condescended so far as to enquire how it might be done with
safety. _For that_, replied the woman, _trust to my management. I'll put
you in a way to bring off the most valuable things in the house, and yet
get a good character, and be trusted and valued by the family for having
robbed them._ At that Curtis stared, and said, if she'd but put him to
such a road he did not know but he might comply with her request. She
thereupon opened her scheme to him this: _Here's my son, you shall lift
him into the house, and after you have given him plate and what you
think proper and my boy, who is a very dexterous lad, is got off with
them, you have nothing to do but to put an end of a candle under the
Indian cabinet in the counting-house, and leave things to themselves.
The neighbourhood will soon be alarmed by the fire, and if you are
apparently honest in what you take away publicly, there will be no
suspicion upon you for what went before, which will be either thought to
be destroyed in the fire, or to be taken away by some other means._

This appeared so shocking a project to Curtis that he absolutely refused
to comply with the burning, though with much ado he was brought to
stealing a large quantity of plate, which he brought to this woman, but
in attempting to sell it she was stopped, and the robbery discovered.
However, there being no direct evidence at first against Curtis, he was
released from his confinement on suspicion, even by the intercession of
Mr. Aspley himself. But a little time discovering the mistake, and that
he was really the principal in the robbery, he was thereupon again
apprehended, and at the next sessions tried and convicted.

While he lay under sentence of death, he behaved himself as if he had
totally resigned all thoughts of the world, or of continuing in it,
praying with great fervency and devotion, making full and large
confession, and doing every other act which might induce men to believe
that he was a real penitent, and sincerely sorry and affected for the
crime he had committed.

But it seems that this was all put on, for the true source of his
easiness and resignation was the assurance he had in himself of escaping
death either by pardon, or by an escape; for which purpose, he and those
who were under sentence with him had provided all necessaries, loosened
their irons and intended to have effected it at the expense of the lives
of their keepers. But their design being discovered the Saturday before
their deaths, and Curtis perceiving that his hopes of pardon were
ill-founded, began to apply himself to repenting in earnest. Yet there
was very little time left for so great a work, especially considering
that nothing but the necessity of the thing inclined him thereto, and
that he had spent that respite allowed him by the clemency of the Law to
prepare for death in contriving to fly from justice at the expense of
the blood of others. How he performed this it is impossible for us to
know, and must be left to be decided by the Great Judge to whom the
secrets of all hearts are open. However, at his death he appeared
tolerably composed and cheerful, and turning to the people said, _You
see, they who contrived to burn the house and the people in it escaped,
but I, who never consented to any such thing, die as you see._ Some
discourse there was of his having buried a portmanteau and about
fourteen hundred pounds; he was spoke to about it, and did not deny he
had it. He said he hid it upon Finchley Common and that by the arms,
which was the Spread Eagle, he took to be an ambassador's. As to the
diamond ring he had been seen to wear, he did not affirm he came very
honestly by it, but would not give any direct answer concerning it, and
seemed uneasy that he should have such questions put to him at the very
point of death. He suffered the 15th of June, 1724, about thirty years
of age.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] See note, page 49.

[40] An old-fashioned play on the words "awl" and "all," and
means, of course, packing up all his possessions.

[41] A busy market for fish and vegetables, which occupied the
site on which the present Mansion House stands. The market was
moved, in 1737, to Farringdon Street.




The Life of LUMLEY DAVIS, a Highwayman


Such is the frailty of human nature that neither the best examples nor
the most liberal education can warrant an honest life, or secure to the
most careful parents the certainty of their children not becoming a
disgrace to them, either in their lives or by their deaths.

This malefactor, of whom the course of our memoirs now obliges us to
make mention, was the son of a man of the same name, viz., Lumley Davis,
who was, it seems, in circumstances good enough to procure his sons
being brought up in one of the greatest and best schools in England.
There his proficiency procured him an election upon the establishment,
and he became respected as a person whose parts would do honour even to
that remarkable seminary of learning where he had been bred. But
unaccountably growing fond, all on a sudden, of going to some trade or
employment and absolutely refusing to continue any longer at his
studies, his friends were obliged to comply with the ardency of his
request and accordingly put him apprentice to an eminent vintner at the
One Tun Tavern, in the Strand.

He continued there but a little while before he was as much dissatisfied
with that as he had been with learning, so that leaving his master, and
leading an unsettled kind of life, he fell into great debts, being
unable to satisfy which, when demanded, he was arrested and thrown into
the Marshalsea. There for some time he continued in a very deplorable
condition, till by the charitable assistance of a friend, his debt was
paid and the fees of the prison discharged. After this he went into the
Mint,[42] where drinking accidentally at one of the tap-houses in that
infamous place, and being very much out of humour with the low and
profligate company he was obliged to converse with there, he took notice
of a very genteel man, who sat at the table by himself. He inquired of
some persons with whom he was drinking, who that man was. They answered
that they could not tell themselves; he was lately come over for shelter
amongst them; he was a gentleman, as folks said, of much learning, and
though he never conversed with anybody, yet was kind enough to afford
them his assistance, either with his pen, or by his advice when they
asked it. On this character Davis was very industrious to become his
acquaintance, and Harman, which was the other man's name, not having
been able to meet with anybody there with whom he could converse, he
very readily embraced the society of Davis; with whom comparing notes,
and finding their case to be pretty much the same, they often condoled
one another's misfortunes and as often projected between themselves how
to gain some supply without depending continually upon the charity of
their friends.

In the meantime, Davis was so unfortunate as to fall ill of a
languishing distemper, which brought him so low as to oblige him to
apply for relief to that friend who had discharged him out of the
Marshalsea. He was so good as to get him into St. Thomas's Hospital, and
to supply him while there with whatever was necessary for his support.
When he was so far recovered as to be able to go abroad, this kind and
good friend provided for him a country habitation, where he might be
able to live in privacy and comfort and indulge himself in those
inclinations which he began again to show towards learning.

Some time after he had been there, not being able to support longer that
quiet kind of life which before he did so earnestly desire,
notwithstanding the entreaties of his friends, he came up to London
again, where falling into idle company, he became addicted to the vices
of drinking and following bad women, things which before he had both
detested and avoided. Not long after this, he again found out Mr.
Harman, and renewed his acquaintance with him. He enquired into his past
adventures and how he had supported himself since they last had been
together, and on perceiving that they were far from being on the mending
hand with him, the fatal proposal was at last made of going upon the
road, and there robbing such persons as might seem best able to spare
it, and at the same time furnish them with the largest booty.

The first person they attacked was one John Nichols, Esq., from whom
they took a guinea and seventeen shillings, with which they determined
to make themselves easy a little, and not go that week again upon any
such hazardous exploits. But alas, their resolutions had little success,
for that very evening they were both apprehended and on full evidence at
the next sessions were convicted and received sentence of death, within
a very short time after they had committed the crime.

Davis all along flattered himself with the hopes of a pardon or a
reprieve and therefore was not perhaps so serious as he ought, and as he
otherwise would have been. Not that those hopes made him either
licentious or turbulent, but rather disturbed his meditations and
hindered his getting over the terrors which death always brings to the
unprepared. But when, on his name being in the death warrant, he found
there was no longer any hopes, he then, indeed, applied himself without
losing a moment to the great concern of saving his soul, now there was
no hopes of preserving his body.

However, neither his education nor all the assistance he could receive
from those divines that visited him, could bring him to bear the
approach of death with any tolerable patience. Even at the place of
execution, he endeavoured as much as he could to linger away the time,
spoke to the Ordinary to spin out the prayers, and to the executioner to
forbear doing his office as long as it was possible. However, he spoke
with great kindness and affection to his companion, Mr. Harman, shook
hands with those who were his companions in death, and at last submitted
to his fate, being then about twenty-three years of age.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] The Southwark Mint was a sanctuary for insolvent debtors
and a nest of infamy in general. It stood over against St.
George's church.




The Life of JAMES HARMAN, Highwayman


James Harman was the son of a merchant in the City of London, who took
care to furnish his son with such an education as enabled him, when
about fourteen years of age, to be removed to the University. His
behaviour there was like that of too many others, spent in diversities
instead of study, and in a progression of vice, instead of improving in
learning. After having been there about three years, and having run into
such debts as he saw no probability of discharging, he was forced to
leave it abruptly; and his father, much grieved at this behaviour,
bought him an ensign's commission in the army, where he continued in
Jones's Regiment till it was disbanded. Then, indeed, being forced to
live as he could, and the assistance of friends, though large, yet no
ways suited to his expenses, he became so plunged in debt and other
misfortunes that he was in necessity of going over to the Mint, where
reflecting on his own follies, he became very reserved and melancholy.
He would probably have quite altered his course of life if opportunity
had offered, or if he had not fallen in that company which by a
similarity of manner induced him to fall into the commission of such
crimes as would not probably have otherwise entered his head.

The fact which he and the before-mentioned Davis committed, was their
first and last attempt, but Mr. Harman, all the time he lay under
sentence (without suffering himself to be amused by expectations of
success from those endeavours which he knew his friends used to save his
life,) accustomed himself to the thoughts of death, performing all the
duties requisite from a person of his condition for atoning the evils
of a misspent life, and making his peace with that Being from whom he
had received so great a capacity of doing well, and which he had so much
abused.

Having spent the whole time of his confinement after this manner, he did
not appear in any degree shocked or confounded when his name being to
the death warrant left him no room to doubt of what must be his fate. At
the place of execution he appeared not only perfectly easy and serene,
but with an air of satisfaction that could arise only from the peace he
enjoyed within. Being asked if he had anything to say to the people, he
rose up, and turning towards them said, _I hope you will all make that
use of my being exposed to you as a spectacle which the Law intends, and
by the sight of my death avoid such acts as may bring you hither, with
the same Justice that they do me._

He suffered about the twenty-fifth year of his age, the 28th of August,
1724, at Tyburn.




The Life of JOHN LEWIS, _alias_ LAURENCE, a Thief, Highwayman, etc.


One great cause of that degeneracy we observe amongst the lower part of
the human species arises from a mistake which has generally prevailed in
the education of young people throughout all ages. Parents are sometimes
exceedingly assiduous that their children should read well and write a
good hand, but they are seldom solicitous about their making a due use
of their reason, and hardly ever enquire into the opinions which, while
children, they entertain of happiness or misery, and the paths which
lead to either of them. This is the true and natural intent of all
education whatsoever, which can never tend to anything but teaching
persons how to live easily and seducing their affections to the bounds
prescribed them by the law of God and their country.

John Lewis, _alias_ Laurence, had doubtless parents who bred him
somewhere, though the papers I have do not afford me light enough to say
where. This indeed, I find, that he was bred apprentice to a butcher,
took up his freedom in the City, and worked for a considerable space as
a journeyman. For his honesty we have no vouchers for any part of that
time, for in his apprenticeship he fell into the use of profligate
company, who taught him all those vices which were destructive to his
future life. He grew fond of everything which looked like lewdness and
debauchery, drank hard, was continually idling about; above all,
strumpets the most abandoned, both in their manner and discourse, were
the very ultimate end of his wishes, insomuch that he would often say he
had nothing to answer for in debauching modest women, for they were a
set of creatures he could never so much as endure to converse with.

His usual method of living with his mistresses was this: as soon as the
impudence and lewdness of a woman had made her infamous, even amongst
the hackney coachmen, pickpockets, footpads and such others of his
polite acquaintance, then Lewis thought her a fit person for his turn,
and used to live with her for the space of perhaps a month; then growing
tired of her, he went to look for another.

This practice of his grew at last so well known that he found it a
little difficult to get women who would take up with him upon his terms;
but there was one Moll Davis, who for her dexterity in picking of
pockets amongst those of her own tribe went by the name of Diver, who
was so great a scandal to her sex that the most abandoned of that low
crew with whom he conversed, hated and despised her. With her Lewis went
to live after his usual manner, and was very fond of her after his way,
for about a fortnight; at the end of which he grew fractious, and in
about nine weeks' time more he beat her. Moll wept and took on at a sad
rate for his unkindness and told him that if would but promise
faithfully never to live with any other woman, she should fairly present
him with a brace of hundred pounds, which she had lodged in the hands of
an uncle who knew nothing of her way of life, but lived reputably at
such a place.

This was the right way of touching Lewis's temper. He began to put on as
many good looks as his face was capable of wearing, and made use of as
many kind expressions as he could remember out of the _Academy of
Compliments_, until the day came that she was to meet her uncle at
Smithfield Market. They then went very lovingly together to an inn upon
the paven stones, where Moll asked very readily at the bar if Mr.
Tompkins (which was the name of her uncle) was there. The woman of the
house made her a low curtsy and said he was only stepped over the way to
be shaved, and she would call him. She went accordingly and brought the
grave old man, who as soon as he came into the room said, _Well, Mary,
is this thy husband? Yes, sir_, answered she, _this is the person I have
promised to bring you._ Upon which the old man thrust out his hand and
said, _Come, friend, as you have married my niece, you and I must be
better acquainted._ Lewis scraped him a good bow as he could, and giving
his hand in return, the old fellow laid hold on him somewhat above the
wrist, stamped with his right foot, and then closing with him got him
down.

In the meanwhile, half a dozen fellows broke into the room and one of
them seizing him by the arms another pulled out a small twine, and bound
him; then shoving him downstairs, they had no sooner got into
Smithfield, then the mob cried out, _Here's the rogue! Here's the dog
that held a penknife to the old grazier's throat, while a woman and
another man robbed him._ It seems the story was true of Moll, who by
thus taking and then swearing it upon Lewis, who had never so much as
heard of it, escaped with impunity, and besides that got five guineas
for her pains from the brother of the old man, who upon this occasion
played the part of her uncle. If the grazier had been a hasty, rash man,
Lewis had certainly hanged for the fact, but looking hard upon him at
his trial, he told the Court he was sure that Lewis was not the man, for
though his eyes were not very good, he could easily distinguish his
voice, and added that the man who robbed him was taller than himself,
whereas Lewis was much shorter. By which means he had the good luck to
come off, though not without lying two sessions in Newgate.

As soon as be came abroad be threatened Moll Davis hard for what she had
done, and swore as soon as he could find her to cut her ears off; but
she made light of that, and dared him to come and look for her at the
brandy-shop where she frequented. Lewis hearing that resolved to go
thither and beat her, and knowing the usual time of her coming thither
to be about eleven o'clock at night, he chose that time to come also.
But Moll, the day before, had made one of her crew who had turned
evidence, put him into his information, and the constables and their
assistants being ready planted, they seized him directly and carried him
to his old lodgings in Newgate.

He was acquitted upon this next sessions, there being no evidence
against him but the informer, but the Court ordered him to find security
for his good behaviour. That proved two months' work, so that in all it
was a quarter of a year before he got out of Newgate for the second
time. Then, hearing Davis had picked a gentleman's pockets of a
considerable sum, and kept out of the way upon it, he resolved to be
even with her for the trouble she had cost him, and for that purpose
hunted through all her old places of resort, in order to find out how to
have her apprehended. Moll hearing of it, got her sister, who followed
the same trade with herself, to waylay him at the brandy-shop in Fleet
Street. There Susan was very sweet upon him, and being as impudent as
her sister, Lewis resolved to take up with her, at least for a night;
but she pretended reasons why he could not go home with her, and he
complaining that he did not know where to get a lodging, she gave him
half a crown and a large silver medal, which she said would pawn for
five shillings, and appointed to meet him the next night at the same
place. In the morning Lewis goes with the silver piece to a pawnbroker
at Houndsditch; the broker said he would take it into the next room and
weigh it, and about ten minutes after returned with a constable and two
assistants, the medal having been advertised in the papers as taken with
eleven guineas in a green purse out of a gentleman's pocket, and was the
very robbery for which Moll Davis kept out of the way.

When he got over this, he went down into the country, and having been so
often in prison for naught, he resolved to merit it now for something.
So on the Gravesend Road he went upon the highway, and having been, as I
told you, bred up a butcher, the weapon he made use of to rob with was
his knife. The first robbery he attempted was upon an old officer who
was retired into that part of the country to live quiet. Lewis bolted
out upon him from behind the corner of a hedge, and clapping a sharp
pointed knife to his breast, with a volley of oaths commanded him to
deliver. This was new language to the gentleman to whom it was offered,
yet seeing how great an advantage the villain had of him, he thought it
the most prudent method to comply, and gave him therefore a few
shillings which were in his coat-pocket. Lewis very highly resented
this, and told him he did not use him like a gentleman; that he would
search him himself. In order to do this, clapping his knife into his
mouth as he used to do when preparing a sheep for the shambles, he fell
to ransacking the gentleman's pockets. He had hardly got his hand into
one of them, but the gentleman snatched the knife out of his mouth and
in the wrench almost broke his jaw. Lewis hereupon took to his heels,
but the country being raised upon him, he was apprehended just as he was
going to take water at Gravesend. But his pride in refusing the
gentleman's silver happened very luckily for him here, for on his trial
at the next assizes, the indictment being laid for a robbery, the jury
acquitted him and he was once more put into a road of doing well, which
according to his usual method he made lead towards the gallows.

The first week he was out, he broke open a house in Ratcliff Highway,
from whence he took but a small quantity of things, and those of small
value, because there happened to be nothing better in the way. In a few
days after this, he snatched off a woman's pocket in the open street,
for which fact being immediately apprehended, he was at the next
sessions at the Old Bailey, tried and convicted, but by the favour of
the Court ordered for transportation.

A woman whom at this time he called his wife, happened to be under the
like sentence at the same time. They went therefore together, and were
each of them such turbulent dispositions that the captain of the
transport thought fit to promise them their liberty in a most solemn
manner, as soon as they came on shore in Carolina, provided they would
be but quiet. To this they agreed, and they kept their words so well,
that the captain performed his promise and released them at their
arrival in South Carolina, upon which they made no long stay there, but
found a method to come back in the same ship. Upon arrival in England
they were actually married, but they did not live long together, Lewis
finding that she conversed with other men, and being in fear, lest in
hopes of favour, she should discover his return from transportation, and
by convicting him save herself.

Upon these apprehensions, he thought fit to go again to sea, in a ship
bound for the Straits; but falling violently sick at Genoa, they left
him there. And though he might afterwards have gone to his vessel, his
old thought and wishes returned and he took the advantage of the first
ship to return to England. Here he found many of his old acquaintances,
carrying on the business of plunder in every shape. He joined with them,
and in their company broke open with much difficulty an alehouse in Fore
Street, at the sign of the King of Hearts, where they took a dozen of
tankards, which they apprehended to be of silver; but finding upon
examination they were no better than pewter well scoured, they judged
there would be more danger in selling them than they were worth.
Therefore having first melted them, they threw them away; but being a
little fearful of robbing in company, he took to his old method of
robbing by himself in the streets. But the first attempt he made to do
this was in the old Artillery Ground,[43] where he snatched a woman's
pocket; and she crying out raised the neighbourhood. They pursued him,
and after wounding two or three persons desperately, he was taken and
committed to his old mansions in Newgate, and being tried at the next
sessions was found guilty and from that time could not enjoy the least
hopes of life. But he continued still very obdurate, being so hardened
by a continual series of villainous actions that he seemed to have no
idea whatsoever of religion, penitence or atoning by prayers, for the
numerous villainies he had committed.

At the place of execution he said nothing to the people, only that he
was sorry he had not stayed in Carolina, because if he had, he should
never have come to be hanged, and so finished his life in the same
stupid manner in which he had lived. He was near forty years of age at
the time he suffered, which was on the 27th of June, 1720.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] This was the exercising ground of the Train Bands and the
Honourable Artillery Company. It was on the west side of
Finsbury Square.




The History of the WALTHAM BLACKS and their transactions to the death of
RICHARD PARVIN, EDWARD ELLIOT, ROBERT KINGSHELL, HENRY MARSHALL, JOHN
PINK and EDWARD PINK, and JAMES ANSELL _alias_ PHILLIPS, at Tyburn,
whose lives are also included


Such is the unaccountable folly which reigns in too great a part of the
human species, that by their own ill-deeds, they make such laws
necessary for the security of men's persons and properties, as by their
severity, unless necessity compelled them, would appear cruel and
inhuman, and doubtless those laws which we esteem barbarous in other
nations, and even some which appear so though anciently practised in our
own, had their rise from the same cause.

I am led to this observation from the folly which certain persons were
guilty of in making small insurrections for the sake only of getting a
few deer, and going on, because they found the leniency of the laws
could not punish them at present, until they grew to that height as to
ride in armed troops, blacked and disguised, in order the more to
terrify those whom they assaulted, and wherever they were denied what
they thought proper to demand, whether venison, wine, money, or other
necessaries for their debauched feasts, would by letter threaten plunder
and destroying with fire and sword, whomever they thought proper.

These villainies being carried on with a high hand for some time in the
years 1722 and 1723, their insolence grew at last so intolerable as to
oblige the Legislature to make a new law against all who thus went armed
and disguised, and associated themselves together by the name of Blacks,
or entered into any other confederacies to support and assist one
another in doing injuries and violences to the persons and properties of
the king's subjects.

By this law it was enacted that after the first day of June, 1723,
whatever persons armed with offensive weapons, and having their faces
blacked, or otherwise disguised, should appear in any forest, park or
grounds enclosed with any wall or fence, wherein deer were kept, or any
warren where hares or conies are kept, or in any highway, heath or down,
or unlawfully hunt, kill or steal any red or fallow deer, or rob any
warren, or steal fish of any pond, or kill or wound cattle, or set fire
to any house or outhouses, stack, etc., or cut down or any otherway
destroy trees planted for shelter or profit, or shall maliciously shoot
at any person, or send a letter demanding money or other valuable
things, shall rescue any person in custody of any officer for any such
offences, or by gifts or promise, procure any one to join with them,
shall be deemed guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and shall
suffer pains of death as felons so convicted.

Nor was even this thought sufficient to remedy those evils, which the
idle follies of some rash persons had brought about, but a retrospect
was also by the same Act had to offences heretofore committed, and all
persons who had committed any crimes punishable by this Act, after the
second of February, 1722, were commanded to render themselves before the
24th of July, 1723, to some Justice of his Majesty's Court of King's
Bench, or to some Justice of the Peace for the county where they lived,
and there make a full and exact confession of the crimes of such a
nature which they had committed, the times when, and the places where,
and persons with whom, together with an account of such persons' places
of abode as had with them been guilty as aforesaid, in order to their
being thereupon apprehended, and brought to judgment according to Law,
on pain of being deemed felons, without benefit of clergy, and suffering
accordingly; but were entitled to a free pardon and forgiveness in case
that before the 24th of July they surrendered and made such discovery.

Justices of Peace by the said Act were required on any information being
made before them by one or more credible persons, against any person
charged with any of the offences aforesaid, to transmit it under their
hands and seals to one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State,
who by the same Act is required to lay such information and return
before his Majesty in Council; whereupon an order is to issue for the
person so charged to surrender within forty days. And in case he refuse
or neglect to surrender within that time, then from the day in which the
forty days elapsed, he is to be deemed as a felon convict, and execution
may be awarded as attainted of felony by a verdict.

Every person who, after the time appointed for the surrender of the
person, shall conceal, aid or succour him, knowing the circumstances in
which he then stands, shall suffer death as a felon, without benefit of
clergy, and that people might the more readily hazard their persons for
the apprehending such offenders, it is likewise enacted that if any
person shall be wounded so as to lose an eye, or the use of any limb in
endeavouring to take persons charged with the commission of crimes
within this law, then on a certificate from the Justices of the Peace
of his being so wounded, the sheriff of the county, if commanded within
thirty days after the sight of such certificate, to pay the said wounded
persons £50 under pain of forfeiting £10 on failure thereof, and in case
any person should be killed in seizing such persons as aforesaid, then
the said £50 is to be paid to the executors of the person to be killed.

It cannot seem strange that in consequence of so extraordinary an act of
legislature, many of these presumptious and silly people should be
apprehended, and a considerable number of them having upon their
apprehension been committed to Winchester gaol, seven of them were by
_Habeas Corpus_, removed for the greater solemnity of their trial to
Newgate, and for their offence brought up and arraigned at the King's
Bench Bar, Westminster. There being convicted on full evidence, all of
them of felony, and three of murder, I shall inform ye, one by one, of
what has come to my hand in relation to their crimes, and the manner and
circumstances with which they were committed.

Richard Parvin was master of a public-house at Portsmouth, a man of dull
and dogmatic disposition, who continually denied his having been in any
manner concerned with these people, though the evidence against him at
his trial was as full and as direct as possibly could have been
expected, and he himself evidently proved to have been on the spot where
the violences committed by the other prisoners were transacted. In
answer to this, he said that he was not with them, though indeed he was
upon the forest, for which he gave this reason. He had, he said, a very
handsome young wench who lived with him, and for that reason being
admired by many of his customers, she took it in her head one day to run
away. He hearing that she had fled across the forest, pursued her, and
in that pursuit calling at the house of Mr. Parford, who keeps an
alehouse in the forest, this man being an evidence against the other
Blacks, took him it seems into the number, though as he said, he could
fully have cleared himself if he had had any money to have sent for some
witnesses out of Berkshire. But the mayor of Portsmouth seizing, as soon
as he was apprehended, all his goods, put his family into great distress
and whether he could have found them or not, hindered his being able to
produce any witnesses at his trial.

He persevered in these professions of his innocency to the very last,
still hoping for a reprieve, and not only feeding himself with such
expectations while in prison, but also gazed earnestly when at the tree,
in hopes that pardon would be brought him, until the cart drew away and
extinguished life and the desire of life together.

Edward Elliot, a boy of about seventeen years of age, whose father was a
tailor at a village between Petworth and Guildford, was the next who
received sentence of death with Parvin. The account he gave of his
coming into this society has something very odd in it, and which gives a
fuller idea of the strange whims which possessed these people. The boy
said that about a year before his being apprehended, thirty or forty men
met him in the county of Surrey and hurried him away. He who appeared to
be the chief of them told him that he enlisted him in the service of the
King of the Blacks, in pursuance of which he was to disguise his face,
obey orders of whatsoever kind they were, such as breaking down fish
ponds, burning woods, shooting deer, taking also an oath to be true to
them, or they by their art magic would turn him into a beast, and as
such make him carry their burdens, and live like a horse upon grass and
water.

He said, also, that in the space of time he continued with them, he saw
several experiments of their witchcraft, for that once when two men had
offended them by refusing to comply in taking their oath and obeying
their orders, they caused them immediately to be blindfolded and
stopping them in holes of the earth up to their chin, ran at them as if
they had been dogs, bellowing and barking as it were in their ears; and
when they had plagued them awhile in this ridiculous manner they took
them out, and bid them remember how they offended any of the Black
Nation again, for if they did, they should not escape so well as they
had at present. He had seen them also, he said, oblige carters to drive
a good way out of the road, and carry whatsoever venison or other thing
they had plundered to the places where they would have them; that the
men were generally so frightened with their usage and so terrified with
the oaths they were obliged to swear, that they seldom complained, or
even spoke of their bondage.

As to the fact for which they died, Elliot gave this account: that in
the morning when that fact was committed for which he died, Marshall,
Kingshell and four others came to him and persuaded him to go to Farnham
Holt, and that he need not fear disobliging any gentlemen in the
country, some of whom were very kind to this Elliot. They persuaded him
that certain persons of fortune were concerned with them and would bear
him harmless if he would go. He owned that at last he consented to go
with them, but trembled all the way, insomuch that he could hardly reach
the Holt. While they were engaged in the business for which they came,
viz., killing the deer, the keepers came upon them. Elliot was wandered
a considerable way from his companions after a fawn which he intended
to send as a present to a young woman at Guildford; him therefore they
quickly seized and bound, and leaving him in that condition, went in
search of the rest of his associates. It was not long before they came
up with them. The keepers were six, the Blacks were seven in number, so
they fell to it warmly with quarter-staffs. The keepers unwilling to
have lives taken, advised them to retire, but upon their refusing, and
Marshall's firing a gun, by which one of the keepers belonging to the
Lady How was slain, they discharged a blunderbuss and shattered the
thigh of one Barber, amongst the Blacks. Upon this three of his
associates ran away, and the two others, Marshall and Kingshell were
likewise taken, and so the fray for the present ended.

Elliot lay bound all the while within hearing, and in the greatest
agonies imaginable, at the consideration that whatever blood was spilt
he should be as much answerable for it as these who shed it; in which he
was not mistaken, for the keepers returning after the fight was over,
carried him away bound and he never had his fetters off after, till the
morning of his execution. He behaved himself very soberly, quietly and
with much seeming penitence and contrition. He owned the justice of the
Law in punishing him, and said he more especially deserved to suffer,
since at the time of the committing this fact, he was servant to a widow
lady, where he wanted nothing to make him happy or easy.

Robert Kingshell was twenty-six years old, and lived in the same house