The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2 / being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.

The country had no charms for him, however, and he set about procuring a situation in some retail shop in town, for the sole purpose of embezzling the receipts. In consequence of an advertisement in a newspaper, he applied to a Mr. Gifford, the keeper of a masquerade warehouse, and there he obtained employment upon a forged representation of his good character. He did not fail at this place in collecting a good booty, and having at length, by means of stealing goods from the shop, and embezzling money which he had received on his master’s account, secured about sixty pounds’ worth of property, he suddenly absconded and commenced a round of dissipation and gaiety. He had been at large scarcely a fortnight, however, before he was taken into custody at the instance of his late master, and upon his prosecution was committed to the quarter sessions, but there his good fortune aided him, and in consequence of some informality in the proceedings, he was acquitted.

Upon a second appearance at the same bar he was not quite so successful; and it appears that having been detected in the act of picking pockets with a companion named Bromley, they were both secured, and having been convicted, they were on the 23rd September, 1800, sentenced to seven years’ transportation. Vaux was sent to Port Jackson in the following May, and there he was assigned to a Mr. Baker, a storekeeper at Hawkesbury, about twenty-six miles from Paramatta, who appointed him his clerk. In consequence of his good conduct during the ensuing three years, he was promoted to a place in the secretary’s office, in Sydney, but there, conspiring with his fellows, in the commission of various frauds, he was discovered and sentenced to be worked in a road-gang. During two months he continued in Sydney in this degraded condition, but then he was drafted to Castle Hill, a plantation twenty-four miles in the interior, and there, after about ten months’ service, he was appointed clerk to the superintendant of the works. Having subsequently served the office of clerk to the magistrates at Paramatta, he at length, on the 10th February, 1807, returned to England. There he found a woeful change had taken place, his father and his grandmother being dead; and all served to remind him of the sinful course of life he had led, and of his fallen condition. All his resolutions against returning to a dishonest mode of living were however unavailing, and at length he became a professed and a professional thief. In order the better to carry on his new trade, he associated himself with some fellows of dissolute habits, but at length meeting with his old friend Bromley, he resolved to quit his new companions and to pursue his avocation with one accomplice only.

In reference to his future proceedings he says, “Having withdrawn myself from my late companions, I now became very circumspect in my proceedings; and as Bromley had neither the appearance nor the manners of a gentleman, I only made use of him occasionally in the course of my practice, keeping him in the back-ground to receive and carry any articles which I purloined, and never suffering him to converse with or approach me, except in private. I generally spent the mornings, that is from about one to five o’clock P.M. (which are the fashionable hours for shopping) in visiting the shops of jewellers, watchmakers, pawnbrokers, &c. Having conceived hopes that this species of robbery would turn to a good account, and depending upon my own address and appearance, I determined to make a circuit of the town, and not to omit a single shop in either of those branches; and this scheme I actually executed so fully, that I believe I did not leave ten shops untried in all London, for I made a point of commencing every day in a certain street, and going regularly through it on both sides of the way. My practice was to enter a shop and request to look at gold seals, chains, brooches, rings, or any other small articles of value; and, while examining them, and looking the shopkeeper in the face, I contrived by sleight of hand to conceal two or three (sometimes more) in the sleeve of my coat, which was purposely made wide. On some occasions I purchased a trifling article to save appearances; at other times I took a card of the shop, promising to call again; and, as I generally saw the remaining goods returned to the window, or place from whence they were taken, before I left the shop, there was hardly a probability of my being suspected, or of the property being missed. In the course of my career I was never once detected in the fact, though, on two or three occasions so much suspicion arose, that I was obliged to exert all my effrontery and to use very high language, in order, as the cant phrase is, to bounce the tradesman out of it; and my fashionable appearance, and affected anger at his insinuations, had always the effect of convincing him that he was mistaken, and inducing him to apologise for the affront put upon me. I have even sometimes carried away the spoil notwithstanding what had passed; and I have often gone a second and third time to the same shop, with as good success as at the first. To prevent accidents, however, I made it a rule never to enter a second shop with any stolen property about me; for, as soon as I quitted the first, I privately conveyed my booty to Bromley, who was attending my motions in the street, and herein I found him eminently useful. By this course of depredation I acquired on the average about ten pounds a week, though I sometimes neglected shopping for several days together. This was not, indeed, the only pursuit I followed, but was my principal morning’s occupation; though, if a favourable opportunity offered of getting a guinea by any other means, I never let it slip. In the evenings I generally attended one of the theatres, where I mixed with the best company in the boxes, and, at the same time that I enjoyed the amusements of the place, I frequently conveyed pocket-books, snuff-boxes, and other portable articles, from the pockets of their proprietors into my own. Here I found the inconvenience of wanting a suitable companion, who might have received the articles I made prize of, in the same manner as Bromley did in the streets; but though I knew many of the light-fingered gentry, whose appearance fitted them for my company, yet, their faces being well known to the police-officers, who attended the theatres, they would not have been suffered to enter the house: and herein I possessed an advantage which many of these gentry envied me; for being just arrived in England, and a new face upon the town, I carried on my depredations under the very noses of the officers without suspicion. Having, therefore, at first no associate, I was obliged to quit the theatre, and conceal my first booty in some private spot, before I could make (with prudence) a second attempt. Upon the whole, I was very successful in this pursuit also, at least as to the number of articles I filched; and had their value been reasonably proportionate to what I expected, I need not long have followed so hazardous an employment. I have very frequently obtained nine or ten pocket-books, besides other articles in an evening; and, these being taken from gentlemen evidently of fortune and fashion, I had reason to expect I should some time meet with a handsome sum in bank-notes: but fortune did not favour me therein, for, during near twelve months’ almost nightly attendance at one or other of the public places, I never found more than twenty pounds in a book, and that only on one occasion. I several times got five, ten, or eleven pounds, but commonly one, two, or three pounds; and most generally four books out of five contained nothing but letters, memorandums, and other papers useless to me. At the same time I knew frequent instances of the common street pickpockets getting a booty of fifty, one hundred, and sometimes three or four hundred pounds. However, I never failed to pay the expenses of the night; and if I gained nothing, I enjoyed at least a fund of amusement, which was to me the highest gratification. It sometimes happened that the articles I got (particularly pocket-books) were advertised by the losers, within a few days, as “Lost,” and a reward offered for their restoration: where this reward was worth notice, I frequently restored the property by means of a third person whom I could confide in, and whom I previously tutored for the purpose.

“In the mean time, the manner in which I spent my life, abstracted from the disgraceful means by which I supported myself, was (as I have formerly hinted) perfectly regular and inoffensive. Though I lived by depredation, yet I did not, like the abandoned class of common thieves, waste my money and leisure time in profligate debauchery, but applied myself to the perusal of instructive and amusing books, my stock of which I daily increased. I occupied genteel apartments in a creditable house, the landlord of which understood me to hold a situation under government; and every part of my conduct at home tended to confirm his opinion of my respectability. I was scrupulously exact in paying my rent, as well as the different tradesmen in the neighbourhood with whom I had occasion to deal; nor did I ever suffer any person of loose character to visit me, but studiously concealed from those of my acquaintance my place of residence. I was sometimes, indeed, so imprudent as to resort, for company’s sake, to some of those public-houses frequented by thieves and other dissolute characters, the landlord of which is himself commonly an experienced thief, or returned transport. When I had a mind to relax a little, or grew tired of domestication, I disguised my appearance as much as I could, and repaired to a house of this description, sometimes taking my Dulcinea with me, whom I shall shortly introduce to the reader, and whose person and dress I was not a little proud of exhibiting in public. This fondness for flash-houses, as they are termed, is the rock on which most persons who live by depredation unhappily split, and will be found in the sequel to have brought me to my present deplorable condition; for the police-officers, or traps, are in the daily habit of visiting these houses, where they drink with the thieves, &c., in the most familiar manner; and, I believe, often obtain secret information by various means from some parties respecting the names, characters, pursuits, &c., of others. By this imprudent conduct I also became personally known to many of the officers, which was productive of great danger to me in the exercise of my vocation; whereas, had I avoided such houses, I might have remained unknown and unsuspected by them for a series of years.”

The Dulcinea alluded to above was an unhappy girl of the town, whom he took into keeping, and afterwards married. This poor creature behaved to him in the most exemplary manner, and proved by her conduct that she was worthy of a better fate.

Going one day to a public meeting at the Mermaid Tavern, Hackney, he picked a gentleman’s pocket of a silver snuff-box, which he handed to the landlady. The box was missed by the owner, and on Vaux claiming it, he was taken into custody; but such is the glorious uncertainty of the law, that he was acquitted on his trial, contrary to his own expectation.

“The next adventure,” says Vaux, “I shall have occasion to relate, more fully confirms the justice of the remark, that the connexions formed by persons during temporary confinement in a gaol commonly lead to further acts of wickedness, and frequently entail on the parties a more severe

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punishment than that which they have just escaped. This was exactly my unhappy case, and I now come to the most fatal era of my eventful life.

“In the same ward with myself were confined two brothers, very genteel young men, who had been recently cast for death for privately stealing some valuable rings, &c., from the shop of a jeweller in Leadenhall Street. As a conformity of character, or similarity of pursuits, is the strongest source of friendship, so these persons and myself had become very intimately acquainted. In the course of our frequent conversations on the subject with which we were all three alike most conversant, the brothers informed me that they had, like myself, made a successful tour of the jewellers’ shops in London: and on our comparing notes as to the particular persons we had robbed, or attempted to rob, they pointed out about half-a-dozen shops, which, it appeared, I had omitted to visit, arising either from their making no display of their goods, or from their being situated in private streets, where I had no idea of finding any such trades. Though at that time neither they nor myself entertained much hope of my acquittal, it was agreed that, in the event of my being so fortunate as to recover my freedom, I should pay my respects to the several tradesmen I had so overlooked; and I promised, in case I was successful, to make them a pecuniary acknowledgment in return for their information. At the moment of my joyful departure from Newgate, they accordingly furnished me with a list of the shops in question, and gave me full instructions and useful hints for my guidance therein. They particularly pointed out a Mr. Bilger, a goldsmith and jeweller of the first eminence in Piccadilly. This gentleman, they assured me, I should find, in the technical phrase, a good flat. They advised me to bespeak a diamond ring, or similar article, and to request a sight of some loose diamonds, for the purpose of selecting such stones as I might wish to have set, informing me that he was generally provided with a large quantity, which he would not fail to show me, and that I might with ease purloin a good number of them. A day or two after my release I made the prescribed experiments, and was fortunate enough to succeed pretty well at nearly every shop; but I reserved Mr. Bilger for my final essay, as he was the principal object of consideration, and from whom I expected to obtain the most valuable booty. On the day se’nnight after my trial at the Old Bailey, I prepared in due form to pay him a visit. About five o’clock in the evening I entered his shop, dressed in the most elegant style, having a valuable gold watch and appendages, a gold eye-glass, &c. I had posted my old friend and aid-de-camp, Bromley, at the door, in order to be in readiness to act as circumstances might require, and particularly to watch the motions of Mr. Bilger and his assistants on my quitting the premises. On my entrance Mrs. Bilger issued from a back parlour behind the shop, and, politely inquiring my business, I told her I wished to see Mr. Bilger; she immediately rang a bell, which brought down her husband from the upper apartments. He saluted me with a low bow, and handed me a seat. I was glad to find no other person in the shop, Mrs. Bilger having again retired. I now assumed the air of a Bond Street lounger, and informed Mr. Bilger that I had been recommended by a gentleman of my acquaintance to deal with him, having occasion for a very elegant diamond ring, and requested to see his assortment. Mr. Bilger expressed his concern that he happened not to have a single article of that description by him, but, if I could without inconvenience call again, he would undertake in one hour to procure me a selection from his working jeweller, to whom he would immediately despatch a messenger. I affected to feel somewhat disappointed, but looking at my watch, after a moment’s reflection, I said, ‘Well, Mr. Bilger, I have an appointment at the Cannon Coffee-house, which requires my attendance, and if you will without fail have the articles ready, I may probably look in a little after six.’ This he promised faithfully to do, declaring how much he felt obliged by my condescension; and I sauntered out of the shop, Mr. Bilger attending me in the most obsequious manner to the outer door. After walking a short distance, Bromley tapped me on the shoulder, and inquired what conduct I meant next to pursue; for he had viewed my proceedings through a glass-door in the shop, and saw that I had not executed my grand design. I related to Bromley the result of my conversation with Mr. Bilger, and added that I meant to retire to the nearest public-house, where we could enjoy a pipe and a glass of negus until the expiration of the hour, to which I had limited myself. We accordingly regaled ourselves at a very snug house, nearly opposite Bilger’s, until about half-past six, when I again repaired to the scene of action, leaving Bromley, as at first, posted at the door. Mr. Bilger received me with increased respect, and, producing a small card box, expressed his sorrow that his workmen had only been enabled to send three rings for my inspection; but that, if they were not to my taste, he should feel honoured and obliged in taking my directions for having one made, and flattered himself he should execute the order to my satisfaction. I proceeded to examine the rings he produced, one of which was marked sixteen guineas, another nine guineas, and the third six guineas. They were all extremely beautiful; but I affected to consider them as too paltry, telling Mr. Bilger that I wanted one to present to a lady, and that I wished to have a ring of greater value than the whole three put together, as a few guineas would not be an object in the price. Mr. Bilger’s son, who was also his partner, now joined us, and was desired by his father to sketch a draught in pencil of some fancy rings, agreeable to the directions I should give him. The three rings I had viewed were now removed to the end of the counter next the window, and I informed the young man that I wished to have something of a cluster, a large brilliant in the centre, surrounded with smaller ones; but repeated my desire that no expense might be spared to render the article strictly elegant, and worthy a lady’s acceptance. The son having sketched a design of several rings on a card, I examined them with attention, and appeared in doubt which to prefer, but desired to see some loose diamonds, in order to form a better idea of the size, &c. of each ring described in the drawing. Mr. Bilger, however, declared he had not any by him. It is probable he spoke the truth: or he might have lost such numbers by showing them, as to deter him from exhibiting them in future. Without having made up my mind on the subject, I now requested to see some of his most fashionable brooches or shirt-pins. Mr. Bilger produced a show-glass, containing a variety of articles in pearl, but he had nothing of the kind in diamonds. I took up two or three of the brooches, and immediately sunk a very handsome one, marked three guineas, in my coat sleeve. I next purloined a beautiful clasp for a lady’s waist, consisting of stones set in gold, which had the brilliancy and appearance of real diamonds, but marked only four guineas. I should probably have gone still deeper, but at this moment a lady, coming in, desired to look at some ear-rings, and the younger Mr. Bilger immediately quitted his father to attend upon her at the other end of the shop. It struck me that now was my time for a decisive stroke. The card containing the diamond rings, procured from the maker, lying very near the show-glass I was viewing, and many small articles irregularly placed round about them, the candles not throwing much light upon that particular spot, and Mr. Bilger’s attention being divided between myself and the lady, to whom he frequently addressed himself, I suddenly took the three rings from the card, and committed them to my sleeve to join the brooch and lady’s clasp; but had them so situated that I could in a moment have released and replaced them on the counter, had an inquiry been made for them. I then looked at my watch, and, observing that I was going to the theatre, told Mr. Bilger that I would not trouble him any further, as the articles before me were too tawdry and common to please me, but that I would put the card of draughts in my pocket-book; and, if I did not meet with a ring of the kind I wanted before Monday or Tuesday, I would certainly call again and give him final directions. I was then drawing on my gloves, being anxious to quit the shop while I was well; but Mr. Bilger, who seemed delighted with the prospect of my custom, begged so earnestly that I would allow him to show me his brilliant assortment of gold watches that I could not refuse to gratify him, though I certainly incurred a great risk by my compliance. I therefore answered, ‘Really, Mr. Bilger, I am loath to give you that unnecessary trouble, as I have, you may perceive, a very good watch already, in point of performance, though it cost me a mere trifle—only twenty guineas; but it answers my purpose as well as a more valuable one. However, as I may probably, before long, want an elegant watch for a lady, I don’t care if I just run my eye over them.’ Mr. Bilger replied that the greater part of his stock were fancy watches, adapted for ladies; and he defied all London united to exhibit a finer collection. He then took from his window a show-glass, containing about thirty most beautiful watches, some ornamented with pearls or diamonds, others elegantly enamelled, or chased in the most delicate style. They were of various prices, from thirty to one hundred guineas; and the old gentleman rubbing his hands with an air of rapture, exclaimed, ‘There they are, sir; a most fashionable assortment of goods; allow me to recommend them, they’re all a-going, sir—all a-going.’ I smiled inwardly at the latter part of this speech, and thought to myself, ‘I wish they were going, with all my heart, along with the diamond rings.’ I answered they were certainly very handsome, but I would defer a minute inspection of them till my next visit, when I should have more time to spare. These watches were ranged in exact order, in five parallel lines; and between each watch was placed a gold seal or other trinket appertaining to a lady’s watch. It was no easy matter, therefore, to take away a single article without its being instantly missed, unless the economy of the whole had been previously deranged. I contrived, however, to displace a few of the trinkets, on pretence of admiring them, and ventured to secrete one very rich gold seal, marked six guineas. I then declared I could stay no longer, as I had appointed to meet a party at the theatre; but that I would certainly call again in a few days, and lay out some money in return for the trouble I had given. Mr. Bilger expressed his thanks in the most respectful terms, and waited upon me to the door, where he took leave of me with a very low congé, à la mode de France, of which country he was a native. I now put the best foot foremost, and having gained a remote street, turned my head, and perceived Bromley at my heels, who seized my hand, congratulating me on my success, and complimenting me on the address I had shown in this exploit; for he had witnessed all that passed, and knew that I had succeeded in my object, by the manner in which I quitted the shop. He informed me that Mr. Bilger had returned to his counter, and, without attending to the arrangement of the articles thereon, had joined his son, who was still waiting upon the lady, and that he, Bromley, had finally left them both engaged with her.”

Such was his rapacity, that he renewed his visit to Mr. Bilger’s shop; but the reception he met satisfied him that he was suspected. He, however, left an order for a splendid ring; and, while the jeweller’s son, as Vaux thought, was taking down his directions, he was only writing a description of his person, and a handbill in a few days was widely circulated among the pawnbrokers, peace-officers, &c. A day or two after Vaux called at Turner’s—a pawnbroker, in Brydges Street, Covent Garden—to redeem some article he had pledged, when he saw such manœuvres in the shop as induced him to make a precipitate retreat, and go into concealment.

At length, “necessity,” as he says himself, forced him out; and, the first night, he stole, from a shop in Ludgate Street, property to the amount of four or five pounds, with which he was so much pleased that he returned for his wife, and took her out to walk. Contrary to her earnest remonstrance, they went to a flash-house, near Clare Market, where the landlord betrayed him into the hands of justice, and he was hurried off to the watch-house. Next day he underwent an examination at Bow Street, and was remanded. During the interval between his first and second appearance he had completely metamorphosed his person by cutting his hair and whiskers, and putting on a mean suit of clothes. But all would not do; he was recognised through his disguise, and fully committed. His trial came on at the Old Bailey, February the 15th, 1809, and, the facts being sworn to, he was found guilty—death. His sentence was afterwards commuted to transportation for life, preparatory to which he was conveyed on board the Retribution hulk at Woolwich.

“I had now,” says Vaux, “a new scene of misery to contemplate; and, of all the shocking scenes I had ever beheld, this was the most distressing. There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly six hundred men, most of them double-ironed, and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin naturally produced by such a crowd of miserable inhabitants, the oaths and execrations constantly heard among them; and, above all, from the shocking necessity of associating and communicating more or less with so depraved a set of beings. On arriving on board, we were all immediately stripped, and washed in large tubs of water; then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop clothing, we were ironed, and sent below, our own clothes being taken from us, and detained till we could sell or otherwise dispose of them, as no person is exempted from the obligation to wear the ship-dress. On descending the hatchway, no conception can be formed of the scene which presented itself. I shall not attempt to describe it; but nothing short of a descent to the infernal regions can be at all worthy of a comparison with it. I soon met with many of my old Botany Bay acquaintances, who were all eager to offer me their friendship and services,—that is, with a view to rob me of what little I had; for in this place there is no other motive or subject for ingenuity. All former friendships or connexions are dissolved, and a man here will rob his best benefactor, or even messmate, of an article worth one halfpenny. Every morning, at seven o’clock, all the convicts capable of work, or, in fact, all who are capable of getting into the boats, are taken ashore to the Warren, in which the Royal Arsenal and other public buildings are situated, and are there employed at various kinds of labour, some of them very fatiguing; and, while so employed, each gang of sixteen or twenty men is watched and directed by a fellow called a guard. These guards are most commonly of the lowest class of human beings; wretches devoid of all feeling; ignorant in the extreme; brutal by nature, and rendered tyrannical and cruel by the consciousness of the power they possess: no others, but such as I have described, would hold the situation, their wages being not more than a day-labourer would earn in London. They invariably carry a large and ponderous stick, with which, without the smallest provocation, they will fell an unfortunate convict to the ground, and frequently repeat their blows long after the poor sufferer is insensible. At noon the working party return on board to dinner, and at one again go on shore, where they labour till near sun-set. On returning on board in the evening, all hands are mustered by a roll, and the whole being turned down below, the hatches are put over them, and secured for the night. As to the food, the stipulated ration is very scanty, but of even part of that they are defrauded. Their provisions, being supplied by contractors, and not by government, are of the worst kind, such as would not be considered eatable or wholesome elsewhere; and both the weight and measure are always deficient. The allowance of bread is said to be about twenty ounces per day. Three days in the week they have about four ounces of cheese for dinner, and the other four days a pound of beef. The breakfast is invariably boiled barley, of the coarsest kind imaginable; and of this the pigs of the hulk come in for a third part, because it is so nauseous that nothing but downright hunger will enable a man to eat it. For supper, they have, on banyan days, burgoo, of as good a quality as the barley, and which is similarly disposed of; and on meat days, the water in which the beef was boiled is thickened with barley, and forms a mess called ‘smiggins,’ of a more detestable nature than either of the two former! The reader may conceive that I do not exaggerate when I state that among the convicts the common price of these several eatables is,—for a day’s allowance of beef, one halfpenny;—ditto, of cheese, one halfpenny;—ditto, of bread, three-halfpence; but the cheese is most commonly so bad that they throw it away. It is manufactured, I believe, of skimmed milk, for this particular contract. The beef generally consists of old bulls or cows who have died of age or famine; the least trace of fat is considered a phenomenon, and it is far inferior upon the whole to good horse-flesh. I once saw the prisoners throw the whole day’s supply overboard the moment it was hoisted out of the boat, and for this offence they were severely flogged. The friends of these unhappy persons are not allowed to come on board, but must remain alongside during their visit; the prisoners are, it is true, suffered to go into their boat, but a guard is placed within hearing of their conversation; and if a friend or parent has come one hundred miles, they are not allowed above ten minutes’ interview: so that, instead of consolation, the visit only excites regret at the parties being so suddenly torn asunder. All letters, too, written by prisoners, must be delivered unsealed to the chief mate for his inspection, before they are sent ashore; and such as he thinks obnoxious are of course suppressed. In like manner, all letters received from the post-office are opened and scrutinised. If I were to attempt a full description of the miseries endured in these ships, I could fill a volume; but I shall sum up all by stating that besides robbery from each other, which is as common as cursing and swearing, I witnessed among the prisoners themselves, during the twelvemonth I remained with them, one deliberate murder, for which the perpetrator was executed at Maidstone, and one suicide; and that unnatural crimes are openly committed.”

From the misery of the hulks he was removed on the 15th of June 1810, for the second time, to Botany Bay. His wife, who had all along manifested the utmost attention, was prevented by a succession of unfortunate circumstances from seeing him previous to his departure; nor does it appear that he knew what become of her afterwards. On the 16th of the following December, the transport arrived at Sydney Cove, where Vaux found that the report of his exploits in London had preceded him. He endeavoured to make interest with the governor, in the hope of being employed as a clerk; but this being his second visit, he was listened to with distrust, and was sent up the country to a settler, who used him with great barbarity. To escape from this tyranny Vaux feigned himself sick, and thus procured his removal to the hospital, from which he was discharged in a month, and appointed overseer to a town gang. He now resolved to lead a correct life, and establish, if possible, a character for himself, seeing, as he says, the necessity of good conduct, from the consequences that invariably attend on an improper one. If we believe him, he adhered firmly to his vows of rectitude; but his notorious character operated against him, and he fell a victim to prejudice and the depravity of a youth, who was a veteran in iniquity. This young villain’s name was Edwards. He was servant to Mr. Bent the judge-advocate, from whom he purloined bills and money. Vaux, suspecting his dishonesty, warned him of his danger; but the artful thief accounted for his being so flush in money by the presents he was in the habit of receiving from his master’s visitors.

One evening he came running into Vaux’s lodgings, and requested of him to keep some articles and parcels which he put into his hand. Vaux at first refused, but was ultimately prevailed on to keep them for a few minutes. Edwards had scarcely departed when he thought he did wrong, and acquainted his landlord with the transaction. That person desired him to go immediately and deliver the property up to the judge-advocate in a public manner, as the only way left him to escape being implicated with Edwards, and with this advice Vaux resolved to comply, but having stopped first to smoke a pipe, before he had finished it, two officers entered and apprehended him. His conduct was open, and his landlord deposed in his favour; but Edwards accused him, in revenge for giving up the property, of being an accomplice, and he was finally banished to the Coal River, where he continued doing all kind of work for two years, after which he was permitted to return to Sydney, where he was once more placed in the town-gang.

Again he renewed his vows of rectitude, but was unable to obtain any station less degrading than the one in which he was placed. The picture before him was disheartening in the extreme—an exile for life—and compelled to labour at the basest and lowest employment of mankind. A British sailor took compassion on him and offered, in 1814, to conceal him in his vessel, until she should sail, and he embraced the generous proposal; but after lying close and undiscovered for four days, some one on board gave information, and the unfortunate wretch was dragged ashore, punished with fifty lashes, and sentenced to transportation to the Coal River for one year.

“In a few days,” says he in his Memoirs, “I was accordingly embarked with eleven other prisoners, and a second time landed at Newcastle, from whence I had been absent nearly twelve months. On my arrival, it happened that the storekeeper of that settlement was in want of a clerk, and he applying to the commandant for me, I was appointed to that situation, in which I still continue; and having scrupulously adhered to my former vows of rectitude, and used every exertion to render myself serviceable to my employer, and to merit his good opinion as well as that of the commandant. I have had the satisfaction to succeed in these objects; and I am not without hope that, when I am permitted to quit my present service and return to Sydney, my good conduct will be rewarded with a more desirable situation. I have now been upwards of seven years a prisoner, and, knowing the hopeless sentence under which I labour, I shall, I trust, studiously avoid in future every act which may subject me to the censure of my superiors, or entail upon me a repetition of those sufferings I have already too severely experienced. I have thus described (perhaps too minutely for the reader’s patience) the various vicissitudes of my past life. Whether the future will be so far diversified as to afford matter worthy of being committed to paper, either to amuse a vacant hour, or to serve as a beacon which may warn others to avoid the rocks on which I have unhappily split, is only known to the great Disposer of events.”

The “Memoirs written by himself,” from which we have extracted the most interesting passages, here terminate.

We have been the more willing to give the adventures of this notorious villain, as he gives them,—although we confess that we are of opinion that there is some exaggeration in what he states—because, however great may be the depravity, of which he admits he was guilty, his punishments and his miseries convey a moral, most forcibly depicting the danger of such a line of conduct as he adopted. His memoirs were written by himself in the year 1816, and were published in London in about three years afterwards. Of his subsequent career we know little, but we learn by recent accounts received from Sydney, that this hoary old sinner, at the age of fifty-seven, has been convicted and sentenced to an imprisonment of two years’ duration, upon a charge of indecently assaulting a girl of tender age. Whatever may have been his course of life in later years, however frightful may have been his career of sin in his younger days, we hold that this new offence, of which he has been found guilty, is the crowning crime of the whole; and we regret that the human heart should have arrived at such a degree of profligacy as to admit the guilt of youth, and to be unable to withstand its temptation, in old age.

JOHN WHITMORE, alias OLD DASH.

EXECUTED FOR A RAPE.

The poor woman, who was forty-seven years of age, as soon as she could, ran away from him, over the heath, and again lost her way; by accident she met a gentleman, who put her in the right road, and she reached her home about eight o’clock at night. She was afraid to tell her husband what had occurred till the following Sunday.

The husband next day set out with the constable in search of the prisoner, from the description given by his wife, and on Tuesday traced him to a public-house at Twickenham, where he was known by the familiar appellation of “Old Dasher;” and there, after a stout resistance, he was taken into custody. The facts were, on his trial, which took place at the Old Bailey, in October 1810, clearly established by the poor woman, and the Common Serjeant having summed up the evidence, the prisoner was convicted and received sentence of death, in pursuance of which he was subsequently executed.

AGNES ADAMS.

IMPRISONED FOR UTTERING A FORGED NOTE.

The fraternity of thieves about London have fabricated cant names for the different articles which they steal. The Fleet notes were called “Flash Screens.”

RICHARD ARMITAGE AND CHARLES THOMAS.

EXECUTED FOR FORGERY.

The secret of Roberts’ escape was not discovered for a considerable time afterwards, when he was induced to confess, that through the means of a bribe offered to the person who swept the cells, he was enabled to procure impressions in wax of the keys which would be required to open the doors through which he and his fellow-prisoner would have to pass. Having obtained these, he soon got keys made, and he was assisted in his flight by this “friend at court.” It was supposed, however, that he had some other more powerful ally than a sweeper, and considerable changes in the management of the jail were subsequently made.

The punishment for the crime of forgery, a few years only before this time, was much less severe than that which was now inflicted, the increase of the offence having rendered an alteration in its severity necessary. It would appear, however, that the efforts of legislators produced anything but the desired effect, the frequency of the offence being increased instead of diminished. The ancient punishment for this crime we find thus minutely described in a London periodical publication for the year 1731:—

“June 9th.—This day, about noon, Japhet Crook, alias St. Peter Stranger, was brought to the pillory at Charing Cross, according to his sentence for forgery. He stood an hour thereon; after which a chair was set on the pillory; and he being put therein, the hangman with a sort of pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and immediately a surgeon clapped a styptic thereon. Then the executioner, with a pair of scissors, cut his left nostril twice before it was quite through, and afterwards cut through the right nostril at once. He bore all this with great patience; but when, in pursuance of his sentence, his right nostril was seared with a red-hot iron, he was in such violent pain that his left nostril was let alone, and he went from the pillory bleeding. He was conveyed from thence to the King’s Bench Prison, there to remain for life. He died in confinement about three years after.”

JANE COX.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.