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.

SAMUEL COUCHMAN AND JOHN MORGAN, Lieutenants of Marines; THOMAS KNIGHT, Carpenter, and others.

SHOT FOR MUTINY.

“For God’s sake, sir, be ruled by reason, and consider what you are about.” Couchman threatened to put him in irons if he did not join with him; but the boatswain told him he never would be in such piratical designs, and he was immediately ordered into custody, and two sentinels put over him. Couchman soon after sent for Gilham, the mate of the ship; but he also refusing to join him, was put into custody with five or six others. They were confined, however, only five or six hours; for, in the middle of the night after their confinement, Couchman sent for them into the great cabin, desired them to sit and drink punch, and then dismissed them. The next day the boatswain was invited to dinner by the new commander, who began to rail against Captain Dudley, and proposed to him to sign a paper. He refused indignantly, and was immediately dismissed. When he quitted the great cabin, he went to the gunner, who informed him that he had twenty pistols still at his disposal, and it was determined that an effort should be made that night to recover the ship from the mutineers. When evening drew on, the boatswain proceeded to sound the ship’s company, and he soon found about thirty of the seamen, besides the mates, gunner’s mates, and cockswain of the barge, ready to aid him. The boatswain took the command on himself, and the first step which he took was to get up all the irons or bilboes on the forecastle; he then sent for the twenty pistols, which were all loaded; he next ordered three men upon the grand magazine, and two to that abaft; and the remainder, who had no pistols, to stay by the bilboes, and secure as many prisoners as he should send. This disposition being made, he went directly down on the deck, where he divided his small company into two parties; and, one going down the main, and the other the fore hatchway, they soon secured eleven or twelve of the ringleaders, and sent them up to the forecastle without the least noise. The two parties then joined, and went directly to the great cabin, where they secured Couchman and Morgan, with the carpenter, whom they immediately confined in different parts of the vessel. The ship being thus secured, the captain again boarded her and took the command of her; and on her return to England the mutineers were brought to trial.

The court-martial having found them guilty of the crimes imputed to them, they were shot in the month of June 1749.

The boatswain (Roger Winket) was afterwards rewarded with three hundred pounds a year, as master-attendant of Woolwich-dockyard.

JOHN MILLS.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

On their way back they met Winter, one of their companions, who informed them of this fact, when they dismissed the men whom they had compelled to accompany them, saying that they should be sent for when they were wanted. Their next anxiety was as to the mode in which they should dispose of the body, and it was proposed to throw it into a well in an adjacent park; but this being objected to, they carried it twelve miles, and having tied stones to it in order to sink it, they threw it into a pond in Parham Park, belonging to Sir Cecil Bishop; and in this place it lay more than two months before it was discovered.

Mills was afterwards taken into custody on the information of Pring, an outlawed smuggler, and being tried, was convicted.

The country being at that time filled with smugglers, a rescue was feared; wherefore he was conducted to the place of execution by a guard of soldiers. When there, he prayed with a clergyman, confessed that he had led a bad life, acknowledged the murder of Hawkins, desired that all young people would take warning by his untimely end, and humbly implored the forgiveness of God. He was executed on Slendon Common on the 12th of August 1749, and afterwards hung in chains on the same spot.

AMY HUTCHINSON.

BURNT FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND.

She was strangled and burned at Ely, on the 7th November 1750, confessing the crime of which she had been found guilty.

JOHN CARR.

EXECUTED FOR FORGERY.

It is needless to say that the company of so refined and elegant a person was not to be kept without some expenses, which were not of a very moderate character, and the difficulties in which our hero had already placed himself were in nowise diminished by his new connexion. He remained with her, however, until the end of the season induced them to return to Dublin; and then a trip to England was proposed, preparatory to the final steps being taken to complete the nuptial arrangements. The gallantry and wits of the gentleman were sorely tested to procure the requisite funds for the trip; but he at length succeeded in obtaining such a sum as he and the lady deemed sufficient. The passage only remained to be secured, and the too credulous sharper was employed in obtaining it; but in his absence the lady shipped all the effects on board a vessel bound for Amsterdam, and, having dressed herself in man’s apparel, she embarked and sailed, leaving Carr to regret his ill-judged credulity.

Thus reduced to want, he went to London, and having enlisted as a foot-soldier, he was discharged after several years’ service. He subsequently entered as a marine, but soon afterwards came to London again, and opened a shop in Hog-lane, St. Giles’s. He now married a girl who he thought had money; but soon discovering her poverty, he abandoned her, and removed to Short’s Gardens, where he entered into partnership with a cork-cutter; but having obtained the promise of support from his partner’s customers, he set up on his own account, and was tolerably successful, though his passion for gambling prevented his retaining any part of the produce of his business. His new companions at the gaming-table, having an eye to their own profit, offered to procure him a wife of fortune, though they knew he had a wife living, and actually contrived to introduce him to a young lady of property, with whom a marriage would probably have taken place, but that one of them, struck with remorse of conscience, developed the affair to her father, and frustrated the whole scheme. Being now again thrown upon his own resources, he engaged himself as porter to a merchant; but while in this condition, his master having entrusted him with a check, for sixty pounds, he procured it to be cashed, and having spent the money in the lowest debauchery, he again entered as a marine. There being something in his deportment superior to the vulgar, he was advanced to the rank of sergeant, in which he behaved so well that his officers treated him with considerable favour.

The vessel in which he sailed was of considerable power, and taking a merchant-ship richly laden, and soon afterwards several smaller vessels, the prize-money amounted to a considerable sum. This gave Carr an idea that very great advantages might be obtained by privateering, and having procured a discharge, he entered on board a privateer, and was made master-at-arms. In a few days the privateer took two French ships, one of which they carried to Bristol, and the other into the harbour of Poole; and refitting their ship, they sailed again, and in two days took a French privateer, and gave chase to three others, which they found to have been English vessels belonging to Falmouth, which had been captured by a French privateer. These they retook, and carried them into Falmouth; in their passage to which place they made prize of a valuable French ship, the produce of which contributed to enrich the crew. On their next trip, they saw a ship in full chase of them, on which they prepared for a vigorous defence; and an action soon after taking place, many hands were lost by the French, who at length attempted to sheer off, but were taken after a chase of some leagues.

The commander of the English privateer, being desperately wounded in the engagement, died in a few days; on which Carr courted his widow, and a marriage would have taken place, but that she was seized with a violent fever, which deprived her of life—but not before she had bequeathed him all she was possessed of. Having disposed of her effects, he repaired to London, where he commenced smuggler: but his ill-gotten goods being seized on by the officers of the revenue, he took to the still more dangerous practice of forging seamen’s wills, and gained money thus for some time; but, being apprehended, he was brought to trial at the Old Bailey convicted, and was sentenced to die.

He was of the Romish persuasion, and died with decent resignation to his fate.

Carr was hanged at Tyburn on the 16th of November 1750.

NORMAN ROSS.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

At the Edinburgh theatre it was also a custom to admit men wearing the badge of servitude into the gallery gratis; and when Garrick’s inimitable farce, “High Life Below Stairs,” wherein the waste and impudence of domestic servants of rich men is completely exposed, was performed there, a most violent clamour broke out in the gallery, so as entirely to interrupt the performance, and put the other part of the audience in fear of the consequences. The hardy Scotchmen, however, laid hold of the rioters, and kicked every footman, who alone were concerned, out of the house, where, without paying, they never more entered.

Having thus referred to an evil which existed in 1751, and which even to this moment continues to exist to a considerable extent, namely the over bearing insolence of the fellows who usually fill the situations of domestic servants in the families of the rich, it is time to proceed to the history of the subject of this sketch. Ross was born of decent parents in Inverness, and received an education by which he would have been fitted to fill a situation in a merchant’s counting-house. The difficulty in obtaining such employment, however, induced him to enter the service of a lady, who had always exhibited great kindness towards his family; and he soon afterwards accompanied her son to the Continent in the capacity of valet-de-chambre. He continued in this situation during about five years, when he returned to Scotland, and was employed by an attorney in Edinburgh; but having contracted an intimacy among other servants, from their instruction he acquired all the fashionable habits of drinking, swearing, and gaming, and was dismissed on account of his impudence, and the irregularities of his conduct.

He was subsequently engaged by a Mrs. Hume, a widow lady of good fortune, whose residence, during the summer, was at Ayton, a village about four miles from Berwick-upon-Tweed. The extravagance of our hero, and an unfortunate intercourse which he had with a fellow-servant, soon compelled him to look for some other means of procuring money, besides that which was honestly afforded him by his mistress; and having exhausted the patience of his friends by borrowing from them repeatedly, he formed the resolution of robbing his employer. It would appear that Mrs. Hume slept in a room on the first floor, and that the keys of her bureau were usually placed under her head for safety. Sunday night was the time fixed upon for the commission of the robbery, and, waiting in his bed-room without undressing himself, till he judged the family to be asleep, he descended, and leaving his shoes in the passage, proceeded to his lady’s bed-chamber. Upon his endeavouring to get possession of the keys, the lady was disturbed, and being dreadfully alarmed, called for assistance; but the rest of the family lying at a distant part of the house, her screams were not heard. Ross immediately seized a clasp-knife that lay on the table, and cut his mistress’s throat in a most dreadful manner. This horrid act was no sooner perpetrated than, without waiting to put on his shoes, or to secure either money or other effects, he leaped out of the window, and after travelling several miles, concealed himself in a field of corn.

In the morning the gardener discovered a livery hat, which the murderer had dropped in descending from the window; and, suspecting that something extraordinary had happened, he alarmed his fellow-servants. The disturbance in the house brought the two daughters of Mrs. Hume down stairs; but no words can express the horror and consternation of the young ladies upon beholding their parent weltering in her blood, and the fatal instrument of death lying on the floor.

Ross being absent, and his shoes and hat being found, it was concluded that he must have committed the barbarous deed; and the butler therefore mounted a horse, and alarmed the country, lest the murderous villain should escape. The butler was soon joined by great numbers of horsemen; and towards the conclusion of the day, when both men and horses were nearly exhausted through excessive fatigue, the murderer was discovered in a field of standing corn. He was immediately secured, and being brought to trial, he had the effrontery to declare that he was admitted to share his mistress’s bed, and that his custom was always to leave his shoes at the parlour door. That on the night of the murder he proceeded as usual to her room, but on entering it his horror was aroused at discovering her to be murdered. He leaped out at the window to search for the perpetrators of the deed, and dropping his hat he thought it better not to return until night. Having been found guilty, he was sentenced to have his right hand chopped off, then to be hanged till dead, the body to be hung in chains, and the right hand to be affixed at the top of the gibbet, with the knife made use of in the commission of the murder.

Upon receiving sentence of death he began seriously to reflect on his miserable situation, and the next day he requested the attendance of Mr. James Craig, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, to whom he confessed his guilt, declaring that there was no foundation for his reflections against the chastity of the deceased. Six weeks elapsed between the time of his trial and that of his execution, during which he showed every sign of the most sincere penitence, and refused to accompany two prisoners who broke out of jail, saying he had no desire to recover his liberty, but that on the contrary he would cheerfully submit to the utmost severity of punishment, that he might make atonement for his wickedness. The day appointed for putting the sentence of the law into force being arrived, Ross walked to the place of execution, holding Mr. Craig by the arm. Having addressed a pathetic speech to the populace, and prayed some time with great fervency of devotion, the rope was put round his neck, and he laid his right hand upon the block, when it was struck off by the executioner at two blows. He was immediately afterwards run up to the gallows, when, feeling the rope drawing tight, by a convulsive motion of the arm he struck his bloody wrist against his cheek, which gave it a ghastly appearance. The sentence was subsequently fully carried into effect.

The execution took place on the 8th January 1751.

THOMAS COLLEY.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

The evidence given against the prisoner was to the following effect:—On the 18th April, 1751, a man named Nichols went to William Dell, the crier at Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, and delivered to him a paper to the following effect, which was to be cried:

“This is to give notice, that on Monday next, a man and woman are to be publicly ducked at Tring, in this county, for their wicked crimes.”

This notice was given at Winslow and Leighton-Buzzard, as well as at Hemel-Hempstead, on the respective market-days, and was heard by Mr. Barton, overseer of the parish of Tring, who being informed that the persons intended to be ducked were John Osborne, and Ruth his wife, and having no doubt of the good character of both the parties, sent them to the workhouse, as a protection from the rage of the mob.

On the day appointed for the practice of the infernal ceremony, an immense number of people, supposed to be not fewer than five thousand, assembled near the workhouse at Tring, vowing revenge against Osborne and his wife, as a wizard and a witch, and demanding that they should be delivered up to their fury. In support of their demands they pulled down a wall belonging to the workhouse, and broke the windows and window-frames. On the preceding evening the master of the workhouse, suspecting some violence from what he heard of the disposition of the people, had sent Osborne and his wife to the vestry-room belonging to the church, as a place the most likely to secure them from insult. The mob would not give credit to the master of the workhouse that the parties were removed, but, rushing into the house, searched it through, examining the closets, boxes, trunks, and even the salt-box, in quest of them. There being a hole in the ceiling, which had been left by the plasterers, Colley, who was one of the most active of the gang, exclaimed, “Let us search the ceiling;” and this being done, but of course without success, they swore that they would pull down the house, and set fire to Tring, if the parties were not produced. The master of the workhouse, apprehensive that they would carry their threats into execution, and unmindful of the safety of the unfortunate wretches whom it was his duty to protect, at length gave up their place of concealment; and the whole mob, with Colley at their head, forthwith marched off to the church and brought them off in triumph. Their persons secured, they were carried to a pond, called Marlston Mere, where they were stripped and tied up separately in cloths. A rope was then bound round the body of the woman, under her arm-pits, and two men dragged her into the pond, and through it several times; Colley going into the pond, and, with a stick, turning her from side to side. Having ducked her repeatedly in this manner, they placed her by the side of the pond, and dragged the old man in, and ducked him: then he was put by, and the woman ducked again as before, Colley making the same use of his stick. With this cruelty the husband was treated twice over, and the wife three times; during the last of which the cloth in which she was wrapped came off, and she appeared quite naked.

Not satisfied with this barbarity, Colley pushed his stick against her breast, and the poor woman attempted to lay hold of it; but her strength being now exhausted, she expired on the spot. Colley then went round the pond, collecting money of the populace for the sport he had shown them in ducking the old witch, as he called her. The mob now departed to their several habitations; and the body being taken out of the pond, was examined by Mr. Foster, a surgeon; and the coroner’s inquest being summoned on the occasion, Mr Foster deposed that, “on examining the body of the deceased, he found no wound, either internal or external, except a little place that had the skin off on one of her breasts; and it was his opinion that she was suffocated with water and mud.”

Hereupon Colley was taken into custody, and when his trial came on, Mr. Foster deposed to the same effect as above mentioned; and there being a variety of other strong proofs of the prisoner’s guilt, he was convicted, and received sentence of death. His defence was that he had endeavoured to protect the old people from violence, instead of attempting to injure them.

After conviction he seemed to behold his guilt in its true light of enormity. He became, as far as could be judged, sincerely penitent for his sins, and made good use of the short time he had to live in the solemn preparation for eternity.

The day before his execution he was removed from the jail of Hertford, under the escort of one hundred men of the Oxford Blues, commanded by seven officers; and being lodged in the jail of St. Albans, was put into a chaise at five o’clock the next morning, with the hangman, and reached the place of execution about eleven, where his wife and daughter came to take leave of him. The minister of Tring assisted him in his last moments, and he died exhibiting all the marks of unfeigned penitence.

He was executed on the 24th of August 1751, and his body afterwards hung in chains at a place called Gubblecut, near which the offence was committed.

It is not a little remarkable that, at so recent a period, so many people as composed this mob should be found so benighted in intellect, and utterly uninformed, as to be guilty of so miserable and so glaring a piece of absurdity and wickedness as that which was proved in the evidence against the prisoner. In former ages, it is true, not only the people, but even the authorities of the land, believed in witchcraft and sorcery; but it is indeed extraordinary that in the eighteenth century a scene such as that described could have been permitted to occur at a village within thirty miles of the metropolis.

The following copy of an indictment, furnished us by a friend who took it from the American Court record, must prove a matter of curiosity to the reader at the present enlightened era:—

“Essex, ss. (a town in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in New England.)

“The jurors of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen (King William and Queen Mary), present, that George Burroughs, late of Falmouth, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, clerk (a Presbyterian minister of the Gospel), the 9th day of May, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts, called witchcraft and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practised and exercised at and in the town of Salem, in the county aforesaid, upon and against one Mary Walcot, single woman, by which said wicked arts the said Mary, on the day aforesaid, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, was, and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented against the peace,” &c.

A witness, by name Ann Putnam, deposed as follows:—On the 8th of May, 1692, I saw the apparition of George Burroughs, who grievously tormented me, and urged me to write in his book, which I refused. He then told me that his two first wives would appear to me presently and tell me a great many lies, but I must not believe them. Then immediately appeared to me the forms of two women in winding-sheets, and napkins about their heads, at which I was greatly affrighted. They turned their faces towards Mr. Burroughs, and looked red and angry, and told him that he had been very cruel to them, and that their blood called for vengeance against him; and they also told him that they should be clothed with white robes in heaven when he should be cast down into hell, and he immediately vanished away. And as soon as he was gone, the women turned their faces towards me, and looked as pale as a white wall; and told me they were Mr. Burroughs’s two wives, and that he had murdered them. And one told me she was his first wife, and he stabbed her under the left breast, and put a piece of sealing-wax in the wound; and she pulled aside the winding-sheet and showed me the place: she also told me that she was in the house where Mr. Daris, the minister of Danvers, then lived when it was done. And the other told me that Mr. Burroughs and a wife that he hath now, killed her in the vessel as she was coming to see her friends from the eastward, because they would have one another. And they both charged me to tell these things to the magistrates before Mr. Burroughs’s face; and if he did not own them, they did not know but they should appear this morning. This morning, also, appeared to me another woman in a winding-sheet, and told me that she was Goodman Fuller’s first wife, and Mr. Burroughs killed her, because there was a difference between her husband and him.

Upon the above, and some other such evidence, was this unfortunate man condemned and executed.

The days are now, happily, past, when such monstrous absurdities are heard of.

FREDERICK CAULFIELD.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

After the strangers had taken some refreshment, and were about to depart, in order to prosecute their journey, Rogers earnestly endeavoured to dissuade the little man from quitting his house and going on with his fellow-traveller; and he assured him that if he would remain with him that day, he would himself accompany him to Carrick next morning, that being the town to which they were proceeding. He was unwilling and ashamed to tell the cause of his being so solicitous to separate him from his companion; but as he observed that Hickey, which was the name of the little man, seemed to be quiet and gentle in his deportment, and had money about him, and that the other had a ferocious bad countenance, he dreaded that something fatal would happen, and wished, at all events, to keep them asunder. The humane precautions which he took, however, proved ineffectual; for Caulfield (such was the other’s name) prevailed upon Hickey to continue with him on their way to Carrick, declaring that, as they had long travelled together they should not part, but should remain together until he should see Hickey safely arrive at the habitation of his friends. They accordingly set out together; and in about an hour after they left Portlaw, in a lonely part of the mountain, just near the place observed by Rogers in his dream, Caulfield took the opportunity of murdering his companion. It appeared afterwards, from his own account of the horrid transaction, that as they were getting over the ditch, he struck Hickey on the back part of his head with a stone; and when he fell down into the trench, in consequence of the blow, Caulfield gave him several stabs with a knife, and cut his throat so deeply, that the head was almost severed from the body. He then rifled Hickey’s pockets of all the money in them, took part of his clothes, and everything else of value about him, and afterwards proceeded on his way to Carrick. He had not been long gone when the body, still warm, was discovered by some labourers who were returning to their work from dinner. The report of the murder soon reached Portlaw; and Rogers and his wife went to the place, and instantly knew the body of him whom they had in vain endeavoured to dissuade from going on with his treacherous companion. They at once declared their suspicions that the murder was perpetrated by the fellow traveller of the deceased; and an immediate search was made, and Caulfield was apprehended at Waterford on the second day after. He was brought to trial at the ensuing assizes, and convicted of the fact.

After sentence, the prisoner confessed that he had been guilty of the murder, and stated that he had accompanied Hickey home from the West Indies; and that observing that he had money in his possession, he had long contemplated the deed which he afterwards effected, but was unable to meet with a good opportunity until their arrival at the spot alluded to.

He was executed at Waterford in the year 1751.

WILLIAM PARSONS, ESQ.

EXECUTED FOR RETURNING FROM TRANSPORTATION.

THE unhappy subject of this narrative was the eldest son of Sir William Parsons, Bart., of the county of Nottingham, and was born in London in the year 1717. He was placed under the care of a pious and learned divine at Pepper-harrow, in Surrey, where he received the first rudiments of education. In a little more than three years he was removed to Eton College, where it was intended that he should qualify himself for one of the universities; but his misconduct prevented his friends from carrying out their intentions in this respect; for having been detected in various acts of petty pilfering, he was dismissed the school, and sent home to his father. His disposition was now found to be of so unpromising a character, that it was thought advisable to send him to sea, and an appointment was procured for him as midshipman on board a vessel of war lying at Spithead, which was immediately about to proceed to Jamaica. Our hero soon obtained the necessary outfit, and joined his ship; but some accident detaining her beyond the time when it was expected she would sail, he applied for leave of absence, and went on shore; but having no intention to return, he directed his course towards a small town about ten miles from Portsmouth, called Bishop’s Waltham, where, by representations of his respectability, he soon ingratiated himself into the favour of the principal inhabitants.

His figure being pleasing, and his manner of address easy and polite, he found but little difficulty in recommending himself to the ladies, and he became greatly enamoured of a beautiful and accomplished young lady, the daughter of a physician of considerable practice, and prevailed upon her to promise that she would yield to him her hand in marriage.

News of the intended alliance coming to the knowledge of his father and of his uncle, the latter directly hastened to Waltham, to prevent a union, which would have produced consequences of the worst character to the contracting parties, and having apprised the friends of the young lady with the condition and situation of the intended bridegroom, their consent was withdrawn, and our hero was with some difficulty induced to rejoin his ship. Restless, however, in his new employment, he had scarcely reached Jamaica, when he determined that he would desert and return to England; and the sailing of the Sheerness man-of-war for that place afforded him an opportunity of carrying his design into execution, of which he lost no time in availing himself. A new effort to obtain the hand of his former love was as unsuccessful as that which he had first made; and his uncle having ascertained the fact of his presence in England, induced him at once to go back to the residence of his father, with promises of future amendment. For a time his determination to alter his course of life was obeyed; but soon again launching forth into habits of irregularity, he was despatched as midshipman on board the Romney, for the coast of Newfoundland. On his revisiting England, after an absence of some years, he was mortified to learn that the Duchess of Northumberland, to whom he was distantly related, had revoked a will in his favour, which she had made, and had bequeathed to his sister the fortune which, he knew, had been intended for him; and now, finding himself spurned by his friends, he was soon reduced to a condition of absolute necessity. Through the friendly intervention of a Mr. Bailey, however, he procured an engagement at James Fort, on the river Gambia, but here, as in all other situations unfortunate, he contrived to engage himself in a quarrel, in consequence of which he was compelled to return to Europe—a step, however, which he was alone enabled to take by setting at defiance the commands of the Governor Aufleur, that he should not quit the colony—and take his passage under an assumed name on board a homeward-bound trader.

Arrived in London, he found no friend to whom he could apply for assistance or relief, but at length discovering the residence of his father, he went to him and implored some aid, even if he should not give him any further countenance. Five shillings, and advice to enter a horse regiment as a private, were all that he could obtain, however, and rendered wretched by his miserable condition, the grave appeared to be the only resource to which he could look for consolation. But a thought suggested itself in time to prevent his rashly taking away his life, that he should represent himself as his brother, who had recently come into a fortune; and under the pretext that he was entitled to the legacy, he committed frauds upon various tradesmen to a considerable amount. His impudence and his ingenuity were now required to be exerted in order to relieve him from the difficulty in which he was involved in consequence of this proceeding, but his good fortune in throwing him in the way of a young lady of good fortune, to whom he was married, placed in his power the means of retrieving his lost character and his degraded position. The marriage was solemnised on the 10th February 1740; and the intercession of his friends, to whom he was now with difficulty again reconciled, procured for him an ensigncy in the 34th regiment of foot from the right honourable Arthur Onslow.

He appeared at this time to be desirous of re-appearing in that position in society to which his birth entitled him; but having hired a house in Poland-street, his extravagant mode of living again, in the course of a few years, reduced him to a condition of great distress. He was compelled to sell his commission in order to recruit his shattered finances; and then, in order to meet new demands, he was guilty of various forgeries, upon which he procured money to a very large amount. For two years he pursued new plans of iniquity with considerable success, but then being apprehended in the act of putting off a forged draft, he was committed to Maidstone jail, and having been convicted at the ensuing assizes, was sentenced to be transported for seven years. In the month of September, 1749, he was put on board the Thames transport, bound for Maryland, and in the following November he was landed at Annapolis, in that place. He was now guilty of new offences, even more criminal than those which he had before committed, and having first ridden off with a horse belonging to the person to whom he was assigned as a servant, and committed several robberies, he shaped his course to Potomac, from whence he immediately sailed for England.

That refuge for the destitute of all classes at this period, “the road,” was now the only resource left to our hero, and for a time he pursued his new occupation with infinite determination and proportionate success; but at length having attempted to rob Mr. Fuller, the gentleman by whom he had before been prosecuted, he was recognised by him, and being vigorously attacked, was at length compelled to surrender, and was secured and committed to Newgate.

It was necessary to prove no new offence against him at his trial, but all that was required was to identify him as a transported felon, who had returned to England before the termination of the period for which he had been sentenced to be banished; and this being done, he was declared to have forfeited his life to the laws of his country. His distressed father and wife used all their interest to obtain for him a pardon, but in vain: he was an old offender, and judged by no means a fit object for mercy.

While Parsons remained in Newgate, his behaviour was such that it could not be determined whether he entertained a proper idea of his dreadful situation. There is, indeed, but too much reason to fear that the hopes of a reprieve (in which he deceived himself even to the last moments of his life) induced him to neglect the necessary preparation for eternity.

His taking leave of his wife afforded a scene extremely affecting: he recommended to her parental protection his only child, and regretted that his misconduct had put it in the power of a censorious world to reflect upon both the mother and son.

At the place of execution he joined in the devotional exercises with a fervency of zeal that proved him to be convinced of the necessity of obtaining the pardon of his Creator.

William Parsons, Esq. suffered at Tyburn, on the 11th of Feb. 1751.

WILLIAM CHANDLER.

TRANSPORTED FOR PERJURY.

William Chandler was the only child of Mr. Thomas Chandler, of Woodborough, near Devizes, a gentleman farmer of moderate means. At an early age the youth was articled to Mr. Banks, who was clerk of the Goldsmiths’ Company; but before two years had elapsed, in consequence of frequent disputes which took place, he was transferred to Mr. Hill, a respectable attorney in Clifford’s Inn. His clerkship being nearly expired, the necessity of providing himself with the means of commencing practice on his own account suggested itself to his mind, and he therefore laid a plan to procure the possession of as much money as he could, and then going a journey into the country, upon some plausible pretence, to trump up a story of being robbed, and sue the hundred for the amount. Upon representations to his father, that he had a good match in view, the old man gave him an estate of the value of 400l.; and then producing the deeds to his master, together with 500l. which he had obtained by other means, but which he represented that he had received from a rich uncle in Suffolk, he procured from him the advance of 500l. more, in order, as he alleged, that he might take a mortgage upon some property at Enford, within a few miles of his father’s house. Mr. Hill demanded some security for his money, and his clerk immediately proposed to give him a mortgage upon his own estate. In order to favour the appearance of the probability of his proceedings, he engaged with a Mrs. Poor, who lived at Enford, in a transaction, having the mortgage of some land which she owned for its object, and the money having been duly advanced by his employer, he fixed the 25th March, 1748, to meet Mrs. Poor to hand over the money and receive the necessary papers. Early on the 24th, having turned most of his cash into small bills, to the amount of 900l., he found, when he came to put these in canvas bags under his garters, where he proposed to carry them for safety, that they made too great a bundle, and therefore he took several of the bills, with some cash, amounting to 440l., and exchanged them at the bank for two notes, one of 400l. and the other of 40l.; the first of which, in his way home, he changed in his master’s name, at Sir Richard Hoare’s, for one note of 200l., and two of 100l. each. On his reaching the office, he told his master that the bank clerks were a little out of humour at the trouble he had already given them, and that he had changed his small notes with a stranger in the bank-hall for the notes which he in reality had received at Sir Richard Hoare’s. Mr. Hill, at Chandler’s request, having then written down the numbers and dates of the several bills, and having seen them safely put up, Chandler took leave of him, and about twelve o’clock set out.

About four o’clock the same afternoon he reached Hare-hatch, distant thirty miles from London, where he stopped to refresh; and about five, just as he had left his inn, he was, as he said, unfortunately met by three bargemen on foot, who, after they had robbed him of his watch and money, took him to a pit close by the road, and there stripped him of all his bank-notes, bound his hands and feet, and left him, threatening to return and shoot him if he made the least noise. In this woful condition, he said, he lay three hours, though the pit was so near the road that not a single horse could pass without his hearing. When night came, however, he jumped, bound as he was, near half a mile, all up hill, till, luckily for his purpose, he met one Avery, a simple shepherd, who cut the cords, and of whom the first question Chandler asked was, where a constable or tything-man lived. Avery conducted him to Richard Kelly’s, the constable’s just by, and with him Mr. Chandler left the notices required by the statutes, with the description of the men who robbed him, so exactly, that a person present remembered three such men to have passed by his house about the very time the robbery was said to have been committed; and the mayor of Reading, who was accidentally on the road, had a similar recollection of the bargemen, whom he had met near Maidenhead thicket, between four and five the same day. Chandler then returned to the inn where he had refreshed, and, after telling his deplorable tale, and acquainting his landlord with his intention of suing the hundred, he ordered a good supper and a bowl of punch, and sat down with as little concern as if nothing had happened.

Next day he returned to London, acquainted his master with the pretended robbery, and requested his assistance. Mr. Hill gave him the memorandum he had of the numbers, dates, and sums of the notes, and sent him to the bank to stop payment; but, instead of that, he went to Mr. Tufley, a silversmith in Cannon Street, bought a silver tankard, and in payment, changed one of the notes for a hundred pounds which he had received the day before at Sir Richard Hoare’s; and on his return to his master, told him the bank did no business that day, on account of the hurry the city was in with regard to a fire in Cornhill, which had happened the night before. He therefore went again the following morning, and when he came back, being asked by Mr. Hill for the paper on which he had taken down the numbers, &c., he said he had left it with the clerks of the bank, who were to stop the notes, but that he had taken an exact copy of it. This, however, was false; for he had reserved Mr. Hill’s copy, and left another at the bank, in which he had so craftily altered the numbers and dates of the three notes he received at Sir Richard Hoare’s, amounting to four hundred pounds, as to prevent their being stopped and Mr. Hill remembering the difference.

On the 26th he inserted a list of his notes, being fifteen in all, with their dates and numbers, in the daily papers, offering a reward of fifty pounds for the recovery of the whole, or in proportion for any part; but on the afternoon of the same day he withdrew his advertisement in all the daily papers, and took his own written copy away at each place. On the 29th of March, he put the notice of the robbery and the description of the robbers in the London Gazette, as the law directs, except that he did not particularize the notes, as he had done in other papers.

On the 12th of May following, he made the proper information before a justice of the peace; but though Mr. Hill, his master, was with him, and had undertaken to manage the cause for him, yet he made the same omission in his information as in his advertisement in the London Gazette.

All things being prepared, on the 18th of July 1748, Chandler’s cause came on at Abingdon, before a special jury; and, after a hearing of twelve hours, the jury retired, and then gave the prosecutor a verdict for nine hundred and seventy pounds, subject, however, to a case reserved for the opinion of the Court of Common Pleas, concerning the sufficiency of the description of the bank-notes in the London Gazette.

In the mean time, Chandler, fearing that by what came out upon the trial he should soon be suspected, and that he might be arrested, obtained a protection from Lord Willoughby de Broke, and gave out that he was removed into Suffolk to reside, as he had before pretended, with his rich uncle; but in reality he retired to Colchester, where his brother-in-law, Humphry Smart, had taken an inn, with whom he entered into copartnership, and never came publicly to London afterwards. He was, however, obliged to correspond with his master, on account of the point of law which was soon to be argued; and, therefore, to obtain his letters without discovering his place of abode, he ordered them to be directed “To Mr. Thomas Chandler, at Easton, in Suffolk, to be left for him at the Crown at Audley, near Colchester.”

Mr. Hill having written several letters to Mr. Chandler, pressing him to come to town (as the Term drew near), and he evading it by trifling excuses, the former began to suspect him, even before the point of law was determined.

Just before this period, twelve of the notes of which Mr. Chandler pretended to have been robbed, were all brought to the bank together, having been bought, October 31, 1748, at Amsterdam, of one John Smith, by Barnard Solomon, a broker there, and by him transmitted to his son, Nathan Solomon, a broker in London. Upon further inquiry, it appeared that John Smith, who sold the notes, staid but a few days in Holland; that he was seen in company with Mr. Casson, a Holland trader, and came over in the packet with him. Mr. Casson was then found, and his description of John Smith answered to the person of Chandler, who was, in consequence, pressed by letter to come to town and face Casson, to remove all suspicion; but he refused.

In the interim, the point of law was argued before the judges of the Common Pleas, when their determination was to the following effect:—“That, as Chandler had not inserted the numbers of his notes in the Gazette, nor sworn to them when he made oath before the justice, the verdict must be set aside and the plaintiff nonsuited, without the advantage of a new trial.”

But now the scene began to open apace; for about this time the very paper which Chandler left when he stopped payment of the notes at the bank, was found; and upon its being seen by Mr. Hill, he at once saw that he had been deceived, and proceeded to take the necessary steps to secure his apprehension. The whole circumstances attending the case were soon traced, upon a minute inspection of the bank books, as contrasted with those of the banking-house of Messrs. Hoare and Co.; and about midsummer 1749, Mr. Hill and others set out for Colchester, with a view of securing the person of the culprit. After a fruitless journey, however, of about a hundred and fifty miles in search of the fugitive, they returned to the very inn at Colchester which was kept by the object of their search, and then departed for London, without gaining any intelligence. Chandler having seen his pursuers, thought it prudent to decamp, and proceeded to Coventry, where he took a small public-house; but being desirous of making some reparation to his late master, he transmitted to him a hundred and fifty pounds by letter from Nottingham. By the post-mark of his letter, he was eventually traced to Coventry, and an indictment for perjury, in respect of the information on oath, which he gave to the magistrates of the robbery, having been found against him, he was taken into custody on a judge’s warrant, and removed to Abingdon, where, on the 22d July, 1750, he was arraigned on the indictment preferred against him. The witnesses being all in attendance, the prisoner traversed his trial until the next assizes, in pursuance of a right which he possessed; but then the facts already detailed having been proved in evidence, he was found guilty, and on the 16th July 1751, he was sentenced to be transported for seven years, having first undergone three months’ imprisonment in the County Jail.

MARY BLANDY.

EXECUTED FOR PARRICIDE.

Captain Cranstoun was the son of Lord Cranstoun, a Scotch peer of ancient family, and through the instrumentality of his uncle, Lord Mark Ker, he had obtained his commission. In the year 1745, he had married a young lady of good family named Murray, with whom he received an ample fortune; and in the year 1752, he was ordered to England to endeavour to procure his complement of men for his regiment. His bad fortune led him to Henley, and there he formed an intimacy with Miss Blandy. At this time Cranstoun was forty-six years of age, while Miss Blandy was twenty years his junior; and it is somewhat extraordinary that a person of her accomplishments and beauty should have formed a liaison with a man so much older than herself, and who, besides, is represented as having been devoid of all personal attractions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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