Kitabı oku: «Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold»

PREFACE

No apology is needed, save that which the consciousness of inadequate work may call forth, from him who writes a history of great criminals. Since the lives of so many whose crime is their only title to fame have been included in the Dictionary of National Biography, it is inevitable that some of these old stories shall be re-told. Already the books of Charles Whibley and J. B. Atlay, as well as the newspaper sketches of W. W. Hutchings, have advanced this portion of our bibliography to a large extent. By a judicious selection some rare human documents and many an entrancing tale may be found in the crimson pages of the Tyburn Chronicle. The dainty squeamishness that put Ainsworth into the pillory, not because he had written a clumsy novel, but because he had dared to weave a romance around the grisly walls of Newgate, would be out of place in an age that will listen to ballads of a drunken soldier, and reads our women’s stories of the boudoirs of Mayfair.

Without a knowledge of the Newgate Calendar it is impossible to be acquainted with the history of England in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, to him who knows these volumes, and who has verified his information in the pages of the Sessions papers and among the battles of the pamphleteers, the Georgian era is an open book. No old novel gives a more exact picture of a middle-class household than the trial of Mary Blandy, nor shows the inner life of those on the fringe of society more completely than the story of Robert Perreau. While following the fate of Henry Fauntleroy we enter the newspaper world of our great-grandfathers. And as we look upon these forgotten dramas, the most illustrious bear us company. For a time Wordsworth and Coleridge chat of nothing but the Beauty of Buttermere and rascally John Hadfield. Dr Johnson thinks wistfully of the charms of sweet Mrs Rudd. Boswell rides to Tyburn in the same coach as the Rev. Mr Hackman, or persuades Sir Joshua to witness an execution. Henry Fielding lashes the cowards who strive to condemn a prisoner unheard. To all who desire to understand the eighteenth century the Newgate Calendar is as essential as the Letters of Walpole.

In making a selection from the dozen or more causes célèbres that stand out in special prominence from the rebellion of ’45 to the death of George IV. the choice is not difficult. It is apparent that the stories of Eugene Aram, Dr Dodd, and John Thurtell must be omitted, for all have been told adequately in recent years. Little that is new or interesting can be found in the tale of mad Lord Ferrers, except that he was not hanged with a silken rope. Although the weird tragedy of the Rev. James Hackman sank more deeply into the popular mind than almost any other, the history of the brothers Perreau has been preferred, since Mrs Rudd appears a more attractive personage than the unfortunate Martha Ray. For similar reasons Wynne Ryland takes the place of Captain Donellan, and Eliza Fenning, naturally, has been excluded in favour of the Keswick Impostor. As to the rest, it is obvious – owing to the omission of the highwayman and those guilty of high treason such as Colonel Despard – that no more illustrious names can be found in the Newgate Calendar than Mary Blandy, Joseph Wall, and Henry Fauntleroy.

Each crime, moreover, bears the distinct impress of its epoch. None other but the dark night that separates a gorgeous sunset from the brilliant dawn could witness the sombre tragedy at Henley. While the nation begins its eager life as a young apprentice to trade, Tom Idle is found among the recreants, and many a sparkling macaroni like Daniel Perreau prefers to stake his all in Exchange Alley to pursuing laborious days. Wynne Ryland is dazzled by the birth of a most radiant springtide when the world becomes clothed in beauty, and man seems to have stolen the heavenly flame. Then comes the clash of arms and the strife of worlds, when the red giants are unchained, and the life of ten thousand men is naught in the policy of a statesman. With the story of the Maid of Buttermere we perceive again one of the spirits of the age – vain, ruthless Strephon in dandy attire pursuing his Phyllis, shallow-pated and simple. And last, the era of Henry Fauntleroy, when the nation has grown rich, and man must choose between the scarlet of the Corinthian, and the dull, sober garb of toil – a strange mingling of black and crimson.

In order to avoid an interruption of the narrative which a footnote must always cause, the editorial comments have been placed in the bibliography at the end of each monograph, to which those who differ from the author are requested to refer. Although the addition of the lists of authorities has robbed the book of due proportion, the fact that the useful adage “when found make a note of” has been observed will, it is hoped, cause the loss to be balanced by the gain.

The author wishes to acknowledge his obligations to Mr John Arthur for his kindness in verifying references in the British Museum; to Mr Isaac Edwards of Bolton for similar help; to the editors of the Henley Advertiser, the Carlisle Journal, and the Tiverton Gazette for access to the files of their newspapers; to the rectors of Henley, Feltham, Mottram, St Sepulchre’s, Holborn, and St Martin’s, Ludgate, for permission to consult the church register; to Mr Richard Greenup of Caldbeck for information concerning the Beauty of Buttermere; and to Mrs Bleackley for the list of Wynne Ryland’s engravings.

THE LOVE PHILTRE
THE CASE OF MARY BLANDY, 1751-2

 
“Who hath not heard of Blandy’s fatal fame,
Deplored her fate, and sorrowed o’er her shame?”
 

– Henley, a poem, 1827.

During the reign of George II. – when the gallant Young Pretender was leading Jenny Cameron toward Derby, and flabby, gin-besotted England, dismayed by a rabble of half-famished Highlanders, was ready to take its thrashing lying-down – a prosperous attorney, named Francis Blandy, was living at Henley-upon-Thames. For nine years he had held the post of town clerk, and was reckoned a person of skill in his profession. A dour, needle-witted man of law, whose social position was more considerable than his means or his lineage, old Mr Blandy, like others wiser than himself, had a foible. His pride was just great enough to make him a tuft-hunter. In those times, a solicitor in a country town had many chances of meeting his betters on equal terms, and when the attorney of Henley pretended that he had saved the large sum of ten thousand pounds, county society esteemed him at his supposed value. There lived with him – in an old-world home surrounded by gardens and close to the bridge on the London road – his wife and daughter, an only child, who at this period was twenty-five years of age.

Mrs Blandy, as consequential an old dame as ever flaunted sacque or nodded her little bugle over a dish of tea, seems to have spent a weary existence in wringing from her tight-fisted lord the funds to support the small frivolities which her social ambition deemed essential to their prestige. A feminine mind seldom appreciates the reputation without the utility of wealth, and the lawyer’s wife had strong opinions with regard to the propriety of living up to their ten-thousand-pound celebrity. While he was content with the barren honour that came to him by reason of the reputed dot which his daughter one day must enjoy – pluming himself, no doubt, that his Molly had as good a chance of winning a coronet as the penniless daughter of an Irish squireen – his lady, with more worldly wisdom, knew the value of an occasional jaunt to town, and was fully alive to the chances of rout or assembly hard-by at Reading. Thus in the pretty little home near the beautiful reach of river, domestic storms – sad object-lesson to an only child – raged frequently over the parental truck and barter at the booths of Vanity Fair.

Though not a beauty – for the smallpox, that stole the bloom from the cheeks of many a sparkling belle in hoop and brocade, had set its seal upon her face – the portrait of Mary Blandy shows that she was comely. Still, it is a picture in which there is a full contrast between the light and shadows. Those fine glistening black eyes of hers – like the beam of sunshine that illumines a sombre chamber – made one forget the absence of winsome charm in her features; yet their radiance appeared to come through dark unfathomable depths rather than as the reflection of an unclouded soul. With warmth all blood may glow, with softness every heart can beat, but some, like hers, must be compelled by reciprocal power. Such, in her empty home, was not possible. Even the love and devotion of her parents gave merely a portion of their own essence. From a greedy father she acquired the sacred lust, and learnt from infancy to dream, with morbid longing, of her future dower; while her mother encouraged a hunger for vain and giddy pleasure, teaching unwittingly that these must be bought at the expense of peace, or by the sacrifice of truth. To a girl of wit and intelligence in whose heart nature had not sown the seeds of kindness, these lessons came as a crop of tares upon a fruitful soil. But, as in the case of all women, there was one hope of salvation. Indeed, since the passion of her soul cried out with imperious command that she should fulfil the destiny of her sex, the love of husband and children would have found her a strong but pliable material that could be fashioned into more gentle form. Without such influence she was one of those to whom womanhood was insufferable – a mortal shape where lay encaged one of the fiercest demons of discontent.

Molly Blandy did not lack admirers. Being pleasant and vivacious – while her powers of attraction were enhanced by the rumour of her fortune – not a few of the beaux in the fashionable world of Bath, and county society at Reading, gave homage and made her their toast. In the eyes of her parents it was imperative that a suitor should be able to offer to their daughter a station of life befitting an heiress. On this account two worthy swains, who were agreeable to the maiden but could not provide the expected dower, received a quick dismissal. Although there was nothing exorbitant in the ambition of the attorney and his dame, it is clear that the girl learnt an evil lesson from these mercenary transactions. Still, her crosses in love do not seem to have sunk very deeply into her heart, but henceforth her conduct lost a little of its maidenly reserve. The freedom of the coquette took the place of the earnestness and sincerity that had been the mark of her ardent nature, and her conduct towards the officers of the regiment stationed at Henley was deemed too forward. However, the father, whose reception into military circles no doubt made the desired impression upon his mayor and aldermen, was well satisfied that his daughter should be on familiar terms with her soldier friends. Even when she became betrothed to a captain of no great fortune, he offered small objection on account of the position of the young man. Yet, although the prospect of a son-in-law who held the king’s commission had satisfied his vanity, the old lawyer, who foolishly had allowed the world to believe him richer than he was, could not, or (as he pretended) would not, provide a sufficient dowry. Thus the engagement promised to be a long one. Fate, however, decided otherwise. Very soon her suitor was ordered abroad on active service, and the hope of marriage faded away for the third time.

In the summer of 1746, while no doubt she was sighing for her soldier across the seas, the man destined to work the tragic mischief of her life appeared on the scene. William Henry Cranstoun, a younger son of the fifth Lord Cranstoun, a Scottish baron, was a lieutenant of marines, who, since his regiment had suffered severely during the late Jacobite rebellion, had come to Henley on a recruiting expedition. At first his attentions to Miss Blandy bore no fruit, but he returned the following summer, and while staying with his grand-uncle, General Lord Mark Kerr, who was an acquaintance of the lawyer and his family, he found that Mary was off with the old love and willing to welcome him as the new. All were amazed that the fastidious girl should forsake her gallant captain for this little sprig from North Britain – an undersized spindleshanks, built after Beau Diddapper pattern – in whose weak eyes and pock-fretten features love must vainly seek her mirror. Still greater was the astonishment when ten-thousand-pound Blandy, swollen with importance, began to babble of “my Lord of Crailing,” and the little bugle cap of his dame quivered with pride as she told her gossips of “my Lady Cranstoun, my daughter’s new mamma.” For it was common knowledge that the small Scot was the fifth son of a needy house, with little more than his pay to support his many vicious and extravagant habits. Such details seem to have been overlooked by the vain parents in their delight at the honour and glory of an alliance with a family of title. In the late autumn of 1747 they invited their prospective son-in-law to their home, where, as no one was fonder of free quarters, he remained for six months. But the cruel fate that presided over the destinies of the unfortunate Mary intervened once more. Honest Lord Mark Kerr (whose prowess as a duellist is chronicled in many a page), perceiving the intentions of his unscrupulous relative, made haste to give his lawyer friend the startling news that Cranstoun was a married man.

This information was correct. Yet, although wedded since the year before the rebellion, the vicious little Scot was seeking to put away the charming lady who was his wife and the mother of his child. Plain enough were the motives. A visit to England had taught him that the title which courtesy permitted him to bear was a commercial asset that, south of the Tweed, would enable him to sell himself in a better market. As one of his biographers tells us, “he saw young sparklers every day running off with rich prizes,” for the chapels of Wilkinson and Keith were always ready to assist the abductor of an heiress. Indeed, before his arrival at Henley, he had almost succeeded in capturing the daughter of a Leicestershire squire, when the father, who suddenly learnt his past history, sent him about his business. Still, he persisted in his attempts to get the Scotch marriage annulled, and his chances seemed favourable. Most of the relatives of his wife, who had espoused the losing side in the late rebellion, were fled in exile to France or Flanders. Moreover, she belonged to the Catholic Church, which at that time in stern Presbyterian Scotland had fallen upon evil days. Believing that she was alone and friendless, and relying, no doubt, upon the sectarian prejudices of the law courts, he set forth the base lie that he had promised to marry her only on condition she became Protestant. His explanation to the Blandys, in answer to Lord Mark’s imputation, was the same as his defence before the Scottish Commissaries. The lady was his mistress, not his wife!

Miss Blandy took the same view of the case that Sophy Western did under similar circumstances. Human nature was little different in those days, but men wore their hearts on their sleeve instead of exhibiting them only in the Courts, and women preferred to be deemed complacent rather than stupid. Doubtless old lawyer Blandy grunted many Saxon sarcasms at the expense of Scotch jurisprudence, and trembled lest son-in-law Diddapper had been entangled beyond redemption. Still, father, mother, and daughter believed the word of their guest, waiting anxiously for the result of the litigation that was to make him a free man. During the year 1748 the Commissaries at Edinburgh decided that Captain Cranstoun and the ill-used Miss Murray were man and wife. Then the latter, being aware of the flirtation at Henley, wrote to warn Miss Blandy, and provided her with a copy of the Court’s decree. Great was the consternation at the house on the London road. Visions of tea-gossip over the best set of china in the long parlour at Crailing with my Lady Cranstoun vanished from the old mother’s eyes, while the town clerk forgot his dreams of the baby whose two grand-fathers were himself and a live lord. Nevertheless, the young Scotsman protested that the marriage was invalid, declared that he would appeal to the highest tribunal, and swore eternal fidelity to his Mary. Alas, she trusted him! Within the sombre depths of her soul there dwelt a fierce resolve to make this man her own. In her sight he was no graceless creature from the barrack-room, but with a great impersonal love she sought in him merely the fulfilment of her destiny.

 
“In her first passion, woman loves her lover:
In all the others, all she loves is love.”
 

At this time Cranstoun’s fortunes were in a parlous state. More than half of his slender patrimony had been sequestered for the maintenance of his wife and child, and shortly after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, his regiment being disbanded, he was left on half-pay. Still, he did not waver in his purpose to win the heiress of Henley.

On the 30th of September 1749, the poor frivolous old head, which had sported its cap so bravely amidst the worries of pretentious poverty, lay still upon the pillow, and Mary Blandy looked upon the face of her dead mother. It was the turning-point in her career. While his wife was alive, the old lawyer had never lost all faith in his would-be son-in-law during the two years that he had been affianced to his daughter, in spite of the rude shocks which had staggered his credulity. Cranstoun had been allowed to sponge on him for another six months in the previous summer, and had pursued his womenfolk when they paid a visit to Mary’s uncle, Serjeant Stevens, of Doctors’ Commons. However, soon after the death of his wife the patience of Mr Blandy, who must have perceived that the case of the pretender was hopeless, seems to have become worn out. All idea of the baron’s grandchild faded from his mind; the blear-eyed lover was forbidden the house, and for nearly twelve months did not meet his trusting sweetheart.

Although a woman of her intelligence must have perceived that, but for some untoward event, her relationship with her betrothed could never be one of honour, her fidelity remained unshaken. Having passed her thirtieth birthday, the dreadful stigma of spinsterhood was fast falling upon her. If the methods of analogy are of any avail, it is clear that she had become a creature of lust – not the lust of sensuality, but that far more insatiable greed, the craving for conquest, possession, the attainment of the unattainable, calling forth not one but all the emotions of body and soul. A sacrifice of honour – a paltry thing in the face of such mighty passion – would have been no victory, for such in itself was powerless to accomplish the essential metamorphosis of her life. In mutual existence with a lover and slave the destiny of this rare woman alone could be achieved. Thus came the harvest of the tempest. It was not the criminal negligence of the father in encouraging for nearly three years the pretensions of a suitor, who – so a trustworthy gentleman had told him – was a married man, that had planted the seeds of storm. Nor did the filial love of the daughter begin to fade and wither because she had been taught that the affections, like anything which has a price, should be subject to barter and exchange. Deeper far lay the roots of the malignant disease – growing as a portion of her being – a part and principle of life itself. Environment and education merely had inclined into its stunted form the twig, which could never bear fruit unless grafted upon a new stalk! And while the sombre girl brooded over her strange impersonal passion, there rang in her ears the voice of demon-conscience, unceasingly – a taunting, frightful whisper, “When the old man is in his grave you shall be happy.”

The esteem of posterity for the eighteenth century, to which belong so many noble lives and great minds, has been influenced by the well-deserved censure bestowed upon a particular epoch. The year 1750 marks a period of transition when all the worst characteristics of the Georgian era were predominant. For nearly a quarter of a century the scornful glance that the boorish little king threw at any book had been reflected in the national taste for literature. Art had hobbled along bravely on the crutches of caricature, tolerated on account of its deformity, and not for its worth. The drama, which had drifted to the lowest ebb in the days of Rich and Heidegger, was just rising from its mudbank, under the leadership of Garrick, with the turn of the tide. Religion, outside the pale of Methodism, was as dead as the influence of the Church of England and its plurality divines. The prostitution of the marriage laws in the Fleet and Savoy had grown to be a menace to the social fabric. London reeked of gin; and although the business of Jack Ketch has been seldom more flourishing, property, until magistrate Fielding came forward, was never less secure from the thief and highwayman. Our second George, who flaunted his mistresses before the public gaze, was a worthy leader of a coarse and vicious society. Female dress took its form from the vulgarity of the times, and was never uglier and more indecent simultaneously. Not only was the ‘modern fine lady,’ who wept when a handsome thief was hung, a common type, but the Boobys and Bellastons were fashionable women of the day, quite as much alive as Elizabeth Chudleigh or Caroline Fitzroy. Such was the age of Miss Blandy, and she proved a worthy daughter of it.

In the late summer of 1750 the fickle attorney, who had become weary of opposition, consented to withdraw the sentence of banishment he had pronounced against his daughter’s lover. Possibly he fancied that there was a chance, after all, of the Scotch lieutenant’s success in the curious law-courts of the North, and perhaps a present of salmon, received from Lady Cranstoun, appeared to him as a favourable augury. Consequently the needy fortune-hunter, who was only too ready to return to his free quarters, paid another lengthy visit to Henley. As the weeks passed, it was evident that the temper of the host and father, whose senile humours were swayed by gravel and heartburn, could not support the new ménage. Fearful lest the devotion of his Molly had caused her to lose all regard for her fair fame, wroth that the clumsy little soldier should have disturbed the peace of his household, the old man received every mention of “the tiresome affair in Scotland” with sneers and gibes. Vanished was the flunkey-optimism that had led him to welcome once more the pertinacious slip of Scottish baronage. Naught would have appeased him but prompt evidence that the suitor was free to lead his daughter to the altar. Nothing could be plainer than that the querulous widower had lost all confidence in his unwelcome guest.

The faithful lovers were filled with dismay. A few strokes of the pen might rob them for ever of their ten thousand pounds. Their wishes were the same, their minds worked as one. A deep, cruel soul-blot, transmitted perhaps by some cut-throat borderer through the blood of generations, would have led William Cranstoun to commit, without scruple, the vilest of crimes. Those base attempts to put away his wife, and to cast the stigma of bastardy upon his child, added to his endeavour to entrap one heiress after another into a bigamous marriage, make him guilty of offences less only than murder. In his present position he had cause for desperation. Yet, although utterly broken in fortune, there was a rich treasure at his hand if he dared to seize it. Were her father dead, Molly Blandy, whether as wife or mistress, would be his – body, soul, and wealth. Within the veins of the woman a like heart-stain spread its poison. All the lawless passion of her nature cried out against her parent’s rule, which, to her mind, was seeking to banish what had become more precious than her life. Knowing that her own fierce will had its mate in his, she believed that his obduracy could not be conquered, and she lived in dread lest she should be disinherited. And all this time, day after day, the demon-tempter whispered, “When the old man is in his grave you shall be happy.”

Which of the guilty pair was the first to suggest the heartless crime it is impossible to ascertain, but there is evidence, apart from Miss Blandy’s statement, that Cranstoun was the leading spirit. Possibly, nay probably, the deed was never mentioned in brutal plainness in so many words. The history of crime affords many indications that the blackest criminals are obliged to soothe a neurotic conscience with the anodyne of make-belief. It is quite credible that the two spoke of the projected murder from the first (as indeed Miss Blandy explained it later) as an attempt to conciliate the old lawyer by administering a supernatural love philtre, having magical qualities like Oberon’s flower in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which would make him consent to their marriage. Presently a reign of mystic terror seemed to invade the little house in the London road. With fear ever present in her eyes, the figure of the sombre woman glided from room to room, whispering to the frightened servants ghostly tales of things supernatural – of unearthly music that she had heard during the misty autumn nights, of noises that had awakened her from sleep, of the ghastly apparitions that had appeared to her lover. And to all these stories she had but one dismal interpretation – saying it had come to her from a wizard-woman in Scotland – they were signs and tokens that her father would die within a year! Those who heard her listened and trembled, and the words sank deep into their memory. So the winter crept on; but while all slunk through the house with bated breath, shrinking at each mysterious sound, the old man, doomed by the sorceress, remained unsuspicious of what was going on around him.

Not long before Christmas, to the great relief of his churlish host, the little Scotsman’s clumsy legs passed through the front door for the last time, and he set out for his brother’s seat at Crailing in the shire of Roxburgh. Yet, though his lengthy visit had come to an end, his spirit remained to rule the brain of the woman who loved him. Early in the year 1751 she received a box, containing a present from Cranstoun, a set of table linen, and some ‘Scotch pebbles.’ Lawyer Blandy viewed the stones with suspicious eyes, for he hated all things beyond the Cheviot Hills, but did not make any comment. The relationship between father and daughter had become cold and distant. Quarrels were constant in the unhappy home. Often in the midst of her passion she was heard to mutter deep curses against the old man. Indeed, so banished was her love that she talked without emotion to the servants of the likelihood of his death, in fulfilment of the witch’s prophecy.

Some weeks later, when another consignment of the mysterious ‘Scotch pebbles’ had arrived for Miss Blandy, it was noticed that her conduct became still more dark and strange. Slinking through the house with slow and stealthy tread, she appeared to shun all eyes, as though bent upon some hidden purpose. A glance within the box from the North would have revealed the secret. When the crafty accomplice found that she was unable to procure the means of taking her father’s life, he had been forced to supply her with the weapons. During the spring, the health of the old lawyer, who suffered more or less from chronic ailments, began to grow more feeble. His garments hung loosely upon his shrunken limbs, while the teeth dropped from his palsied jaws. The old witch’s curse seemed to have fallen upon the home, and, to those who looked with apprehension for every sign and portent, it was fulfilled in many direful ways. Early in June, Ann Emmet, an old charwoman employed about the house, was seized with a violent illness after drinking from a half-emptied cup left at Mr Blandy’s breakfast. A little later, Susan Gunnel, one of the maid-servants, was affected in a similar way through taking some tea prepared for her master. One August morning, in the secrecy of her own chamber, trembling at every footfall beyond the locked door, Mary Blandy gazed with eager, awestruck eyes upon a message sent by her lover.

“I am sorry there are such occasions to clean your pebbles,” wrote the murderous little Scotsman. “You must make use of the powder to them, by putting it into anything of substance, wherein it will not swim a-top of the water, of which I wrote to you in one of my last. I am afraid it will be too weak to take off their rust, or at least it will take too long a time.”

From the language of metaphor it is easy to translate the ghastly meaning. She must have told Cranstoun that the white arsenic, which he had sent to her under the pseudonym of ‘powder to clean the pebbles,’ remained floating on the surface of the tea. Possibly her father had noticed this phenomenon, and, not caring to drink the liquid, had escaped the painful sickness which had attacked the less cautious servants. But now she had found a remedy – ‘anything of substance!’ – a safe and sure vehicle that could not fail. Louder still in the ears of the lost woman rang the mocking words, “When the old man is dead you shall be happy.”

During the forenoon of Monday, the 5th of August, Susan Gunnel, the maid, met her young mistress coming from the pantry.

“Oh, Susan,” she exclaimed, “I have been stirring my papa’s water gruel”; and then, perceiving other servants through the half-open door of the laundry, she added gaily, “If I was ever to take to eating anything in particular it would be oatmeal.”

No response came from the discreet Susan, but she marvelled, calling to mind that Miss Blandy had said to her some time previously, noticing that she appeared unwell:

“Good people,” she cried, in a clear, audible voice, “give me leave to declare to you that I am perfectly innocent as to any intention to destroy or even hurt my dear father; that I did not know, or even suspect, that there was any poisonous quality in the fatal powder I gave him; though I can never be too much punished for being the innocent cause of his death. As to my mother’s and Mrs Pocock’s deaths, that have been unjustly laid to my charge, I am not even the innocent cause of them, nor did I in the least contribute to them. So help me, God, in these my last moments. And may I not meet with eternal salvation, nor be acquitted by Almighty God, in whose awful presence I am instantly to appear hereafter, if the whole of what is here asserted is not true. I from the bottom of my soul forgive all those concerned in my prosecution; and particularly the jury, notwithstanding their fatal verdict.”

Then, having ascended five steps of the ladder, she turned to the officials. “Gentlemen,” she requested, with a show of modesty, “do not hang me high.” The humanity of those whose task it was to put her to death, forced them to ask her to go a little higher. Climbing two steps more, she then looked round, and trembling, said, “I am afraid I shall fall.” Still, her invincible courage enabled her to address the crowd once again. “Good people,” she said, “take warning by me to be on your guard against the sallies of any irregular passion, and pray for me that I may be accepted at the Throne of Grace.” While the rope was being placed around her neck it touched her face, and she gave a deep sigh. Then with her own fingers she moved it to one side. A white handkerchief had been bound across her forehead, and she drew it over her features. As it did not come low enough, a woman, who had attended her and who had fixed the noose around her throat, stepped up and pulled it down. For a while she stood in prayer, and then gave the signal by thrusting out a little book which she held in her hand. The ladder was moved from under her feet, and in obedience to the laws of her country she was suspended in the air, swaying and convulsed, until the grip of the rope choked the breath from her body.

Horrible! Yet only in degree are our own methods different from those employed a hundred and fifty years ago.

During the whole of the sad tragedy, the crowd, unlike the howling mob at Tyburn, maintained an awestruck silence. There were few dry eyes, though the sufferer did not shed a tear, and hundreds of those who witnessed her death went away convinced of her innocence. An elegant young man named Edward Gibbon, with brain wrapped in the mists of theology, who for three days had been gentleman commoner at Magdalen, does not appear to have been attracted to the scene. Surely George Selwyn must be maligned, else he would have posted to Oxford to witness this spectacle. It would have been his only opportunity of seeing a gentlewoman in the hands of the executioner.

After hanging for half an hour with the feet, in consequence of her request, almost touching the ground, the body was carried upon the shoulders of one of the sheriff’s men to a neighbouring house. At five o’clock in the afternoon the coffin containing her remains was taken in a hearse to Henley, where, in the dead of night, amidst a vast concourse, it was interred in the chancel of the parish church between the graves of her father and mother.

So died ‘the unfortunate Miss Blandy’ in the thirty-second year of her age – with a grace and valour which no scene on the scaffold has ever excelled. If, as the authors of The Beggars Opera and The History of Jonathan Wild have sought to show, in playful irony, the greatness of the criminal is comparable with the greatness of the statesman, then she must rank with Mary of Scotland and Catherine of Russia among the queens of crime. Hers was the soul of steel, theirs also the opportunity.

In every period the enormity of a sin can be estimated only by its relation to the spirit of the age; and in spite of cant and sophistry, the contemporaries of Miss Blandy made no legal distinction between the crimes of parricide and petty larceny. Nay, the same rope that strangled the brutal cut-throat in a few moments might prolong the agony of a poor thief for a quarter of an hour. Had the doctors succeeded in saving the life of the old attorney, the strange law which in later times put to death Elizabeth Fenning would have been powerless to demand the life of Mary Blandy for a similar offence. The protests of Johnson and Fielding against the iniquity of the criminal code fell on idle ears.

Thus we may not judge Mary Blandy from the standpoint of our own moral grandeur, for she is a being of another world – one of the vain, wilful, selfish children to whom an early Guelph was king – merely one of the blackest sheep in a flock for the most part ill-favoured. As we gaze upon her portrait there comes a feeling that we do not know this sombre woman after all, for though the artist has produced a faithful resemblance, we perceive there is something lacking. We look into part, not into her whole soul. None but one of the immortals – Rembrandt, or his peer – could have shown this queen among criminals as she was: an iron-hearted, remorseless, demon-woman, her fair, cruel visage raised mockingly amidst a chiaroscuro of crime and murkiness unspeakable.

 
“a narrow, foxy face,
Heart-hiding smile, and gay persistent eye.”
 

In our own country the women of gentle birth who have been convicted of murder since the beginning of the eighteenth century may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Mary Blandy, Constance Kent, Florence Maybrick – for that unsavoury person, Elizabeth Jefferies, has no claim to be numbered in the roll, and the verdict against beautiful Madeleine Smith was ‘Not proven’ – these names exhaust the list. And of them, the first alone paid the penalty at the gallows. The annals of crime contain the records of many parricides, some that have been premeditated with devilish art, but scarce one that a daughter has wrought by the most loathsome of coward’s weapons. In comparison with the murderess of Henley, even Frances Howard and Anne Turner were guilty of a venial crime. Mary Blandy stands alone and incomparable – pilloried to all ages among the basest of her sex.

Yet the world soon forgot her. “Since the two misses were hanged,” chats Horace Walpole on the 23rd of June, coupling irreverently the names of Blandy and Jefferies with the beautiful Gunnings – “since the two misses were hanged, and the two misses were married, there is nothing at all talked of.” Society, however, soon found a new thrill in the adventures of the young woman Elizabeth Canning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BLANDY CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts

1. An Authentic Narrative of that Most Horrid Parricide. (Printed in the year 1751. Name of publisher in second edition, M. Cooper.)

2. A Genuine and Full Account of the Parricide committed by Mary Blandy, Oxford; Printed for, and sold by C. Goddard in the High St, and sold by R. Walker in the little Old Bailey, and by all booksellers and pamphlet Shops. (Published November 9, 1751.)

3. A Letter from a Clergyman to Miss Mary Blandy with her Answer thereto… As also Miss Blandy’s Own Narrative. London; Printed for M. Cooper at the Globe in Paternoster Row. 1752. Price four pence. Brit. Mus. (March 20, 1752.)

4. An Answer to Miss Blandy’s Narrative. London; Printed for W. Owen, near Temple Bar. 1752. Price 3d. Brit. Mus. (March 27, 1752.)

5. The Case of Miss Blandy considered as a Daughter, as a Gentlewoman, and as a Christian. Oxford; Printed for R. Baldwin, at the Rose in Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (April 6, 1752.)

6. Original Letters to and from Miss Blandy and C – C —, London. Printed for S. Johnson, near the Haymarket, Charing Cross. 1752. Brit. Mus. (April 8, 1752.)

7. A Genuine and Impartial Account of the Life of Miss M. Blandy. W. Jackson and R. Walker. (April 9, 1752.)

8. Miss Mary Blandy’s Own Account. London; Printed for A. Millar in the Strand. 1752 (price one shilling and sixpence). N.B. The Original Account authenticated by Miss Blandy in a proper manner may be seen at the above A. Millar’s. Brit. Mus. (April 10, 1752. The most famous apologia in criminal literature.)

9. A Candid Appeal to the Public, by a Gentleman of Oxford. London. Printed for J. Clifford in the Old Bailey, and sold at the Pamphleteer Shops. 1752. Price 6d. Brit. Mus. (April 15, 1752.)

10. The Tryal of Mary Blandy. Published by Permission of the Judges. London. Printed for John and James Rivington at the Bible and Crown and in St Paul’s Churchyard. 1752. In folio price two shillings. 8vo. one shilling. Brit. Mus. (April 24, 1752.)

11. The Genuine Histories of the Life and Transactions of John Swan and Eliz. Jeffries, … and Miss Mary Blandy, London. Printed and sold by T. Bailey opposite the Pewter-Pot-Inn in Leadenhall Street. (Published after April 10, 1752.)

12. An Authentic and full History of all the Circumstances of the Cruel Poisoning of Mr. Francis Blandy, printed only for Mr. Wm. Owen, Bookseller at Temple Bar, London, and R. Goadby in Sherborne. Brit. Mus. (Without date. From pp. 113-132 the pamphlet resembles the “Answer to Miss Blandy’s Narrative,” published also by Wm. Owen.)

13. The Authentic Tryals of John Swan and Elizabeth Jeffryes… With the Tryal of Miss Mary Blandy, London. Printed by R. Walker for W. Richards, near the East Gate, Oxford. 1752. Brit. Mus. (Published later than the “Candid Appeal.”)

14. The Fair Parricide. A Tragedy in three acts. Founded on a late melancholy event. London. Printed for T. Waller, opp. Fetter Lane. Fleet Street (price 1/). Brit. Mus. (May 5, 1752.)

15. The Genuine Speech of the Hon. Mr —, at the late Trial of Miss Blandy, London; Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane. 1752. (Price sixpence.) Brit. Mus. (May 15, 1752.)

16. The x x x x Packet Broke Open, or a letter from Miss Blandy in the Shades below to Capt. Cranstoun in his exile above. London. Printed for M. Cooper at the Globe in Paternoster Row. 1752. Price 6d. Brit. Mus. (May 16, 1752.)

17. The Secret History of Miss Blandy. London. Printed for Henry Williams, and sold by the booksellers at the Exchange, in Ludgate St, at Charing Cross, and St. James. Price 1s. 6d. Brit. Mus. (June 11, 1752. A sane and well-written account of the whole story.)

18. Memoires of the Life of Wm. Henry Cranstoun Esqre. London. Printed for J. Bouquet, at the White Hart, in Paternoster Row; 1752. Price one shilling. Brit. Mus. (June 18, 1752.)

19. The Genuine Lives of Capt. Cranstoun and Miss Mary Blandy. London. Printed for M. Cooper, Paternoster Row, and C. Sympson at the Bible Warehouse, Chancery Lane. 1753. Price one shilling. Brit. Mus.

20. Capt. Cranstoun’s Account of the poisoning of the Late Mr. Francis Blandy. London. Printed for R. Richards, the Corner of Bernard’s-Inn, near the Black Swan, Holborn. Brit. Mus. (March 1-3, 1753.)

21. Memories of the life and most remarkable transactions of Capt. William Henry Cranstoun. Containing an account of his conduct in his younger years. His letter to his wife to persuade her to disown him as her husband. His trial in Scotland, and the Court’s decree thereto. His courtship of Miss Blandy; his success therein, and the tragical issue of that affair. His voluntary exile abroad with the several accidents that befel him from his flight to his death. His reconciliation to the Church of Rome, with the Conversation he had with a Rev. Father of the Church at the time of his conversion. His miserable death, and pompous funeral. Printed for M. Cooper in Paternoster Row; W. Reeve in Fleet Street; and C. Sympson in Chancery Lane. Price 6d. With a curious print of Capt. Cranstoun. Brit. Mus. (March 10-13, 1753. As the title-page of this pamphlet is torn out of the copy in the Brit. Mus., it is given in full. From pp. 3-21 the tract is identical with “The Genuine Lives,” also published by M. Cooper.)

22. Parricides! The trial of Philip Stansfield, Gt, for the murder of his father in Scotland, 1688. Also the trial of Miss Mary Blandy, for the murder of her Father, at Oxford 1752. London (1810). Printed by J. Dean, 57 Wardour St, Soho for T. Brown, 154 Drury Lane and W. Evans, 14 Market St, St James’s. Brit. Mus.

23. The Female Parricide, or the History of Mary-Margaret d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvillier… In which a parallel is drawn between the Marchioness and Miss Blandy. C. Micklewright, Reading. Sold by J. Newbery. Price 1/. (March 5, 1752.)

Lowndes mentions also: —

24. An Impartial Inquiry into the Case of Miss Blandy. With reflections on her Trial, Defence, Repentance, Denial, Death. 1753. 8vo.

25. The Female Parricide. A Tragedy, by Edward Crane, of Manchester. 1761. 8vo.

26. A Letter from a Gentleman to Miss Blandy with her answer thereto. 1752. 8vo. (Possibly the same as “A Letter from a Clergyman.”)

The two following are advertised in the newspapers of the day: —

27. Case of Miss Blandy and Miss Jeffreys fairly stated, and compared… R. Robinson, Golden Lion, Ludgate Street. (March 26, 1752.)

28. Genuine Letters between Miss Blandy and Miss Jeffries before and after their Conviction. J. Scott Exchange Alley; W. Owen, Temple Bar; G. Woodfall, Charing Cross. (April 21, 1752.)

29. Broadside. Execution of Miss Blandy. Pitts, Printer, Toy and Marble Warehouse, 6 Great St. Andrew’s St. Seven Dials. Brit. Mus.

30. The Addl. MSS., 15930. Manuscript Department in the Brit. Mus.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

1. Read’s Weekly Journal, March and April (1752), February 3 (1753).

2. The General Advertiser, August-November (1751), March and April (1752).

3. The London Evening Post, March and April (1752).

4. The Covent Garden Journal (Sir Alexander Drawcansir), February, March, and April (1752).

5. The London Morning Penny Post, August and September (1751).

6. Gentleman’s Magazine, pp. 376, 486-88 (1751), pp. 108-17, 152, 188, 195 (1752), pp. 47, 151 (1753), p. 803, pt. II. (1783).

7. Universal Magazine, pp. 114-124, 187, 281 (1752).

8. London Magazine, pp. 379, 475, 512(1751), pp. 127, 180, 189(1752), p. 89 (1753).

Notes

Note I. – In recent years the guilt of Cranstoun has been questioned. Yet a supposition that does not explain two damning circumstances must be baseless:

(a) In the first place, one of his letters to Miss Blandy, dated July 18, 1751, was read by Bathurst in his opening speech. Although the reports of the trial do not tell us that the note was produced in court, or that the handwriting was verified, it cannot be presumed that the Crown lawyers were guilty of wilful fabrication. However strange it may appear that this letter alone escaped destruction, it is improbable that Miss Blandy invented it. Had she done so its contents would have been more consistent with her defence. As it stands it is most unfavourable to her. Therefore, in the absence of further evidence, we must conclude that the letter is genuine, and if genuine Cranstoun was an accomplice.

(b) In the second place, the paper containing the poison which was rescued from the fire, is said by the prosecution to have borne the inscription in Cranstoun’s handwriting, ‘Powder to clean the pebbles’ If this had been counterfeit, Miss Blandy would have had no object in destroying it, but would have kept it for her purpose.

At any cost Lord Cranstoun must have been anxious to remove the black stain from his scutcheon. That this was impossible the fact that it was not done seems to prove. Indeed, if Captain Cranstoun had been ignorant of the crime, he could have proved his innocence as soon as Miss Blandy was arrested by producing her letters, which, granting this hypothesis, would have contained no reference that would have incriminated him. That she had written a great deal to him was shown in evidence at the trial by the clerk Lyttleton.

For these reasons it is impossible to accept the conclusion of the writer of Cranstoun’s life in the Dic. Nat. Biog. (who has adopted the assertion in Anderson’s Scottish Nation, vol. i. p. 698), that “apart from Miss Blandy’s statement there is nothing to convict him of the murder.”

Note II. – Anderson’s statement that “there does not appear to be any grounds for supposing that Captain Cranstoun was in any way accessory to the murder,” shows that he had not a complete knowledge of the facts at his disposal, or that he did not weigh them with precision. Miss Blandy’s intercepted letter to her lover affords a strong presumption of his connivance, and her destruction of his correspondence suggests that it contained incriminating details. That these two actions were subtle devices to cast suspicion upon Cranstoun cannot be maintained with any show of plausibility, for in this case Miss Blandy, if dexterous enough to weave such a crafty plot, must have foreseen its exposure, and with such exposure her own inevitable ruin, when to prove that he was not an accomplice her lover had produced the letters she had written to him. Thus to support such an assumption it must be shown that Cranstoun had previously destroyed every particle of her handwriting, and that she was aware of the fact. Of such an improbable circumstance there is, of course, no evidence.

Note III. – “Old Benchers of the Middle Temple,” Essays of Elia. The relative of Miss Blandy, with whom Mr Samuel Salt was dining when he made the unfortunate remark which Lamb repeats, may have been Mr Serjeant Henry Stephens of Doctors’ Commons, who was her maternal uncle.

Note IV. – The date of Miss Blandy’s birth is not given in the Dic. Nat. Biog. From the register of Henley Parish Church it appears that she was baptized on July 15, 1720.

THE UNFORTUNATE BROTHERS
THE CASE OF ROBERT AND DANIEL PERREAU AND MRS MARGARET CAROLINE RUDD, 1775-6

 
“What’s this dull town to me?
Robin’s not near;
He whom I wish to see,
Wish for to hear.
Where’s all the joy and mirth,
Made life a heaven on earth?
Oh! they’re all fled with thee,
Robin Adair.”
 

When tenor Braham sent his plaintive air ringing through the town, few were alive who could recall the two previous occasions on which also the name of Adair was upon every lip. One day in February 1758 all London had been stirred by the elopement of Lady Caroline Keppel, daughter of second Earl Albemarle, with a rollicking Irish physician who may have been the Robert of the ballad; while during the summer of 1775 the whole world was wondering whether a man or a most beautiful woman must go to Tyburn for using the signature of Mr William Adair, the rich army agent, cousin to Dr Robin of wedding and song. In the first romance the hero received the just title of ‘the fortunate Irishman’: in the latter the chief personages were ‘the unfortunate brothers’ Messrs Robert and Daniel Perreau. Their disaster happened thus: —

On a Tuesday morning, the 7th of March 1775, a slender, middle-aged gentleman walked into the counting-house of Messrs Drummond, the great bankers of Charing Cross. Garbed in a trim snuff-coloured suit, and betraying none of the macaroni eccentricities with the exception of a gold-laced hat, his dress suited the rôle that he played in life – a sleek and prosperous apothecary. This Mr Robert Perreau of Golden Square was welcomed cordially by Henry Drummond, one of the partners in the firm, for an apothecary was almost as eminent as a doctor, and the men had met and known each other at such houses as my Lord Egmont’s or that of my Lady Lyttelton. Producing as security a bond for £7500, bearing a signature that should have been honoured by any house in London, the visitor requested a loan of £5000. However, strange to say, banker Henry, who had been joined by his brother Robert, seemed dissatisfied.

“This bond is made payable to you,” he remarked. “Was you present when it was executed?”

“No, I was not present,” was Mr Perreau’s reply.

“It is not the signature of William Adair, the late army agent of Pall Mall,” was the startling comment of Robert Drummond. “I have seen his drafts many a time!”

The prim countenance of the apothecary remained unperturbed.

“There is no doubt but it is his hand,” he answered, with perfect composure, “for it is witnessed by Mr Arthur Jones, his solicitor, and by Thomas Stark, his servant.”

“It is very odd,” replied the incredulous Robert Drummond. “I have seen his hand formerly, and this does not appear to be the least like it.”

Brother Henry Drummond echoed the same sentiment, whereupon Mr Robert Perreau waxed mysterious and emphatic.

“Mr Adair is my particular friend,” he declared. “There are family connections between us… Mr Adair has money of mine in his hands, and allows me interest.”

“Come to-morrow, Mr Perreau,” said Henry Drummond, “and we will give you an answer.”

Having received this promise the apothecary departed, but after the lapse of two hours he returned, and was seen by banker Henry once more. Without the least reserve he confessed that he had been much concerned by what the Messrs Drummond had told him.

“I could not be easy in my mind till I had called on Mr Adair,” he explained. “Luckily I catched him in his boots before he went to take his ride.”

Naturally, the good banker listened with interest, noting the words, for it seemed odd that Mr William Adair, the rich squire of Flixton Hall in Suffolk, whose son was carrying on the army agency, should raise money in such a style.

“I produced the bond to Mr Adair,” Robert Perreau continued. “It was his signature, he said, but he might possibly have altered his hand from the time you had seen him write… You might let me have the £5000, Mr Adair said, and he would pay the bond in May, though it is not payable till June.”

The astute banker, who had talked the matter over with his brother in the interim, did not express his doubts so strongly.

“Leave the bond with me,” he suggested to his visitor, “in order that we may get an assignment of it.”

Which proposal Mr Robert Perreau assented to readily, believing, no doubt, that it was a preface to the payment of his money. In the course of the day the document was shown to a friend of Mr Adair, and finally exhibited to the agent himself. Attentive to the hour of his appointment, Mr Perreau left his gallipots in Golden Square, and reached the Charing Cross bank at eleven o’clock on the following morning. Both partners were ready for him, and suggested that to clear up all doubts it would be wise to call upon Mr William Adair without delay. To this the apothecary assented very readily – indeed, in any case a refusal would have aroused the worst suspicions. As it was a wet morning, he had come in his elegant town coach, and he drove off immediately with one of the bankers to the house of the late agent in Pall Mall. Upon their entrance the squire of Flixton took Mr Henry Drummond by the hand, but, to the surprise of the worthy banker, made a bow merely to the man who had boasted him as his ‘particular friend’ Then, the bond being produced, Mr Adair at once repudiated the signature. For the first time Robert Perreau betrayed astonishment.

“Surely, sir,” cried he, “you are jocular!”

A haughty glance was the sole response of the wealthy agent.

“It is no time to be jocular when a man’s life is at stake,” retorted the indignant Henry Drummond. “What can all this mean? The person you pretend to be intimate with does not know you.”

“Why, ’tis evident this is not Mr Adair’s hand,” added his brother, who had just arrived, with similar warmth, pointing to the forged name.

“I know nothing at all of it,” protested the confused apothecary.

“You are either the greatest fool or the greatest knave I ever saw,” the angry banker continued. “I do not know what to make of you… You must account for this… How came you by the bond?”

Then there was a hint that a constable had been summoned, and it would be best to name his accomplices.

“How came you by the bond?” repeated Mr Drummond.

At last the bewildered Mr Perreau seemed to realise the gravity of his position.

“That will appear,” he replied, in answer to the last remark, “if you will send for my sister.”

“Who may she be?”

“Why, my brother Mr Daniel Perreau’s wife.”

Calling his servant, the apothecary bade him take the coach for his sister-in-law, who, he said, might be at her home in Harley Street, but most likely with his wife at his own house in Golden Square. It was evident that the carriage did not go farther than the latter direction, for in a short time it brought back the lady, who was ushered into the room. Then indeed the hearts of those three hard-pated men of finance must have been softened, for their eyes could have rested upon no more dazzling vision of feminine loveliness within the British Isles. Of medium height, her figure was shaped in the robust lines of graceful womanhood, but the face, which beamed with an expression of childish innocence, seemed the daintiest of miniatures, with tiny, shell-like features, and the clearest and fairest skin. In the fashion of the time her hair was combed upward, revealing a high forehead, and the ample curls which fell on either side towards her neck nestled beneath the smallest of ears. Without a tinge of colour, her complexion was relieved only by her red lips, but the healthy pallor served to heighten her radiant beauty. A thin tight ribbon encircled her slender neck. Below the elbow the close sleeves of her polonese terminated in little tufts of lace, while long gloves concealed her round, plump arms. Dress, under the influence of art, was beginning to cast off its squalor.

Grasping the situation in a moment, this lovely Mrs Daniel Perreau asked if she might speak with her brother-in-law alone, but the request was refused. Then the beauty, making full use of her shining blue eyes, besought Mr Adair to grant her a private interview. But the old man – not such a gay dog as kinsman Robin – was proof against these blandishments.

“You are quite a stranger to me,” he answered, “and you can have no conversation that does not pass before these gentlemen.”

For a short time the beautiful woman appeared incapable of reason. At last she seemed to make a sudden decision.

“My brother Mr Perreau is innocent,” she cried, in an agony of distress. “I gave him the bond… I forged it!.. For God’s sake, have mercy on an innocent man. Consider his wife and children… Nobody was meant to be injured. All will be repaid.”

“It is a man’s signature,” objected one of the bankers. “How could you forge it?”

Seizing a pen and sheet of paper, she imitated the name on the bond with such amazing fidelity that all were convinced. Then, according to promise, Robert Drummond destroyed the writing, for he, at least, was determined that no advantage should be taken of her confidence.

Little information was gained from Daniel Perreau – twin brother of the apothecary – who had been summoned from his spacious home in Harley Street, save shrugs of shoulders and words of surprise. Between him and Robert there was a striking likeness. Both were handsome and well-proportioned men, but a full flavour of macaroni distinguished the newcomer – a ‘fine puss gentleman’ of the adventurous type. To him dress was as sacred as to his great predecessor, Mr John Rann of the Sixteen Strings, who only a few months previously had met with a fatal accident near the Tyburn turnpike. Indeed, the macaroni was as great an autocrat as the dandy of later days, and princes, parsons, and highwaymen alike became members of his cult. So the gentleman from Harley Street, flourishing his big stick, and shaking the curled chignon at the back of his neck, tried with success to look a great fool.

Quite appropriately, it was the woman who determined the result. Less dour than the squire of Flixton, the two bankers had no objection to accompany her into an adjacent room, where they listened with sympathy to her prayers. Being younger men than Mr Adair, they were full of respect for her brave deed of self-accusation, moved by the piteous spectacle of beauty in tears. In the end, confident that she spoke the truth, they began to regard Robert Perreau as her innocent dupe. So the constable was sent away, for macaroni Daniel seemed too great an idiot to arrest, and it was preposterous to dream of locking up his lovely wife. Thus the three grave financiers promised that the adventure should be forgotten, and the Messrs Perreau drove away from the house in Pall Mall in Robert’s coach, assured that they had escaped from a position which might have cost them their lives. Almost as clever as she was beautiful was this charming Mrs Daniel Perreau.

Surely, all but a fool would have tried to blot the incident from his mind, content that the gentlemen concerned believed his honour to be unsullied, too humane to betray a pretty sister into the bloody hands of justice – all but a fool, or a criminal seeking to escape by sacrificing an accomplice! Yet Mr Robert Perreau, although anything but a fool, would not rest. Without delay he sought advice from a barrister friend, one Henry Dagge, with the amazing result that on the following Saturday forenoon, the 11th of March, he appeared before Messrs Wright and Addington at the office in Bow Street to lay information against ‘the female forger’ Luckily, the magistrates took the measure of the treacherous apothecary, and committed him as well as the lady to the Bridewell at Tothill Fields. On the next day, fop Daniel – a base fellow, who had acted as decoy while his brother was effecting the betrayal – was sent to keep them company. It was a rueful hour for the two Perreaus when they tried to pit their wits against a woman.

On Wednesday morning, the 15th of March, in expectation that the three distinguished prisoners would appear before Sir John Fielding, the Bow Street court was besieged by so large a crowd that it was deemed prudent to adjourn to more commodious quarters in the Guildhall, Westminster. Surprising revelations were forthcoming. It was found that the forgery discovered seven days ago was only one of many. Two other persons – Dr Brooke and Admiral Sir Thomas Frankland – less cautious than the Drummonds, came forward to declare that they had obliged their friend Mr Perreau by discounting similar bonds, all of which bore the signature of William Adair! Plain indeed was the motive of Robert’s betrayal. It was not enough that the bankers should forgive him – it was needful that the woman must answer as scapegoat for much more.

Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of person to make the introduction.

On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776 – a bitter morning, with keen frost in the air and deep snow on the ground – the two poor brothers were led out to die. When they were brought from the chapel into the day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming of the hangmen, they found only a few faithful friends who wished to say farewell. For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper Akerman stood himself at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying entrance even to his own acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently unmoved, gave a bow to his friends, and then sought the warmth of the fire. Robert, less resolute than his brother, was unmanned for an instant by the sight of the cords and halters upon the table. In a few moments their steps were ringing across the flags of the courtyard, as with bound arms they followed the Sheriffs towards the gate. Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a merciless law testify that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful and serene. For, save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one can accuse Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore them company to the grave.

Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the sombre mourning-coach – a special privilege – with the unhappy brothers. All around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on the housetops, piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing east wind shot down the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the frosty mist like a monument of hard black ice.

Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the condemned prisoners: —

“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll…

 
“Lord have mercy upon you,
Christ have mercy upon you.”
 

Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob, clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers. Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the mob – forty thousand strong – shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs, maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.

It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed, the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.

At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary Villette offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers embraced tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited more nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their lives. As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath them, their hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute their fingers remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell apart as they passed into oblivion beside their five dying companions. Four days later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they were buried together in a vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate Hill.

No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling, laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold. With great difficulty an army of constables – three hundred in number – kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A woman was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed by a fall from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed during the execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.

In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the gallows before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the merciless code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy king, when he was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’ Henceforth, it was as safe to blow out a man’s brains as to counterfeit his handwriting. At last, when the first humane monarch for more than a hundred years set his face against such butchery the lawgivers were unable to preserve the bloody statutes that had slaughtered thousands during the half century which separated the deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy. By the side of Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is entitled to an honourable place.

Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used, old as human sin – it was the woman! – and even this apology involved the most absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been prearranged between the conspirators. Treachery brought its own reward, and Robert Perreau, forgetting that there should be honour among thieves, was ruined because he did not trust his fair accomplice to the full extent. No doubt she would have soothed sea-dog Frankland just as she pacified the bankers Drummond.

In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene in old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might well have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons, the Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the shambles. Since she must have known the men who were her associates, she must have realised also her own risk. Yet still she kept her faith, while perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a noble act of heroism, though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when we bear in mind how the two brothers repaid her trust, and reflect upon the breach of law-honour sanctioned by James Mansfield, there comes the obvious suspicion that, whatever her iniquity, the woman was more than repaid in her own coin.

Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s chariot. During the following spring she was honoured by the polite attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same time as his fidus Achates were it not that they had a trick of putting everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references occur in ‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar chroniques scandaleuses, now treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had begun to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial, for a life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and dim the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may conjecture that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much longer than a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous bad dreams on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in very distressed circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the famous Mrs Dawson.

In the testimony of her contemporaries there is unanimity with regard to the beauty and wit of Margaret Rudd – the sole grudge, even of the women, being that she was clever enough to cheat the gallows. To pretend sympathy with those who were saddened because she received no punishment is superlative cant, for the penalty would have been out of all proportion to the offence. Thus the cheers that rang through the Old Bailey on that December evening long ago find an echo in our hearts to-day. Moreover, since it was needful to offer up a propitiatory sacrifice to Mammon, it was a shrewd common-sense that selected the brothers as the more deserving of the awful atonement.

In the scarlet pages of the chronicles of crime there is not another dazzling figure such as the mistress of poor Daniel Perreau. Yet she walks across the dim stage in the guise of no tragedy queen as Miss Blandy. If at all, she compels our tears amidst our smiles, and such tears are the most gentle and spontaneous. Light, sparkling, joyous, she chases pleasure with reckless laughter, meeting the fate of all who pursue the glittering wisp, heedless of the deepening mire through which they tread. It is wrong to watch her dainty person with delight, but we cannot avert our eyes. Alas, transit gloria mundi! One of the most excellent of modern critics speaks truly of this immortal lady as a forgotten heroine of the Newgate Calendar, and she – the idol of princes and lord mayors – has not received a niche among the national biographies!

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PERREAU CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts

1. The Female Forgery, Or Fatal Effects of Unlawful Love. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. “With a beautiful whole-length portrait of Mrs Rudd resolving whether to sign the Bond or forfeit her life. From the capital drawing of an eminent master.” (Published April 22, 1775.)

2. Forgery Unmasked, or Genuine Memoirs of the Two Unfortunate Brothers, Rob. and Daniel Perreau, and Mrs Rudd. A. Grant, Bridges Street, Covent Garden. Price 1/. “Illustrated with a New and Beautiful Engraving of Mr Dan. Perreau in the act of threatening to Murder Mrs. Rudd, unless she would sign the Fatal Bond.” (April 25, 1775. A pro-Rudd Tract, containing the case of Mrs Rudd, as related by herself, which appeared originally as a series of letters in the Morning Post from March 27 to April 10.)

3. Genuine Memoirs of Messieurs Perreau; (Now under Confinement.) With many Curious Anecdotes relative to Mrs Rudd; G. Allen, No. 59 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. Brit. Mus. (April 26, 1775.)

4. The Genuine Memoirs of the Messers Perreau. G. Kearsley, 46 Fleet Street. Price 1/6. (Published May 11, 1775. Second edition June 8, 1775.)

5. The Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau. T. Bell, at (No. 26) the Top of Bell-Yard, near Temple Bar. Taken down in shorthand by Joseph Gurney. (June 6, 1775.)

6. Mr. Daniel Perreau’s Narrative of His Unhappy Case. T. Evans, No. 50 in the Strand, near York Buildings. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (June 9, 1775.)

7. A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Suffolk… In which the Innocence of Robert Perreau is demonstrated. T. Hookham, at his Circulating Library, the Corner of Hanover Street, Hanover Square. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (July 13, 1775.)

8. Facts, or a Plain and Explicit Narrative of the Case of Mrs. Rudd. T. Bell, 26 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 1775. This tract contains the “Case of Mrs. Rudd as related by herself,” with the addition of her “Narrative,” which appeared originally in the Morning Post. July 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14.)

9. Observations on the Trial of Mr. Robert Perreau. With Mr. Perreau’s Defence, as spoken on His Trial. S. Bladon, No. 16 Paternoster Row. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 17, 1775.)

10. The True Genuine Lives and Trials, etc. of the Two Unfortunate Brothers. Illustrated with Two New and Beautiful Engravings, 1st. Daniel Perreau threatening to Murder Mrs Rudd … 2nd. The two Perreaus lamenting their unhappy fate. J. Miller, White Lion Street, Goodman’s Fields. Brit. Mus. (1775.)

11. An Account of the Arguments of Counsel… On Sat., Sept. 16. 1775, whether Mrs. Rudd ought to be tried, etc. By Joseph Gurney. Sold by Martha Gurney, No. 34 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. 1775. price 1/6. Brit. Mus.

12. The Case of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd, from her first Commitment to Newgate on Thursday, the 1st of June, last to her final acquittal at the Old Bailey, Friday, December 8, 1775. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. (December 15, 1775.)

13. The Whole Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London; and also the Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex; Held at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, on Wednesday, the 6th of December, 1775, and the following Days. Revised and published by John Glynn, Serjeant at Law and Recorder of London. No. 1. Part I. Printed by William Richardson for Edward and Charles Dilby, price 9d. (December 19, 1775.)

14. The Trial at Large of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd. Elucidated by such Matter as never before transpired. By Mr. Bailey, Barrister-at-Law. Sold at No. 26 Bell-Yard near Temple Bar. (1775.) London Library.

15. A Solemn Declaration of Mr. Daniel Perreau… Written by himself and Delivered to a Friend in the Cells of Newgate on Sunday, January 14. 1776. T. Evans, near York Buildings in the Strand, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (January 22, 1776.)

16. A Genuine Account of the Behaviour and Dying Words of Daniel and Robert Perreau. By the Reverend John Villette, Ordinary of Newgate. Printed for the Author and sold at his house, No. 1 Newgate St. 1776. Brit. Mus. (1776.)

17. An Explicit Account of the Lives, Trials, Dying Words, and Burial of the Twin Brothers. Brit. Mus. (1776. Without the publisher’s name.)

18. Mrs. Marg. Car. Rudd’s Case Considered, Respecting Robert Perreau. In an Address to Henry Drummond Esquire, J. Wilkie, No. 71, In St Paul’s Churchyard. Price 1/. (January 26, 1776.)

19. Mrs. M. C. Rudd’s Genuine Letter to Lord Weymouth… Together with An Explanation of the Conduct of a certain Great City Patriot. G. Kearsly in Fleet St. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (March 5, 1776. The original letter appeared in the Morning Post, January 16, 1776.)

20. A Letter from Mrs. Christian Hart to Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd. J. Williams. No. 46, opposite Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (Published March 23, 1776.)

21. She is, and She is Not; A Fragment of the True History of Miss Caroline De Grosberg, alias Mrs. Potter, etc. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6 Brit. Mus. (Published April 24, 1776.)

22. Authentic Anecdotes of the Life and Transactions of Mrs. Margaret Rudd … in a series of letters to … Miss Mary Lovell. “In two neat pocket volumes, price 4/ sewed, or 5/ bound, embellished with a striking likeness taken from the life and engraved by G. Bartolozzi.” J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (Published June 16, 1776.)

23. Prudence Triumphing over Vanity and Dissipation; or the History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Robert, and Mr. Daniel Perreau, and Mrs. Rudd. J. Maling, Bookseller, the corner of Fleet Market, Ludgate-hill; J. Bradshaw, No. 40, St John Street, Clerkenwell; and J. Naples, Greenwich. Brit. Mus.

24. A Particular Account of the Dreadful and Shocking Apparitions of the two unfortunate Perreaus. Brit. Mus. (Broadside. Published later than February 30, 1776.)

Lowndes mentions also: —

25. An Authentic Account of the Particulars which appeared on the Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau. Nassau, pt. ii. 746.

26. The History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Daniel and Robert Perreau and Mrs. Rudd. London 8. vo.

27. Law Observations on the Case of Mrs. Rudd. By a Gentleman of the Inner Temple. 8. vo. 1/6.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

THE SONG “ROBIN ADAIR”

V. Notes and Queries.

Third Series, v. 404, 442, 500; vi. 35, 96, 176, 254.Fourth Series, viii. 548; ix. 99, 130, 197.Fifth Series, v. 20.Eighth Series, vii. 267; x. 196, 242, 426; xi. 32.

Although both words and music may have been plagiarised from old Irish ballad and old Irish melody, it is probable that the story of Surgeon Robert Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel suggested the later version of John Braham, December 17, 1811.

Note. – We are indebted to Sir Thomas Frankland for one of the most charming mezzotints by Wm. Ward, after Hoppner – a picture of his two daughters.

THE KING’S ENGRAVER
THE CASE OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND, 1783

About the time that Miss Blandy was commencing her ill-fated amour with Captain Cranstoun, a dark-eyed boy with earnest, clear-cut features, often carrying a portfolio of drawings under his arm, might have been met by any one who strolled along Fleet Street or the Strand in the early morning between Charing Cross and the Old Bailey. From his home beneath the grim shadow of Newgate prison, where his father, Edward Ryland, prints and engraves in a house next door to that in which thief-taker Wild levied blackmail, the young artist trudges each day to the St Martin’s Lane Academy. And should one meet him in the autumn of 1749, he will be wearing a suit of solemn black; and his grave, eager face will seem more sombre than wont, for his patron and godfather, the good and kind Sir Watkin Williams-Wynne, has been killed by a fall from his horse, to the unspeakable grief of every son of gallant little Wales.

Around the school of drawing where young Ryland is learning his craft, a new world is springing into life – a world of fancy, grace, and colour, destined to free old London from the sable sway of dulness. It is the world of art, over which the deep black deluge has rested for so long, soon to be peopled with the bright creations of genius. William Wynne Ryland will see some of these great ones ere he leaves St Martin’s Lane for the studio of a new master. Often, as he passes the coffee-tavern of Old Slaughter, he must catch sight of a placid, round-faced young man, with a mild pair of eyes that seem to need the aid of glasses, hurrying down Long Acre, while he envies Mr Reynolds, the portrait-painter, who has the entry to the Club that meets beneath the roof where Pope has held his court. Or, when he looks up at the house where the elegant Thornhill lived and worked, now the residence of Beau Hayman, more at home with the bottle than the brush, he may observe a tall, sentimental youth springing through the door, whose thoughts are far away amidst the woods and dales of Sudbury, where dwells a pretty miss called Peggy. And possibly, a little later, he will listen to the romantic fable that Tom Gainsborough has married a princess in disguise. Sometimes he may meet a middle-aged compatriot, named Richard Wilson, whose glowing scenes from Nature are to wrest the guerdon from France, and to found the incomparable school of British landscape.

Frequently a smile will steal over Wynne Ryland’s grave, nervous lips, as a small boy with a big head and a long, Punch-like body scampers down the lane, whirling his crooked legs, and he will hail the truant with the cry: “What, little Joey, have you been tolling for a funeral?” But the breathless lad, who has wasted too much time in his favourite game of assisting his friend the sexton at St James’s Church, scuttles back to his casts and models. Perhaps, one day, this little Joey Nollekens, who in good time produces many a beautiful bust and statue, will be allowed to take his friend into the studio of the great good-natured Roubiliac. “Hush, hush!” we can hear the volatile master cry, as he drags his young admirer before the figure which his deft chisel has caressed for a last time; “look, he vil speak in a minute!” And as the youth gazes upon the noble work, his quick Welsh blood, warmed by the infection of genius, glows with like ambition to do and dare. Soon, also, he becomes a pupil of the sculptor in St Peter’s Court, from whom, whatever else he learns, he must acquire a boundless self-confidence.

Shortly after the death of his godfather, young Wynne Ryland, now about seventeen years old, is bound apprentice to engraver Ravenet, who came over from France to help Hogarth with his plates, and who has set up a school south of the river in Lambeth Marsh. As the crows flies, it is a short journey from the Old Bailey, but one must turn up Ludgate Hill, wind round Black Friars through Water Lane, holding one’s nose if the wind comes north-west down the grimy Fleet, and from the steps take wherry to the Surrey side. Across the Thames, the wide, deep ditches, bordered by their fringes of willows, have changed the moss into a fertile plain.

Old Ryland is careful to conciliate the French artist now and then by a judicious commission, which takes the form of woolly book-plates after Sam Wale – classic pictures according to Queen Anne traditions, filled with urns and hose-pipe torches, wooden scrolls of parchment, and busts on pillar-boxes, gentlemen in cotton dressing-gowns, with stony beards, and demure ladies in flowing nightshirts. We meet these curious plates in a rare copy of the Book of Common Prayer, with the sign of Edward Ryland of the Old Bailey, and similar ones in Sir John Hawkins’ interpretation of Old Isaac. Young Wynne takes his part in the work, and though Master François gives him the lead, aided by fellow-countrymen Canot and Scotin, while the senior prentices, Grignion and Walker, also ply their gravers, a glance at ‘Luke the Physician,’ or ‘St Matthew at the Receipt of Custom’ will show that the youthful Welshman already is the equal of the best of them. Thus for five years he works under Ravenet.

It must have been a happy home in that dingy, sunless house in the Old Bailey, where Wynne Ryland’s early days were spent. The father, busy and prosperous, devoted to his wife, eager to encourage the talents of his boys, and observing proudly, with expert eye, the amazing genius of his third son. Yet over all there broods the sad shadow of the grim prison. Often in the night the silence is broken by the hoarse voice of the bellman chanting this refrain: —

 
“You prisoners that are within,
Who for wickedness and sin,
 

“After many Mercies shown you, are now appointed to Dye to Morrow in the Forenoon: Give Ear and understand that to-morrow the Greatest Bell of St Sepulchre’s shall toll for you, in Form and Manner of a Passing Bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the Point of Death…”

It is the loathly knell of the unhappy wretches within the deep black walls. And in the morning the awful boom of St Sepulchre rolls over the housetops, while a ribald, drunken mob chokes the street. Then comes the clank and clatter of sheriffs officers, and, as the procession moves from the iron portals of Newgate, there follows an open cart, driven by a gruesome creature astride a coffin, and in which, bound and quaking, lie the poor passengers to Tyburn. Such scenes are a portion of the boyhood of William Wynne Ryland, the great engraver.

But, after the long years of his apprenticeship have rolled away, a brighter and more glittering life than dingy old London, or even the whole world, can show, comes to the young genius. Since his youth Paris has been whispering to him her enticing summons – Paris, the Cyprus of art, where beauty, love, and colour walk hand in hand, and where he whose fingers can fashion their charms may become mightiest of the mighty. Two friends and old school-fellows are eager to make the same pilgrimage, and the indulgent parent, whose foresight perceives whither the talents of his gifted son will lead him, gives his consent. Although he knows that if the lowering storm-clouds shall burst, a visit to France may mean exile until the close of the war, he resolves that the young man shall pursue his art in the studios of the great French masters. So, early one morning the three enthusiasts mount Christopher Shaw’s stage-coach at the sign of the ‘Golden Cross’ and resting at Canterbury over night, reach Dover in good time the next day. With a fair wind, a stout smack will touch the opposite coast in a few hours, where they must tolerate a much less speedy team and a more shaky vehicle along the road to Paris.

It is the eve before the deluge, and a sunset, having no part in the morrow, most brilliant and gorgeous of aspect. To the eye of the poet or painter there is no blemish in the fair landscape. His vision rests only upon graceful palace or shining gardens. Around the fountains, over the lawns, glide the creatures of Arcadia – beautiful gentlemen in dazzling frocks and scented ruffles, toying with bejewelled sword or flicking the lid of a golden snuff-box, moving their satin limbs in obeisance to their fair partners. Sweet ladies with snowy ringlets falling upon bare shoulders, the bloom of roses in their cheeks, and the sheen of pearls on their round breasts, fluttering like butterflies amidst the flower-beds, clad in shimmering draperies, flashing in a blaze of colour. Or, in the twinkling of an eye, the picture may dissolve, to become more entrancing. My lord now trips the mead a dainty Strephon, tuning his pipes, and shaking the ribbands at his knees, while his highborn Phyllis, still wearing her powdered hair and disdainful patches, twirls her silken ankles in the graceful freedom of short frocks. What though these scenes dwell only on the canvas of the painter of Valenciennes! They are as real as were visions of angels to the dreamer Blake! In the eyes of the artist the whole of laughing France must be a fairy Arcadia such as this, for the witching Pompadour, who fulfils the thoughts of prescient Watteau, directs the dance.

Then from the thicket comes the tinkle of silvery laughter, where the paths wind beneath the branches to lonely dells, through which the sunlight streams in floods of amber between the leaves. Here, amidst the gold and olive shadows, which chase each other in flickering play round some graven image of goat-faced Pan, flits a wanton lady, flying from her persistent lover, but laughing, tripping, and calling to him still, as she draws him onward. Or, in the cool grove, crowned by a wealth of ivy-tinged greenery, a sylph-like figure sweeps through the air in her velvet swing, and her shining arms, raised to grasp the ropes, throw the contours of her form into shapely pose. From the bushes beneath sounds a burst of raillery, as her swain rises to his feet, gazing with rapture as the pretty girl flies past him and returns, adoring the tiny slippers, and the silken hose that vanish in dainty curves beneath a fluttering screen of drapery. The fancy of Fragonard has painted the spirit of his age – a world full of leaves, and flowers, and sunshine, where life moves with the rhythmic cadence of the swing, where every breath is pleasure, recking naught of pain or death.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE RYLAND CASE

I. Contemporary Authorities

1. Authentic Memoires of William Wynne Ryland. Printed for J. Ryall, No. 17 Lombard Street, 1784. Brit. Mus.

As these Authentic Memoires do not present a very lucid account, it is necessary to place the principal events of Wynne Ryland’s career in chronological order: —

Born November 2, 1733, in St John’s Street, Clerkenwell; the third son and fifth child of Edward and Mary Ryland.

Baptized December 2, at St Martin’s Church, Ludgate, where his name appears in the register as William Wynn.

Studied at St Martin’s Lane Academy – probably during the latter half of the forties.

If, as is generally stated, he served an apprenticeship of five years with Ravenet, he must have been bound to that engraver before 1750.

The second volume of Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine, with illustrations after Oudry, shows that he was in Paris in 1755. Having studied for two years under Le Bas, it would seem that he went to Boucher about 1757. According to most accounts he remained abroad for five years.

Probably he was in England in 1761, for several of his red-chalk engravings after the old master were finished during the next year.

In April 1762 he published at Lichfield Street, Soho, an engraving of George III., after Ramsay.

In February 1763 his engraving of Lord Bute, after Ramsay, was finished.

From 1763-67 he was engaged upon the portrait of George III. in his Coronation Robes, after Ramsay.

In the spring of 1765 he visited Paris on a commission for the King (v. Journal of J. G. Wille).

In 1767 he was living in Stafford Row, Pimlico.

From 1767-69 he was engaged upon the portrait of the Queen, after Cotes.

In 1767 or 1768 he entered into partnership with his late pupil, Henry Bryer, at 27 Cornhill. This firm became bankrupt in December 1771.

In 1772 he was living at Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, and in 1773 near the Hammersmith turnpike.

In 1774 he opened his print-shop, No. 159 in the Strand.

On November 4, 1782, he deposited the forged bill on the East India Company with Messrs Ransome, Moreland & Ammersley, bankers.

On the 1st of April 1783 he fled from his home at Knightsbridge, and the advertisement offering £300 for his arrest was published in the newspapers on April 3.

2. A Catalogue of Mr Ryland’s Exhibition at Mr Pollard’s in Piccadilly. Brit. Mus.

3. Exhibition Catalogue of Incorporated Society of Artists, 1761-69. “In their Great Room in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross.” Brit. Mus.

The following were Ryland’s exhibits: —

4. Catalogue of the Royal Academy. 1772-1775. Brit. Mus. The exhibits of Ryland, with their dates, are as follows: —

5. Dodd’s Memoires of English Engravers, xi. pp. 104-110. Add. MSS. 33404. Brit. Mus.

6. Joseph Strutt’s Biog. Dic. of Engravers (1785-6), ii. 285. Brit. Mus.

7. A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings. 2 vols. 1778. Edited by Charles Rogers. Brit. Mus.

Ryland contributed fifty-seven plates. These two volumes should be included in any collection of Ryland’s works.

8. Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes (1813). Vol. iii. 256, vol. v. 668, 681, 686.

9. Reminiscences of Henry Angelo. 2 vols. London, 1828-30. Vol. i. pp. 473-83. New Edition by Joseph Grego and H. Lavers Smith. Kegan Paul. 1904. Vol. i. pp. 366, 370-75.

Ryland was a frequent visitor at the fencing and riding school, which the elder Angelo had established at Carlisle House, Carlisle Street, and which, oddly enough, was the second building of that name in Soho Square.

10. Mémoires et Journal de J. G. Wille. 2 vols. Jules Renouard. Paris, 1857. Vol. i. pp. 287, 288.

Wille met Ryland in Paris on April 17, April 18, and May 9, 1765. He tells us that he had been acquainted with him when the English engraver was in France seven or eight years previously (i. e. in 1757-1758), which dates fit in with other known incidents of Ryland’s life.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

The most complete account of the trial will be found in the Morning Post, Monday, July 28, 1783. Those who are interested in the much-debated question whether the site of the ‘Tyburn Tree’ was in Connaught Square, Bryanston Street, or Upper Seymour Street, would do well to remember that on August 29, 1783 (so the papers tell us), the gallows were placed fifty yards nearer the park wall than usual. Naturally, its position was changed from time to time.

Notes

Note I. —Dic. Nat. Biog. The date of Ryland’s birth is given as July 1732! Nor was he the eldest, but the third son of his father.

Note II. —Eighteenth Century Colour Prints. Mrs Julia Frankau. Macmillan (1900).

Mrs Frankau’s explanation of the flight of Ryland is scarcely plausible. It is not credible that a man who is engaged in a frantic search for a lost mistress would remain in close hiding, posing as an invalid, only venturing abroad after dark. Nor is it a tenable assumption that he attempted to commit suicide in a fit of despair because he fancied that he was being arrested for debt, and thus might lose all chance of finding his chère amie. One of the strongest pleas in his defence was that his fortune was ‘princely’ and he protested that he fled because he could not find the man from whom he had received the fatal bill. It is a strange coincidence that the discovery of the fraud upon the East India Company should have taken place on the eve of his disappearance. Moreover, he was not arrested for the forgery that secured his conviction. The warrant charged him with counterfeiting two other bills of exchange to the value of £7114 (as reference to the advertisement columns of the daily papers of April 3 will show), and it was not until this publicity that Mr Moreland, the banker, examined the bill for £210, which Ryland had deposited with his house. Thus the accusation of one crime led to the discovery of another! And it is still more strange that the artist should have cashed an East India Company bill of the value of £210 on September 19, 1782, while on November 4 he should have handed to his banker another bill – an exact copy of the first – bearing a similar date, denomination, and acceptances. Although these two identical bills came into Ryland’s possession within the space of a few weeks, he did not seek an explanation of the remarkable coincidence. A careful survey of all the facts must convince everyone of the guilt of the unfortunate engraver, but it is a pleasure to be able to agree with Mrs Frankau – except in some minor details – in her contention that the evidence was not conclusive. Ryland was convicted because he failed to show that he had received the forged bill from another person, and to cast thus the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defence is quite foreign to the methods of a modern tribunal.

Since the Catholic has become the spoilt child of contemporary literature, it is not surprising to find Wynne Ryland hailed as the victim of Protestant persecution. Yet there appears to be no evidence to support this assumption. There is not a line in the newspapers of the day to indicate that any anti-Romanist feeling was aroused, and had such been the case, the Public Advertiser, at all events, whose animosity towards ‘Popery’ is sufficiently evident, would have trumpeted loudly. It is significant that the mob never behaved with greater propriety – very unusual conduct in the howling Tyburn crowd – than on August 29, 1783. How different would it have been if the word had been whispered that a Papist was going to the gallows! Strutt and Angelo, who write so sympathetically of their friend, have nothing to say on this subject, and, indeed, accept his guilt as proved. Although the former, who wrote in 1785, might have reason for reticence, yet the latter, whose book was published a year before the Emancipation Act, could have no reason to suppress such evidence. Indeed, we have only the doubtful authority of the Authentic Memoires for the statement that Ryland was a ‘supposed’ Catholic in his early youth. With this very ambiguous suggestion we must reconcile the strange fact that he was buried in a graveyard of the Established Church, and that the last rites were performed by an Anglican clergyman. There are one or two slips of the pen in Mrs Frankau’s interesting memoir. As the catalogue of the Royal Academy shows that Ryland contributed his first drawing in 1772 – four years after the institution was established – he was not “one of the earliest exhibitors.” From the same catalogue it appears that the print-shop in the Strand was opened in 1774. The date of the publication of the Authentic Memoires, given as 1794, is, of course, a clerical error. Owing to the footnote attached to Ryland’s letter to Francis Donaldson of Liverpool, printed in the Morning Post, September 2, 1783, the document must be regarded with suspicion. No trivial disagreement with the conclusions of Mrs Frankau can diminish the interest of her delightful account of the great engraver, which must remain the most valuable of recent monographs.

Note III. – There are references to W. W. Ryland in the innumerable dictionaries of painters and engravers, French, German, and English, such as Basan, Le Blanc, Portalis and Beraldi, Andreas Andrescen, Redgrave, Bryan, etc. One of the best of modern notices will be found in the Print Collectors’ Handbook, by Alfred Whitman.

A LIST OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND’S ENGRAVINGS.
(By Ruth Bleackley.)

Note.– The Morning Herald, May 5, and the Morning Post, August 28, 1783, state that Ryland left unfinished a plate of the Battle of Agincourt, after Mortimer.

BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The Book of Common Prayer. Published by Edward Ryland, May 1, 1755. Nine plates by Ryland – after S. Wale.

2. The Book of Common Prayer in Welsh (1770), with the same plates as in former edition.

3. The Complete Angler, by Isaac Walton, edited by Sir John Hawkins. With fourteen plates, dated 1759, by Ryland – after S. Wale. First edition 1760.

4. “Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine.” Illustrated by J. B. Oudry (1755-59). Seven plates by Ryland in vols. ii., iii., and iv.

5. L’Ecole Des Armes. Par M. Angelo. A Londres: chez R. & J. Dodsley, Pall Mall. February 1763. Second edition 1765. With forty-seven plates. A few copies in colours. Ryland engraved fourteen of these plates. Hall, Grignion, Elliot, and Chamber did the rest – all after drawings by John Gwynn. Thus Henry Angelo’s account of this work is inaccurate.

6. A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings. Edited by Charles Rogers. Published London 1778. Contains fifty-seven plates by Ryland in addition to the mezzotint portrait of Rogers.

7. The School of Fencing, by D. Angelo, edited by Henry Angelo. 1787. With forty-seven plates, the same as in the first edition. This book is not well edited, as the letterpress does not always agree with the pictures.

Note.– In every case the date of the engraving has been copied from an existing impression. Possibly there are earlier and later states.

A SOP TO CERBERUSTHE CASE OF GOVERNOR WALL, 1782-1802

 
“He wandered here, he wandered there,
A fugitive like Cain,
And mourned, like him, in dark despair
A brother rashly slain.”
 

– A Tale without a Name. James Montgomery.

On the 26th of August 1782, a captain in the army, named Joseph Wall, just come home from foreign service, sat down to compose his report to the Secretary of State. A glance would tell that he was one of those chosen by destiny to rule man and enslave woman. Although the swift, hot courage of the Celt shone in his fearless eyes and slumbered in his rough-hewn features, the beetling brow, resolute jaw, and fierce, mobile mouth were softened by the gentle mesmeric charm that marks all of his race. In stature he was a giant; while his sweeping shoulders, which towered above the heads of most, the thick, gnarled fingers and stalwart limbs, indicated a mighty strength. For the rest, he was a clean-looking man, with light brown hair and a fresh complexion. Yet the dull grey lines in his face told that the tropics had levied that tax upon his physique which the British soldier is ever eager to pay.

There was nothing of moment in the officer’s report to Secretary Townshend. It was merely a rough account of the termination of his stewardship while Governor for eighteen months at the island of Goree. Mere chance had thrown this tiny sun-baked rock once more into the possession of Great Britain. Three years previously the French fleet under de Vaudreuil, en route to the West Indies, sweeping down upon Senegal, had seized the English posts at Fort Lewis and Fort James. The victory of Sir Edward Hughes had reversed the position. By the capture of the island of Goree, which nestles south of Cape Verde scarcely three miles from the mainland, the approach to the enemies’ settlements on the opposite shore was placed in the hands of England. Being a station of some importance for trading purposes, owing to its proximity to two great rivers of West Africa, a British garrison remained there during the course of the war. Though deemed less unhealthy than the coast, its climate was deadly. Not a mile in length, and scarcely more than a quarter in breadth, the men had little scope for exercise. All ranks detested the place. The regiment was composed of the riff-raff of the army; the officers were those who could get no other appointment.

Joseph Wall was worthy of better things. Nature had made him one of those soldiers of fortune whom his native land has sent forth unceasingly year by year into the armies of every country in the world. About the time of George III.’s accession he had flung aside the religion of his fathers to obtain a commission, and two years later, at the age of twenty-five, the young Irishman saw his first fight in the West Indies. His fiery valour during the storming of Fort Moro gained him promotion, and he returned home from Havannah in 1762 with the rank of captain. Fate, however, robbed him of his birthright, for twelve years of weary peace laid their rust upon his restless soul. Soon an appointment under Company John took him to Bombay, but opportunity never came to draw his sword in a war of nations. At the close of his residence in India he returned to his father’s home, Abbeyleix, in Queen’s County, a sad example of him whom fortune welcomes with a smile and then turns away her face for ever. The keen spirit that could find no outlet under arms was ill fitted for the civilian’s life. Joseph Wall, the soldier of fortune, possessed none of the grace of humour which might have softened his red, untamable temper. Broils innumerable led to many a bloody duel, and on one occasion – so tradition relates – he crossed swords with ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’ Rumour credits him also with the death of a faithful friend, and, ’tis said, dux femina facti. Indeed, several affairs of gallantry stain his record, and once he was called upon to answer an insult to a lady in a court of justice.

At last he sought active service once more. The British colony that borders the river Gambia in North-West Africa offered him employment, and Fort James, a station on the estuary, became his home. Unfortunately, Colonel Macnamara, the Lieutenant-Governor, was a man of similar disposition to his young officer, and during August 1776 the inevitable encounter took place. Wall, on the plea of ill-health, happening to disregard one of the orders of his superior, was cast into prison without trial, and was immured for nine months. An action at law, which appears to have been heard during the year 1779, was the result, and the jury, who, guided by Lord Mansfield, held the opinion that Colonel Macnamara had acted with unnecessary severity, ordered him to pay the sum of a thousand pounds to the victim of his tyranny.

Previously, having returned to England, the Irishman had become fortune-hunter, and cut a dash at Bath or Harrogate, searching in vain for his rich heiress. Such a precarious existence could not endure, and during the year 1780, Joseph Wall, whose finances were at a low ebb, again was compelled to seek employment. The command of the recently captured island of Goree was going a-begging – two Governors having succumbed to the climate in a space of eighteen months – and he accepted the post. Its perquisites were considerable; for as the control of the vast trade along the coast of Senegambia was in his hands, there were endless chances of lucrative commissions and levying extortion upon the native chiefs. Huge inflammable Wall was just the man to tame and cow the rebellious gaol-birds who formed his garrison, and he ruled them with a hand of steel. Neither men nor officers loved his methods. As ships touched but seldom at this far-distant port, the soldiers were called upon often to submit to short commons. A glance from the fiery Governor quelled the murmurs, for a merciless flogging was the fate of the unlucky one upon whom his eye rested for a second time. Even the iron frame of Joseph Wall was soon conquered by the deadly climate. In less than two years he was compelled to send in his resignation. On the 11th of July 1782 he quitted the arid rock, and, his ship being lucky enough to avoid the cruisers of France and Spain, he landed safely at Portsmouth before the end of August. Thus it came about that this soured and disappointed man sent his report to Mr Townshend.

Joseph Wall was only in his forty-sixth year. Although his health had broken down temporarily, he was capable still of a long period of active service. But the unkind fate that had offered his only chance at the close of the Seven Years’ War, and had kept him styed in Senegambia during the struggle with the American colonies, was smoothing the way for the younger Pitt and his ten years’ peace. Thus fortune sports with nations, giving to one Frederick, to another Daun, working miracles with Chatham, or assisting Choiseul to open the flood-gates of a deluge. Lucky, indeed, for humanity that every man has not his opportunity. Valour was not lacking in the British officers who fought at Lexington, at Bunker’s Hill or Saratoga, but theirs was no mate to the courage of those who did battle against them beneath the shadow of the rope. During the early years of the American War a hundred Joseph Wall might have erected a forest of gibbets and have made the colony a second Poland, but the United States never would have survived its birth. It is far better as it is. Truly, there were giants in those days – cruel, untamable giants, but capable of superhuman achievements; and though from time to time we cast off their chains, bidding them stalk through a world of slaughter, yet, to the credit of our race, the spirit even of that robust age kept them mostly in their dungeons of obscurity.

For only ten months did the Irish soldier of fortune enjoy his retirement undisturbed. Dark rumours had been whispered of his bloody régime in West Africa, and one Captain Roberts made grave accusations, of which, however, a court-martial at the Horse Guards took little heed – merely censuring the giant tenderly in minor matters, as the beating of a sentry, with a humorous rider that the man got what he deserved. They are tedious complaints, such as rise to the lips of the slack and spiteful when a strenuous commander insists upon a rattle of bones. It was not until the troopship Willington brought home the remainder of the garrison of Goree – now ceded to the French – that a more substantial charge was laid against the ex-Governor. In a few days the newspapers announced that the surgeon and a couple of officers, who had been examined before the Privy Council, had presented a terrible indictment of cruelty against their late commander. Towards the end of February 1784, two men set out for Bath to take Joseph Wall into custody. Although distressed by the warrant, he submitted quietly, merely asking that a lady friend should be allowed to accompany him to London. The ‘Castle Inn,’ Marlborough, was the first halting-place on the journey along the most famous of coach-roads, and on the 1st of March, the next evening, they rested at the old ‘Brown Bear’ in Reading. Here Captain Wall protested that his custodians should not occupy the same bedroom as himself; and to humour him, as ordinary mortals are in the habit of humouring a restive giant, they agreed to remain in an adjoining chamber. A drop to the ground from a first-floor window was not the obstacle to deter the untamable soldier, and the next morning the police-officers found that their captive had vanished. A reward of £200 was offered for his apprehension on the 8th of March, the day on which he is believed to have set foot on French soil. It is understood that he wrote to a friend, stating he should surrender for trial as soon as the popular clamour against him had died away, and it is certain that he sent a letter containing a similar promise to Secretary Townshend, now Lord Sydney, on the 15th of October of the same year. This intention, however, was not fulfilled, and gradually the case of Governor Wall, whose cruelty had excited so much indignation, faded from public memory.

The cause of his arrest was an incident that occurred on the eve of his departure from Goree in 1782. For some time the felon soldiers under his command had been muttering low growls of discontent. Short allowance had been their lot for a long period, and the fear arose that the usual compensation would not be paid unless they received it before the Governor left the island. On the 10th of July preparations were hastened for Wall’s departure. All was bustle at the storekeeper’s office, where a servant was packing the commander’s luggage. No doubt it was whispered among the men that the home-bound vessel would carry a wealth of merchandise, which by right should be left for the garrison. Early in the morning the Governor observed a body of soldiers, twenty or more, marching across the hot sand towards his residence, where they had no right to intrude. Though enraged at this evidence of insubordination, he merely gave an order that they should retire. Two hours later, a still larger number was seen approaching Government House. Wall went out into the blazing tropical sunlight to meet them. So determined were they to vent their grievances that they did not pause to consider that this act was flagrant mutiny. Since their commanding officer had forbidden a similar gathering, the right course was to send a deputation to the Governor, explaining their demands through the proper channels.

That Wall considered the situation was serious, is proved by the fact that he temporised with the men, dismissing them without any threat of serious punishment. In later days he protested – which version was endorsed by several eye-witnesses – that the conduct of the soldiers who spoke to him was insolent and menacing, and that he induced them to disperse by a promise to consider their claims. At all events, he came to no decision until he had taken counsel with his officers, whom he met, as usual, at the two o’clock dinner. The methods adopted show that elaborate precautions were deemed necessary in order to avoid a grave disturbance. Roll-call was sounded about an hour before the proper time, and as the pink flush of evening was stealing over the burning rock the soldiers assembled on parade. Unaware that reprisals were contemplated, the corps was drawn up in a half-circle within the ramparts, in the centre of which stood the Governor and his four available officers. As the men were falling in, or perhaps a little while before, another case of insubordination arose. Word was brought that there was a mutiny in the main guard. Away hurried the intrepid commander to the scene of the disturbance. Snatching a bayonet from the hands of a drunken sentry, the angry giant belaboured the man lustily, and thrust back an excited soldier named George Paterson, one of the ringleaders of the morning, who was about to break from the guard-room.

Having thus smothered this miniature rebellion, the Governor, whose inflammable temper had burst its bonds, hastened back to the parade ground. In those robust times a commanding officer had rude methods of dealing with disobedient soldiers, and Wall had no tender scruples against straining to the utmost all the power that martial law had given him. Yet in spite of his bloody tyranny, it is impossible not to admire the courage of the stout-hearted Irishman. The whole regiment, two-thirds of which was composed of civil or military convicts who had exchanged prison life for servitude on the deadly island, loathed his authority. A few miles off on the coast lay the French settlements, where English rebels would be sure of an eager welcome. There were but seven officers to support the Governor, and one of these, who sympathised with the claims of the soldiers, was under arrest. Except half a dozen artillery-men and some blacks, the remainder of the garrison belonged to the ill-conditioned African corps – a hundred and fifty strong. One bold leader might have raised a swift mutiny. There was a ship in the harbour, and in a few hours the rebels would have been safe within Gallic territory in Senegal.

But the courage of Joseph Wall, which had borne him across the rocky slopes of Moro amidst the hail of Spanish bullets, did not quail before the scowling faces of his own men. Calling two of them from the ranks of the circle – Benjamin Armstrong, sergeant, and George Robinson, private – he charged them with disorderly conduct during the morning, and commanded his officers to try them by drumhead court-martial. As the penalty had been decided previously, the proceedings were brief. After a few moments’ discussion the little tribunal announced the sentence – eight hundred lashes apiece for the two mutineers. A gun-carriage having been dragged forward, the men in turn were ordered to strip. The mode of punishment struck terror into every heart. No cat-o’-nine-tails could be found; nor was it thought safe to trust a white man with the flogging. When the victim was bound to the cannon, one of the blacks was called up, a rope put into his hand, and he was ordered in military formula to “do his duty.” After twenty-five lashes a new operator took his turn in the usual way. During the whole time the garrison surgeon looked on, but made no comment. A thousand strokes of the ‘cat’ was a common punishment in those Draconic days, and it seemed immaterial whether the flagellation was inflicted with a bunch of knotted leathern thongs or with a rope’s-end. When at last the long agony was over, the two poor soldiers were taken to nurse their bruised and swollen backs in the hospital.

On the following morning, the 11th of July, the bloody work was continued. Drastic Wall thought fit to leave an imperishable record of his mode of government. Beneath the flaming blue sky the soldiers were marshalled upon the parade ground once more, and four of their number were selected for punishment in the same informal manner. George Paterson, the guard-room rebel, was sentenced to eight hundred lashes; Corporal Thomas Upton, a ringleader of the deputation, and Private William Evans, were condemned to receive three hundred and fifty and eight hundred strokes respectively; while Henry Fawcett, the drunken sentry, was let off with forty-seven. Having thus vindicated his authority, the terrible Governor proceeded to his ship, which, to the great joy of the awestruck garrison, weighed anchor the same day.

Soon after his departure the drama became a tragedy. A poisonous climate and scanty rations had undermined the physique of the soldiers; besides which, the sickly season was at hand. The ignorance of the medical attendants was supplemented by an immoderate use of brandy. Since the first occupation of the island, men had dropped like flies, while to the sick and wounded a visit to the hospital was almost equivalent to a sentence of death. Corporal Thomas Upton died two days after his punishment; Sergeant Armstrong succumbed on the 15th of the month; George Paterson only survived until the 19th of July. Meanwhile, Joseph Wall, on the high seas, knew none of these things.

Cruel, wanton, reckless as was the deed of the Governor of Goree, such things were of everyday occurrence in the army of his time. Sir Charles Napier has left record of the merciless floggings of which he was an eye-witness a decade later. Forty years after the Peace of Versailles a court-martial had no hesitation in passing a sentence of a thousand lashes. Although the rope’s-end employed in the punishment of Armstrong and his fellows was probably a more formidable instrument than the regimental ‘cat’ it was no more dangerous than the bunch of knotted cords used in the navy. A social system that permitted women and children to be hanged for petty larceny had a Spartan code for its soldiers on active service.

Moreover, any lack of firmness on the part of Joseph Wall might have brought him face to face with a serious mutiny. Riot was the sole means of expression of the inarticulate mob, both civil and military. A few months after the disturbance at Goree, General Conway, Governor of Jersey, was called upon to quell a fierce rebellion among his troops. About the same time wild insubordination was rife in the regiments quartered at Wakefield and Rotherham. The danger of a similar outbreak in a far-off island, garrisoned for the most part by gaol-birds, and close to the French possessions, was multiplied a hundredfold. Severe as were the methods of Wall, had such a man been in command at the Nore the nation would have been spared the terror and ignominy of ‘Admiral’ Parker. Unfortunately for himself, the discipline of the Irish giant was exerted to punish a personal affront. Had his soldiers refused to cheer the birthday of some German princeling, he might have flogged to death a whole company with impunity. Yet, relatively, the ways and means of inflammable Wall were tame. On the 4th of August 1782, Captain Kenneth Mackenzie, who ruled over a similar regiment of convicts at Fort Morea on the coast of Africa, blew to atoms a mutinous fellow-Scot, a private under his command, from the mouth of a cannon. For this deed, being brought to trial two years later, he was condemned to death, but subsequently granted a free pardon. At the time of his escape from the ‘Brown Bear’ at Reading, there were rumours (so Wall alleges) that the Governor of Goree had put to death soldiers in Mackenzie fashion. In which case he bore the stigma of another’s sin.

With a sigh of relief Sheriff and Ordinary hurry away to coffee and grilled kidneys in Mr Kirby’s breakfast-room, leaving the crowd to watch the victim hanging – which crowd does with gusto, scrambling fiercely a little later for a bit of the rope, which Rosy Emma, worthy helpmate of Jack Ketch, retails at twelvepence an inch, and, furthermore, gloating with delight upon the cart that presently takes the wasted form of the dead giant to the saws and cleavers of Surgeons’ Hall dissecting-room, Saffron Hill. Tight hands at a bargain, these bloodletting, clyster-loving old leeches! They demand fifty, some say a hundred, guineas from the giant’s friends, and they pocket the ransom before they surrender their corpse. Devoted old leeches: sic vos non vobis– we are the learned legatees of your dabblings in anatomy. A few days later – it is a Thursday morning, numbered the 4th of February in the calendar – a few merciful friends bear the giant’s coffin to a resting-place in St Pancras Churchyard. Epitaph does not appear, for cant refuses to superscribe the true one – “England did not expect him to do his duty!”

As we look back upon the glowing perspective of our history, there are few scenes that stand out in fiercer grandeur than the flogging of Goree. Foul-smelling, Lilliputian picture, it shines, nevertheless, with the same unconquerable spirit of genius that clapped a telescope to the blind eye at Copenhagen. One untamable hero, armed merely with a crimson rope, faces a hundred cut-throats, and, within view of the ramparts of the enemy, cows them into licking his shoes, declaring that an insult to himself is an insult to his King. Truly a David and Goliath picture.

“Wrong,” cry Farmer George and Doctor Henry, glancing timidly, as with mystical prescience, down the vista of ages to Board School days, and quaking at swish of cat and clank of triangles, guilty of as deep anachronism as he who hurled a shell at the tomb of the Mahdi, to the great disturbance of bread-and-milk nerves. For birch twigs and cat – essential forerunners of Standards Six – had much Peninsular and Waterloo work in front of them, and it was just as easy to chain red giants as to hang them.

“Wrong,” cry Farmer Merciful and Doctor Justice, busy with knife and steel, getting ready a keen edge for the grey, gallant head of poor crazy Despard, and eager to paste the town with balance of justice placards – “‘Téméraire’ insubordinates, and red giant of Goree – both hanged. Let foreign nations please copy.” And, doubtless, a burst of inordinate Gallic laughter hailed this jeu d’esprit, for Gallic neighbours had other things for the encouragement of red giants – a field-marshal’s baton and the like.

There is no place for the musings of modern milksop. The deeds of the parents of his grandfather are for him merely a tale that is told, and as he closes the family record his bread-and-milk soul must only give thanks that his lot is cast in more pleasant places. Modern eye can but discern the red giants of a bygone world through a glass darkly. Cruel, crimson, unscrupulous – they were all that: children of murkiness even as we are children of light, and thus let comparison end. One hundred years – as great a barrier as a million miles of ether – has divided our ages, et nos mutamur. A thousand pencils – Saxon and Caledonian – have banished with Dunciad scorn the birchen wand that used to betwig merrily the tender fifteen-year-old flesh of ribald lad and saucy maiden. Triangle and cat, rope’s-end and grating, ceased years ago to terrify the hearts of rolling Jack and swaggering Tommy. Good Mr Fairchild no longer takes little Harry and little Emily to view the carrion of the gibbet, exempli gratiâ, for the modern Mr Fairchild does not remember that such instruments ever had their proper places in the land. Red giants, too – only to be let loose when occasion required – had their proper places in the good old times of birch-rod and gibbet, of Farmer George and Doctor Henry, who found much use for them in the taming of the Corsican ogre. Modern milksop, however, will scarcely concede that such times were good, or, at least, most wrong when inconsistent! Be that as it may, the cat and rope’s-end of the crimson giant were a portion of Britain’s bulwarks, in spite of inconsistent headshakings of Farmer George and Doctor Henry, of Brother Bragge and Brother Hiley – all of which, fortunately, is as repulsive to the soul of modern milksop as the dice and women of Charles Fox, or the two-bottle thirst of the Pilot who weathered the Storm. Lucky, perhaps, for bread-and-milk gentleman that he had fathers before him.

No other case bears the same resemblance to that of Joseph Wall as the incident of Kenneth Mackenzie and his cannon-ball execution. Some, indeed, have a certain affinity, and exhibit the national conscience overwhelmed by periodical fits of morality – a hysterical turning-over of new leaves. A few days before the red giant of Goree passed through the debtor’s door, Sir Edward Hamilton of the ‘Trent’ frigate was dismissed from the navy for an act of cruel tyranny, only to be reinstated in a few months. Thomas Picton, England’s “bravest of the brave,” was shaken by the same wave of humanity. Yet, after all, the guilt of the Admiral or the innocence of the hero of Waterloo were of little moment to a nation that continued to mutilate its enemies in the fashion of a dervish of the desert, under the sacred name of high treason. For, years later, the bloody heads of Brandreth and Thistlewood stained an English scaffold. Luckily for their oppressors, the victims of Hamilton and Picton – officers who did not stand in the desperate position of the Governor of Goree – survived their punishments, not having a leech-Ferrick to reckon with, else Farmer George and Doctor Henry, in the face of those dangling ‘Téméraire’ seamen, would have been in an awkward dilemma.

The case of George Robert Fitzgerald, often held forth as a parallel by contemporary pressmen, has little similarity to that of Wall. Both belonged to the 69th Foot, they were antagonists in a Galway duel in ’69, and both ended their days on the scaffold; but here comparison ends. The retribution that overtook ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’ at Castlebar was the fitting penalty of a vendetta murder, brutal and premeditated, and wrought without a semblance of authority.

Fifty years before the death of Joseph Wall, the London mob was able to indulge its fury in like fashion against another black-beast of its own choosing, one James Lowry, skipper of the merchant ship ‘Molly’ compared to whom the Governor of Goree appears to have been a mild and merciful commander. At different times, three sailors expired beneath the terrible floggings of Captain Lowry, who was wont to salute his dying victim with the cry, “He is only shamming Abraham.” And as the cruel seaman was carried in the cart to Execution Dock, the furious mob howled forth this ghastly catchword, just as they saluted Wall with the echo of the phrase which they supposed he had uttered while Benjamim Armstrong was being flogged to death, “Cut him to the heart – cut him to the liver.”

Nor was the cruel tyrant only to be found in the merchantman, or was Edward Hamilton a solitary exception. Captain Oakham of the British navy is more than a creature of fiction, as is shown by the trials of Edward Harvey in August 1742, and of William Henry Turton in August 1780, which cast a lurid light upon the conditions of life in our ships of war. Midshipman Turton was a butcherly young gentleman, who turned his sword against a disobedient sailor in a sort of Captain-Sutherland-and-negro-cabin-boy fashion, but, owing to a Maidstone grand-jury petition and the absence of ‘Téméraire’ mutineers, there was no hempen collar for him.

The story of Joseph Wall has no exact parallel in our history, for the Mackenzie incident differs in two essential particulars – the dour Kenneth meant murder from the first, and did not pay the penalty of his crime. Lowry, Turton, and Sutherland were guilty, like ‘Fighting Fitzgerald,’ of common homicide, and the malice prepense, as law-givers understand the phrase, was clear and unmistakable. Even the lax morality of Doctor Henry’s days was compelled to take cognisance of giant Wall’s offence, just as it punished very properly – or tried to do – the sins of Picton and Hamilton; and a verdict of manslaughter, though delivered by a tradesman jury, would not have been an illogical conclusion. However, it remains a judicial murder – one of the most disgraceful that stains the pages of our history during the reign of George III.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WALL CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts

1. An Authentic Narrative of Joseph Wall Esqr. By a Military Gentleman. J. Roach, Britannia Printing Office. Russell Court, Drury Lane (1802). Brit. Mus.

Except in the tract published by A. Young – a transparent plagiarism – there is no corroboration of the statement that Wall flogged to death a man named Paterson on the voyage out to Goree. As no reference is made in any contemporary newspapers, it seems probable that the ‘Military Gentleman’ has confused his materials. George Paterson, a soldier, received eight hundred lashes the day after the punishment of Armstrong, and died soon afterwards, which may have caused the mistake. If Wall had done another such deed in 1780, it is probable that it would have obtained greater publicity.

2. The Life, Trial and Execution of Joseph Wall Esqre. By a Gentleman. A. Young, Vera Street, Clare Market (1802). Brit. Mus.

3. The Trial at Large of Joseph Wall Esqre. Also an Account of his escape in 1784. John Fairburn, 146 Minories.

4. The Trial of Lieut. Col. Joseph Wall. Taken in shorthand by Messrs Blanchard and Ramsey. London (1802). Brit. Mus.

5. Life, Trial and Execution of Joseph Wall Esqre. (with a full length portrait). E. Lawrence, C. Chapple, and H. D. Symonds.

This tract is advertised in the Morning Chronicle, February 9, 1802.

6. The Trial of Governor Wall. With particulars of his escape at Reading in 1784 and his subsequent surrender in 1802. Fred Farrah, 282 Strand, (The Only Edition Extant). Brit. Mus. Copied from earlier accounts.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

In the Morning Post of August 13, 1783, there appears the report of the court-martial held at the Horse Guards on July 7 and following days, which practically acquitted Wall of the charges brought against him by Captain Roberts. The Gazette of March 9, 1784, contains the King’s Proclamation, dated March 8, describing the personal appearance of the escaped prisoner, and offering a reward of £200 for his apprehension. To those who consult contemporary journals for a first time there will come a surprise, for they will learn that Governor Wall on July 10 and 11, 1782, flogged to death not one man but three. No account later than the Espriella Papers, and not one of the many Newgate Calendars, gives this information. Surgeon Ferrick’s letter appeared in The Times, February 5, 1802.

15. The Gentleman’s Magazine (1784), part i. p. 227; (1802), part i. p. 81.

The January number, 1802, endorses the statement that Augustine Wall, the brother of the Governor of Goree, was “the first person, who presumed to publish Parliamentary Reports with the real names of the speakers prefixed.” This evidence is important, as Sylvanus Urban might have grudged such an admission. His own claims, however, are set forth very modestly. “Dr Johnston (in our magazine) dressed them (i. e. the speakers in Parliament) in Roman characters. Others gave them as orators in the senate of Lilliput. Mr Wall laid the foundation of a practice which, we trust for the sake of Parliament, and the nation, will never be abandoned.”

16. The European Magazine (1802), pp. 74, 154-157.

17. The Annual Register. Appendix to Chronicle, pp. 560-568.

NOTES

Note I. —Dict. Nat. Biog.

Although reference is made to the dubious case of the flogging of the man Paterson during Wall’s outward voyage to Goree, there is no mention of the fact that four other soldiers were flogged by the Governor’s order on the same day and the day following the punishment of Benj. Armstrong, and that two of these also died of their wounds. There seems to be no authority for the statement that Wall “appears to have been in liquor” when he passed sentence on the men, and as such a presumption, which was never put forward by the prosecution, sweeps away all defence, and proves that the act was murder, it should not be accepted without the most trustworthy evidence. Mrs Wall’s father, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, never became Lord Seaforth; her brother did. Since Wall did not remain at Goree for more than two years, and left the island on July 11, 1782, it is evident that he did not become Governor in 1779. His letter to Lord Pelham, offering to stand his trial, was written on October 5, 1801, not on October 28. State Trials, vol. xxviii. p. 99.

Note II. —State Trials of the Nineteenth Century. By G. Latham Brown (Sampson Low, 1882). Vol. i. pp. 28-42.

On page 31 the author states that he has searched the records of the Privy Council in vain for a report of the charges brought against Wall by Captain Roberts in 1783. As stated previously, he would have found what he required in the columns of the Morning Post of August 13, or the Gazetteer, August 14, 1783. It is strange that he is unaware that Wall flogged to death two other soldiers besides Benj. Armstrong.

Note III. —Edinburgh Review, January 1883, vide criticism of G. L. Brown’s book, p. 81.

To the writer of this review belongs the credit of being the first to hint a doubt as to the justice of Wall’s conviction.

Note IV. —A Tale without a Name– a tribute to Joseph Wall’s noble wife – will be found in the works of James Montgomery, Longman (1841), vol. iii. p. 278. Vide also Life of Montgomery, by Holland and Everett. Longman (1855), vol. iii. p. 253.

Note V. – Other contemporary authorities are Letters from England by Don Alvarez Espriella, Robert Southey, vol. i. pp. 97, 108, and the familiar Book for a Rainy Day, by J. T. Smith, pp. 165-173.

THE KESWICK IMPOSTOR
THE CASE OF JOHN HADFIELD, 1802-3

 
“… a story drawn
From our own ground, – the Maid of Buttermere, —
And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife
Deserted and deceived, the Spoiler came,
And woo’d the artless daughter of the hills,
And wedded her, in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage bonds…
Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earth
Her new-born infant…
… Happy are they both,
Mother and child!..”
 

– The Prelude, Book vii. Wordsworth.

During the late autumn of 1792, a retired military man of amiable disposition and poetic temperament, who had made a recent tour through Cumberland and Westmoreland, published his impressions in a small volume which bore the title A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes. The book displays the literary stamp of its period just as clearly as a coin indicates the reign in which it is moulded. Fashion had banished the rigour of the pedant in favour of idyllic simplicity. The well-groomed poet, who for so long had recited his marble-work epistle to Belinda of satin brocade, now spoke to deaf ears; while the unkempt bard, who sang a ballad of some muslin-clad rustic maid, caught the newly-awakened sympathies of the artistic world.

The author of A Fortnight’s Ramble, having the instinct of a good literary salesman, was not backward in sentiment, and among his thumb-nail sketches of rural life he was careful not to omit the portrait of a village damsel. There is certainly much charm in the impression of his humble heroine, whom he discovered in a tiny hamlet on the shores of Lake Buttermere, where, according to the laws of romance, she was the maid of the inn. No doubt the child of fourteen was as beautiful as he describes her – with her long brown curls, big blue eyes, rosy lips, and clear complexion, and with a grace of figure matured beyond her years. The pity is that the picture was ever drawn.

Before the close of the year the charms of ‘Sally of Buttermere’ had been quoted in a London magazine, and henceforth the tourist was as eager to catch a glimpse of the famous young beauty as to visit Scale Force or Lodore. Very soon the inn where she lived – “a poor little pot-house, with the sign of the Char” – became a place of popular resort. Verses in her praise began to cover the white-washed walls; and while she was in the full bloom of youth, wandering artists, who have handed down to us her likeness, took the opportunity of persuading her to sit for them. That Mary Robinson was a modest and attractive girl is shown by the testimony of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and there is evidence that she remained unspoilt in spite of her celebrity.

Six years after the publication of A Fortnight’s Ramble, its author, Joseph Budworth, paid a second visit to the home of his ‘Sally of Buttermere’ Mary, who was nineteen, and still charming, seemed destined (after the fashion of village maidens) to become a buxom beauty, and it is said, indeed, that she had been most lovely at the age of sixteen. Budworth, however, saw that she was quite pretty enough to attract hosts of admirers, and conscience told him that he had not done well in making her famous. There was Christmas merrymaking at the little inn, and she reigned as queen of the rustic ball. Next morning he confessed to her that he had written the book which had brought her into public notice.

“Strangers will come and have come,” said he, “purposely to see you, and some of them with very bad intentions. We hope you will never suffer from them, but never cease to be on your guard.”

Mary listened quietly to this tardy advice, and thanked him politely.

“You really are not so handsome as you promised to be,” Budworth continued. “I have long wished by conversation like this to do away what mischief the flattering character I gave of you may expose you to. Be merry and wise.”

Then, taking advantage of his seniority of twenty-three years, the good-natured traveller “gave her a hearty salute,” and bade her farewell. Unfortunately, he repeated his previous indiscretion by publishing another long account of the Buttermere Beauty in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and, like Wordsworth, who in similar manner paraded the charms of ‘little Barbara Lewthwaite’ he lived to regret what he had written.

Two years later, a handsome middle-aged gentleman of fine presence and gallant manners paid a visit to the Lake District, bearing the name of Alexander Augustus Hope (brother to the third Earl Hopetoun), who, after a successful military career, had represented the burgh of Dumfries, and now sat in Parliament as member for Linlithgowshire. An active, strong-limbed fellow, with courtly demeanour and an insinuating Irish brogue, the contrast between his thick black brows and his fair hair, between the patch of grey over his right temple and the fresh colour of his face, added to an appearance of singular attractiveness. These were the days of the dandies, when young Mr George Brummell was teaching the Prince of Wales how a gentleman should be attired; and Colonel Hope was distinguished by the neatness and simplicity of a well-dressed man of fashion.

The new-comer reached Keswick about the third week in July, travelling in his own carriage without ostentation, having hired horses and no servant. Soon after his arrival he went over to Buttermere, and remained there for two or three days. Towards the end of the month he visited Grassmere, where he became acquainted with a genial merchant from Liverpool, whose name was John Crump. Being a most entertaining companion – for he was a great traveller, had fought in the American War, and, as might be expected of one so gallant and handsome, had been engaged in numerous duels – Colonel Hope had the knack of fascinating all whom he met. With Mr Crump, who for some reason was not in favour with the young poet at Greta Hall, he struck up a great friendship during his three weeks’ stay at Grassmere, and a little later the merchant showed his appreciation by christening one of his children ‘Augustus Hope’ as a compliment to his new acquaintance.

About the end of the third week in August the member of Parliament, whose passion, we are told, was a rod and fly, left Grassmere, and, for the sake of the char-fishing, took up his quarters at the little inn at Buttermere. So pleased was he with the district, that he contemplated the purchase of an estate, and Mr Skelton, a neighbouring landowner, went with him to inspect a property near Loweswater. During his sojourn at the Char Inn he paid frequent visits to Keswick to meet his friend John Crump. Although wishing, for the sake of quiet and seclusion, to travel incognito, Colonel Hope seems to have been a gregarious person, and could not help extending the number of his acquaintances. At the ‘Queen’s Head’ Keswick, where his Liverpool friend was in the habit of stopping, he came across a kindred spirit in Colonel Nathaniel Montgomery Moore, who had represented the town of Strabane in the recently extinct Irish Parliament.

Since the two had much in common, a close intimacy ensued; but there was another reason for Colonel Hope’s friendly advances. A pretty young lady of fortune, to whom Mr Moore was guardian, was one of his party, and the new acquaintance began to pay her the most evident attention. Colonel Hope, in fact, always had been remarkable for his insinuating behaviour in the society of women, and since his arrival in the Lake District he had been concerned in an affair of gallantry with at least two local maidens far beneath him in station. However, this was a pardonable weakness, for the Prince himself, and his brothers of York and Clarence, did not disdain to stoop to conquer. But on the present occasion the gay Colonel apparently had fallen in love, and when, before very long, he asked the lady to be his wife, he was accepted.

It is not strange that a man of his power of fascination and handsome appearance should have met with success even on so short an acquaintance. The match seemed a most suitable one in every respect, and Mr Moore would have been well satisfied that his ward should be engaged to a man of Alexander Hope’s rank and position. Yet the lover did not hasten to take the guardian into his confidence. Remaining at the little inn on the shores of Buttermere, only occasionally he made the fourteen miles’ drive to visit his fiancée at Keswick. Colonel Moore, who could not remain blind to the flirtation, became anxious lest his ward should place herself in a false position. It was evident that the two behaved to each other as lovers, and the Irishman was impatient for the announcement of the betrothal. Still, the love affair ran a smooth course until the close of the third week in September; but as the time went on, and the engagement remained a secret, the suspicions of the lady’s guardian began to be aroused. Since it was apparent that his friend had committed himself, his duty was plain. There were only three explanations of his reticence. Colonel Hope was not the man he pretended to be, or he had quarrelled with his relatives, or else his passion was beginning to cool.

The first proposition already had been whispered among a few. Although his bonhomie and air of distinction had made him a great favourite with his inferiors, yet the fact that the reputed Colonel Hope was travelling without servants, and had selected a woman of fortune as his conquest, prejudiced critical minds. Coleridge, who was engaged in basting the succulent humour of the gentle Elia before a roasting fire, seems to have cast the eye of a sceptic upon the popular tourist from the day of his arrival. However, no open rupture took place between the Irishman and Alexander Hope, but towards the close of September they met less frequently.

On Friday, the 1st of October, Colonel Hope sent over a letter to his friend at Keswick, explaining that business called him to Scotland, and enclosing a draft for thirty pounds, drawn on Mr Crump of Liverpool, which he asked him to cash. Pleased, no doubt, at this mark of confidence, which may have appeared a favourable augury of his ward’s happiness, Colonel Moore at once obeyed the request, and forwarded ten pounds in addition, so that his friend might not be short of funds on his journey. On the next day, the sensation of a lifetime burst upon the people of Keswick. At noon, the landlord of the ‘Queen’s Head’ returning from the country, brought with him the great intelligence that the Hon. Colonel Hope had married the Beauty of Buttermere!

It was obvious to everyone – aye, even to the sceptic of Greta Hall – that the mystery was at an end. Alexander Hope was no impostor. Avarice had not led him to attempt the capture of a lady of fortune. Torn between love and honour, he had doubted whether to give his hand when his heart was disposed elsewhere, or to break his word. Thus, obeying the impulse of love, he had married a girl of the people. Native pride in the Beauty of Buttermere was strong in every breast, and the next mail conveyed to London the news of her great triumph.

But Colonel Moore, who had the right to be wroth and suspicious, would not be appeased by the explanations which satisfied the multitude. Since he could not believe that a gentleman would behave in such a fashion, he made haste to test the credentials of his late friend. The bill of exchange was forwarded to Mr Crump, who, delighted to be of service to Colonel Hope, from whom he had received an affectionate note requesting the favour, at once accepted it! Still the Irishman refused to be convinced, and he sent a letter to the bridegroom, informing him that he should write to his brother, Lord Hopetoun. Moreover, he told all friends of his intentions.

During his five or six weeks’ residence at the Char Inn, the amorous tourist must have had full opportunity of forming a contrast between the Irish girl and Mary Robinson. The Beauty of Buttermere was now in her twenty-fifth year. A healthy outdoor life had matured her robust physique, and her figure, though graceful still, had lost the lines of perfect symmetry. The keen mountain air had robbed her complexion of its former delicacy, and with the advance of womanhood her features had not retained their refined, girlish prettiness. Still, her face was comely and pleasant to look upon. The charm of her kind and modest nature was felt by all who met her, and she seems to have possessed culture and distinction far in advance of her lowly station. Indeed, one of her most celebrated admirers hints plainly that a mystery surrounded her parentage, and that her breadth of mind and her polished manners were the result of gentle birth. However, there appears no warrant for such a surmise.

So, at last, Colonel Hope had begun to waver in his ardour for the Irish girl. Naturally, she was not content to remain under a secret engagement, and her inclinations favoured a brilliant wedding, which her husband’s noble relatives should honour with their presence. Such delay had not pleased the lover, who wished the announcement of the betrothal to be followed by a speedy marriage. In this respect his other inamorata had been less exacting. Poor Mary expected no pomp or ceremony, and had never imagined that a peer and his people would come to her wedding. All the odium that can attach to the man who pays his addresses to two women at the same time is certainly his, for it is stated on good authority that he made his first proposal to the Cumberland girl before he commenced the courtship of Colonel Moore’s rich ward.

Then, when the heiress refused to fall in with his wishes, he made the final choice. On the 25th of September he went over to Whitehaven – about twelve miles as the crow flies from Buttermere – with the Rev. John Nicholson, chaplain of Loweswater, a friend of two weeks’ standing, to obtain a special licence for his marriage with Mary Robinson. Naturally, no opposition was raised by the parents; and although it has been said that the reluctant girl was overruled by their persuasions, it is certain – as far as any judgment of human nature can be certain – that she was a willing bride. Nor – since his record shows that each woman whom he cared to fascinate was unable to resist him – is it difficult to believe that Mary was in love with her handsome suitor.

On the morning of Saturday, the 2nd of October, the wedding took place in the picturesque old church at Loweswater, in the beautiful vale of Lorton, about seven miles from Buttermere. The ceremony was performed by Mr Nicholson, who had become as firm a friend of the bridegroom as Crump himself. Immediately after the service the newly married pair posted off north to visit Colonel Hope’s Scotch estate. Their first day’s journey was a remarkable one. Passing through Cockermouth and Carlisle, they reached Longtown, near Gretna Green, at eight o’clock in the evening, a distance of over forty miles. The next day being Sunday, the bridegroom, who on occasions could affect much religious zeal, is careful to record, in a letter to the chaplain of Loweswater, that they made two appearances in church. On Tuesday or Wednesday they continued their tour across the Border, but on the following Friday, owing to Mary’s anxiety to receive news from her parents (so her husband alleged), they retraced their steps to Longtown. Here, two days later, important communications reached Colonel Hope, which made him resolve to return to Buttermere without delay.

Friend Nicholson wrote that scandalous reports concerning his honour had been spread in the neighbourhood since his departure, and that his wife’s parents had been much disturbed by the rumours that had reached their ears – informing him also of Colonel Moore’s opinion of his behaviour. This latter news was superfluous, for there was a letter from the Irishman himself. Its contents may be gathered from the reply that the traveller despatched to Nicholson on the 10th of October. With amazing effrontery he tells his friend that his attentions to the Irish heiress had never been serious, and expresses his astonishment that Colonel Moore should censure his conduct. Yet he shows his concern for the attacks on his integrity, declaring that he will come back at once to meet his calumniators face to face. Moreover, he was as good as his word. Probably he left Longtown for Carlisle, according to promise, the next morning, and arrived at Buttermere on Tuesday, the 12th of October. Thus Mary’s brief honeymoon came to an end.

John Hadfield met his fate with the heroism which great criminals invariably exhibit. Aged since his arrest, for he had been in prison nearly ten months, he looked at least fifty. In every respect he had become very different from the sprightly ‘Colonel Hope’ of the previous summer. When he alighted from the carriage at the shambles he seemed faint and exhausted, but this weakness was due to physical infirmity and not to fear. A feeble and piteous smile occasionally played over his white face. Yet none of the arrogance of pseudo-martyrdom marked his bearing, but his quiet resignation and reverent aspect won the pity of the vast crowd, bitterly hostile to him a short while before. It was remarked that he had still an air of distinction, and was neatly dressed; his jacket and silk waistcoat were black, and he wore fustian breeches and white thread stockings. Just before he was turned off he was heard to murmur, “My spirit is strong, though my body is weak.” We are told that he seemed to die in a moment without any struggle, and did not even raise his hands. An hour and a half later he was lying in a grave in St Mary’s Churchyard, for his request that he should be buried at Burgh-on-Sands was disregarded out of consideration for the pious memory of Edward I.

Were it not for his dastardly treatment of the women who gave him their love, the fate of John Hadfield would seem hard. He was not hanged for swindling John Crump out of £50 – which indeed the value of his carriage and its contents, left behind at Keswick, would have more than cancelled – but for attempting to swindle him under the fictitious name of Colonel Hope. Thus by assuming the character of another man he became entangled in one of the fine-spun meshes of the law, and was held guilty of an intention to defraud. Our great-grandfathers, who, with the assistance of Sir Alexander Thomson, could hang an old woman for stealing a few potatoes in a bread riot, thought it expedient also to kill a man who obtained £50 by telling a lie.

There is much truth in the proposition, which has been stated with such inaccuracy by De Quincey, that, but for his heartless conduct to Mary of Buttermere, John Hadfield might have escaped the gallows. It is probable that Mr Crump would have been loth to advertise himself as a credulous dupe, unless he had thought that it was his duty to give evidence against a heartless seducer. Parson Nicholson, also, would have had no reason to depart from the attitude he had taken up before he was aware that he had officiated at a bigamous marriage.

Notwithstanding that his career was marked by so many villainies, John Hadfield is in many respects an admirable rascal. Setting aside his behaviour towards women – if that is possible even for a moment – he played a part which required infinite tact and magnificent courage. Although occasionally he robbed a man who was not rich, yet until the crime of Buttermere such an occurrence was in the nature of an accident, and was rather the fault of the wronged one for putting himself in the path. Like Claude Duval, the Keswick impostor was in the main merciful towards the impecunious; not indeed for conscience sake, but because he believed that his rightful place was among the wealthy. A hunter of big game, dukes, members of Parliament, and prosperous merchants were his proper prey! And the man who could maintain a decent social position for twenty years, in spite of the heavy handicaps of poverty and lowly birth, and could compel those whom one of his class should have met only as a lackey to receive him on equal terms, was more than a common trickster. An insatiable love of pleasure robbed him of all foresight and prudence, or such a consummate liar might have climbed high. Even as he was – had an earl been his father – he might have gone down to posterity as one of the greatest diplomats the world has ever seen.

The career of Samuel Denmore Hayward, hanged at the Old Bailey for forgery on the 27th of November 1821, a picture of whom, dancing with ‘a lady of quality’ ornaments one version of the Newgate Calendar, is similar to that of the Keswick impostor. Both men seem to have had culture and address; each was distinguished for his social ambition, and both were famous for gallantry. With the exception of James Maclean, illustrious as the friend of Lady Caroline Petersham and little Miss Ashe, none of our rogues – not even William Parsons, the baronet’s son – have been such fine gentlemen.

Mary Robinson’s child was born early in June 1803, but did not survive its birth. Who can tell whether she wept over it; or if the words that came from the lips of her parents, when they heard of the death of her betrayer, did not seem a fitting epitaph – “God be thanked!” To avoid the gaze of curious travellers the unhappy girl was obliged for a period to leave her native place, and the shadow that had fallen upon her young life was not lifted for many years. Yet, brighter days were in store for the Maid of Buttermere. In the course of time she was wooed and won by a Cumberland ‘statesman’ named Richard Harrison, to whom she was married at Brigham Church in the May of 1808. Two of her sons, born at Buttermere, where she resided for a period after her marriage, died in infancy; but when her husband took her to his farm at ‘Todcrofts’ Caldbeck, beyond Skiddaw – where the Harrison family had been ‘statesmen’ for generations – she became the mother of five more children, three daughters and two sons, all of whom grew up and married. In later years it was remarked that her girls were as pretty as Mary had been herself when she was the Maid of the Inn. There is reason to believe that the rest of her career was happy and prosperous, and she lived tranquilly in her home at ‘Todcrofts’ where she died in her fifty-ninth year. The tombstone records that she passed away on the 7th of February 1837, while her husband survived her for sixteen years. Both rest in the churchyard that holds the ashes of immortal John Peel, who followed Richard Harrison to ‘the happy hunting-fields’ within a few months.

(I am indebted to the kindness of Mr Richard Greenup, of Beckstones, Caldbeck, one of Mary Robinson’s few surviving grandchildren, for much interesting information.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE HADFIELD CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts, etc

1. Report of the Proceedings on the Trial of John Hatfield, London. Printed for A. H. Nairne and B. Mace. Sold by Crosby and Company price 6d. 1803. Brit. Mus.

Although always spoken of as John Hatfield, the proper name of the ‘Keswick Impostor’ if the register of his baptism is an authority, was Hadfield.

2. The Life of Mary Robinson, the celebrated Beauty of Buttermere, Embellished with an elegant coloured Print. London. Printed by John Rhynd, 21 Ray Street, Cold Bath Fields. Sold by Crosby and Company, Paternoster Row. Price 1/. 1803. Brit. Mus.

3. The Life of John Hatfield, Printed and Published by Scott and Benson. Keswick. James Ivison, Market Place 1846. Brit. Mus.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

Coleridge and the “Morning Post.”

Three accounts from the pen of Coleridge, which appeared in the Morning Post of October 11, October 22, and November 5 respectively, under the titles “Romantic Marriage” and “The Fraudulent Marriage,” find a place in Coleridge’s “Essays on His Own Times,” edited by his daughter. The late Mr H. D. Traill, in his monograph in the “English Men of Letters” series, has pointed out (note, p. 80) that “it is impossible to believe that this collection, forming as it does but two small volumes, and a portion of a third, is anything like complete.” It is not an unwarrantable assumption that two subsequent articles in the Morning Post, which appeared on November 20 and December 31, were written from Greta Hall, and that Coleridge therefore was responsible for the sobriquet “The Keswick Impostor.”

Sir Alexander Hope, brother of the third Earl Hopetoun, whom Hadfield impersonated, was not (as stated in the Dic. Nat. Biog.) the second but the eighth son of the second earl (vide Gentleman’s Magazine, 1837, part ii. p. 423).

Notes

Note I. —A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes in Westmorland, Lancashire and Cumberland.

This book is reviewed at full length in the Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1792, pt. ii. pp. 1114-16, and in the European Magazine, December 1892, pt. ii. p. 436. The author, Joseph Budworth, who afterwards adopted his wife’s surname, Palmer, was a contributor to the former journal. Mary Robinson is described under the pseudonym ‘Sally of Buttermere’ The second edition of the Fortnight’s Ramble is reviewed in Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxvi. pt. i. p. 132, February 1796.

Note II. —A Revisit to Buttermere. Letter from a rambler to ‘Mr. Urban’ dated Buttermere, January 2 (vide Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1800, pp. 18-24).

This account was inserted in the third edition of A Fortnight’s Ramble, published in 1810. Joseph Budworth tells us that his second visit to Buttermere took place in January 1798.

Note III. —The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind, by Wm. Wordsworth. Commenced 1799, finished 1805, published 1850. The Centenary edition of the works of Wm. Wordsworth. Six vols. Edited by E. Moxon, 1870.

Book VII., “Residence in London,” contains the famous reference to Mary of Buttermere and her story. Describing various dramas he has seen at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the poet mentions one written around the story of Mary of Buttermere. Notes and Queries, Tenth Series, i. pp. 7, 70, 96.

Note IV. —The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey. Edited by David Masson. A. & C. Black (1889-90); vide Literary Reminiscences, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. ii. pp. 138-225.

The description of ‘The Hadfield Affair’ occupies pp. 174-184, and its numerous errors were the subject of a smart attack by a correspondent in Notes and Queries (First Series, vol. viii. p. 26), July 9, 1853.

Note V. —The Tourist’s New Guide. By William Green. In two volumes. Kendal (1819), vol. ii. pp. 180-5, 221. Seventy-eight Studies from Nature. By William Green. Longman (1809) p. 7.

The various descriptions of Mary Robinson are so conflicting that it is difficult, until one reads the impressions recorded from year to year by Wm. Green, to form an estimate of her personal appearance. It has been shown that Joseph Budworth, who first saw her in 1792, when she was fourteen, raves of her charms, and his second visit to Buttermere six years later did not disillusionise him. De Quincey, however, denies that she was beautiful, and does not praise even her figure. Yet he seems to be unconscious that he is describing, not the world-renowned ‘Maiden of Buttermere’ but a matron of thirty-five, who was now the wife of a prosperous farmer, and who had drank deeply of life’s sorrows. Mr Frederick Reed of Hassness, Buttermere, writing in August 1874 (Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, ii. 175), thirty-seven years after her death, states that “she was not the beauty she is represented to have been. She carried herself well, but got to be coarse-featured.” Still, as it is improbable that Mr Reed saw her till she was past her prime, his criticism is of little value. Sara Nelson, too, who was born during the year of Mary’s great trouble, did not meet her till her good looks had vanished. The Morning Post of October 11, 1802, contains the following description from the pen of Coleridge: – “To beauty in the strict sense of the word she has small pretensions, being rather gap-toothed and somewhat pock-fretten. But her face is very expressive, and the expression extremely interesting, and her figure and movements are graceful to a miracle. She ought indeed to be called the Grace of Buttermere rather than the Beauty.”

William Green tells us that he first saw Mary Robinson in 1791, the year before she was noticed by Captain Budworth. “At that time,” says he, “she was thirteen; and to an open, honest, and pleasant-looking face, then in the bloom of health, was added the promise of a good figure. Her garb, though neat, was rustic; but through it, even while so young, appeared indications of that mild dignity which was afterwards so peculiarly attractive.” He saw her next in 1794. “The infantine prettiness of thirteen was now matured into beauty; her countenance beamed with an indescribable sweetness, and the commanding graces of her fine person were equalled only by her innate good sense and excellent disposition.” After remarking that Captain Budworth’s panegyric seemed to have had no ill effect upon her mind, he proceeds: “Like some other mountain rustics, observed by the writer during his residence amongst these thinly populated wilds, Mary’s beauty was ripened at an early period; for this was, probably, the period of its perfection.” Green did not see her again till 1801. “She was then twenty-three, and though greatly admired for her general appearance and deportment, was on the whole infinitely less interesting than seven years before that time.” In 1805, the date of his next visit to Buttermere, he noted a further change. “Her features were pervaded by a melancholy meekness, but her beauty was fled, and with it, that peculiar elegance of person, for which she was formerly celebrated.” The next time the artist saw her was in 1810. “She was no longer the Beauty of Buttermere, but Mrs. Harrison, the bulky wife of a farmer, blessed with much good humour, and a ready utterance.” This was about the time when De Quincey saw her. Gillray’s sketch, November 15, 1802, corroborates Green’s description.

The Dictionary of National Biography gives the date of publication of The Tourist’s Guide as 1822. This is an error. It was published in 1819. The same monograph does not mention Green’s Survey of Manchester.

Note VI. —East Cheshire. By J. P. Earwaker, 1880, vol. ii. p. 136.

Gives the following extract from the register of baptisms at the parish church of Mottram-in-Longdendale: —

“1759. May 24, John, son of William Hadfield, and Betty, his Wife.” The church register confirms this reference.

John Hadfield’s father, who lived at Crodenbrook or Craddenbrook, Longden, must have been a man of means, for in 1760 he gave £20 to the poor.

Note VII. —Dic. Nat. Biog. This excellent sketch is only marred by the misspelling of Hadfield’s name, and the error in the date of his birth.

A FAMOUS FORGERY
THE CASE OF HENRY FAUNTLEROY, 1824

Part I. – The Criminal and his Crime

 
“Then, list, ingenuous youth…
And once forego your joy,
For your 176 instruction I display
The life of Fauntleroy.”
 

The Dirge of Fauntleroy, James Usher, 1824.

In the year 1792 – not one of the least disastrous in our annals of commerce – a small party of capitalists established a private bank under the name of Marsh, Sibbald & Company of Berners Street. The chief promoters – William Marsh, a naval agent, and James Sibbald of Sittwood Park, Berkshire, a retired official of Company John – were gentlemen of substance and position; while their managing partner, William Fauntleroy (previously employed at the famous house of Barclay), was a man of ability and business experience. Four years later, a younger son of Sir Edward Stracey, a Norfolk baronet, who married eventually the niece of Sir James Sibbald, was admitted into the firm.

Although never a bank of great resources, it appears to have made a fair return to its proprietors, and because of its connection with two baronets – one of whom became Sheriff of his county – it was regarded as a house of repute. In the spring of 1807 the firm received a severe blow through the death, when only in his fifty-eighth year, of the active partner, William Fauntleroy, in whom his colleagues placed implicit trust. Luckily, however, it was possible to fill his place, for his second son Henry, who had been employed as a clerk for seven years, although only twenty-two, was fit and eager for the post. None of the members of the firm were able to devote much attention to their bank, and thus, by a strange chance, the sole control was left in the hands of young Fauntleroy.

A remarkable man in every respect, this youthful manager, who carried with ease the burden of a great business on his shoulders. During the second decade of last century no figure was better known to those familiar with the west end of Oxford Street. Neat and elegant as Brummell, grave and industrious as Henry Addington, he seemed a model for all young men of commerce. Each morning at the same hour, the front door of No. 7 Berners Street, where he lived with his mother and sister, was thrown open, and the banker would step briskly into the adjoining premises – the counting-house of Messrs Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham. For he was a partner, also, as well as absolute manager, this solemn young gentleman whose air of ponderous respectability won the confidence of all.

At first sight, his cleanly-chiselled features seemed to express merely gentleness and simplicity, but a second glance would reveal a picture of resolution and strength. In fact, the massive brow, the broad cheekbones, and the firm, bold contour of the chin suggested a strange likeness – one that he sought to emphasise by the close-cropped hair made to droop over his forehead. It was his foible, this belief that he bore a resemblance to the great Buonaparte – whose bust adorned his mantelpiece – and the final catastrophe that overwhelmed him should discourage any latter-day egoist who prides himself upon a similar likeness.

Springing from an industrious Nonconformist stock (for his father had been the architect of his own fortunes, while his elder brother William, who fell a victim to consumption at an early age, was a youth full of the promise of genius), the temperament of Henry Fauntleroy appears to have been as complex a piece of mechanism as Nature ever enclosed within a human tenement. The love of toil, and an indomitable perseverance, seemed to be the guiding principles of his life. Not only did his fine courage never waver amidst the terrors of the financial tempest, through which he stood at the helm of his frail bark, but he gave no sign to his colleagues of the misgivings that must have lurked within his mind. For commerce had fallen upon evil days. On every side he beheld the crash and wreckage of his fellows, but, inspired by the confidence which only the knowledge of power can bestow, he resolved to continue his struggle against the storm. With a brain capable of grappling with huge balance-sheets, an almost superhuman dexterity in figures being his natural gift, the work of three men was the daily task of this Napoleon of commerce. Although the members of his firm were compelled to dive deeply into their pockets during these hazardous years, to meet losses occasioned by the failure of clients engaged in building speculations, the Berners Street Bank was handled so skilfully that it managed to weather the storm.

In spite of his vast abilities, there was nothing of bombast in Fauntleroy’s nature, nor did external evidence show that he was engaged in deadly warfare against the unpropitious fates. A gentle, unassuming man, with a quiet charm of address, he won universal regard from all with whom he came into contact. The gift of friendship, the infectious knack of social intercourse, was part of his character. Naturally, the circle in which he moved was composed of persons of refinement and, in some cases, of eminence in the commercial world. While his hand was ever open to the cry of distress, his board always had a place for those who had gained his esteem. All the leisure he could snatch seemed devoted to simple pleasures – a choice little dinner to a few kindred spirits, a holiday at his suburban villa, or a week-end visit to his house in Brighton. Though his earnest, florid face might be seen often beneath the hood of his smart cabriolet, this carriage was used principally in journeys between Berners Street and the City. In short, few business men in London were held in greater respect than this hard-working young banker, who was so like the Emperor Napoleon.

Yet there was another side to the picture. Although ostensibly he lived this simple and strenuous existence, a few bosom companions knew him in another guise. Unknown to the world, those week-end parties at his villa in the suburbs were tainted and ungodly. The sweet girl who sat at the head of his table as mistress of his home had lost her maiden innocence while her fresh young beauty was in its bud, lured by the sensuous Fauntleroy almost from school. All her pretty friends belonged to the same frail sisterhood, Cyprians beyond question, though modest perhaps in demeanour and speech. And with these ‘Kates and Sues’ of the town came Fauntleroy’s intimates, ‘Toms and Jerries’ unmistakably, though possibly only in travesty, becoming sober men once more in business hours.

Or one might have seen him driving past the fetid Pavilion at Brighton in his smart carriage, with its fawn-coloured lining, and have recognised in the shameless features of the flashy lady at his side the notorious ‘Corinthian Kate’ herself – in real life Mrs ‘Bang’ most ‘slap-up of ladybirds’ Then, again, at his luxurious seaside home in Western Place, with its conservatories and sumptuous billiard-room-draped as a facsimile of Napoleon’s travelling tent – his Kate’s dear friend Harriet Wilson, or other illustrious fair ones, would come to amuse his bachelor companions. Thus, in his leisure moments, the industrious Fauntleroy enjoyed secretly the life of an epicure and sensualist. Deep-buried in his soul the love of vice was ever present. “There only needed one thing to complete your equipage,” he writes, in plain double entente that indicates his ruling passion, to his friend Sheriff Parkins, “instead of the man at your side, a beautiful angel!”

Marriage had meant no sowing of wild oats to Henry Fauntleroy. A mystery surrounds his union to the daughter of a naval captain named John Young. It is known only that, although a son was born, the match from the first was an unhappy one, and an early separation took place. During the year of Waterloo a liaison with a married lady, who had a complacent or shortsighted husband, increased the habits of extravagance which in the end brought the banker to ruin. Later, the pretty young girl Maria Fox, who had been educated at a convent in France, consented to become the mistress of his suburban home. Thus the double life continued; while to those who knew him only in Berners Street, Mr Fauntleroy appeared the most righteous and respectable of men.

What was the nominal income of the young bank manager it is impossible to ascertain; but whatever the sum, it is certain that before very long his expenditure began to exceed his means. Probably he took the first step on his downward march during the year of the hejira to Elba. The strength and weakness of his character combined to make the position of Tantalus unendurable. Nothing seemed more certain than that the Berners Street house, which had never recovered from its unfortunate speculations, would return large profits if its capital was sufficient to meet all claims. Thus Fauntleroy decided not to take his colleagues into his confidence. Such a step would have caused the business to be wound up, and he would have lost his handsome salary. As one of his most severe critics has pointed out, “he had not enough moral courage to face the world in honest, brave poverty.” On the contrary, his courage took another form. Confident that he must conquer evil fortune, the self-reliant man resolved to commence a life-and-death battle with fate, alone and unaided. And his choice was the frightful expedient of forgery!

The methods of Fauntleroy were of unparalleled audacity. Then, as now, clients were in the habit of placing the certificates of their securities in the hands of their bankers for safe custody. So, by boldly forging the signature of the proprietor upon a power of attorney, he was able to sell any particular investment that he desired. Naturally, his depredations were confined to Government securities – Consols, Long Annuities, Exchequer Bills – and thus in effecting the fraudulent transfers his negotiations were with the Bank of England. For a period of almost ten years this incomparable swindler maintained the credit of his house in this manner, selling stocks belonging to his clients to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds. As the proprietors received their dividends as regularly as ever – for Fauntleroy took care that their pass-books were credited with the half-yearly payments – they never knew that their investments had been abstracted. On the death of an owner the stolen stock was replaced, and thus the trustees were unaware of the theft. So the frauds went on, each forgery being shrouded by another, until the total deficit of the Berners Street Bank exceeded half a million!

Narrow escapes were inevitable. On one occasion he was handing over a power of attorney for the transfer of stock to one of the clerks in the Consols Office at the Bank of England, when the person whose name he had forged entered the room. Yet Fauntleroy’s aplomb did not fail him. As soon as he perceived the new-comer, he requested the clerk to return the document, with the excuse that he wished to correct an omission. Then, having secured the paper, he went to greet the friend whom he was about to rob, and they strolled out of the bank together. Another day, one of his lady clients instructed a London broker to sell some stock for her. Finding no such investment registered in her name, the man called at Berners Street to make inquiries. To his surprise the plausible banker informed him that the lady had already desired him to effect the sale. “And here,” continued the smiling Fauntleroy, producing a number of Exchequer bills, “are the proceeds.” Although his customer protested that she had never authorised the transaction, the matter was allowed to drop. While a friend was chatting in his private office he is said to have been imitating his signature, which he took out to the counting-house before his companion had departed. One of the last occasions when he visited the Bank of England was on the 5th of January, the day on which Thurtell and Hunt were tried for the Gillshill murder. While the clerk was crediting the dividend warrants due to his firm, the banker conversed about the crime. It was noted as a strange coincidence that the same clerk was one of the witnesses against him.

One day in September 1824, Mr J. D. Hulme, an official of the Custom House, wishing to examine a list of investments belonging to an estate of which he had become a trustee, paid a visit to the Bank of England. To his amazement he found that a sum of £10,000 in Consols was missing, and inquiry proved that the stock had been sold by the Berners Street manager under a power of attorney. On the advice of Mr Freshfield, solicitor of the bank, an application was made to Mr Conant of Marlborough Street, who was induced to grant a warrant for the arrest of the suspected man. At last the wily Fauntleroy had been caught napping; for although he was aware that there was a risk of exposure, and had made preparations to reinvest the stolen Consols, he had not yet been able to complete the transaction.

During the whole of Thursday night, Samuel Plank, chief-officer of Marlborough Street, finding that the banker was away from home, paraded Berners Street watching for his return. On the next morning, the 10th of September, at his usual hour, the grave, neatly dressed forger walked into his place of business. A mean trick marked the arrest. Mr Goodchild, the other co-trustee of the plundered estate, entered the counting-house a few moments before Plank, and proceeded into the private office, while the constable, pretending to cash a cheque, remained at the counter. When through the half-closed door of the inner room he saw that the victim and decoy were closeted together, the police-officer pushed past the astonished clerks, explaining that he wanted to speak to their employer. As Fauntleroy raised his eyes from his desk, and saw a warrant in the intruder’s hand, he realised that the visit of his friend was merely a device to place him in the hand of the law.

“Good God!” exclaimed the doomed man. “Cannot this business be settled?”

And tradition relates that he offered Plank a bribe of ten thousand pounds to allow him to escape. But the officer proved incorruptible, and soon the banker was standing in the presence of his astonished friend, Magistrate John Conant, who, though sore distressed, was compelled to commit him to Coldbath Fields prison.

“I alone am guilty,” cried the wretched Fauntleroy, in a burst of penitence. “My colleagues did not know!”

Like the great model whom he had striven to emulate, the vain man had found his Moscow. No longer was he the dandy banker of Berners Street, whose friendship had been sought by so many rich men from the City. The days of the lavish Corinthian, the associate of ‘bang-up pinks and bloods’ had passed away for ever, and he had become a criminal, standing beneath the shadow of the gallows!

While Mr Freshfield, with the aid of the constable, proceeded to execute his right of search, the members of the firm were summoned to town. At first the catastrophe was not appreciated to the full extent. On the following morning the bank opened its doors, and customers paid and drew their cheques as usual. However, before the close of the day the proprietors sent an announcement to the press that “in consequence of the extraordinary conduct of their partner,” they had determined for the present to suspend payment.

During the whole of Monday, the 13th of September, an excited throng took possession of Berners Street – neighbouring tradesmen trembling for their deposits; men from the City dismayed by the wildest rumours. A force of police was deemed necessary to prevent a riot. “Arrest of Mr Fauntleroy, the well-known banker!” The amazing tidings was upon every lip. A similar sensation had not been experienced in the memory of man. Since the days of Dr Dodd, half a century before, none so high in the social scale had been accused of such a crime. All the week, panic reigned in business houses. It was whispered that the defalcations would reach half a million pounds: that the greatest commercial scandal of the age would be disclosed. One day, it was said that Fauntleroy had arranged a plan of escape; on another, that he had cut his throat with a razor.

Across the lofty stone hall, and under the gate of the slaughter-house, the Sheriff and the Ordinary pass onward. There is a rush of chill, moist air through the open door, the bare wooden stairs reverberate with the tread of feet, and in another moment Fauntleroy, still supported by his friends, is standing upon the platform in the open street beneath the frowning wall of Old Bailey. Instantly every head in the dense crowd is uncovered. Yet this is not a token of respect for a dying man, but a time-honoured custom, so that the view of those in the rear may not be obscured. With eyes still closed, and his face turned towards Newgate Street, Fauntleroy moves under the cross-bar. Physical exhaustion is fast conquering him, and the officials hasten their task. In a moment the cap is slipped over his head, while Baker, accustomed to these scenes, speaks to him in earnest prayer. The halter is placed round his neck, and the loathly creature, whose expert hands have finished pawing their victim, glides swiftly from the scaffold. The Rev. Cotton continues to read from his book, but his eyes steal sideways furtively, and he throws a glance of meaning upon the man who has descended. An instant later, the Ordinary passes a handkerchief across his lips. It is the signal! There is a crash of falling timber, and to those in the street Fauntleroy appears to drop through the platform as far as his knees, and hangs swaying from the strong black beam which holds the cord that is gripping him by the throat. The bowstring of the unspeakable Turk is a more artistic but not a more cruel death.

The performance was an immense success, for a more stupendous throng had never gathered round the black walls of Newgate. Over one hundred thousand persons were said to have witnessed the entertainment, and reserved seats in the houses commanding a view of Debtors’ Door had been booked far in advance. At the ‘King of Denmark’ in the Old Bailey the sum of fourteen shillings was charged for a place; while at Wingrave’s eating-house and at Luttman’s, which were exactly opposite ‘the drop’ the price was as high as one pound. “Many respectable-looking females,” says the Morning Post, “were present at the windows, all attired in deep black.” A line of large waggons, hackney-coaches and cabriolets, all of which reaped a rich harvest, stretched from the corner of Giltspur Street and Newgate to Skinner’s Street, Snowhill, and every housetop was overflowing with holiday-makers.

It was a bitterly cold morning, with icy rain-storms and a chill mist, so the resolute thousands thoroughly deserved the enjoyment for which they set at defiance all the ills of the flesh. Most careful precautions were taken to avoid a repetition of the Haggerty-Holloway tragedy, when the mob saved James Botting – that worthy soul whose latter days were distressed by visions of ‘parties’ in nightcaps with their heads on one side – an infinite deal of trouble by trampling to death some fifty of its fellows. Six huge barriers stretched across Newgate Street at the corner of the prison, and there were two intermediate ones, to break the press, between that place and the scaffold; more were erected at the Ludgate Hill termination of Old Bailey, and within the barricade around the fatal platform were four hundred constables.

Sad to relate, the object-lesson was a failure in one instance, for Henry Norman, a fine-looking lad of fifteen, was charged at the Guildhall the next morning with picking a pocket, the owner of which was gloating over the spectacle of the strangled banker. It speaks highly for the integrity of our modern police force that, in these days of exclusive hangings, a nimble-fingered Robert has never tried to filch the watch of an impressionable Under-Sheriff. Or if he has, the public has not heard of it.

In these record-breaking times it is a common occurrence for a trusted attorney to embezzle half a million pounds, but before the achievements of Henry Fauntleroy all previous forgeries sink into insignificance. Poor Dodd surrendered all he stole, and Wynne Ryland’s fraud was, in its way, as artistic a performance as those of Thomas Chatterton, while a brief career of crime – as in the case of Henry Savary of Bristol, who was lucky enough to escape the gallows – ruined the brothers Perreau. James Bolland and John Rouvelett were low-born fellows; and although the public welcomed each as a first-class criminal, neither gained the same prestige as a forger of gentle birth. In a small way, Henry Cock, the lawyer, anticipated the Berners Street frauds, and two other cases bear some resemblance. Henry Weston, a man of good family and social position, who was hanged at the Old Bailey on the 6th of June 1796, disposed of stocks amounting to twenty-five thousand pounds in a similar manner to Fauntleroy; and Joseph Blackburn, one of the most respected of Leeds attorneys, who suffered a lingering death at York on the 8th of April 1815, committed innumerable frauds for a great number of years by transferring and altering the denominations of the old familiar blue stamps.

“Fauntleroy’s doom was so thoroughly recognised as well merited,” writes Mr Thornbury, sternly, about forty years after the event, “that although in 1832 every other kind of forger was exempted by law from the gallows, the hands of the hangman still hovered over the forger of wills and powers of attorney to transfer stock.” Yet, since the penalty was never inflicted, this argument appears superfluous.

Fauntleroy certainly is the prince of forgers, as truly as Jack Sheppard is the greatest of prison-breakers and George Barrington the finest genius among pickpockets. Although driven to crime in the first instance by moral cowardice and craving for self-indulgence, he must have possessed an almost Napoleonic confidence that his abilities would conquer misfortune. Too proud to surrender the terrible struggle, he refused to adopt the easy alternative of flight to France with his ill-gotten gains. When one tries to realise the stupendous task of manipulating figures of such magnitude for so many years, the brain reels. The regular payment of huge dividends lest the victims should become aware of their loss, the constant replacement of stock when discovery seemed to threaten, the repeated buying and selling in order to rob Peter to-day to pay Paul to-morrow, the daily juggling with the books, and adjustment of balances, added to the incessant vigilance lest the errors of a few figures should mean betrayal to partners or clerks – all these wonderful transactions show an example of mathematical legerdemain such as the world has seldom seen. When it is borne in mind that the man was playing for nearly ten years with sums amounting in the aggregate to half a million sterling, his title to the incomparable forger of all time cannot be challenged. But like many another who has contributed to the public amusement, his memory soon faded from the minds of all save his creditors. Scarcely had the curtain been rung down on the tragedy of Fauntleroy, when it rose again upon the entrancing drama of accommodating Miss Foote and wayward Mr ‘Pea-green’ Hayne.

Occasionally, but not often, we hear mention of the banker’s name, and there was a recent reference to it in one of the delightful novels of Anthony Hope.

“It is no longer a capital offence,” declares ribald Arty Kane, referring to forgery, and addressing charming Peggy Ryle; “you won’t be hanged in silk knee-breeches like Mr Fauntleroy.”

Part II. – Some Details of the Forgeries

The Berners Street bankruptcy.

No complete balance-sheet of the Marsh-Stracey bankruptcy appears to exist. The books of the firm seem to have baffled both the Commissioners and the assignees; and so artfully had Fauntleroy concealed his frauds, that even skilled accountants did not succeed in unravelling the whole of their mysteries. Contemporary newspapers furnish many important clues, but their statements, when not conflicting, are neither lucid nor exhaustive. Yet, although many details must remain obscure, it is possible to form a rough conception of the result.

The position of the bankrupts.

Since we know that the first dividend of 3s. 4d. in the pound (distributed to the creditors on the 7th of February 1825) absorbed a sum of £92,486, it is clear that Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company required a grand total of £554,916 to pay twenty shillings in the pound. Practically these figures are substantiated by the preliminary accounts presented at the meeting of the Commissioners on the 18th of December 1824, which state that the claims against the firm – excluding any liability to the Bank of England – amount to £554,148.

This estimate, however, is the only one of any accuracy made at the time, for the assets expected to be realised fell very short of the original calculation. A second dividend of 3s. 4d. was received by the creditors on the 30th of August 1825, and between that date and the appointment of the official assignee a further sum of £46,243 was distributed. Thus the total of the first three dividends – which were equivalent to 8s. 4d. in the pound – amounts to £231,215.

The bankruptcy return of Patrick Johnson (official assignee), published in 1839, shows that assets were collected subsequently amounting to £160,930, and thus the creditor side of the Berners Street ledger appears to have reached a total of £392,150.

From this balance of £160,930 – realised by the official assignee after the payment of the first three dividends – further distributions of 5d. and 1s. (being 9s. 9d. in the pound in all) were made respectively on the 23rd of December 1833 and the 9th of September 1835, and absorbed further sums of £11,560, 15s. and £27,745, 16s.

During September 1835 the claim of the Bank of England against Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company was compromised for a payment of £95,000 in cash; and a further sum of £11,000 for the expenses of working the Commission of Bankruptcy from the 16th of September 1824 to the end of the year 1833 must also be deducted. Therefore a balance of £15,628 – less any further costs – appears to have remained for payment of a final dividend. Although many of the newspapers state that this was made on the 7th of October 1837, unfortunately none of them give any particulars. Yet it may be conjectured that the unfortunate customers of the Berners Street Bank, after waiting for thirteen years, could not have received more than 10s. 6d. in the pound.

The following rough balance-sheet will explain the above account: —

The private estates of the partners.

The private estates of Messrs Stracey and Graham paid twenty shillings in the pound before the end of 1833; and upon that of Mr Marsh, the senior partner, who appears to have been indebted to the firm for a loan of £73,000, excluding his overdraft on his private account, a distribution of 17s. 6d. had been made before 1834. Little was received on Fauntleroy’s estate, as it was claimed almost entirely by the creditors of the Berners Street Bank.

Losses under Fauntleroy’s management.

It is now possible to form an estimate of the extent to which Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company were defaulters, and what were the losses under the Fauntleroy régime. The total receipts set against the claims of the creditors and the money stolen from the Bank of England, show a deficiency of £522,980. Thus: —

How the losses were incurred.

Although it would be difficult, with any degree of accuracy, to apportion under the separate charges this adverse balance of over half a million pounds, and although much must be left to conjecture, it is possible to explain some of the ways in which this vast sum was dissipated. At the outset, the suggestion – arising out of one of the pleas of Fauntleroy, and believed at the time – that the overdraft on loans to two of the partners was responsible for a deficit of £100,000, is refuted by the fact that both Messrs Marsh and Graham refunded eventually their obligations to the full extent. In like manner, the belief that large sums were lost owing to the necessity of reinvesting constantly the various stocks sold by Fauntleroy in order to avoid detection, overlooks the fact that, on the other hand, these transactions must have afforded similar opportunities for making a profit. It is probable that many such losses did occur; but since we may believe that the Berners Street Bank prior to the forgeries was earning an income of £7000 a year, it is likely that such an astute manager as Henry Fauntleroy would be able to cancel many of these losses through reinvestment by the profits he earned on the immense capital he had secretly appropriated.

(a) Loss of £160,000 in building speculations.

(b) £90,000 lost by paying dividends on the stolen stocks.

Although the forger’s estimate of the result of his building speculations is extravagant, the newspapers of the 20th of December 1824 make it clear that the Berners Street house must have lost in this manner £160,000. It is certain also that immense sums were absorbed by the payment of dividends to the proprietors whose stocks had been stolen. Nearly £7000 per annum must have been required for this purpose from the year 1816, and the sum would accumulate at compound interest, until, as some say, an annual fund of £16,000 was required. Setting aside all excessive calculations, we have the great authority of the historian of the Bank of England that £9000 to £10,000 a year was thus expended during the progress of the forgeries. Further than this, notwithstanding that the partners in the bankrupt firm were not entitled to any fraction of profit, the testimony of almost the entire press credits each of them with receiving an income of over £3000. At the examination of William Marsh, reported in the newspapers of the 1st of March 1825, it was proved that he was indebted on his private account for an overdraft of £26,000. As there is no reason to believe that Mr Stracey or Mr Graham had enjoyed a smaller income, a further deficit of nearly £80,000 is the result. And finally, as will be shown, there is an overwhelming weight of evidence to prove that the iniquitous Henry Fauntleroy, during the nineteen years he was a partner, dissipated at least £100,000. In addition, the repayment of the capital of Sir James Sibbald (who died the 17th of September 1819), which formed a large portion of £64,000 – the capital of the firm in 1814 – would swell the adverse balance still further. Leaving this out of the question, the facts stated above explain the deficit of £430,000; and with the material at our disposal any further solution would involve a more elaborate use of the methods of conjecture.

(c) Loss of £80,000 through payments to Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Graham.

(d) Fauntleroy spent £100,000.

To what extent did Fauntleroy participate in the proceeds of his forgeries?

When Fauntleroy made his famous declaration from the dock, he was endeavouring to refute the extravagant assertion that he had spent a sum of over four hundred thousand pounds in riotous living; and thus, led to the opposite extreme, he made the mistake of attempting to convey an erroneous impression of his frugality. Thus the statement that he had never enjoyed any advantage beyond that in which all his partners had participated seems to hint economy; but as Mr Marsh had overdrawn his loan account by £70,000, the proposition is irrelevant to the argument. Then, again, he confesses that the Brighton villa cost £400, but he is not candid enough to admit the expenses of his other establishments. The stern reality – that a thief cannot justify the expenditure of one pennyworth of stolen property – never entered his mind. Utterly false, however, is his answer to the charges of profligacy – outrageous though they were.

“It has been cruelly asserted,” he declares, “that I fraudulently invested money in the Funds to answer the payment of annuities amounting to £2200 settled upon females. I never did make such investment.”

No single tenet in Father Garnet’s doctrine of equivocation puts greater stress upon the truth. Whoever made the necessary investments – and the forger was shrewd enough not to let the transaction appear in his own name – there is certain evidence that he provided lavishly for his mistress Maria Fox. The lie is merely concealed in subtle language.

“Neither at home nor abroad,” continues Fauntleroy, “have I any investment, nor is there one shilling secretly deposited by me in the hands of any human being.”

Such an assertion goes far beyond the sophistry of the most misguided seventeenth-century Jesuit, for the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were soon to discover that he had squandered thousands on his friend Mrs Disney. His one denial in unequivocal terms is a deliberate falsehood.

“Equally ungenerous and untrue it is,” the forger proceeds, “to charge me with having lent to loose and disorderly persons large sums of money which never have and never will be repaid. I lent no sums but to a very trifling amount, and those were advanced to valued friends.”

No doubt this last declaration had reference to the rumour that he had squandered money upon the notorious Mary Ann Kent, ‘Mother Bang’ – who figures as ‘Corinthian Kate’ in Life in London– and its truth or falsehood must depend upon the exact definition of the term ‘large sums’ The criminal who had dealings with huge balance-sheets, naturally had a magnificent sense of proportion.

Fauntleroy’s expenditure.

Fortunately, there is evidence of some of the ‘prodigal extravagance’ that was laid at his door. The total loss of the Bank of England owing to the forgeries was £360,214, and the original claim of the directors against the Berners Street establishment was £250,000. So it seems that the balance was believed to have been spent wholly by Fauntleroy, and not placed to the credit of the partnership. The sworn testimony of Mr Wilkinson, an accountant employed by the assignees to examine the books of the bankrupts – although inclined to favour Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company – supports this assumption in the most decisive manner. Thus, in spite of his defence, it would appear that during his management the forger appropriated for himself a sum of over £100,000. These figures, moreover, are endorsed by the fair-minded James Scarlett, who made the same statement as Wilkinson in his speech for the defendants in the case of Stone and Others v. Marsh, Stracey & Company, which was heard on the 2nd of March 1826. To disregard such unanimous testimony is impossible.

How did Fauntleroy spend the money?

(a) Domestic expenditure £2000 a year.

It is quite credible that for a period of seventeen years (from 1807 to 1824) a man of Fauntleroy’s habits should expend an average income of £5000. Had each of his three establishments – in Berners Street, in Brighton, and at Lambeth – cost him as much as his moderate estimate of one – and none of them could have been less expensive – the total reaches £1200 a year. In addition to this, it is known that he allowed an annuity of £400 to his wife. Thus, as he kept horses and carriages both at London and the seaside, his lowest annual domestic expenditure must have been at least £2000, or £34,000 over the period. Although the house at Fulham was one of his later extravagances, there were others that had taken its place previously.

(b) Freehold property £10,000.

The villa, land and furniture at Brighton, sold after his death, realised nearly £7000 – the residence alone is said to have cost him this amount; and since he was the owner of a mews and six houses in Bryanston Square, and two other houses in York Street, his freehold property, on a moderate estimate, must have been worth £10,000.

(c) Maria Fox £10,000.

From the reports of the trial of Maria Fox at the Lewes Assizes in April 1827, we gather that Fauntleroy settled on his youthful mistress £6000, besides an annuity of £150, “of which the assignees,” said John Adolphus, her counsel, “through the advice of a worthy gentleman, Mr Bolland, were not so cruel as to deprive her.” Thus another £10,000 is added to the banker’s debt.

(d) Mrs J. C. Disney, £10,000.

During the month of December 1824 the London papers are full of insinuations with regard to Fauntleroy’s improper connection with a Mrs James C. Disney, and the letter from the lady’s husband, which appeared in the New Times on the 24th of December, substantiates unwittingly much of the truth of the story. It is certain that the creditors of Marsh, Stracey & Company recovered large sums from this Mrs Disney, who had been the recipient of Fauntleroy’s bounty to an extent exceeding the limits of platonic love, and according to The Times the amount refunded was £10,000. Although many reports state that she received twice this sum, it is sufficient for the purpose to accept the lesser figures.

Thus there is almost complete evidence that Fauntleroy’s expenditure under three heads – domestic expenses, freehold property, and the two mistresses above mentioned – absorbed a sum of £64,000. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the man who could squander this money in less than seventeen years, while his firm was in so dire a plight, was capable of spending double the amount. It is improbable that his various establishments cost him no more than £2000 a year; and if The Times of the 1st of December is to be believed, he confessed that he had enjoyed a very much larger income. The age of pinks and bloods was as extravagant as our own, and many luxuries of life were more expensive. Fauntleroy was a patron of ‘Corinthian Kate’; and if Pierce Egan is an authority, we may conjecture – in spite of her denial to Joseph Parkins – that the unfortunate banker found her an expensive luxury. Like the great man whom he took a pride in fancying he resembled, it is notorious that the forger had a weakness for what his contemporaries termed ‘ladybirds’ and was in this respect a dissipated and worthless fellow. Moreover, he was celebrated for his costly dinners and rare wines – there is the grisly story of the friend who urged him as a last request to tell where he purchased his exquisite curaçoa – and he seems to have denied himself no luxury. Although it is not possible to give a complete explanation of Fauntleroy’s expenditure during the years of his race to ruin, it is satisfactory to know some portion of the details, and they show, through all possible coats of whitewash, that he was guilty of the most prodigal extravagance.

The conduct of the partners.

Since the partners of the Berners Street Bank were censured for gross negligence in two courts of law, it is not surprising that their creditors should have treated them with intolerance. At first the public had regarded them as unfortunate dupes, and it was not until Fauntleroy had made his defence that a popular outcry arose. It seemed incredible that three men of the world should have thrown the heavy burden of managing a firm, weighed down by embarrassments, upon the shoulders of a youth of twenty-two, and equally preposterous that, in the face of losses reaching into hundreds of thousands, the young man’s colleagues should have remained easy, trusting, asleep. Yet, in spite of the onslaught of the London press, and the clamour of the noisy creditors, headed by Joseph Parkins and his fellows, beneath the roof of the ‘Boar and Castle’ and the ‘Freemasons’ Tavern,’ it is certain that Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Graham were innocent of all guilty complicity in their partner’s frauds. The statements that had aroused the storm against them proved to be baseless or exaggerated. It has been shown that the Berners Street Bank did not lose £270,000 in building speculations between 1810 and 1816, as Fauntleroy suggested, and to meet the loss that did occur a large sum was raised by the supporters of the firm, to which William Marsh contributed £40,000. Thus, considering the reticence of their manager, there was good reason why the partners should believe that they had weathered the financial panic which brought to ruin so many of their contemporaries.

Modern commerce estimates more accurately the value of youth than the age of Mr Walter the Second; and as young Fauntleroy, who was one of the smartest bank managers in London, accepted his responsibilities with zest and cheerfulness, it is not surprising that he became the autocrat of the firm. Moreover, the juggler who could deceive the clerks working at his elbow day by day would have no difficulty in satisfying the periodical curiosity of sleeping-partners. Fat profits rolled into their coffers, and, like many another good easy man, they did not pause to look a gift horse in the mouth. Fools they were, and must remain, but in the end the world ceased to suspect their honour.

Still, their credulity was remarkable. All three of them appear to have been the instruments of most of the frauds, attending at the Bank of England to make the transfer under the forged powers of attorney, and instructing brokers to dispose of the stolen stocks and bonds. In one particular, however, the conduct of Marsh and Stracey appeared dubious. On the day of Fauntleroy’s arrest the daughter of the former cashed a cheque for £5000, while the latter drew out over £4000 in the name of his father. The trick was discovered, and restitution made to the creditors.

The Bank of England’s claim.

As might be supposed, the Bank of England received little sympathy either from the press or from the people. The directors never disputed their obligation – as managers of the public debt – to refund to the rightful proprietors the whole of the stocks that had been stolen, but they made every effort to enforce their claim against the Berners Street firm – amounting to a quarter of a million – which they contended that Fauntleroy had placed to the credit of his house. It was soon made clear by law that Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company were responsible to the stockholders, who had been defrauded by their managing partner, and thus were equally responsible to the Bank, whose debt was similar to that of the stockholders. The chief obstacle to the enforcement of the Bank’s claim lay in the fact that the proprietors of the stolen stocks were clients, and, as a natural consequence, creditors also of Marsh, Stracey & Company. Being aware that the directors were legally compelled to replace their missing Consols and Exchequer Bills, they raised a great clamour against the claim of the Bank, for naturally they perceived that if it was enforced the cash balances in their Berners Street pass-books would be diminished. This difficulty compelled the Bank to seek the consent of the Courts to permit them to claim from the bankrupts the lump sum that had been restored to the stockholders, so that it would not be necessary to bring forward reluctant persons to prove each separate debt. Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst ruled, however, that each transaction must be established to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Bankruptcy in the usual way, and thus the Bank was driven to depend upon the stockholders. Since the claim of half a million was compromised for a payment of £95,000, we may conclude that the majority of the Berners Street creditors were not disposed to assist the rival claimant to a share of their dividends.

The transfer of stock.

Much has been written of the lax methods of transferring stock in vogue at the Bank of England. As the frauds were so slovenly that Fauntleroy’s clerks had no difficulty in detecting their employer’s handwriting in the signature attached to the forged power of attorney produced at the trial, it is plain that the crimes could not have continued for so many years unless a most careless system had prevailed. The Berners Street swindle showed that it was possible for any applicant with whom the clerks at the Consols Office were acquainted to complete the transfer of another person’s securities, provided only that he possessed a knowledge of the exact value of the particular stock he wished to appropriate. A power of attorney seems to have been as readily acted upon as obtained, and no comparison of the real owner’s signature appears to have been made. This danger was pointed out subsequently at a meeting of the Court of Proprietors, and a shareholder made the wise suggestion that when any transfer was made immediate notice should be sent to the proprietor of the stock.

Yet checks and precautions did exist at the Bank of England in the days of Henry Fauntleroy. The purchasers of securities were recommended to protect themselves from fraud by accepting themselves – that is to say, by signing – all transfers of stock made to them, thus giving the officials of the Bank the opportunity of comparing the handwriting of the proprietor whenever necessary. Still, the investing public rarely complied with this regulation, and Fauntleroy must have been aware that there was no danger of detection on this account.

Although forgery of such a description is more difficult in these days, yet prudence should neglect no safeguard that does not impede the business of everyday life. A signature, however much resemblance it has to its original, may still be a forgery, and personal attendance might be simulated by a bold and plausible scoundrel. The most sure precaution is the one suggested on the 17th of September 1824 by the nameless proprietor, that whenever a transfer is lodged immediate notice shall be sent to the holder of the stock.

FAUNTLEROY AND THE NEWSPAPERS

1. The Morning Chronicle.

Under the leadership of the famous John Black, this paper had become a somewhat fat and stodgy production, savouring of the ‘unco guid’ It is fierce in its attacks upon Fauntleroy’s partners for their indolence and carelessness, and pleads that mercy shall be shown to the offender. Special prominence is given to the pious conversations alleged to have taken place in Newgate between the prisoner and his spiritual advisers Messrs Springett and Baker. Since this paper is not hostile to Fauntleroy, it is strange that it should publish (November 11) a vile communication from his enemy J. W. Parkins, an ex-Sheriff of London, in which the writer tries to show that the prisoner who is awaiting his trial has been a brutal husband. The first announcement that the Bank in Berners Street had suspended payment appears in the columns of the Chronicle on Monday, September 13.

2. The Morning Post.

Although the Morning Post makes a point of pluming itself on its humanity towards Fauntleroy, its attitude is wholly inconsistent and double-faced. Having copied from The Times a column of disgraceful news concerning the private vices of the dishonest banker, it turns round and upbraids its contemporary, a few weeks later, for supplying the information. Foolish letters upon all kinds of subjects from Fauntleroy’s bitter enemy, J. W. Parkins – Sheriff of London 1819-20 – disfigure this paper constantly. The Post gloats over the scene at the Debtors’ Door, and is glad that there was no pardon.

3. The Morning Herald.

This journal is opposed to the death penalty for forgery, and inserts several letters, urging that the convict should be reprieved, but it admits, after the execution, that while the law remained unaltered there were no special circumstances in the case to warrant mercy. The report of the trial on November 1, which holds up to ridicule the absurd and indecorous conduct of ex-Sheriff Parkins previous to the meeting of the Court, furnishes a striking proof of his malice against his former friend Henry Fauntleroy. During April 1823 the notorious Parkins made a somewhat feeble attempt to assault Mr Thwaites of the Morning Herald in his office, which is the reason, no doubt, why the editor handles him so roughly.

4. The Times.

The attitude of the greatest paper in the world towards the unfortunate banker is a black record in its history. Although the man was a sensualist and a forger of the highest degree, it is not creditable to British journalism of those days that a leading newspaper should take infinite pains to rake up every scandal of his past life, and to prejudice the public mind against him before he was brought to trial. A more deliberate attempt to condemn a man unheard has never been made in the press. It is amazing that an editor of the calibre of Thomas Barnes should have printed the article of September 24 and the disgraceful letter signed “T.” of September 25, which compares Fauntleroy to Thurtell, the cut-throat. The reproof administered by James Harmer on September 27, although fully deserved, was not sufficient to restrain the licence of Mr Walter’s reporters. The Times proceeds to wrangle with the Brighton Gazette as to whether the banker had been a libertine, and on October 9 publishes a statement about his lenient treatment at Coldbath Fields prison, for which it is compelled to apologise to Mr Vickery, the Governor. More innuendoes follow concerning Fauntleroy’s moral character, and on October 19 (before his trial!) it is reported that the printers at the ‘One Tun’ tavern in Covent Garden were making bets as to whether he would be hanged.

Almost as repulsive are the leaders written after the culprit’s execution. “If forgery had not been capital before,” says this truculent journal, “the most humane legislators would have doubted whether, if carried to a similar extent, it should not be rendered capital in future.” Yet Samuel Romilly had been in his grave only six years, and James Mackintosh and William Ewart were left to continue his brave work. Finally, on December 4, comes a blast of thunder that Dennis or the editor of the Eatanswill Gazette might have envied. “We are not anxious to extend the narrative of Mr Fauntleroy’s life by a description of his personal habits, but, if provoked, we can lay before the public such a detail of low and disgusting sensuality, as would appear incredible to those who were not as degraded in body and mind as he was. This narrative would involve persons who hold themselves rather high, and who have presumed to talk big with reference to our accounts of their wretched friend and associate. Let them be quiet; if we find that in public or private (and we have channels of information they dream not of) they have the impudence to disparage our motives or deny our statements, we will hold up their names and actions to public scorn and astonishment and disgust.”

5. The Morning Advertiser.

This journal, then as now the organ of the licensed victuallers, is hostile to Fauntleroy, but moderate in the reports it publishes about him.

6. The New Times.

As might be expected, this paper deals some nasty raps at that from which its editor seceded. It is very critical of the conduct of Fauntleroy’s partners, with whose explanations before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy it is dissatisfied, but does not make the reckless charges against them that appear in some journals, such as the Sunday Times and Morning Chronicle.

7. The British Press.

Gives more complete information than any other paper of the details of Marsh, Stracey & Company’s bankruptcy. The reports of the proceedings before the Court of Commissioners, and of the meetings of the Berners Street creditors, which are criticised at large, throw much light upon the endless ramifications of the Fauntleroy forgeries. This journal alone makes an attempt to ascertain whether the statement of the criminal banker was endorsed by the books of his firm. “I declare,” says Fauntleroy in his defence, “that all the monies temporarily raised by me were applied, not in one single instance for my own separate purposes or expenses, but in every case they were immediately placed to the credit of the house in Berners Street, and applied to the payments of the pressing demands upon it… The books will confirm the truth of my statement … the whole went to the general funds of the house.”

The value of this assertion may be tested by reference to the columns of the British Press of the following dates: – September 20, 29, October 6, November 13, 15, 17, 22, 23, 30, December 10, 13, 17, 20, 28 (1824), January 17, 19, 20, February 2, March 1, 19, April 11, July 25, August 31 (1825).

For further particulars of the bankruptcy consult The Times, Morning Post, and Morning Chronicle of December 24, 1833; and September 10 and 11, 1835. Also John Bull, September 20, 1835; the Weekly Dispatch, September 17, 1837; and The Times, October 7, 1837.

8. The Examiner.

The statements in Fauntleroy’s defence are received with incredulity. “From what we hear and observe of the man,” says the Examiner, in a leading article, “we do not believe he would have risked his life to preserve a trading concern of which he had only a fourth share. We expect the truth will be that he began to forge to get money for himself, and was obliged to go on because bankruptcy would have led to his detection.” The leader proceeds to condemn the law of banking, and to attack the monopoly of the Bank.

9. The Observer.

The veteran Sunday journal – which at this period was the property of Wm. Clement, who owned also the Morning Chronicle, and afterwards Bell’s Life– takes the bulk of its reports, like most of the weekly papers, from the columns of the daily press.

10. The Sunday Times.

This hardy newspaper (which age cannot wither) condemns the criminal code that makes forgery a capital offence, and charges Messrs Marsh, Stracey and Graham with previous knowledge of their partner’s guilt. On October 10 appeared the famous letter from malignant ex-Sheriff Parkins, complaining that Fauntleroy or his partners had surrendered certain private documents which he had left at their bank in safe custody. In those days the Sunday Times was under the proprietorship of its founder, Daniel Harvey.

11. The Englishman.

A weekly paper, containing reports similar to those in the Observer.

12. Bell’s Weekly Messenger.

The leading article of December 5 expresses the hope that Mr Fauntleroy will be the last person executed for forgery. As a matter of fact the Berners Street frauds postponed this much-desired reform, and the illogical argument of George III. was revived in another shape – “If Dr. Dodd is pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered.” Captain John Montgomery would have been hanged on July 4, 1828, for forging bank notes, had he not cheated the gallows by the aid of prussic acid; Joseph Hunton, the Quaker, suffered death at Newgate on December 8 following, for issuing counterfeit bills of exchange; and Thomas Maynard, who had obtained money from the Custom House under a fraudulent warrant, was executed in the same place on the last day of the year 1829. After this date, although the capital penalty was not finally abolished until 1837, no other person was hanged for forgery in this country.

13. Bell’s Weekly Dispatch.

This newspaper, founded in 1801 – five years after his Weekly Messenger– by John Bell, the printer of the British Poets, had now become the property of James Harmer the Old Bailey attorney, who was Fauntleroy’s solicitor. The scathing attacks upon Joseph Wilfred Parkins, which appear in this journal on October 3, October 10 and November 14, explain the reason of the ‘XXX Sheriff’s’ animosity towards the unfortunate banker. Some time before the arrest of the forger, Parkins, who had a law-suit pending, requested Fauntleroy to return a certain cheque for £6000 that he had drawn upon his firm a few years previously. The reply was that, as it could not be found, probably it had been destroyed. On the strength of this statement, Parkins swore in the witness-box on September 13, when his action was being tried, that the cheque in dispute had never been presented, but to his amazement and consternation the missing piece of paper was produced in Court. In consequence, he not only lost his case, but was called upon to stand his trial for perjury on December 20 following. By some means or other wily James Harmer, who happened to be solicitor for the defendants against whom Parkins was bringing his action, had discovered the cheque at the Berners Street Bank soon after Fauntleroy’s arrest, and perceiving its importance to his clients, had appropriated it. Naturally, this amusing piece of strategy was not relished by the choleric ex-Sheriff, who cast most of the blame upon the shoulders of the unhappy banker, and pursued him to the death without mercy.

The Weekly Dispatch made a great effort to save the doomed man, and the petition for reprieve which lay at its office received three thousand signatures. The Rev. Cotton, Ordinary of Newgate, comes in for some well-deserved censure for the tone of his ‘Condemned Sermon’

14. Pierce Egan’s Life in London.

This paper, started February 1, 1824, by the creator of Tom and Jerry, gives extracts, copies for the most part from other sources, and similar information to that contained in Pierce Egan’s account.

15. John Bull.

Naturally, Theodore Hook’s paper did not miss the opportunity of inveighing against The Times for its cruelty towards Fauntleroy, or of ridiculing the sanctimonious articles of the Morning Chronicle. Still, it is unjust to Mrs Fry’s friend and helper, the humane Mr Baker, whose work among the prisoners at Newgate merits the highest praise.

16. The Globe and Traveller.

Condemns the ‘mischievous law’ passed in 1708 to support the Bank of England’s monopoly, which prevented a private banking establishment from being controlled by more than six partners. The journal contends with truth that this legislation “forces a business of great responsibility, which should be of entire security, into the hands of small firms.” The law of 1825 altered all this.

17. The Courier.

Has a weakness for drawing attention to its own propriety, in comparison with that of its contemporaries. Its leader on the evening of the execution declares that, although it refrained from comment while there was a chance of mercy, it applauds the firmness of justice in refusing a reprieve when there was nothing in Fauntleroy’s case to merit such interference. The Courier was in the hands of Daniel Stuart – a great name in journalism – who was proprietor also of the Morning Post.

18. The Sun.

A somewhat feeble paper, though well printed and arranged, edited by John Taylor. It prides itself on never printing anything about Fauntleroy except the proceedings before the magistrates.

19. The Brighton Gazette.

Cudgels The Times lustily, and is indignant that a mere London paper should presume to know more about Mr Fauntleroy’s seaside residence than a journal published in Brighton. About two years later the Gazette has much to say about the beautiful Maria Fox (alias Forbes, alias Forrest, alias Rose), who had lived under the protection of the fraudulent banker. A retired lawyer named Barrow, who resided next door to the lady on the New Stein, accused her of keeping a disorderly house, and she was called upon to meet this charge at the Lewes Assizes. Although the fine advocacy of John Adolphus obtained a verdict of not guilty, the judge went out of his way to compliment the author of the prosecution. (Vide the Brighton Gazette, April 5, 1827; also September 14 and 21, 1826.)

20. The Rambler’s Magazine, or Frolicsome Companion. Printed and published by William Dugdale, 23 Russell Court, Drury Lane. April 1, 1827, pp. 180-182 (vide Trial of Maria Fox).

The learned ‘Pisanus Fraxi’ – H. S. Ashbee – whose knowledge of this class of literature is unrivalled, gives no description of this particular publication. It may be a plagiarism of a magazine of about the same date, and bearing an almost similar title (which it appears to resemble), noticed in Catena Librorum Tacendorum, p. 327. Periodicals of this name are almost as numerous, between the years 1782-1829, as the Newgate Calendars. The Rambler’s Magazine makes two things evident: first, that Fauntleroy’s chère amie was a “fair and engaging woman”; and secondly, that Mr Barrow had much cause of complaint.

21. The Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1824 (part ii. p. 461); December 1824 (part ii. p. 580).

In the December number there is a trenchant letter from the Earl of Normanton, condemning the criminal code. “Philosophy would deem it an abuse,” says he, “to punish the crime of a Fauntleroy in the same manner as the crime of a Thurtell.” For the obituary notice of William Moore Fauntleroy, the brother of the forger, see the Gentleman’s Magazine, part ii. p. 1092, 1803.

NOTES ON THE FAUNTLEROY CASE

Note I. —Pierce Egan’s Account of the Trial of H. Fauntleroy. Knight and Lacey, 1824.

No one excelled the historian of the Prize Ring in this style of literature, and his two other similar works, the Life of Samuel Denmore Hayward (1822), and the Account of the Trial of John Thurtell (1824), will remain text-books for all time. Pierce Egan makes a note (p. 21) that Mr. Fauntleroy has never used a ‘slang expression’ during his imprisonment. The surprise indicated by this comment is natural, for, robbed of his italics, the author of Life in London would have been left as naked to his enemies as Cardinal Wolsey.

Note II. —The Newgate Calendar. Knapp and Baldwin (1824-28). Vol. iv. pp. 285-390.

Accepting the statement made by most of the daily newspapers, this account declares that Fauntleroy was hanged for defrauding his wife’s family. Although this statement was made by The Times on October 2, it was denied two days later in that paper, and the contradiction was published also in Bell’s Weekly Messenger, the Globe, and the Courier. Again, on December 4 The Times repeats once more that “Miss Frances Young is no relation to Mrs Fauntleroy.” Considering the bitter rivalry that existed between the various newspapers, and the jealous criticism that each journal bestowed upon the information of its contemporaries, it is certain that if the assertion made by The Times had been untrue – and if false it could have been disproved easily – its rivals would have exposed it with the greatest joy. Moreover, since Fauntleroy might have been charged with twenty other indictments, the public mind would have been shocked had his sister-in-law alone been selected as the instrument of vengeance.

Note III. —The Anatomy of Sleep. Edward Binns, M.D. Churchill (1842). p. 282.

Although such an escape was a physical impossibility to Fauntleroy, there is a rational explanation of the strange superstition – referred to in this book – that he did not die on the scaffold, but was resuscitated, and lived abroad for many years. At eight o’clock on the evening of his death the body was taken by the undertakers, Gale and Barnard, to their premises opposite Newgate prison, where the coffin was fastened down immediately by order of the relatives, who had reason to fear that the morbid – attracted by the notoriety of the criminal – would seek by means of a bribe to view the remains. The flames of rumour are set ablaze by a tiny spark, and the fact that no one outside the prison saw the dead body of the forger may have revived popular faith in a favourite belief. The haste, too, in sealing up the shell may have excited suspicion. For in later days it is certain that many persons cherished the idea that Fauntleroy, more lucky than Jack Sheppard or Dr Dodd, whose friends tried in vain to restore them to life, had survived his execution. Vide also Notes and Queries, First Series, viii. 270, ix. 445, x. 114, 233. Possibly that prince of inkslingers, G. W. M. Reynolds, may have had the Fauntleroy legend in his mind when he drew the picture of the resuscitated forger in the first part of his obscene and scurrilous romance, The Mysteries of the Court of London. Fauntleroy was buried in the cemetery at Bunhill Fields on Thursday, Dec. 2.

Note IV. —Old Stories Retold. By George Walter Thornbury (1867), p. 290.

Mr Walter Thornbury makes a brave and ingenious attempt to explain “the mystery still shrouding the great Fauntleroy swindle,” and “to conjecture for what purpose the dishonest banker preserved in a private box so carefully a suicidal statement of his own misdoings.” His conclusion is that Fauntleroy invented the lie so it should not be thought that he had been influenced by motives of greed, but that as time went on he began actually to credit the untruth, and, treasuring the paper for conscience’ sake, was for years “buoyed up by the secret excuse of an absurd and illogical revenge.” It is only a want of lucidity that prevented Mr Thornbury from unshrouding the mystery, for the explanation – the key of which he held in his hand – is a simple one. There was method in Fauntleroy’s seeming madness. The document found in his private box, which gave a list of his forgeries, and contained the footnote explaining that his motive was revenge against the Bank, was dated May 7, 1816. It is notorious that never in her history was the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street so unpopular as at this time. For nearly twenty years she had borne the odium caused by the suspension of cash payments, and by the alarming depreciation of paper money. In like manner, the panic which overthrew so many provincial houses in 1814, 1815, and 1816 was ascribed to her envied monopoly; and her consequent prosperity, owing to the demand for Bank of England notes, helped to increase the widespread jealousy. Never had forger a more splendid shield than Henry Fauntleroy. Although he had hoped and believed that the proceeds of his first frauds would enable his firm to weather the financial storm, yet if Nemesis should overtake him before he had struggled through the slough, he was justified in supposing that the Board of Directors might hesitate to prosecute a man who would be hailed as a popular champion. Indeed, had his crime been as paltry as that of Henry Savary, it is quite probable that the public would have regarded him as an intrepid enemy of the Bank’s monopoly, and that a like storm which compelled the financial legislation of 1819 and 1825 might have saved him from the scaffold. Fate compelled him to overreach himself, or the crafty story of revenge might have been believed.

Note V. —The History of the Catnach Press. By Charles Hindley (1886), p. 73.

But for the indefatigable researches of this author we should know little of the immortal Jemmy, who, it must be remembered, was the Alfred Harmsworth of his day.

Note VI. —Dic. Nat. Biog.

Like Pierce Egan and Charles Hindley, the writer of this monograph states that Fauntleroy was convicted for a fraud upon his sister-in-law, which is the more remarkable as The Times is cited as an authority. The name of the forger’s father was not Henry, but William; the arrest was made on September 10, not September 11; the warrant of commitment charged him with embezzling, not a thousand, but ten thousand pounds; the Berners Street Bank was not founded in 1782, but ten years later; the value of Miss Young’s stock was £5450; and Fauntleroy was committed for trial on October 19. There does not appear to be any authority for the assertion that the fraudulent transfers first began in 1815, and it would be more correct to say that Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company announced the suspension of payment on September 13.

Note VII. —History of the Bank of England. By John Francis (1847). Vol. i. pp. 339-345.

The author of this work, relying upon the evidence of J. H. Palmer before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1832, estimates the loss of the Bank of England through the Fauntleroy forgeries at £360,000. Although these figures were correct at the time when the Governor made his statement, the Bank received £95,000 from Messrs Marsh, Stracey & Company during September 1835, in full discharge of their debt.¹ Thus, as the gross loss to the Bank, according to John Horsley Palmer, was £360,214, the actual loss appears to have been reduced to £265,214.

Note VIII. – For particulars of the Berners Street Bankruptcy consult the following: —

(a) The Bank of England’s Case under Marsh & Co.’s Commission. By a Solicitor. (Lupton Relfe, 113 Cornhill. 1825.)

(b) The Bank of England’s Claim … in reply to Mr Wilkinson’s Report upon the Facts. (Lupton Relfe. 1825.)

(c) Ryan and Moody’s Law Reports from 1823-1826. “Stone and Another v. Marsh, Stracey & Graham.” P. 364.

(d) Reports of Cases determined at Nisi Prius from 1823-1827. By Edward Ryan and Wm. Moody. “Hume and Another v. Bolland and Others.” P. 371.

(e) Cases in Bankruptcy from 1821-1828. By Thomas Glynn and Robert Jameson. “Governor and Company of the Bank of England in the matter of Marsh, Stracey, Graham and Fauntleroy.” Vol. ii. pp. 363-368, 446.

(f) The Report of Committee of Secrecy on the Bank of England’s Charter (1832). Vide Evidence of John Horsley Palmer (Governor). P. 9, and Appendix, p. 55.

(g) Returns as to Bankruptcies previous to the Act of Parliament, 1831. (1839.) Vol. xliii. p. 96.