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Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences written by Arthur L. Hayward

A >> Arthur L. Hayward >> Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences




I take this opportunity, with almost my last breath, to give my
hearty thanks to the honourable Col. Pitts, and Col. Pagitt, for
their endeavours to save my life, and indeed I had some small hopes
that his Majesty, in consideration of the services of my whole
family, having all been faithful soldiers and servants to the Crown
of England, would have extended one branch of his mercy to me, and
have sent me to have served him in another country. But welcome be
the Grace of God, I am resigned to His will, and die in charity with
all men, forgiving, hoping to be forgiven myself, through the merits
of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. I hope, and make it my earnest
request that nobody will be so little Christian as to reflect on my
aged parents, wife, brother, or sisters, for my untimely end. And I
pray God, into whose hands I commend my spirit, that the great
number of sodomites in and about this City and suburbs, may not
bring down the same judgement from Heaven as fell on Sodom and
Gomorrah.

William Casey.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Sir Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, was a distinguished
general who had served under Marlborough. In 1719 he led an
expedition to the north coast of Spain and seized Vigo and the
neighbouring towns and harbours.




The Life of JOHN DYKES, a Thief and Highwayman


It is a reflection almost too common to be repeated that of all the
vices to which young people are addicted, nothing is so dangerous as a
habit and inclination to gaming. To explain this would be to swell a
volume. Instances which are so numerous do it much better. Perhaps this
unhappy person John Dykes is as strong a one as is anywhere to be met
with. His parents were persons in middling circumstances, but he being
their eldest child, they treated him with great indulgence, and to the
detriment of their own fortune afforded him a necessary education. When
he grew up and his friends thought of placing him out apprentice, he
always found some excuse or other to avoid it, which arose only from his
great indolence of temper, and his continual itching after gaming. When
he had money, he went to the gaming tables about town, and when reduced
by losses sustained there, would put on an old ragged coat and get out
to play at chuck, and span-farthing, amongst the boys in the street, by
which, sometimes he got money enough to go to his old companions again.
But this being a very uncertain recourse, he made use more frequently of
picking pockets; for which being several times apprehended and committed
to Bridewell, his friends, especially his poor father, would often
demonstrate to him the ignominious end which such practices would
necessarily bring on, entreating him while there was yet time, to
reflect and to leave them off, promising to do their utmost for him,
notwithstanding all that was past. In the course of this unhappy life
the youth had acquired an extraordinary share of cunning, and an unusual
capacity of dissembling; he employed it more than once to deceive his
family into a belief of his having made a thorough resolution of
amendment.

Once, after having suffered the usual discipline of the horsepond, Dykes
was carried before a Justice of Peace, and committed to Tothill Fields
Bridewell[13]. Here he became acquainted with one Jeddediah West, a
Quaker's son, who had fallen into the like practices, and for them
shared the same punishment with himself. They were pretty much of a
temper, but Jeddediah was the elder and much the more subtle of the two,
and in this unhappy place they contracted a strict and intimate
friendship. Out of shame Jeddediah forbore for two or three days to
acquaint his relations, and during that time for the most part subsisted
out of what Dykes got from home. But at last West picked up courage
enough to send to his brother, a very eminent man in business, and by
telling him a plausible story, procured not only pity and relief, but
even prevailed on him to believe that he was innocent of the fact for
which he was committed. He so well tutored his friend Dykes that though
he could not persuade his parents into the same degree of credulity, yet
his outward appearance of penitence induced them not only to pardon him
but to take him home, give him a new suit of clothes, and to promise
him, if he continued to do well, whatever was in their power to do for
him.

Dykes and his companion being in favour with their friends, and having
money in their pockets, continued their correspondence and went often to
the gaming tables together. At first they had a considerable run of luck
for about three weeks, but Fortune then forsaking them, they were
reduced to be downright penniless, without any hopes of relief or
assistance from their friends sufficient to carry on their expenses.
West at last proposed an expedient for raising money, which lay
altogether upon himself, and which he the next day executed in the
following manner.

About the time that he knew his brother was to come home from the
Exchange to dinner, he went to his house equipped in a sailor's
pea-jacket, his hair cropped short to his ears, his eyebrows coloured
black, and a handkerchief about his neck. As soon as he saw him in the
counting-house, his brother started back, and cried, _Bless me!
Jeddediah, how came you in this pickle?_ With all signs of grief and
confusion, he threw himself at his brother's feet, and told him with a
flood of tears that two coiners who had accidentally seen him in
Bridewell had sworn against him and three others on their apprehension,
in order on the merit thereof to be admitted evidences to get off
themselves. _So that, dear brother_, he continued, _I have been obliged
to take a passage in a vessel that does down next tide to Gravesend, for
I have ran the hazard of my life to come and beg your charitable
assistance._

The poor honest man was so much amazed and concerned at this melancholy
tale, that bursting out into tears, and hanging about his brother's
neck, he begged him to take a coach and begone to Billingsgate, giving
him ten guineas in hand and telling him that his bills should not be
protested if he drew within the compass of a hundred pounds from Dieppe,
whither he said the ship was bound. West was no sooner out of the street
where his brother lived, but he ordered the coach to drive to a certain
place where he had appointed Dykes to meet him, and there they expressed
a great deal of mutual satisfaction at the trick West had played his
brother. However, the latter was no great gainer in the end, for Mr.
West, senior, soon finding out the contrivance, forever renounced him,
and Jeddediah being soon after arrested for twelve pounds due to his
tailor, was carried to prison and remained there without the least
assistance from his brother, till after his friend Dykes was hanged.

The last mentioned malefactor, unmoved by all the tender entreaties of
his friends, and the glaring prospect before him of his own ruin, went
still on at the old rate, and whenever gaming had brought him low in
cash, took up with the road, or some such like dishonest method to
recruit it. At last he had the ill-luck to commit a robbery in Stepney
parish, in the road between Mile End and Bow, upon one Charles Wright,
to whose bosom clapping a pistol, he commanded him to deliver
peacefully, or he would shoot him through the body. The booty he took
was very inconsiderable, being only a penknife, an ordinary seal, and
five shillings and eightpence in money. A poor price for life, since two
days after he was apprehended for this robbery, committed to Newgate and
condemned the next sessions.

His behaviour under these unhappy circumstances was very mean, and such
as fully showed what difference there is between courage and that
resolution which is necessary to support the spirits and calm our
apprehensions at the certain approach of a violent death. I forbear
attempting any description of those unutterable torments which the
exterior marks of a distracted behaviour fully showed that this poor
wretch endured. And as I have nothing more to add of him, but that he
confessed his having been guilty of a multitude of ill acts, he
submitted at last with greater cheerfulness than he had ever shown
during his confinement to that shameful death which the Law had ordained
for his crimes, on the 23rd of October, 1721, when he was about
twenty-three years of age.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] This Bridewell occupied the site adjoining the north side
of the Green Coat School, on the west: side of Artillery Place.
Although originally intended for vagrants, early in the 18th
century it was turned into a house of detention for criminals.




The Life of RICHARD JAMES, a Highwayman


The misfortune of not having early a virtuous education is often so
great a one as never to be retrieved, and it happens frequently (as far
as human capacity will give us leave to judge) that those prove
remarkably wicked and profligate for want of it who if they had been so
happy as to have received it, would probably have led an honest and
industrious life. I am led to this observation at present by the
materials which lay before me for the composition of this life.

Richard James was the son of a nobleman's cook, but he knew little more
of his father than that he left him to the wide world while very young;
and so at about twelve years of age he was sent to sea. There he had the
misfortune to be taken prisoner by the Spaniards, who he acknowledged
treated him with great humanity, and a house-painter taking a great
liking to him, received him into his house, taught him his profession,
and used him with the same tenderness as if he had been his nearest
relation.

But fondness for his country exciting in him a continual desire of
seeing England again, at last he found a means to return before he was
seventeen; and after this, being in England but a very small time, he
totally disobliged what few friends he had left, by his silly marriage
to a poor girl younger than himself. As is common enough in such mad
adventures, the woman's friends were as much disobliged as his, and so
not knowing how to subsist together, Richard was obliged to betake him
to his old profession of the sea.

The first voyage he made was to the West Indies, where he had the
misfortune to be taken by pirates, and by them being set on shore, he
was reduced almost to downright starving. However, begging his way to
Boston in New England, he from thence found a method of returning home
once again. The first thing he did was to enquire for his wife. But she,
under a pretence of having received advice of his death from America,
had gotten another husband; and though poor James was willing to pass
that by, yet the woman, it seems, knew better when she was well, and
under pretence of affection for two children which she had by this last
husband, absolutely refused to leave him and return back to Dick, her
first spouse. However, he did not seem to have taken this much to heart,
for in a short time he followed her example and married another wife;
but finding no method of procuring an honest livelihood, he took a short
method of living, viz., to thieving after every manner that came in his
way.

He committed a vast number of robberies in a very short space, chiefly
upon the waggoners in the Oxford Road, and sometimes, as if there were
not crime enough in barely robbing them, he added to it by the cruel
manner in which he treated them. At this rate he went on for a
considerable space, till being apprehended for a robbery of a man on
Hanwell Green, from whom he took but ten shillings, he was shortly after
convicted; and having no friends, from that time he laid aside all hope
of life.

During the space he had to prepare himself for death, he appeared so
far from being either terrified, or even unwilling to die, that he
looked upon it as a very happy relief from a very troublesome and uneasy
life, and declared, with all outward appearance of sincerity, that he
would not, even if it were in his power, procure a reprieve, or avoid
that death which could alone prove a remedy for those evils which had so
long rendered life a burden. He was very earnest to be instructed in the
duties of religion, and seemed to desire nothing else than to prepare
himself, as well as time and his melancholy circumstances would allow
him, and never from the time of his conviction showed any change in his
disposition but continued still rather to wish for his death than to
fear it. He made a very ample confession of all the robberies he had
ever done, and seemed sorrowful enough, above all, for the inhumanity
and incivility with which he had sometimes treated people.

Amongst other particulars he said that once, with his companions, having
robbed a lady in some other company of a whip, and a tortoiseshell
snuff-box with a silver rim, she earnestly desired to have them
returned, saying that as to the money they had taken they were heartily
welcome; the other thieves seemed inclinable to grant her request, but
James absolutely declared that she should not have them. However, as a
very extraordinary mark of his generosity, he took the snuff out of the
box, and putting it into a paper, gave it her back again.

At the place of execution he repeated what he had formerly said as to
his readiness of dying, adding, that if the people pitied the misfortune
he fell under of dying so ignominious a death, he no less pitied them in
the dangers and misfortunes they were sure to run through in this
miserable world. At the time of his death he was about thirty years of
age, and suffered on the same day with the criminal last mentioned.




The Life of JAMES WRIGHT, a Highwayman


James Wright, the malefactor whose life we are going to relate at
present, was born at Enfield, of very honest and industrious parents,
who, that he might get a living honestly, put him apprentice to a
peruke-maker. At this trade, after having served his time, he set up in
the Old Bailey, and lived there for some time in very good credit. But
being much given up to women, and an idle habit of life, his expenses
quickly outwent his profits, and thus in the space of some months
reduced him to downright want. This put him upon the illegal ways he
afterwards took to support himself in the enjoyment of those pleasures
which even the evils he had already felt could not make him wise enough
to shun.

He was very far from being a hardened criminal, hardly ever robbing a
passenger without tears in his eyes, and always framing resolutions to
himself of quitting that infamous manner of life, as soon as ever it
should be in his power. He fancied that as the rich could better spare
it than the poor, there was less crime in taking it from them, and
valued himself not a little that he had never injured any poor man, but
always singled out those who from their equipage were likeliest to yield
him a good booty, and at the same time not be much the worse for it
themselves. He had gone on for a considerable space in the commission of
villainies with impunity, but at last being apprehended for a robbery
committed by him in the county of Surrey, he was thereupon indicted and
tried at the ensuing assizes at Kingston, and by some means or other,
was so lucky as to be acquitted, no doubt to his very great joy; and on
this deliverance he again renewed his vows of amendment.

After this acquittal a friend of his was so kind as to take him down to
his house in the country, in hopes of keeping him out of harm's way; and
indeed 'tis highly probable that he had totally given over all evil
intention of that sort, when he was unfortunately impeached by Hawkins,
one of his old companions, and on his evidence and that of the
prosecutor whom he found out, Wright was taken up, tried and convicted
at the Old Bailey. When he perceived there was no hope of life he
applied himself to the great business of his soul, and behaved with the
greatest composure imaginable. He declared himself a Roman Catholic, yet
frequented the chapel all the time he was in Newgate, and seemed only
studious how to make peace with God.

When the fatal day of execution approached, he was far from seeming
amazed, notwithstanding that after mature deliberation he refused to
declare his associates, or how they might be found, saying that perhaps
they might repent, and he hoped some of them had done so, and he would
not bring them to the same ignominious death with himself. The fact he
died for, viz., robbing Mr. Towers, with some ladies in a coach in
Marlborough Street, he confessed, also that his companion called out to
him, _What, do they resist? Shoot 'em._ He suffered with all the outward
signs of penitence, on the 22nd of December, 1721, being about
thirty-four years of age.




The Life of NATHANIEL HAWES, a Thief and a Robber


Amongst many odd notions which are picked up by the common people, there
is none more dangerous, both to themselves and unto others, than the
idea they get of courage, which with them consists either in a furious
madness, or an obstinate perseverence, even in the worst cause.

Nathaniel Hawes was a very extraordinary instance of this, as the
following part of his life will show. He was, as he said himself, the
son of a very rich grazier in Norfolk, who dying when he was but a year
old, he afterwards pretended that he was defrauded of a greater part of
his father's effects which should have belonged to him. However, those
who took care of his education put him out apprentice to an upholsterer,
with whom having served about four years, he then fell into very
expensive company, which reduced him to such straits as obliged him to
make bold with his master's cash, by which he injured him for some time
with impunity. But proceeding, at last, to the commission of a downright
robbery, he was therein detected, tried and convicted, but being then a
very young man, the Court had pity on him, and he had the good luck to
procure a pardon.

Natt made the old use of mercy, when extended to such sort of people,
that is, when he returned to liberty he returned to his old practices.
His companions were several young men of the same stamp with himself,
who placed all their delight in the sensual and brutal pleasures of
drinking, gaming, whoring and idling about, without betaking themselves
to any business. Natt, who was a young fellow naturally sprightly and of
good parts, from thence became very acceptable to these sort of people,
and committed abundance of robberies in a very small space of time. The
natural fire of his temper made him behave with great boldness on such
occasions, and gave him no small reputation amongst the gang. Seeing
himself extravagantly commended on such occasions, Hawes began to form
to himself high notions of heroism in that way, and from the warmth of a
lively imagination, became a downright Don Quixote in all their
adventures. He particularly affected the company of Richard James, and
with him robbed very much on the Oxford Road, whereon it was common for
both these persons not only to take away the money from passengers, but
also to treat them with great inhumanity, which for all I might know
might arise in a great measure from Hawes's whimsical notions.

This fellow was so puffed up with the reputation he had got amongst his
companions in the same miserable occupation, that he fancied no
expedition impracticable which he thought fit to engage, and indeed the
boldness of his attempts had so often given him success that there is no
wonder a fellow of his small parts and education should conceive so
highly of himself. It was nothing for Hawes singly to rob a coach full
of gentlemen, to stop two or three persons on the highway at a time, or
to rob the waggons in a line as they came on the Oxford Road to London,
nor was there any of the little prisons or Bridewells that could hold
him.

There was, however, an adventure of Natt's of this kind that deserves a
particular relation. He had, it seems, been so unlucky as to be taken
and committed to New Prison,[14] on suspicion of robbing two gentlemen
in a chaise coming from Hampstead. Hawes viewed well the place of his
confinement, but found it much too strong for any attempts like those he
was wont to make. In the same place with himself and another man mere
was a woman very genteelly dressed, who had been committed for
shoplifting. This woman seemed even more ready to attempt something
which might get her out of that confinement than either Hawes or her
other companion. The latter said it was impracticable, and Natt that
though he had broken open many a prison, yet he saw no probability of
putting this in the number.

_Well_, said the woman _have you courage enough to try, if I put you in
the way? Yes_, quoth Hawes, _there's nothing I won't undertake for
liberty;_ and said the other fellow, _If I once saw a likelihood of
performing it, there's nobody has better hands at such work than myself.
In the first place_, said this politician in petticoats, _we must raise
as much money amongst us as will keep a very good fire. Why truly_,
replied Hawes, _a fire would be convenient in this cold weather, but I
can't, for my heart, see how we should be nearer our liberty for it,
unless you intend to set the gaol in flames. Tush! Tush!_ answered the
woman, _follow but my directions, and let's have some faggots and coals,
and I warrant you by to-morrow morning we shall be safe oat of these
regions._ The woman spoke this with so much assurance that Hawes and the
other man complied, and reserving but one shilling, laid out all their
money in combustibles and liquor. While the runners of the prison were
going to and fro upon this occasion, the woman seemed so dejected that
she could scarce speak, and the two men by her directions sat with the
same air as if the rope already had been about them at Tyburn. At last,
as they were going to be locked up; _Pray_, says the woman, with a
faint voice, _Can't you give me something like a poker? Why, yes_, says
one of the fellows belonging to the gaol, _if you'll give me twopence,
I'll bring you one of the old bars that was taken out of the window when
these new ones were put in._ The woman gave him the halfpence, he
delivered the bar, and the keepers having locked them up, barred and
bolted the doors, and left them until next morning.

As soon as ever the people of the gaol were gone, up starts madam. _Now,
my lads_, says she, _to work_; and putting her hands into her pockets
and shaking her petticoats, down drops two little bags of tools. She
pointed out to them a large stone at the corner of the roof which was
morticed into two others, one above and the other below. After they had
picked all the mortar from between them, she heated the bar red hot in
the fire, and putting it to the sockets into which the irons that held
the stones were fastened with lead, it quickly loosened them, and then
making use of the bars as of a crow, by two o'clock in the morning they
had got them all three out, and opened a fair passage into the streets,
only that it was a little too high. Upon this the woman made them fasten
the iron bar strongly at the angle where the three stones met, and then
pulling off her stays, she unrolled from the top of her petticoats four
yards of strong cord, the noose of which being fastened on the iron, the
other end was thrown out over the wall, and so the descent was rendered
easy. The men were equally pleased and surprised at their good fortune,
and in gratitude to the female author of it, helped her to the top of
the wall, and let her get safe over before they attempted to go out
themselves.

It was not long after this that Hawes committed a robbery on Finchley
Common, upon one Richard Hall, from whom he took about four shillings in
money; and to make up the badness of the booty, he took from him his
horse, in order to be the better equipped to go in quest of another
which might make up the deficiency. For this robbery, being shortly
after detected and apprehended, he was convicted and received sentence
of death. When first confined, he behaved himself with very great
levity, and declared he would merit a greater reputation by the boldness
of his behaviour than any highwayman that had died these seven years.
Indeed, this was the style he always made use of, and the great
affectation of intrepidity and resolution which he always put on would
have moved anybody (had it not been for his melancholy condition) to
smile at the vanity of the man.

At the time he was taken up, he had, it seems, a good suit of clothes
taken from him, which put him so much out of humour, because he could
not appear, as he said, like a gentleman at the sessions-house, that
when he was arraigned and should have put himself upon his trial, he
refused to plead unless they were delivered to him again. But to this
the Court answered that it was not in their power, and on his persisting
to remain mute, after all the exhortations which were made to him, the
Court at last ordered that the sentence of the press should be read to
him, as is customary on such occasions; after which the Judge from the
Bench spoke to him to this effect