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

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At the time he was under condemnation, the afore-mentioned John Smith,
William Colthouse, and Jonah Burgess were in the same condition. They
formed a conspiracy for breaking out of the place where they were
confined and to force an escape against all those who should oppose
them. For this purpose they had procured pistols, but their plot being
discovered, Burgess in great rage, cut his own throat and pretended that
Shaw designed to have dispatched himself with one of the pistols. But
Shaw, himself, absolutely denied this, and affirmed on the contrary that
when Burgess said his enemies should never have the satisfaction (as
they had bragged they would have) of placing themselves upon Holborn
Bridge, to see him go by Tyburn, he (Shaw) exhorted him never to think
of self-murder, and by that means give his enemies a double revenge in
destroying both body and soul.

As Shaw had formerly declared his wife's ill-conduct had been the first
occasion of his falling into those courses which had proved so fatal to
him, he still retained so great an antipathy to her on that account, as
not to be able to pardon her, even in the last moments of his life, in
which he would neither confess, nor positively deny the murder for which
he died. He was then about twenty-eight years of age, and died the same
day with the last-mentioned malefactor, Smith.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] This discourse between the magistrates is obscure. I have
been unable to clear it.

[17] This was the public-house at the Battle Bridge (King's
Cross) end of Gray's Inn Road.

The Life of WILLIAM COLTHOUSE, a Thief and Highwayman

William Colthouse was born in Yorkshire, had a very good education for a
person of his rank and especially with regard to religious principles,
of which he retained a knowledge seldom to be met with among the lower
class of people; but he was so unhappy as to imbibe in his youth strange
notions in regard to civil government, hereditary rights having been
much magnified in the latter end of the late Queen's reign. William
amongst others was violent attached thereto, and fancied it was a very
meritorious thing to profess his sentiments, notwithstanding they were
directly opposite to those of persons then in power. Some declarations
of this sort occasioned his being confined in Newgate, and prosecuted
for speaking seditious words in the beginning of King George the First's
reign. His Newgate acquaintances taught him quickly their arts of
living, and he was no sooner at liberty than he put them into execution,
he and his brother living like gentlemen on their expeditions on the
road; till unfortunately committing a robbery on Hounslow Heath
together, they were both closely pursued, the other taken, and William
narrowly escaped by creeping into a hollow tree.

After the execution of his brother, Colthouse being terribly affected
therewith, retired to Oxford, and there worked as a journeyman joiner,
determining with himself to live honestly for the future, and not by a
habit of ill-actions go the same way as one so nearly related to him had
done before. But as his brother's death in time grew out of his
remembrance, so his evil inclinations again took place, and he came up
to London with a full purpose of getting money at an easier rate than
working.

Soon after his arrival his Jacobite principles brought him into a great
fray at an alehouse in Tothill Fields, Westminster, where some soldiers
were drinking, and who on some disrespectful words said of the Prince,
caught up Colthouse and threw him upon a red-hot gridiron, thereby
making a scar on his cheek and under his left eye. By this he came to be
taken for a person who murdered a farmer's son in Philpot Lane, in
Hampshire, when he was charged with which he not only denied, but by
abundance of circumstances rendered it highly probable that he did not
commit it, there being, indeed, no other circumstance which occasioned
that suspicion but the likeness of the scar in his face, which happened
in the manner I told you.

While he lay under condemnation, a report reached his ear that his two
brothers in the country were also said to be highwaymen; he complained
grievously of the common practice that was made by idle people raising
stories to increase the sorrows of families which were so unhappy as to
have any who belonged to them come to such a death as his was to be. As
to his brothers, he declared himself well satisfied that the younger was
a sober and religious lad, and as for the elder, though he might have
been guilty of some extravagance, yet he hoped and believed they were
not of the same kind with those which had brought him to ruin. However,
that he might do all the good which his present sad circumstance would
allow, he wrote the following letter to his brethren in the country.

Dear Brothers,

Though the nearness of my approaching death ought to shut out from
my thoughts all temporal concerns, yet I could not compose my mind
into that quietness with which I hope to pass from this sinful world
into the presence of the Almighty, before I had thus exorted you to
take particular warning from my death, which the intent of the Law
to deter others from wickedness hath decreed to be in a public and
ignominious manner. Amidst the terrors which the frailty of human
nature (shocked with the prospect of so terrible an end) makes my
afflicted heart to feel, even these sorrows are increased, and all
my woes doubled by a story which is spread, I hope without the least
grounds of truth, that ye, as well as I, have lived by taking away
by force the property of others.

Let the said examples of my poor brother, who died by the hand of
Justice, and of me, who now follow him in the same unhappy course,
deter you not only from those flagrant offences which have been so
fatal unto us, but also from those foolish and sinful pleasures in
which it is but too frequent for young persons to indulge
themselves. Remember that I tell you from a sad experience, that the
wages of sin, though in appearance they be sometimes large and what
may promise outward pleasure, yet are they attended with such inward
disquiet as renders it impossible for those to have received them
to enjoy either quiet or ease. Work, then, hard at your employments,
and be assured that sixpence got thereby will afford you more solid
satisfaction than the largest acquisitions at the expense of your
conscience. That God may, by His grace, enable you to follow this my
last advice, and that He may bless your honest labour with plenty
and prosperity is the earnest prayer of your dying brother

William Colthouse

Till the day of his execution he had denied his being accessory to the
intended escape by forcing the prison, but when he came to Tyburn, he
acknowledged that assertion to be false, and owned that he caused the
two pistols to be provided for that purpose. He was about thirty-four
years of age at the time he suffered, which was on the 8th of February,
1722, with Burgess, Shaw and Smith.

The Life of WILLIAM BURRIDGE, a Highwayman

In the course of these lives I have more than once observed that the
vulgar have false notions of courage, and that applause is given to it
by those who have as false notions of it as themselves, and this it was
in a great measure which made William Burridge take to those fatal
practices which had the usual termination in an ignominious death. He
was the son of reputable people, who lived at West Haden in
Northamptonshire, who after affording him a competent education, thought
proper to bind him to his father's trade of a carpenter. But he, having
been pretty much indulged before that time, could not by any means be
brought to relish labour, or working for his bread.

Burridge was a well-made fellow, and of a handsome person, as well as
great strength and dexterity, which he had often exercised in wrestling
and cudgel-playing which gained him great praise amongst the country
fellows at wakes and fairs, where such prizes are usually given.
Therefore giving himself up almost wholly to such exercises, he used
frequently to run away from his parents, and lie about the country,
stealing poultry, and what else he could lay his hands on to support
himself. His father trying all methods possible to reclaim him and
finding them fruitless, as his last refuge turned him over to another
master, in hopes that having there no mother to plead for him, a course
of continued severities might perhaps reclaim him. But his hopes were
all disappointed, for instead of mending under his new master, William
gave himself over to all sorts of vices, and more especially became
addicted to junketting with servant-wenches in the neighbourhood, who
especially on Sundays when their masters were out, were but too ready to
receive and entertain him at their expense.

But these adventures made him very obnoxious to others, as well as his
master, who no longer able to bear his lying out of night, and other
disorderly practices, turned him off, and left him to shift for himself.
He went home to his friends, but going on still in the same way, they
frankly advised him to ship himself on board a man-of-war in order to
avoid that ill-fate which they then foresaw, and which afterwards
overtook him. William, though not very apt to follow good counsel, yet
approved of this at last when he saw some of his companions had already
suffered for those profligate courses to which they were addicted.

He shipped himself, therefore, in a squadron then sailing for Spain
under the command of Commodore Cavendish, on board whose ship he was
when an engagement happened with the Spaniards in Cadiz Bay. The dispute
was long and very sharp, and Burridge behaved therein so as to meet with
extraordinary commendations. These had the worst effect upon him
imaginable, for they so far puffed him up, that he thought himself
worthier of command than most of the officers on the ship, and therefore
was not a little uneasy at being obliged to obey them. This hindered
them from doing him any kindness, which they would otherwise perhaps
have done in consideration of his gallant behaviour against the enemy.
At his return into England he was extremely ambitious of living without
the toil of business, and therefore went upon the highway with great
diligence, in order to acquire a fortune by it, which when he had done,
he designed to have left it off, and to have lived easily and honestly
upon the fruits of it. But, alas! these were vain hopes and idle
expectations, for instead of acquiring anything which might keep him
hereafter, he could scarce procure a present livelihood at the hazard
both of his neck and his soul, for he was continually obliged to hide
himself, through apprehension, and not seldom got into Bridewell or some
such place, for brawls and riots.

This William Burridge was the person who with Nat Hawes made their
escape out of New Prison, by the assistance of a woman, as the life of
that malefactor is before related.[18] And as he saved himself then from
the same ignominious death which afterwards befell him, so he escaped it
another time by becoming evidence against one Reading, who died for the
life offences. As to Burridge, he still continued the same trade, till
being taken for stealing a bay gelding belonging to one Mr. Wragg, he
was for that offence finally condemned at the Old Bailey. While under
sentence, as he had been much the greatest and oldest offender of any
that were under the same fate, so he seemed to be by much the most
affected and the most penitent of them all; and with great signs and
sorrow for the many crimes he had committed, he suffered on the 14th of
March, 1722, with five other persons at Tyburn, being then about
thirty-four years of age.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] See page 59.

The Life of JOHN THOMSON, a thief, Highwayman, etc.

John Thomson was born at Carlisle, but was brought with his friends to
London. They, it seems, were persons of no substance, and took little
care of their son's education, suffering him, while a lad, to go often
to such houses as were frequented by ill-people, and such as took
dishonest methods to get money. Such are seldom very dose in their
discourse when they meet and junket together, and Thomson, then a boy,
was so much pleased with their jovial manner of life, eating well and
drinking hard, that he had ever a bias that way, even when he was
otherways employed, till he was fifteen years old, leading such an idle
and debauched life that, as he himself expressed it, he had never heard
of or read a Bible or other good book throughout all that space.

A friend of his was then so kind as to put him out apprentice to a
weaver, and he might have had some chance of coming into the world in an
honest and reputable way, but he had not continued with his master any
long time before he listed himself in the sea service, during the Wars
in the late Queen's time, and served on board a squadron which was sent
up the Baltic to join the Danes. This cold country, with other hardships
he endured, made him so out of humour with a sailor's life that though
he behaved himself tolerably well when on board, yet he resolved never
to engage in the same state, if once discharged and safe on shore.

Upon his coming back to England, he went to work at his trade of a
weaver, and being for a while very sensible of the miseries he had run
through on board the man-of-war, he became highly pleased with the quiet
and easy way in which he got his bread by his business, thinking,
however, that there was no way so proper to settle him as by marrying,
which accordingly he did. But he was so unfortunate that though his wife
was a very honest woman, yet the money he got not being sufficient to
maintain them, he was even obliged to take to the sea again for a
subsistence, and continued on board several ships in the Straits and
Mediterranean for a very considerable space, during which he was so
fortunate as to serve once on board an enterprising captain, who in less
than a year's space, took nineteen prizes to a very considerable value.
And as they were returning from their cruise, they took a French East
India ship on the coast of that kingdom, whose cargo was computed at no
less than a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Thomson might certainly,
if he would, have saved money enough to have put himself into a
creditable method of life as many of his shipmates had done, and so well
did the captain improve his own good fortune that on his return he
retired into the country, where he purchased an estate of fifteen
hundred pounds _per annum._

But Thomson being much altered from the usual bent of his temper by his
being long accustomed at sea to blood and plunder, so when he returned
home, instead of returning to an honest way of living, he endeavoured to
procure money at the same rate by land which he had done at sea, and for
that purpose associated himself with persons of a like disposition, and
in their company did abundance of mischief. At last he and one of his
associates passing over Smithfield between twelve and one in the
morning, on the second of March, they perceived one George Currey going
across that place very much in drink. Him they attacked, though at first
they pretended to lead him safe home, drawing him to a proper place out
of hearing of the houses, where they took from him a shirt, a wig and a
hat, in doing which they knocked him down, stamped upon his breast, and
in other respects used him very cruelly. Being apprehended soon after
this fact, he was for it tried and convicted.

In the space between that and his death, he behaved himself very
penitently, and desired with great earnestness that his wife would
retire into the country to her friends, and learn by his unhappy example
that nothing but an honest industry could procure the blessing of God.
This he assiduously begged for her in his prayers, imploring her at the
same time that he gave her this advice, to be careful of her young son
she had then at her breast, not only as to his education, but also that
he might never know his father's unhappy end, for that would but damp
his spirits, and perhaps force him upon ill-courses when he grew up,
from an apprehension that people might distrust his honesty and not
employ him. He professed himself much afflicted at the past follies of
his life, and with an outward appearance of true penitence, died on the
fourth of May, 1722, in the thirty-third year of his age, at Tyburn.

The Life of THOMAS REEVES, a Notorious Highwayman and Footpad

As it is not to be denied that it is a singular blessing to a nation
where no persecution is ever raised against persons for their religion,
so I am confident that the late Free Thinking principles (as they have
been called) have by their being spread amongst the vulgar, contributed
greatly to the many frauds and villainies which have been so much
complained of within these thirty years, and not a little to encouraging
men in obtaining a subsistence and the gratification of their pleasures
by rapines committed upon others rather than live in a laborious state
of life, in which, perhaps, both their birth and circumstances concurred
to fix them.

Thomas Reeves was a very remarkable as well as very unfortunate instance
of that depravity in moral principles of which I have been speaking. By
his friends he was bred a tinman, his father, who was of that
profession, taking him as an apprentice but using him with the most
indulgent fondness and never suffering him to want anything which was in
his power to procure for him, flattered himself with the hopes of his
becoming a good and happy man. It happened very unfortunately for Reeves
that he fell, when young, into the acquaintance of some sceptical
persons who made a jest of all religion and treated both its precepts
and its mysteries as inventions subservient to priestcraft. Such notions
are too easily imbibed by those who are desirous to indulge their
vicious inclinations, and Reeves being of this stamp, greedily listened
to all discourses of such a nature.

Amongst some of these companions who had cheated him out of his
religion, he found some also inclined to practise the same freedom they
taught, encouraged both by precept and example. Tom soon became the most
conspicuous of the gang. His boldness and activity preferred him
generally to be a leader in their adventures, and he had such good luck,
in several of his first attempts, that he picked up as much as
maintained him in that extravagant and superfluous manner of life in
which he most of all delighted. One John Hartly was his constant
companion in his debauches, and generally speaking an assistant in his
crimes. Both of them in the evening of the ninth of March, 1722,
attacked one Roger Worebington, near Shoreditch, as he was going across
the fields on some business. Hartly gave him a blow on the head with his
pistol, after which Reeves bid him stand, and whistling, four more of
the gang came up, seized him, and knocked him down. They stripped him
stark naked and carried away all his clothes, tying him hand and foot in
a cruel manner and leaving him in a ditch hard by. However he was
relieved, and Reeves and Hartly being soon after taken, they were both
tried and convicted for this fact.

After the passing sentence, Reeves behaved himself with much
indifference, his own principles stuck by him, and he had so far
satisfied himself by considering the necessity of dying, and coined a
new religion of his own, that he never believed the soul in any danger,
but had very extensive notions of the mercy of God, which he thought was
too great to punish with eternal misery those souls which He had
created. This criminal was, indeed, of a very odd temper, for sometimes
he would both pray and read to the rest of the prisoners, and at other
times he would talk loosely and divert them from their duty, often
making enquiries as to curious points, and to be informed whether the
soul went immediately into bliss or torment, or whether, as some
Christians taught, they went through an intermediate state? All which he
spoke of with an unconcernedness scarce to be conceived, and as it were
rather out of curiosity than that he thought himself in any danger of
eternal punishment hereafter.

Hartly, on the other hand, was a fellow of a much softer disposition,
showed very great fear, and looked in great confusion at the approach of
death. He got six persons dressed in white to go to the Royal Chapel and
petition for a pardon, he being to marry one of them in case it had been
procured, but they failed in the attempt, and he appeared less sensible
than ever when he found that death was not to be evaded.

At the place of execution, Reeves not only preserved that resolution
with which he had hitherto borne up against his misfortunes, but when
the mob pushed down one of the horses that drew the cart, and it leaning
sideways so that Reeves was thereby half hanged, to ease himself of his
misery he sprung over at once and finished the execution.

Hartly wept and lamented exceedingly his miserable condition, and the
populace much pitied him, for he was not twenty years of age at the time
he died; but Reeves was about twenty-eight years of age, when he
suffered, which was at the same time with John Thomson, before
mentioned.

The Life of RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, a Footpad and Street robber

Though there have been some instances of felons adhering so closely
together as not to give up one another to Justice, even for the sake of
saving life, yet are such instances very rare, and examples of the
contrary very common.

Richard Whittingham was a young man of very good natural inclinations,
had he not been of too easy a temper, and ready to yield to the
inducements of bad women. His friends had placed him as an apprentice to
a hot-presser, with whom he lived very honestly for some time; but at
last, the idle women with whom he conversed continually pressing him for
money in return for their lewd favours, he was by that means drawn in to
run away from his master, and subsist by picking pockets. In the
prosecution of this trade, he contracted an infamous friendship with
Jones, Applebee and Lee, three notorious villains of the same stamp,
with whom he committed abundance of robberies in the streets, especially
by cutting off women's pockets, and such other exploits. This, he
pretended, was performed with great address and regularity, for he said
that after many consultations, 'twas resolved to attack persons only in
broad streets for the future, from whence they found it much less
troublesome to escape than when they committed them in alleys and such
like close places, whereupon a pursuit once begun, they seldom or never
missed being taken. He added, that when they had determined to go out to
plunder, each had his different post assigned him, and that while one
laid his leg before a passenger, another gave him a jolt on the
shoulders, and as soon as he was down a third came to their assistance,
whereupon they immediately went to stripping and binding those who were
so unlucky as thus to fall into their hands. Upon Applebee's being
apprehended, and himself impeached, Whittingham withdrew to Rochester,
with an intent to have gone out of the kingdom, but after all he could
not prevail with himself to quit his native country.

On his return to London, he fled for sanctuary to the house of his
former master, who treated him with great kindness, supplied him with
work, sent up his victuals privately, and did all in his power to
conceal him. But Jones and Lee, his former companions, found means to
discover him as they had already impeached him, and so, on their
evidence and that of the prosecutor, he was convicted of robbing William
Garnet, in the area of Red Lion Square, when Applebee knocked him down,
and Jones and Lee held their hands upon his eyes, and crammed his own
neck-cloth down his throat.

When he found he was to die, he was far from behaving himself
obstinately, but as far as his capacity would give him leave,
endeavoured to pray, and to fit himself for his approaching dissolution.
He had married a young wife, for whom he expressed a very tender
affection, and seemed more cast down with the thoughts of those miseries
to which she would be exposed by his death, than he was at what he
himself was to suffer.

During the time he lay in the condemned hold, he complained often of the
great interruptions those under sentence of death met with from some
prisoners who were confined underneath, and who, through the crevice,
endeavoured as usual, by talking to them lewdly and profanely, to
disturb them even in their last moments. At the place of execution he
wept bitterly, and seemed to be much affrighted at death and very sorry
for his having committed those crimes which brought him thither. He was
but nineteen years old when he suffered, which was on the 21st of May,
1722.