Imatges de pàgina
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all together in one cell, that they might unite in prayer; and in the morning early, Silas Told and Sarah Peters, another school-teacher, visited them. "When the men were led down from the cell, they appeared like giants refreshed with wine, nor was the fear of death apparent on any of their countenances.' Then going up to the chapel, Told and the young woman conversed with them in the pressyard room. Upon being called out to have their irons taken off, Lancaster came first. While they were unfettering his legs, in presence of the sheriff, Lancaster looked up to heaven with a pleasant smile, and said: "Glory be to God for the first moment of my entrance into this place! For before I came hither my heart was as hard as my cell wall, and my soul was as black as hell; but O, I am now washed, clearly washed from all my sins, and by one o'clock shall be with Jesus in paradise;" and he then exhorted the spectators to flee from the wrath to come.

most remarkable case in his autobiography is that of six gentlemen, who, getting drunk at an election dinner at Chelmsford, went out and committed a highway robbery. One of these unfortunate men was Mr. Brett, the son of a Dublin clergyman; the second, Mr. Whalley, a country gentleman; a third, Mr. Morgan, an officer in the navy, engaged to be married to Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, the Duke of Hamilton's daughter. After ceaseless importunities, the king, George the Second, pardoned Mr. Morgan, but only on condition that he should not hear of the respite till at the place of execution. The poor fellow fainted when the sheriff produced the respite, and they loosened the halter, and lifted him out of the cart; and he was then put into a coach, in which Lady Hamilton was seated, and driven back, only half recovered by his love's tears and kisses, to Newgate. The other culprits, not a bit more guilty than the lucky lover of a duke's daughter were hung without mercy. Told, indefatigable in doing good, also attended to the last three of the Spitalfields weavers, who were hung for the "halter riots" at Bethnalgreen. He has also left a minute account of the behaviour of Mrs. Brownrigg, who flogged to death her apprentice in Flowerde-Luce-court. The wretched hag confessed to him that when taken at Wandsworth she had hidden a clasp-knife in her stays, intending to stab herself, and prevent the shame and reproach of a public execution. On the day of execution, when the spectators (especially the women) were very cruel-cursing her, cheering, and throwing stones and mud-Told attended the peniAfter this, Told formed a sort of religious tent woman to the last. As he sat with society, thirty-six of the Newgate debtors her in the cart, after the executioner had being the first members. "Sometimes I tied her up to the gallows, at the Fleetconversed in public among the felons," street end of Fetter-lane, Mrs. Brownrigg says this excellent man; "and the Lord is said to him, a horrible dread distorting her witness to the horrible scenes and the countenance: "Mr. Told, I have many times dreadful emblem of the infernal pit which passed by this place, and always experienced was there portrayed, consisting of swearing, that, when near this spot, a dreadful horror cursing, blasphemies, and foul conver- seized me, for fear that one day or other I sation.' For several years, Told says, he should come to be hanged; this enters afresh met with repulses from the keepers and on my mind now, and greatly terrifies me." ordinary, as well as from the prisoners themselves. On Sunday mornings, Mr. Taylor, the ordinary, stationed himself near the door at Newgate to obstruct Told's entrance. On Sundays this good man preached to forty of the prisoners on the debtors' side, and formed them into an organised Wesleyan congregation. Some of Told's experiences among the criminals of Newgate were of a singular kind. The

The sheriff shed tears at hearing this, and asked Mr. Lancaster if he was in earnest, "being so greatly affected with his lively and animated spirits." When their irons were taken off they were remanded back to the press-yard room; but by some accident the smiths were a long time removing the last man's fetters. When he approached, Lancaster clapped his hands together and shouted with joy "Here comes another of our little flock!" Then when the time came for the eight condemned men to get into the cart, Lancaster exhorted the populace to forsake their sins and to come to the throne of grace.

From the Old Bailey Session Papers for June, 1780, we gather a very vivid and picturesque notion of the attack on Newgate during the Gordon riots. The mob came pouring down Holborn, between six and seven o'clock, on the evening of the 6th of June. There were three flags carried by the ringleaders-the first of green silk, with a Protestant motto; the second, dirty blue, with a red cross; the

third, a flag of the Protestant Union. A sailor named Jackson had hoisted the second flag in Palace-yard, when Justice Hyde had launched a party of horse upon the people; and when the rabble had sacked the justice's house in St. Martin's-street, Jackson shouted, "Newgate, a-hoy!" and led the people on to the Old Bailey. Mr. Akerman, a friend of Boswell's, and one of the keepers of Newgate, had had intimation of the danger two hours before, when a friend of one of the prisoners called upon him just as he was packing up his plate for removal, told him "he should be the one hung presently," and cursed him. Exactly at seven, one of the rioters knocked at Mr. Akerman's door, which had been already barred, bolted, and chained. A maidservant had just put up the shutters, when the glass over the hall-door was dashed into her face. The ringleader who knocked was better dressed than the rest, and wore a dark brown coat and a round hat. The man knocked three times, and rang three times; then, finding no one came, ran down the steps, "made his obeisance to the mob," pointed to the door, then retired. The mob was perfectly organised, and led by about thirty men walking three abreast. Thirty men carried iron crowbars, mattocks, and chisels, and after them followed " 'an innumerable company," armed with bludgeons and the spokes of cart-wheels. The band instantly divided into three parts -one set went to work at Mr. Akerman's door with the mattocks, a second went to the debtors' door, and a third to the felons'. A shower of bludgeons instantly demolished the windows of the keeper's house; and while these sticks were still falling in showers, two men, one of them a mad Quaker, the son of a rich corn-factor, who wore a mariner's jacket, came forward with a scaffold-pole, and drove it like a batteringram at the parlour shutters. A lad in a sailor's jacket then got on a man's shoulders, and jammed in the half-broken shutters with furious blows of his bullet head. A chimney-sweeper's boy then scrambled in, cheered by the mob, and after him the mad Quaker. A moment more and the Quaker appeared at the firstfloor window, flinging out pictures into the street. Presently, the second parlour window gave way, the house door was forced, and the furniture and broken chattels in the street were set in a blaze. All this time a circle of men, better dressed than the rest, stood in the Old Bailey, exciting and encouraging the rioters. The leader of these sympathisers was a negro

servant, named Benjamin Bowsey, afterwards hung for his share in the riot. One of the leaders in this attack was a mad waiter from the St. Albans Tavern, named Thomas Haycock; he was very prominent, and he swore that there should not be a prison standing in London on the morrow, and that the Bishop of London's house and the Duke of Norfolk's should come down that night. They were well supported, he shouted to the mob, for there were six or seven noblemen and members of Parliament on their side. This man helped to break up a bureau, and collected sticks to burn down the doors of Akerman's house. While Akerman's house was still burning, the servants escaping over the roofs, and Akerman's neighbours were down among the mob, entreating them to spare the houses of innocent persons, a waiter, who wore a hat with a blue cockade in it, named Francis Mockford, went up to the prison-gate and held up the main key, and shouted to the turnkeys, "D you, here is the key of Newgate; open the door!" Mockford, who was eventually sentenced to death for this riot, afterwards took the prison keys and flung them over Westminster Bridge. George Sims, a tripeman in St. James's Market, always forward in street quarrels, then went up to the great gate in the Old Bailey with some others, and swore desperately that he would have the gates down-curse him, he would have the gates down! Then the storm broke; the mob rushed on the gate with the sledge-hammers and pickaxes they had stolen from coachmakers, blacksmiths, and braziers in Drury-lane and Long-acre, and plied them with untiring fury. The tripeman, who carried a bludgeon, urged them on; and the servant of Akerman, having known the man for several years, called to him through the hatch, "Very well, Mr. George the tripeman; I shall mark you in particular!" Then John Glover, a black, a servant of a Mr. Phillips, a barrister in Lincoln's Inn, who was standing on the steps leading to the felons' gate (the main gate), dressed in a rough short jacket, and a round hat trimmed with dirty silver lace, thumped at the door with a gun-barrel, which he afterwards tried to thrust through the grating into the faces of the turnkeys, while another split the door with a hatchet. The mob, finding they could not force the stones out round the hatch, then piled Akerman's shattered furniture, and placing it against the gates, set the heap on fire.

Nine or ten times the gate caught fire,

and as often the turnkeys inside pushed down the burning furniture with broom. sticks, which they pushed through the hatch, and kept swilling the gates with water, in order to cool them, and to keep the lead that soldered the hinges from melting and giving way. But all their efforts were in vain; for the flames, now spreading fast from Akerman's house, gradually burnt into the fore-lodge and chapel, and set the different wards one after the other on fire. Crabbe the poet, who was there as a spectator, describes seeing the prisoners come up out of the dark cells with their heavy irons, and looking pale and scared. Some of them were carried off on horseback, their irons still on, in triumph by the mob, who then went and burnt down the Fleet. At the trial of Richard Hyde, the poor mad Quaker, who had been one of the first to scramble through Mr. Akerman's windows, the most conclusive proofs were brought forward of the prisoner's insanity. A grocer in Bishopsgate-street, with whom he had lodged, deposed to his burning a Bible, and to his thrashing him. One day at the Doctor Butler's Head, in Coleman-street, the crazed fellow had come in and pretended to cast the nativities of persons drinking there. He also prophesied how long each of them would live. On hearing this evidence, the prisoner broke out: "Well, and they might live three hundred years, if they knew how to live; but they gorge themselves like aldermen. Callipash or callipee kills half the people." It was also shown that, the night after the burning of Newgate, the prisoner came to a poor woman's house in Bedford-court, Covent-garden, and he then wore an old grey great-coat and a flapped hat, painted blue. As the paint was wet, the woman asked him to let her dry it. He replied, "No, you are a fool; my hat is blue" (the Protestant colour); "it is the colour of the heavens. I would not have it dried for the world." When the woman brought him a pint of beer, he drank once, and then pushed it angrily on one side. He then said, "I have tasted it once, I must taste it three times; it is against the heavens to drink only once out of a pot." Doctor Munro, the physician who attended George the Third in his madness, deposed to the insanity both of the prisoner's father and the prisoner. sent to a mad-house.

He was

Crabbe, who, having failed as a surgeon and apothecary down at Aldborough, his native place, had just come up to London to earn his bread as a poet, and being on the

brink of starvation, was about to apply to Burke for patronage and bread. Rambling in a purposeless way about London to while away the miserable time, the young poet happened to reach the Old Bailey just as the ragged rioters set it on fire to warm their Protestantism. Suddenly, at a turning out of Ludgate-hill, on his way back to his lodgings at a hairdresser's near the Exchange, a scene of terror and horror broke red upon the view of the mild young Suffolk apothecary. The new prison, Crabbe, in his Journal (June the 8th), kept for the perusal of his Myra, says, was a very large, strong, and beautiful building, having two wings besides Mr. Akerman's house, and strong intermediate works and other adjuncts. Akerman had four rioters in custody, and these rascals the mob demanded. He begged he might send to the sheriff, but this was not permitted. "How he escaped, or where he is gone, I know not; but just at the time I speak of, they set fire to his house, broke in, and threw every piece of furniture they could find into the street, firing them also in an instant. The engines came" (they were mere squirts in those days), "but were only suffered to preserve the private houses near the prison." This was about half-past seven. "As I was standing near the spot, there approached another body of men-I suppose five hundred-and Lord George Gordon in a coach drawn by the mob, towards Alderman Bull's, bowing as he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in appearance, and nothing more, though just now the reigning hero. By eight o'clock Akerman's house was in flames. I went close to it, and never saw anything so dreadful. The prison was, as I said, a remarkably strong building; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates with crows and other instruments, and climbed up the outside of the cell part, which joins the two great wings of the building, where the felons were confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations. They broke the roof, tore away the rafters, and having got ladders, they descended. Not Orpheus himself had more courage or better luck. Flames all around them, and a body of soldiers expected, they defied and laughed at all opposition. The prisoners escaped.

I

stood and saw about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and they were conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of these were to be hanged on Friday (Newgate was burnt on the Tuesday).

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"You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This being done, and Akerman's house now a mere shell of brickwork, they kept a store of flame there for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and windows appeared like the entrance to so many volcanoes. With some difficulty they then fired the debtors' prison, broke the doors, and they, too, all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and returned again at eleven o'clock at night. I met large bodies of horse and foot soldiers, coming to guard the Bank, and some houses of Roman Catholics near it. Newgate was at the time open to all; any one might get in, and, what was never the case before, any one might get out. I did both, for the people now were chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done, and the doers of it gone to another part of the town" (to Bloomsbury-square, to burn Lord Mansfield's house). "But I must not omit what struck me most: about ten or twelve of the mob getting to the top of the debtors' prison, whilst it was burning, to halloo. They appeared robed in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of fire-like Milton's infernals, who were as familiar with flame as with each other."

On the Wednesday, the day after the fire, a big carelessly-dressed man worked his way to the ruins from Bolt - court, Fleet-street. The burly man's name was Doctor Samuel Johnson, and he wrote to Mrs. Thrale and her husband a brief account of what had happened since the Friday before. On that day Lord George Gordon and the mob went to Westminster, and that night the Protestants burnt the Catholic chapel in Duke-street, Lincoln'sinn-fields. On Monday they gutted Sir George Saville's house in Leicester-square; on Tuesday pulled down the house of Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate and the novelist's half-brother, in Bow-street; and the same night burnt Newgate, Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury, and a Catholic chapel in Moorfields. On Wednesday they burnt the Fleet and the King's Bench, and attacked the Bank of England, but were driven off by a party of constables headed by John Wilkes.

"On Wednesday," says the doctor, to come to what he actually saw himself, "I walked with Doctor Scott to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions House at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at

leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea, and Woodstreet Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners, and some people were threatened. Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself; and one might see the glare of conflagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. . . . Several chapels have been destroyed, and several inoffensive Papists have been plundered; but the high sport was to burn the jails. This was a good rabble trick. The debtors and criminals were all set at liberty; but of the criminals, as has always happened, many are already retaken, and two pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is expected that they will be pardoned." And then follows a fine touch of irony: "Jack" (Wilkes) "who was always zealous for order and decency, declares that if he be trusted with power he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed; no blue ribbon" (the badge of the rioters) "is any longer worn." As for Thrale, his brewery escaped pretty well: the men gave away a cask or two of beer to the mob, and when the rioters came on a second and more importunate visit, the soldiers received them.

Boswell, always bent on scraping acquaintance, however intrusively, with any famous or notorious person, had been introduced to Mr. Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, long before the Gordon riots. Boswell, who loved a hanging almost as well as George Selwyn, says that his "esteemed friend Mr. Akerman discharged his very important trust with intrepid firmness, tenderness, and charity;" and he tells an interesting story of Akerman's courage and promptitude, the recital of which won for him the praise both of Johnson and Burke.

Many years before the Gordon riots a fire broke out in the brick addition to the old jail. The frightened prisoners, breaking into a tumult, began to shout, "We shall be burnt! we shall be burnt! Down with the gate!" Akerman at once hurried down, showed himself at the gate, and after long confused shouts of "Hear him! hear him!" obtained silence. He then calmly told the men that the gate must not come down, that they were under his care, and could not be permitted to escape He could, he said, assure them that there

was no fear, for the fire was not in the stone prison; and that if they would be quiet, he then promised to come in among them, and lead them to a further end of the building; offering, in addition, not to leave them till they were reassured, and gave him leave. To this generous proposal they agreed. Mr. Akerman then, having first made them fall back from the gate, lest they should be tempted to break out, went in, closed the gate, and, with the determined resolution of an ancient Roman, ordered the outer turnkey upon no account to unbar the gate, even though the prisoners should break their word (which he trusted they would not), and by force bring him to order it. "Never mind me," said he," should that happen.' The prisoners then peaceably followed him through passages of which he had the keys to a part of the jail the farthest from the fire. Having, by this judicious conduct, says Boswell, fully satisfied them that there was no immediate risk, if any at all, he then addressed them : "Gentlemen, you are now convinced that I told you true. I have no doubt that the engines will soon extinguish this fire. If they should not, a sufficient guard will come, and you shall be all taken out and lodged in the compters. I assure you, upon my word and honour, that I have not a farthing insured. I have left my house that I might take care of you. I will keep my promise, and stay with you, if you insist upon it; but if you will allow me to go out and look after my family and property, I shall be obliged to you. Struck with this courage, truthfulness, and honourable sense of duty, the felons shouted: “Master Akerman, you have done bravely. It was very kind of you. By all means go and take care of your own concerns. He did so accordingly; and they remained, and were all preserved. Doctor Johnson said of this man, whom Wellington would have esteemed: Sir, he who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition, must have had it originally in a high degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully."

66

LELGARDE'S INHERITANCE.

IN TWELVE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER V.

ALMOST before light on the following morning, I was conscious of a soft kiss on my cheek, and mischievous fingers pulling my hair; and, opening my sleepy eyes, I beheld Lelgarde, to my astonishment, not

only up and dressed, but equipped for walking: her scarlet cloak wrapped round her, her black hat, with its long white cock's feather, on her head, sable muff, dainty Balmoral boots, looped-up dress, and bat's-wing petticoat, all complete.

"My dear, are you quite mad?" was my natural exclamation.

"People are mad who lie in bed on sparkling frosty mornings like this," she answered, throwing up the window, and pointing to the clear red dawn; “look there, you lazy woman, look there! Come, make haste, Joany; I have set my heart on an early walk; we will go to the farm, and get a draught of milk from the cow."

"Shut the window, then, for pity's sake," said I, with a rueful glance at my bath, in all its icy horrors, which, at that hour, there was no hope of mitigating.

"It is delightful," Lelgarde exclaimed, following my look; "I am all in a glow from mine." And she tossed back the mass of flaxen hair, which hung wet and heavy, all the ripple drenched out of it, over her shoulders.

Of course I did what Lelgarde told me, and dragged up my middle-aged limbs from their cosey resting-place, and dressed with what speed I could, marvelling much what this new caprice might mean.

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Have you had a bad night ?" I asked, when we were crossing the frost-covered paddock in the direction of the farm. "A bad night? What! because I get up an hour earlier than usual ?" "You are not answering my question, you know," I suggested.

But no further answer could I get; and so we arrived at the farm, saw the cows milked, and went shivering home to breakfast. Lelgarde would have routed me out again as soon as the meal was over, but I struck at last. "You will tire yourself quite out, child," I said; and I was startled by the tone in which she answered:

"That is just what I am trying to do."

That day, however, I was only amused at her vagaries; but when time passed on, and the same strange restlessness still beset her, I grew vaguely uneasy. Her hours were becoming uncertain; sometimes she was still asleep when the breakfast-bell rang; sometimes she was afoot before dawn, though she never again pressed me into the service. I began to wish that she would, as I might then have exercised some control over the length of her rambles. All day long she was rushing about, devising employments, evidently for the mere sake of being up and doing; and, by the

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