 19 The life of Catherine Hayes, a bloody and inhuman murderess, etc., Part 1. Though all crimes are in this nature foul, yet some are apparently more heinous and of a blacker die than others. Murder has in all ages and in all climates been amongst the number of those offenses held to be most enormous and the most shocking to human nature of any other. Yet even this admits sometimes of aggravation, and the laws of England have made a distinction between the murder of a stranger and of him or her to whom we owe a civil or natural obedience. Hence it is that killing a husband or a master is distinguished under the name of petty treason. Yet even this, in the story we are about to relate, had several heightening circumstances, the poor man having both a son and a wife in brewing their hands in his blood. Catherine Hall, afterwards by her marriage, Catherine Hayes, was born in the year 1690, at a village in the borders of Warwickshire, within four miles of Birmingham. Her parents were so poor as to receive the assistance of the parish, and so careless of their daughter that they never gave her the least education. When a girl, she discovered marks of so violent and turbulent a temper that she totally threw off all respect and obedience to her parents, giving a loose to her passions and gratifying herself in all her vicious inclinations. Throughout the year 1705, some officers coming into the neighborhood to recruit, Kate was so much taken with the fellows in red that she strolled away with them, until they came to a village called Great Ombersley in Warwickshire, where they very ungenerously left her behind them. This elopement of her sparks drove her almost mad, so that she went like a distracted creature about the country, until coming to Mr. Hayes's door his wife in compassion took her in out of charity. The eldest child of the family was John Hayes, the deceased, who, being then about 21 years of age, found so many charms in this Catherine Hall, that soon after her coming into the house he made proposals to her of marriage. There is no doubt of their being readily enough received, and as they both were sensible how disagreeable a thing it would be to his parents, they agreed to keep it secret. They quickly adjusted the measures that were to be taken in order to their being married at Worcester, for which purpose Mr. John Hayes pretended to his mother that he wanted some tools in the way of his trade, vis that of a carpenter, for which it was necessary he should go to Worcester, and under this color he procured also as much money as, with what he had already had, was sufficient to defray the expense of the intended wedding. Catherine, having quitted the house without the formality of bidding them adieu, and meeting at the appointed place, they accompanied each other to Worcester, where the wedding was soon celebrated. The same day Mrs. Catherine Hayes had the fortune to meet with some of her quantum acquaintance at Worcester. They, understanding that she was that day married, and where the nuptials were to be solemnized, consulted among themselves how to make a penny of the bridegroom. Accordingly deferring the execution of their intentions until the evening, just as Mr. Hayes was got into bed to his wife, coming to the house where he lodged, they forcibly entered the room and dragged the bridegroom away, pretending to impress him for her majesty's service. This proceeding broke the measures Mr. John Hayes had concerted with his bride to keep their wedding secret. For finding no redemption from their hands without the expense of a larger sum of money than he was master of, he was necessitated to let his father know of his misfortune. Mr. Hayes, hearing of his son's adventures, as well of his marriage and his being pressed at the same time, his resentment for the one did not extinguish his affection for him as a father, but that he resolved to deliver him from his troubles, and accordingly, taking a gentleman in the neighborhood along with him, he went for Worcester. At their arrival there, they found Mr. John Hayes in the hands of the officers who insisted upon detaining him for her majesty's service. But his father and the gentleman he brought with him by his authority soon made them sensible of their errors, and instead of making a benefit of him as they proposed, they were glad to discharge him, which they did immediately. Mr. Hayes, having acted thus far in favor of his son, then expressed his resentment for his having married without his consent. But if being too late to prevent it, there was no other remedy but to bear with the same. For some time afterwards Mr. Hayes and his bride lived in the neighborhood, and as he followed his business as a carpenter, his father and mother grew more reconciled. But Mrs. Catherine Hayes, who better approved of a traveling than a settled life, persuaded her husband to enter himself a volunteer in the regiment then at Worcester, which he did, and went away with them where he continued for some time. Mr. John Hayes being in garrison in the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Hayes took an opportunity of going over thither, and continued with him for some time, until Mr. Hayes, not content with such a lazy, indolent life wherein he could find no advantage unless it were gratifying his wife, solicited his father to procure his discharge, which at length he was prevailed upon to consent to. But he found much difficulty in perfecting the same, for the several journeys he was necessitated to undertake before it could be done, and the expenses of procuring such a discharge amounted to sixty pound. But having at last at this great expense in trouble procured his son's release, Mr. John Hayes and his wife returned to Worcestershire, and his father the better to induce him to settle himself in business in the country, put him into an estate of ten pound per annum, hoping that, with the benefit of his trade, would enable them to live handsomely incredibly, and change her roving inclinations, he being sensible that his son's ramble had been occasioned through his wife's persuasions. But Mr. John Hayes, representing to his father that it was not possible for him and his wife to live on that estate only, persuaded his father to let him have another also, a leasehold of sixteen pound per annum, upon which he lived during the continuance of the lease, his father paying the annual rent thereof until it expired. The characters of Mr. John Hayes and his wife were vastly different. He had the repute of a sober, sedate, honest, quiet, peaceable man, and a very good husband, the only objection his friends would admit of against him, was that he was of two parsimonious and frugal temper, and that he was rather too indulgent of his wife, who repaid his kindness with ill usage, and frequently very approbious language. As to his wife, she was on all hands allowed to be a very turbulent vexatious person, always setting people together by the ears, and never free from quarrels and controversies in the neighborhood, giving ill advice, and fomenting disputes to the disturbance of all her friends and acquaintance. This unhappiness in her temper induced Mr. John Hayes' relations to persuade him to settle in some remote place, at a distance from and unknown to her for some time, to see if that would have any effect upon her turbulent disposition. But Mr. Hayes would not approve of that advice, nor consent to a separation. In this manner they lived for the space of about six years until the lease of the last mentioned farm expired, about which time Mrs. Hayes persuaded Mr. John Hayes to leave the country and come to London, which about twelve months afterwards threw her persuasions he did, in the year 1719. Upon their arrival in town they took a house, part of which they let out in lodging, and sold sea coal, chandlery wear, etc., whereby they lived in a creditable manner. And though Mr. Hayes was of a very indulgent temper, yet she was so unhappy as to be frequently jarring, and a change of climate having made no alteration in her temper, she continued her same passionate nature, and frequent bickering and disputes with her neighbors, as well as before in the country. In this business they picked up money, and Mr. Hayes received the yearly rent of the first mentioned estate, though in town, and by lending out money in small sums amongst his country people improved the same considerably. In speaking of Mr. Hayes to his friends and acquaintances she would frequently give him the best of characters, and commend him for an indulgent husband, not with standing which to some of her particular cronies who knew not Mr. Hayes's temper, she would exclaim against him, and told them particularly, above a year before the murder was committed, that it was no more sin to kill him, meaning her husband, than to kill a mad dog, and that one time or other she might give him a jolt. Afterwards they removed into Tottenham Court Road, where they lived for some time following the same business as formerly, from whence about two years afterwards they removed into Tibern Road, Footnote, the old name for Oxford Street, end of Footnote, a few doors above where the murder was committed. There they lived about twelve months, Mr. Hayes supporting himself chiefly in lending out money upon pledges, and sometimes working at his profession, and in husbandry, till it was computed he had picked up a pretty handsome sum of money. About ten months before the murder they removed a little lower to the house of Mr. Wynyard, where the murder was committed, taking lodgings up two pairs of stairs. There it was the Thomas Billings, by Trader Taylor, who wrought journey work in and about Monmouth Street, under the pretense of being Mrs. Hayes' countrymen came to see them. He did so, and continued in the house about six weeks before the death of Mr. Hayes. He, Mr. Hayes, had occasion to go a little way out of town, of which his wife gave her associates immediate notice, and they thereupon flocked thither to junk it with her until the time they expected his return. Some of the neighbors, out of the ill will which they bore the woman, gave him intelligence of it as soon as he came back, upon which they had abundance of high words, and at last Mr. Hayes gave her a blow or two. Maybe this difference was, in some degree, the source of that malice which he afterwards vented upon him. About this time Thomas Wood, who was a neighbor's son in the country, and an intimate acquaintance of both Mr. Hayes and his wife, came to town. And pressing, being at that time very hot, he was obliged to quit his lodgings, and thereupon Mr. Hayes very kindly invited him to accept of the convenience of theirs, promising him, moreover, that as he was out of business, he would recommend him to his friends and acquaintances. Wood accepted the offer and lay with Billings. In three or four days' time Mrs. Hayes, having taken every opportunity to caress him, opened to him a desire of being rid of her husband, at which Wood, as he very well might, was exceedingly surprised, and demonstrated the business as well as cruelty there would be in such an action, if committed by him, who besides the general ties of humanity, stood particularly obliged to him as his neighbor and his friend. Mrs. Hayes did not desist upon this, but in order to hush his scruples would feign have persuaded him that there was no more sin in killing Hayes than in killing a brute beast, for that he was void of all religion and goodness and enemy to God, and therefore unworthy of his protection, that he had killed a man in the country and destroyed two of his and her children, one of which was buried under an apple tree, the other under a pear tree, in the country. To these fictitious tales she added another, which perhaps had the greatest weight, vis that if he were dead she would be mistress of fifteen hundred pounds, and then says she, you may be master thereof, if you will help to get him out of the way. Billings has agreed, too, if you'll make a third, and so all may be finished without danger. A few days after this, Wood's occasions called him out of town. On his return, which was the first day of March, he found Mr. Hayes and his wife and Billings very married together. Amongst other things which passed in conversation Mr. Hayes happened to say that he and another person once drank as much wine between them as came to a guinea, without either of them being fuddled. Upon this Billings proposed a wager on these terms, that half a dozen bottles of the best mountain wine should be fetched, which if Mr. Hayes could drink without being disordered, then Billings should pay for it, but if not then it should be at the cost of Mr. Hayes. He, accepting of this proposal, Mrs. Hayes and the two men went together to the Bronzehead in New Bond Street to fetch the wine. As they were going thither, she put them in mind of the proposition she had made them to murder Mr. Hayes, and said they could not have a better opportunity than at present, when he should be intoxicated with liquor, whereupon Wood made answer that it would be the most inhuman act in the world to murder a man in cool blood, and that, too, when he was in liquor. Mrs. Hayes had recourse to her old arguments, and Billings joining with her Wood suffered himself to be overpowered. When they came to the tavern they called for a pint of the best mountain, and after they had drank it ordered a gallon and a half to be sent home to their lodgings, and Mrs. Hayes paid ten shillings and six pence for it, which is what it came to. Then they all came back and sat down together to see Mr. Hayes drink the wager, and while he swallowed the wine they called for two or three full pots of beer in order to entertain themselves. After Hayes, when he had almost finished the wine, began to grow very merry, singing and dancing about the room with all the gaiety which is natural to having taken a little too much wine. But Mrs. Hayes was so fearful of his not having his dose that she sent away privately for another bottle, of which having drunk some also it quite finished the work, by depriving him totally of his understanding. However, reeling into the other room, he there threw himself across the bed and fell fast asleep. No sooner did his wife perceive it than she came and excited the two men to go in and do the work, whereupon Billings, taking a coal hatchet in his hand, going into the other room, struck Mr. Hayes therewith on the back of the head. This blow fractured the skull and made him, through the agony of the pain, stamp violently upon the ground, in so much that it alarmed the people who lay in the garret, and would, fearing the consequence, went in and repeated the blows, though that was needless since the first was mortal in itself, and he already lay still and quiet. By this time Mrs. Springgate, whose husband lodged over Mr. Hayes' head, on hearing the noise came down to inquire the reason of it, complaining at the same time that it so disturbed her family that they could not rest. Mrs. Hayes thereupon told her that her husband had had some company with him, who growing merry with their liquor were a little noisy, but that they were going immediately and desired she would be easy. On this she went up again for the present, and the three murderers began immediately to consult how to get rid of the body. The men were in so much terror and confusion that they knew not what to do, but Mrs. Hayes quickly thought of an expedient to which they all agreed. She said that if the head was cut off there would not be near so much difficulty in carrying off the body, which could not be known. In order to put this design in execution they got a pale and she herself carrying the candle, they all entered the room where the deceased lay. Then the woman holding the pale, billings drew the body by the head over the bedside, that the blood might bleed the more freely into it, and wood with his pocket pen knife cut it off. As soon as it was severed from the body and the bleeding was over they poured the blood down a wooden sink at the window, and after it several pales of water in order to wash it quite away that it might not be perceived in the morning. However, their precautions were not altogether effectual. For the next morning Springgate found several clots of blood, but not suspecting anything of the matter, drew them away. Neither had they escaped letting some tokens of their cruelty fall upon the floor, stain the wall of the room, and even spin up against the ceiling, which it may be supposed happened at the giving the first blow. When they had finished the decalation they again consulted what was next to be done. Mrs. Hayes was for boiling it in a pot till nothing but the skull remained, which would effectually prevent anybody's knowing to whom it belonged. But the two men, thinking this too dilatory a method, they resolved to put it in a pail and go together and throw it in the Thames. Springgate, hearing a bustling in Mr. Hayes' room for some time, and then somebody going downstairs, called again to know who it was and what was the occasion of it, it then being about eleven o'clock. Mrs. Hayes answered that it was her husband who was going on a journey to the country, and pretended to take formal leave of him, expressing her sorrow that he was obliged to go out of town at that time of night, and her fear, least any accident, should attend him in his journey. Billings and Wood, being thus gone to dispose of the head, went towards Whitehall, intending to have thrown the same into the river there, but the gates being shut they were obliged to go forward as far as Mr. McReth's wharf, near the horse ferry at Westminster, where Billings, setting down the pail from under his great coat, Wood took up the same with the head therein, and threw it into the dock before the wharf. It was expected that the same would have been carried away by the tide, but the water being then ebbing it was left behind. There were also some lighters lying over against the dock, and one of the lighter men walking then on board saw them throw the pail into the dark, but by the obscurity of the night, the distance, and having no suspicion, they did not apprehend anything of the matter. Having thus done they returned home again to Mrs. Hayes, where they arrived about twelve o'clock, and being let in, found Mrs. Hayes had been very busily employed in washing the floor, and scraping the blood off from it, and from the walls, etc. After which they all three went into the foreroom, Billings and Wood went to bed there, and Mrs. Hayes set by them till morning. On the morning of the second of March, about the dawning of the day, one Robinson, a watchman, saw a man's head lying in the dock and the pail near it. His surprise occasioned his calling some persons to assist in taking up the head, and finding the pail bloody, they conjectured the head had been brought thither in it. Their suspicions were fully confirmed therein by the lighter men, who saw Billings and Wood throw the same into the dock as before mentioned. It was now time for Mrs. Hayes, Billings and Wood, to consider how they should dispose of the body. Mrs. Hayes and Wood proposed to put it in a box, where it might lie concealed till a convenient opportunity offered for removing it. This being approved of, Mrs. Hayes brought a box. But upon their endeavoring to put it in, the box was not big enough to hold it. They had before wrapped it up in a blanket, out of which they took it. Mrs. Hayes proposed to cut off the arms and legs, and they again attempted to put it in, but the box would not hold it. Then they cut off the thighs, and laying it piecemeal on the box concealed them until night. In the meantime, Mr. Hayes' head, which had been found as before, had sufficiently alarmed the town, and information was given to the neighboring justices of the peace. The parish officers did all that was possible towards the discovery of the person's guilty of perpetrating so hard in action. They caused the head to be cleaned, the face to be washed from the dirt and blood, and the hair to be combed. And then the head to be set upon a post in public view in St. Margaret's Churchyard, Westminster, so that everybody might have free access to see the same. With some of the parish officers to attend, hoping by that means a discovery of the same might be attained. The High Constable of Westminster Liberty also issued private orders to all the petty constables, watchmen, and other officers of that district, to keep a strict eye on all coaches, carts, et cetera, passing in the night through their liberty, imagining that the perpetrators of such a horrid fact would endeavor to free themselves of the body in the same manner as they had done the head. These orders were executed for some time with all the secrecy imaginable, under various pretenses, but unsuccessfully. The head also continued to be exposed for some days in the manner described, which drew a prodigious number of people to see it, but without attaining any discovery of the murderers. It would be impertinent to mention the various opinions of the town upon this occasion, for they being founded upon conjecture only were far wide of the truth. Many people either remembered or fancied they had seen that face before, but no one could tell where or who it belonged to. On the 2nd of March in the evening, Catherine Hayes, Thomas Wood, and Thomas Billings took the body and disjointed members out of the box and wrapped them up in two blankets, vis the body in one and the limbs in the other. Then Billings and Wood first took up the body, and about nine o'clock in the evening carried it by turns into marlabone fields and threw the same into a pond, which Wood in the daytime had been hunting for, and returning back again about eleven o'clock the same night took up the limbs in the other old blanket and carried them by turns to the same place, throwing them in also. About twelve o'clock the same night they returned back again, and knocking at the door were led in by Mary Springgate. They went up to bed in Mrs. Hayes' foreroom, and Mrs. Hayes stayed with them all night, sometimes sitting up and sometimes lay down upon the bed by them. The same day one Bennet, the king's organ-maker's apprentice, going to Westminster to see the head, believed it to be Mr. Hayes'—he being intimately acquainted with him, and thereupon went and informed Mrs. Hayes that the head exposed to view in St. Margaret's churchyard was so very like Mr. Hayes' that he believed it to be his. Upon which Mrs. Hayes assured him that Mr. Hayes was very well, and reproved him very sharply for forming such an opinion, telling him he must be very cautious how he raised such false and scandalous reports, for that he might thereby bring himself into a great deal of trouble. This reprimand put a stop to the youths saying anything about it, and having no other reason than the similitude of faces he said no more about it. The same day also Mr. Samuel Patrick, having been at Westminster to see the head, went from thence to Mr. Grangers at the Dog and Dial in Monmouth Street, where Mr. Hayes and his wife were intimately acquainted. They and most of their journeymen's servants being Worcestershire people. Mr. Patrick told them that he had been to see the head, and that in his opinion it was the most like to their countrymen Hayes of any he ever saw. Billings being there then at work, some of the servants replied that it could not be his, because there being one of Mrs. Hayes' lodgers, meaning Billings, then at work, they should have heard of it by him if Mr. Hayes had been missing, or any accident had happened to him. To which Billings made the answer that Mr. Hayes was then alive and well, and that he left him in bed when he came to work in the morning. The third day of March Mrs. Hayes gave Wood a white coat and a pair of leathered breeches of Mr. Hayes, which he carried with him to Greenford, near Harrow on the Hill. Mrs. Springgate observed Wood carrying these things downstairs bundled up in a white cloth, whereupon she told Mrs. Hayes that Wood was gone down with a bundle. Mrs. Hayes replied it was a suit of clothes he had borrowed of a neighbour, and was going to carry them home again. On the 4th of March one Mrs. Longmore coming to visit Mrs. Hayes inquired how Mr. Hayes did and where he was. Mrs. Hayes answered that he was gone to take a walk, and then inquired what news there was about town. Her visitor told her that most people's discourse run upon the man's head that had been found at Westminster. Mrs. Hayes seemed to wonder very much at the wickedness of the age, and exclaimed vehemently against such barbarous murderers, adding, Here is a discourse too in our neighbourhood of a woman who has been found in the fields mangled and cut to pieces. It may be so replied Mrs. Longmore, but I have heard nothing of it. The next day Wood came again to town and applied himself to his landlady, Mrs. Hayes, who gave him a pair of shoes, a pair of stockings, and a waistcoat of the deceased, and five shillings and money, telling him she would continue to supply him whenever he wanted. She informed him also of her husband's head being found, and though it had been for some time exposed, yet nobody had owned it. On the 6th of March the parish officers, considering that it might putrify if it continued longer in the air, agreed with one Mr. Westbrook, a surgeon, to have it preserved in spirits. He having accordingly provided a proper glass, put it therein, and showed it to all persons who were desirous of seeing it. Yet the murder remained still undiscovered, and not withstanding the multitude which had seen it, yet none pretended to be directly positive of the face, though many agreed in their having seen it before. In the meantime Mrs. Hayes quitted her lodgings, and removed from where the murder was committed, to Mr. Joneses, a distiller in the neighborhood, with billings, wood, and spring-gate, for whom she paid one-quarters rent at her old lodgings. During this time she employed herself in getting as much of her husband's effects as possibly she could, and among other papers and securities, finding a bond due to Mr. Hayes from John Davis, who had married Mr. Hayes' sister, she consulted how to get the money, to which purpose she sent for one Mr. Leonard Myring, a barber, and told him that she, knowing him to be her husband's particular friend and acquaintance, and he then being under some misfortunes, through which she feared he would not presently return, she knew not how to recover several sums of money that were due to her husband. That's by sending fictitious letters in his name to the several persons from whom the same were due. Mr. Myring, considering the consequences of such a proceeding, declined it, but she prevailed upon some other person to write letters in Mr. Hayes' name, particularly one to his mother on the 14th of March, to demand ten pounds of the above-mentioned Mr. Davis, threatening, if he refused, to sue him for it. This letter Mr. Hayes' mother received, and acquainting her son-in-law Davis with the contents thereof, he offered to pay the money on sending down the bond, of which she, by a letter, acquainted Mrs. Hayes on the 22nd of the same month. During these transactions several persons came daily to Mr. Westbrooks to see the head. A poor woman at Kingsland, whose husband had been missing the day before it was found, was one amongst them. At first sight she fancied it bore some resemblance to that of her husband, but was not positive enough to swear to it. Yet her suspicion at first was sufficient to ground a report which flew about the town in the evening, and some enquiries were made after the body of the person to whom it was supposed to belong, but to no purpose. Mrs. Hayes in the meanwhile took all the pains imaginable to propagate a story of Mr. Hayes' withdrawing on account of an unlucky blow he had given to a person in a quarrel, and which made him apprehensive of a prosecution, though he was then in treaty with the widow in order to make it up. This story she had first told with many injunctions of secrecy, to persons who she had good reason to believe would not with standing her injunctions tell it again. It happened in the interim that one Mr. Joseph Ashby, who had been an intimate acquaintance of Mr. Hayes, came to see her. She, with a great deal of pretended concern, communicated the tale she had framed to him. Mr. Ashby asked whether the person he had killed was him to whom the head belonged. She said no, the man who died by Mr. Hayes' blow was buried entire, and Mr. Hayes had given, or was about to give, a security to pay the widow fifteen pounds per annum to hush it up. Mr. Ashby next inquired where Mr. Hayes was gone. She said to Portugal, with three or four foreign gentlemen. End of CHAPTER XXI. The Life of Catherine Hayes, a Bloody and Inhuman Murderous, etc. PART II He thereupon took his leave, but going from thence to Mr. Henry Longmore's cousin of Mr. Hayes, he related to him the story Mrs. Hayes had told him, and expressed a good deal of dissatisfaction there at, desiring Mr. Longmore to go to her and make the same inquiry as he had done, but without saying they'd seen one another. Mr. Longmore went thereupon directly to Mrs. Hayes, and inquired in a peremptory tone for her husband. In answer she said that she had supposed Mr. Ashby had acquainted him with the misfortune which had befallen him. Mr. Longmore replied, he had not seen Mr. Ashby for a considerable time, and knew nothing of his cousin's misfortune, not judging of any that could attend him, for he believed he was not indebted to anybody. He then asked if he was in prison for debt. She answered him, no, it was worse than that. Mr. Longmore demanded what worse could befall him. Just any debts he believed he had not contracted any. At which she blessed God, and said that neither Mr. Hayes nor herself owed a farthing to any person in the world. Mr. Longmore, again importuning her to know what he had done to occasion his absconding so, said, I suppose he's not murdered anybody. To this she replied he had, and beckoning him to come upstairs related to him the story as before mentioned. Mr. Longmore, being inquisitive which way he was gone, she told him into Herefordshire, that Mr. Hayes had taken four pocket pistols with him for his security, viz. one under each arm and two in his pockets. Mr. Longmore answered it would be dangerous for him to travel in that manner, that any person seeing him so armed with pistols would cause him to be apprehended on suspicion of being a highwayman. To which she assured him that it was his usual manner. The reason of it was that he had liked to have been robbed coming out of the country, and that once he was apprehended on suspicion of being a highwayman, but that a gentleman who knew him accidentally came in and seeing him in custody passed his word for his appearance, by which he was discharged. To that Mr. Longmore made answer that it was very improbable of his ever being stopped on suspicion of being a highwayman and discharged upon a man's only passing his word for his appearance. He further persisted which way he was supplied with money for his journey. She told him she had sewn twenty-six guineas into his clothes, and that he had about him seventeen shillings in New Silver. She added that Springgate, who lodged there, was privy to the whole transaction, for which reason she paid a quarter's rent for her at her old lodgings, and the better to maintain what she had averred, called Springgate to justify the truth of it. In concluding the discourse she reflected on the unkind usage of Mr. Hayes towards her, which surprised Mr. Longmore more than anything else she had said yet, and strengthened his suspicion, because he had often been a witness to her giving Mr. Hayes the best of characters, viz of a most indulgent, tender husband. Mr. Longmore then took leave of her and returned back to his friend Mr. Ashby, when, after comparing their several notes together, they judged by very apparent reasons that Mr. Hayes must have had very ill play shown him, upon which they agreed to go to Mr. Eaton, a life-guardman who was also an acquaintance of Mr. Hayes's, which, accordingly, they did, intending him to have gone to Mrs. Hayes also, to have heard what relation she would give him concerning her husband. They went and inquired at several places for him, but he was not then to be found, upon which Mr. Longmore and Mr. Ashby went down to Westminster to see the head at Mr. Westbrooks. When they came there Mr. Westbrook told them that the head had been owned by a woman from Kingsland, who thought it to be her husband, but was not certain enough to swear it, though the circumstances were strong, because he had been missing from the day before the head was found. They desired to see it, and Mr. Ashby first went upstairs to look on it, and, coming down, told Mr. Longmore he really thought it to be Mr. Hayes's head, upon which Mr. Longmore went up to see it, and after examining it more particularly than Mr. Ashby confirmed him in his suspicion. Then they returned to seek out Mr. Eaton, and finding him at home, informed him of their proceedings, with the sufficient reasons upon which their suspicions were founded, and compelled him to go with them to inquire into the affair. Mr. Eaton pressed them to stay to dinner with him, which at first they agreed to, but afterwards, altering their minds, went all down to Mr. Longmore's house, and there renewed the reasons of their suspicions, not only of Mr. Hayes's being murdered, being satisfied with seeing the head, but also that his wife was privy to the same. But in order to be more fully satisfied they agreed that Mr. Eaton should, in a day or two's time, go and inquire for Mr. Hayes, but with all taking no notice of his having seen Mr. Longmore and Mr. Ashby. In the meantime Mr. Longmore's brother interfered, saying that it seemed apparent to him that his cousin Mr. Hayes had been murdered, and that Mrs. Hayes appeared very suspicious to him of being guilty with some other persons, viz wood and billings, who she told him had drunk with him the night before his journey. He added moreover that he thought time was not to be delayed, because they might remove from their lodgings upon the least apprehensions of a discovery. His opinion prevailed as the most reasonable, and Mr. Longmore said they would go about it immediately. Accordingly he immediately applied to Mr. Justice Lambert, and acquainted him with the grounds of their suspicions and their desire of his granting a warrant for the apprehension of the parties. Upon hearing this story the Justice not only readily agreed with them in their suspicion, and complied with their demand, but said also he would get proper officers to execute it in the evening about nine o'clock, putting Mrs. Hayes, Thomas Wood, Thomas Billings, and Mary Springgate into a special warrant for that purpose. That the hour appointed they met, and Mr. Eaton bringing two officers of the guards along with them, they went all together to the house where Mrs. Hayes lodged. They went directly in and upstairs, at which Mr. Jones, who kept the house, demanded who and what they were. He was answered that they were sufficiently authorized in all they did, desiring him at the same time to bring candles, and he should see on what occasion they came. Light being thereupon brought, they went all upstairs together. Justice Lambert wrapped at Mrs. Hayes' door with his cane. She demanded who was there, for that she was in bed, on which she was bid to get up and open it, or they would break it open. After some time taken to put on her clothes, she came and opened it. As soon as they were in the room they seized her and Billings, who was sitting upon her bedside, without either shoes or stockings on. The justice asked whether he had been in bed with her. She said no, but that he sat there to mend his stockings. Why then, replied Mr. Lambert, he has very good eyes to see to do it without fire or candle, whereupon they seized him, too. And leaving persons below to guard them, they went up and apprehended Springgate. After an examination in which they would confess nothing, they committed Billings to new prison, Springgate to the gatehouse, and Mrs. Hayes to Tothillfield's Bridewell. The consciousness of her own guilt made Mrs. Hayes very assiduous in contriving such a method of behavior as might carry the greatest appearance of innocence. In the first place, therefore, she entreated Mr. Longmore that she might be admitted to see the head, in which request she was indulged by Mr. Lambert, who ordered her to have a sight of it, as she came from Tothillfield's Bridewell to her examination. Accordingly, Mr. Longmore, attending the officers to bring Mrs. Hayes from thence the next day to Mr. Lambert's, ordered the coach to stop at Mr. Westbrook's door. And as soon as he entered the house, being admitted into the room, she threw herself down upon her knees, crying out in great agonies, Oh, it is my dear husband's head, it is my dear husband's head, and embracing the glass in her arms, kissed the outside of it several times. In the meantime, Mr. Westbrook, coming in, told her that if it was his head she should have a plainer view of it, that he would take it out of the glass for her to have a full sight of it, which he did, lifting it up by the hair and brought it to her. Taking it in her arms, she kissed it, and seemed in great confusion, with all begging to have a lock of his hair. But Mr. Westbrook replied that he was afraid she had had too much of his blood already, at which she fainted away, and after recovering was carried to Mr. Lambert's to be examined before him and some other justices of the peace. While these things were an agitation, one Mr. Huddle and his servant walking in marlabown fields in the evening espied something lying in one of the ponds on the fields, which after they had examined it they found to be the legs, thighs, and arms of a man. They, being very much surprised at this, determined to search farther, and the next morning getting assistance drained the pond, where to their great astonishment they pulled out the body of a man wrapped up in a blanket. With the news of which, while Mrs. Hayes was under examination, Mr. Crosby, a constable, came down to the justices, not doubting but this was the body of Mr. Hayes which he had found thus mangled and dismembered. Yet though she was somewhat confounded at the new discovery made hereby of the cruelty with which her late husband had been treated, she could not, however, be prevailed on to make any discovery or acknowledgment of her knowing anything of the fact, whereupon the justices who examined her, committed her that afternoon to Newgate, the mob attending her thither with loud acclamations of joy at her commitment and ardent wishes of her coming to a just punishment as if they were already convinced of her guilt. Sunday morning following Thomas Wood came to town from Greenford, near Harrow, having heard nothing further of the affair or of the taking up of Mrs. Hayes' billings or spring-gate. The first place he went to was Mrs. Hayes' old lodging. There he was answered that she had moved to Mr. Jones's a distiller a little farther in the street. Thither he went, where the people suspected of the murder said Mrs. Hayes was gone to the green dragon in King Street, which is Mrs. Longmore's house, and a man who was there told him moreover that he was going thither and would show him the way. Mr. Wood, being on horseback, followed him, and he led him the way to Mr. Longmore's house. At this time Mr. Longmore's brother coming to the door and seeing Wood immediately seized him and on horsing him dragged him in doors, sent for officers, and charged them with him on suspicion of the murder. From thence he was carried before Mr. Justice Lambert, who asked him many questions in relation to the murder, but he would confess nothing. Upon he was committed to Tot Hillfield's Bridewell. While he was there he heard the various reports of persons concerning a murder, and from those, judging it impossible to prevent a full discovery, or evade the proofs that were against him, he resolved to name an ample confession of the whole affair. Mr. Lambert, being acquainted with this, he, with John Madden and Thomas Salt Esquire's two other Justices of the Peace, went to Tot Hillfield's Bridewell to take his examination, in which he seemed very ingenuous and ample declaring all the particulars before mentioned. With this addition, the Catherine Hayes was the first promoter of and a great assistance in several parts of this horrid affair, that he had been drawn into the commission thereof partly through poverty and partly through her crafty insinuations, who by feeding them with liquors had spirited them up to the commission of such a piece of barbarity. He farther acknowledged that ever since the commission of the fact he had had no peace, but a continual torment of mind, that the very day before he came from Greenford, he was fully persuaded within himself that he should be seized for the murder when he came to town, and should never see Greenford more, not withstanding which he could not refrain coming, though under an unexpected certainty of being taken and dying for the fact. Having thus made a full and ample confession, and signed the same on the 27th March, his minimus was made by Justice Lambert and he was committed to Newgate, whether he was carried under regard of a sergeant and eight soldiers with muskets and bayonets to keep off the mob, who were so exasperated against the actors of such a piece of barbarity that without that caution it would have been very difficult to have carried him thither alive. On Monday, the 28th of March, after Mrs. Hayes was committed to Newgate, being the day after Wood's apprehension, Joseph Mercer going to see Mrs. Hayes, she told him that as he was Thomas Billings' friend as well as hers, she desired he would go to him and tell him it was in vain to deny any longer the murder of her husband, for they were equally guilty and both must die for it. Billings hearing this, and that Wood was apprehended, and had fully confessed to the whole affair, thought it needless to persist any longer in a denial, and therefore the next day, being the 29th of March, he made a full and plain discovery of the whole fact, agreeing with Wood in all the particulars, which confession was made and signed in the presence of Gideon Harvey and Oliver Lambert Esquire's, two of his Majesty's Justices of Peace, whereupon he was removed to Newgate the same day that Wood was. Wood and Billings, by their several confessions, acquitting Springgate of having any concern in the aforesaid murder, she was soon discharged from her confinement. This discovery making a great noise in the town, diverse of Mrs. Hayes's, went to visit her in Newgate and examine her as to the motives that induced her to commit the said fact. Her acknowledgment in general was that Mr. Hayes had proved but an indifferent husband to her, that one night he came home drunk and struck her, that upon complaining to Billings and Wood, they, or one of them, said such a fellow, meaning Mr. Hayes, ought not to live, and that they would murder him for a happening. She took that opportunity to propose her bloody intentions to them, and her willingness that they should do so. She was acquainted with their design, heard the blow given to Mr. Hayes by Billings, and then went with Wood into the room. She held the candle while the head was cut off, and an excuse for this bloody fact said the devil was got into them all that made them do it. When she was made sensible that her crime in law was not only murder but petty treason, she began to show great concern indeed, making very strict inquiries into the nature of the proof which was necessary to convict. And having possessed herself with the notion that it appeared she murdered him with her own hands, she was very angry that either Billings or Wood should, by their confession, acknowledge her guilty of the murder, and thereby subject her to that punishment which of all others she most feared, often repeating that it was hard they would not suffer her to be hanged with them. When she was told of the common report that Billings was her affected at first to make a great mystery of it, said he was her own flesh and blood indeed, but that he did not know how nearly he was related to her himself. At other times she said she would never disown him while she lived, and showed a greater tenderness for him than for herself, and sent every day to the condemned hold where he lay to inquire after his health. But two or three days before her death she became, as the ordinary tells us, a little more sincere in this respect, affirming that he was not only her child but Mr. Hays's also, though put out to another person, with whom he was bred up in the country and called him father. There are generally a set of people about most prisons and especially about Newgate who get their living by imposing on unhappy criminals and persuading them that guilt may be covered and justice evaded by certain artful contrivances in which they profess themselves masters. Some of these had got access to this unhappy woman, and had instilled into her a notion that the confession of wood and billings could no way affect her life. This made her vainly imagine that there was no positive proof against her, and that circumstantials only would not convict her. For this reason she resolved to put herself upon her trial, contrary to her first intentions, for having been asked what she would do she had replied she would hold up her hand at the bar and plead guilty, for the whole world could not save her. Accordingly being arraigned she pleaded not guilty and put herself upon her trial. Wood and billings both pleaded guilty and desired to make atonement for the same by the loss of their blood, only praying that the court would be graciously pleased to favor them so much as they had made an ingenuous confession as to dispense with their being hanged in chains. Mrs. Hays, having thus put herself upon her trial, the Billings Council opened the indictment, setting forth the heinousness of the fact, the premeditated intentions, and the inhuman method of acting it, that his majesty for the more effectual prosecution of such vile offenders and out of a tender regard to the peace and welfare of all his subjects, and that the actors and perpetrators of such unheard of barbarities might be brought to condyne punishment had given them directions to prosecute the prisoners. Then Richard Bromage, Robert Wilkins, Leonard Myring, Joseph Mercer, John Blakesby, Mary Springgate, and Richard Bowes were called into court. The substance of whose evidence against the prisoner was that the prisoner being interrogated about the murder when in Newgate said, the devil put it into her head. But however John Hays was none the best of husbands, for she had been half-starved ever since she was married to him. That she did not, in the least, repent of anything she had done, but only in drawing those two poor men into this misfortune. That she was six weeks in protruding them to do it. That they denied it two or three times, but at last agreed. Her husband was so drunk that he fell out of his chair. Then Billings and Wood carried him into the next room and laid him upon the bed. That she was not in that room, but in the foreroom on the same floor when he was killed. And they told her that Billings struck him twice on the head with a poleaxe, and that then Wood cut his throat. And when he was quite dead, she went in and held the candle, whilst Wood cut his head quite off, and afterwards they chopped off his legs and arms. That they wanted to get him into an old chest, but were forced to cut off his thighs and arms, and then the chest would not hold them all. The body and limbs were put into blankets several times the next night and thrown into a pond. That the devil was in the mall, and they were all drunk. That it would signify nothing to make a long preamble. She could hold up her hand and say she was guilty for nothing could save her. Nobody could forgive her. That the men who did the murder were taken and confessed it. That she was not with them when they did it. That she was sitting by the fire in the shop upon a stool. That she heard the blow-gibbon and somebody's stamp. That she did not cry out for fear they should kill her. That after the head was cut off it was put into a pail, and Wood carried it out. That Billings sat down by her and cried, and would lie all the rest of the night in the room with the dead body. That the first occasion of this design to murder him was because he came home one night and beat her, upon which Billings said this fellow deserved to be killed, and Wood said he would be his butcher for a penny. That she told them they might do as they would do it the night that it was done. That she did not tell her husband of the design to murder him, for fear he should beat her. That she sent to Billings to let him know it was in vain to deny the murder of her husband any longer, for they were both guilty and must both die for it. Many other circumstances equally strong with those before mentioned appeared, and a cloud of witnesses, many of whom, the thing appearing so plain, were sent away unexamined. She herself confessed at the bar her previous knowledge of their intent several days before the fact was committed, yet foolishly insisted on her innocence because the fact was not committed by her own hands. The jury, without staying long to consider of it, found her guilty, and she was taken from the bar in a very weak and faint condition. On her return to Newgate she was visited by several persons of her acquaintance, who yet were so far from doing her any good that they rather interrupted her in those preparations which it became a woman in her sad condition to make. When they were brought up to receive sentence Wood and Billings renewed their former request to the court that they might not be hung in chains. Mrs. Hayes also made use of her former assertion that she was not guilty of actually committing the fact, and therefore begged of the court that she might at least have so much mercy shown her as not to be burnt alive. The judges then proceeded in the manner prescribed by law, that is, they sentenced the two men with the other malefactors to be hanged, and Mrs. Hayes, as in all cases of petty treason, to die by fire at a stake, at which she screamed, and being carried back to Newgate fell into violent agonies. When the other criminals were brought thither after sentence passed the men were confined in the same place with the rest in their condition, but Mrs. Hayes was put into a place by herself, which was at that time the apartment allotted to women under condemnation. Perhaps nobody ever kept their thoughts so long and so closely united to the world as appeared by the frequent messages she sent to Wood and Billings in the place where they were confined, and that tenderness which she expressed for both of them seemed preferable to any concern she showed for her own misfortunes, lamenting in the softest terms of having involved those two poor men in the commission of a fact for which they were now to lose their lives. In which, indeed, they deserved pity, since, as I shall show hereafter, they were persons of unblemished characters and of virtuous inclinations, until misled by her. As to the sense she had of her own circumstances there has been scarce any in her state known to behave with so much indifference. She said often that death was neither grievous nor terrible to her in itself, but was in some degree shocking from the manner in which she was to die. Her fondness for Billings hurried her into indecencies of a very extraordinary nature, such as sitting with her hand in his at chapel, leaning upon his shoulder, and refusing, upon being reprimanded for giving offense to the congregation, to make any amendment in respect of these shocking passages between her and the murderers of her husband, but on the contrary she persisted in them to the very minute of her death. One of her last expressions was to inquire of the executioner whether he had hanged her dear child, and this as she was going from the sledge to the stake, so strong and lasting were the passions of this woman. The Friday night before her execution, being assured she should die on the Monday following, she attempted to make away with herself, to which purpose she had procured a bottle of strong poison, designing to have taken the same. But a woman who was in the place with her, touching it with her lips, found that it burnt them to an extraordinary degree, and spilling a little on her handkerchief, perceived it burnt that also, upon which, suspecting her intentions, she broke the file whereby her design was frustrated. On the day of her execution she was at prayers and received the sacrament in the chapel, where she still showed her tenderness to Billings. About twelve the prisoners were severally carried away for Billings, with eight others, for various crimes were put into three carts, and Catherine Hayes was drawn upon a sledge to the place of execution, where being arrived Billings, with eight others, after having had some time for their private devotions, were turned off. After which Catherine Hayes, being brought to the stake, was chained thereto with an iron chain running round her waist and under her arms, and a rope about her neck, which was drawn through a hole in the post. Then the faggots, intermixed with light-brush wood and straw, being piled all round her, the executioner put fire thereto in several places, which immediately blazing out, as soon as the same reached her, with her arms she pushed down those which were before her. When she appeared in the middle of the flames as low as her waist, the executioner got hold of the end of the cord which was round her neck, and pulled it tight, in order to strangle her, but the fire soon reached his hand and burnt it, so that he was obliged to let it go again. More faggots were immediately thrown upon her, and in about three or four hours she was reduced ashes. In the meantime Billings' irons were put upon him as he was hanging on the gallows, after which, being cut down, he was carried to the gibbet, about one hundred yards distance, and there hung up in chains. CHAPTER XXI LIVES OF THE MOST REMARCABLE CRIMINALS LIVES OF THE MOST REMARCABLE CRIMINALS CHAPTER XXI THE LIFE OF TOMAS BILLINGS, A MURDERER We have said so much of this malefactor in the foregoing life, yet it was necessary, in order to preserve the connection of that barbarous story, to leave the particular consideration of these two assistants in the murder of Mr. Hayes to particular chapters, and therefore we will begin with Billings. Mrs. Hayes, some time before her execution, confidently averred that he was the son both of Mr. Hayes and of herself, that his father not liking him he was put out to relations of hers, and took the name of Billings from his godfather. But Mr. Hayes' relations confidently denying all this, and he himself saying he knew nothing more than that he called his father a shoemaker in the country, who sometimes since was dead. He was put apprentice to a tailor with whom he served his time, and then came up to London to work journey work, which he did in Monmouth Street, lodging at Mr. Hayes, and believed himself nearly related to his wife, who from the influence she always maintained over him, drew him to the commission of that horrid fact. But the most certain opinion is that he was found in a basket upon the common, near the place where Mrs. Hayes lived before she married Mr. Hayes, that he was at the time of his death about twenty-two or twenty-three years old, whereas it evidently appeared by her own confession that she had been married to Mr. Hayes but twenty years and eight months. He was put out to nurse by the charge of the parish to people whose names were Billings, and when he was big enough to go apprentice was bound to one Mr. Weatherland, a tailor to whom the parish gave forty shillings with him. It is very probable he might be a natural son of Mrs. Hayes, born in her rambles of which we have hinted before her marriage, and dropped by her in the place where he was found. As to the character of Billings in the country, he was always reputed a sober, honest, industrious young man. During the time he had worked in town he had done nothing to impeach that reputation which he brought up with him, and might possibly have lived very happily if he had not fallen into the temptation of this unfortunate woman who seems to have been born for her own undoing and for the destruction of others. Whatever knowledge he might have of that relation in which he stood to Mrs. Hayes, certain it is that she always preserved such an authority over him that in her presence he would never answer any questions but constantly referred himself to her, or kept an obstinate silence. He affected also a strange fondness for her, kissing her cheek when she fainted in the chapel at Newgate, and behaving himself when near her in such a manner as gave great offence to the spectators. As to the remorse he had for the horrid crime he had committed, those who had occasioned to know him while under confinement thought him sincere therein, but the ordinary, whose place it is to be supreme judge in these matters, told the world in his account of the behavior and confession of the malifactors, that he was a confused, hard-hearted fellow, and had few external signs of penitence, and a little farther when possibly he was in a better humor, he says that in all appearance he was very penitent for his sins, and died in the communion of the Church of England of which he owned himself an unworthy member. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22. Life of Thomas Wood, a murderer. This malifactor, Thomas Wood, was born at a place called Ombresley, between Ludlow and Worcester, of parents in very indifferent circumstances who were therefore able to give him but little education. He was bred up to no settled business, but labored in all such country employments as require only a robust body for their performance. When the summer's work was over, he used to assist as a tapster at inns and alehouses in the neighborhood of the village where he was born, and by the industry, care and regularity which he observed in all things, gained a very great reputation as an honest and faithful servant with all that knew him. His mother, having been left in a needy condition with several small children, she set up a little alehouse in order to get bread for them. Thomas was very dutiful, and as his diligence enabled him to save a little money, so he was by no means backwards in giving her all the assistance that was in his power. Some few months before his death he grew desirous of coming to London, which he did accordingly, and worked at whatsoever employment he could get both with fidelity and diligence. But a fleet being then setting out for the Mediterranean, the swarants were granted for the manning thereof, and the diligence that was used in putting them in execution gave great uneasiness to Wood, who, having no settled business, was afraid of falling into their hands, whereupon he bethought himself of his countrymen Mr. Hayes to whom he applied for his advice and assistance. Mr. Hayes kindly invited him to live with them in order to avoid that danger, and he accordingly lay with Mr. Billings as has been before related. Mr. Hayes was moreover so desirous of doing him service that he applied himself to finding out such persons as wanted laborers in order to get him into business, while Mrs. Hayes in the meantime made use of every blandishment to seduce the fellow into following her wicked inclinations, perceiving that both Billings and he had religious principles then in common with ordinary persons, she artfully made even those persons' dispositions subservient to her brutal and inhuman purpose. It seems that Mr. Hayes had fallen within a few years of his death into the company of some who called themselves free thinkers and fancy an excellency in their own understandings because they are able to ridicule those things which the rest of the world thinks sacred, though it is no great conquest to obtrude the belief of anything whatsoever on persons of small parts and little education, yet they triumph greatly therein and communicate the same honor of boasting in their pupils. Mr. Hayes now and then let fall some rather rash expression as to his disbelief of the immortality of the soul and talked in such a manner on religious topics that Mrs. Hayes persuaded Billings and Wood that he was an atheist, and as he believed his own soul of no greater value than that of a brute beast there could be no difference between killing him and them. It must be indeed acknowledged that there was no less oddity in such propositions than in those of her husband. However it prevailed, it seems, with these unfortunate men, and as she had already persuaded them it was no sin, so when they were intoxicated with liquor she found it less difficult than at any other time to deprive them also of the humanity and engage them in perpetrating a fact so opposite not only to religion but to the natural tenderness of the human species. Wood, as he yielded to her persuasions with reluctance, so he was the first who showed any true remorse of conscience for that cruel act of which he had been guilty, his confession of it being free and voluntary and, at the same time, full and ingenious. Two days after receiving sentence his constitution began to give way to the violence of a feverish distemper which by a natural death prevented his execution, he dying in Newgate, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, much more pitied than either Billings or Mrs. Hayes, who suffered at Tyburn. And thus with Wood we put a period to the relation of a tragedy which surprised the world exceedingly at the same time it happened and will doubtless be read with horror in succeeding generations. End of CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN GENE, A MURDERER. So there is not, perhaps, any sin so opposite to our nature as cruelty towards our fellow creatures, yet we see it so thoroughly established in some tempers that neither education nor a sense of religion are strong enough to abate it, much less to wear it out. The person of whom we are speaking, John Gene, was the son of parents in very good circumstances at Bristol, who they bred him up to the knowledge of everything requisite to a person who was to be bred up in trade, and he grew a very tolerable proficient as well in the knowledge of the Latin tongue, as in writing and accounts, for his improvement in all which he was put under the best masters. When he had finished that course of learning which his friends thought would qualify him for what they designed him, he was immediately put apprentice to a cooper in Bristol, where he served his time with both fidelity and industry. When it was expired, he applied himself to trade with the same diligence and sometimes went to sea. Till the year 24, he became master of a ship called the Burnett, fitted out by some merchants at Bristol for South Carolina. In his return from this voyage, he committed the murder for which he died. On the 25th April 1726, an Admiralty Sessions was held at the Old Bailey, before the Honorable Sir Henry Penrice, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, assisted by the Honorable Mr. Baron Hale, at which Captain Gris was indicted for feloniously sinking the good ship called the Friendship, of which he was the commander. But as there appeared no grounds for such a charge, he was acquitted. Afterwards, Captain John Jean of Bristol was set to the bar and deranged on an indictment for willfully and inhumanly murdering one Richard Pye, who had been cabin boy in the month of March in the year 1724. It appeared by the evidence produced against him that he either whipped the boy himself or caused him to be whipped every day during the voyage, that he caused him to be tied to the main mast with ropes for nine days together, extending his arms and legs to the utmost, whipping him with a cat, as it is called, of five small cords till he was all bloody, then causing his wounds to be several times washed with brine and pickle. Under this terrible usage, the poor wretch grew soon after speechless. The Captain, notwithstanding, continued his cruel usage, stamping, beating and abusing him, and even obliging him to eat his own excrements, which forcing its way up again, the boy in his agony of pain made signs for a dram, whereupon the Captain in derision took a glass, carried it into the cabin, and made water therein, and then brought it to the boy to drink, who rejected the same. The lamentable condition in which he was made no impression on the Captain, who continued to treat him with the same severity by whipping, pickling, kicking, beating and bruising him while he lingered out his miserable life. On the last day of this, he gave him 18 lashes with the aforesaid cat of five tails. In a little time after which, the boy died. The evidence farther deposed that when the boy's body was sewn up in a hammock to be thrown overboard, it had in it as many colors as there are in a rainbow, that his flesh in many places was as soft as jelly, and his head swelled as big as two. Upon the whole, it very fully appeared that a more bloody, premeditated and willful murder was never committed, and Sir Henry Penrice declared that in all the time he had had the honour of sitting on the bench, he had never heard anything like it, and hoped that no person who should sit there after him should hear of such an offence. Under sentence of death, he behaved with a great deal of piety and resignation, though he did not frequent the public chapel for two reasons. The first, because the number of strangers who were admitted bither to stare at such unhappy persons as are to die are always numerous and sometimes very indiscreet. The second was that he had many enemies who took a pleasure in coming to insult him, and as he was sure either of these would totally interrupt his devotions, he thought it excusable to receive the assistance of the minister in his own chamber. As to the general offences of his life, he was very open in his confession, but as to the particular fact for which he suffered, he endeavored to excuse it by saying he never intended to murder the boy, but only to correct him as he deserved. He being exceedingly wicked and unruly, he charged in with thieving in their voyage out, being yet worse as they came home, and that particularly one evening when he was asleep in the cabin, the lad broke open his lockers and took out a bottle of rum, of which he drank near a pint, making himself therefore so drunk that his excrement fell involuntarily from him, which stunk so abominably that it awakened him, the captain, whereupon he called in several of his men, who found the boy in a sad condition, and were obliged to sit down and smoke tobacco in order to overcome the stench he had raised. This produced the terrible punishment of tying him to the mast for several days, and the offering him his excrements which he rejected. Not withstanding the captain owned all this, yet he could not forbear reflections on those who gave testimony against him in his trial, charging him with perjury and conspiracy to ruin him, though nothing like it appeared from the manner in which they delivered their testimony. As the time of his death approached nearer, the fear thereof and remorse of conscience brought the captain into so weak and low a state that he could scarce speak or attend to any discourses of others, but lay in a languishing condition, often fainting, and in time appearing not unlike a person who had taken something to produce a sudden death in order to prevent an ignominious one. Yet when such suspicions were mentioned to him, he declared that they were without ground, that he had never suffered such a thought once to enter his head. His wife, who attended him constantly while in prison, said she loved him too well to become his executioner, and that she was positive since his commitment. He had had nothing unwholesome administered to him. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Benny, Munich, Germany. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, Volume 2, by Arthur L. Hayward, Chapter 24. The Life of William Byrne, A Notorious Thief As the want of education from a multitude of instances seems to be the chief cause of many of those misfortunes which before persons in the ordinary course of life. So there are some born with such a natural ineptitude thereto that no care, no pains, is able to conquer the stubborn stupidity of their nature, but like a knotty piece of wood, they defy the ingenuity of others to frame anything useful out of such cross-grained materials. This, as he acknowledged himself upon all occasions, was the case of the malefactor we are now speaking of, who was descended of honest and reputable parents who were willing in his younger years to have furnished him with a tolerable share of learning. But he was utterly incorrigible, and though put to a good school, would never be brought to read or write at all, which was no small dissatisfaction to his parents, which whom in other respects he agreed tolerably well. When of age to be put out apprentice, he was placed with a hatter in the city of Dublin, to whom he served his time honestly and faithfully. As soon as he was out of his time, he came up to London in order to become acquainted with his business. He had the good luck, though a stranger, to get into good business here, but was so unfortunate as to fall into the acquaintance of two lewd women who fatally persuaded him that thieving was an easier way of getting money to supply their extravagant expenses than working. He being a raw young lad, unacquainted with the world, was so mad as to follow their advice, and in consequence their off snatched a show glass out of the shop of Mr. Lovell. A goldsmith in Bishop's Gate Street, in which there was four snuff boxes, eight silver medals, six pairs of gold buttons, five diamond rings, twenty pairs of earrings, sixty-four gold rings, several gold chains, and other rich goods to the amount of near three hundred pounds, with all of which he got safe off, though discovered soon afterwards by his folly in endeavouring to dispose of them. He threw aside all hopes of life as soon as he was apprehended, as having no friends to make intercession likely to procure a pardon. He was indeed a poor young creature, rather stupid than wicked, and his vices more owing to his folly than to the malignity of his inclinations. He seemed to have a just notion, both of the heinousness of that crime which he had committed, and of the shame and ignominy he had brought upon himself and his relations. He was particularly affected with the miseries which were likely to fall upon his poor wife, who was folly, and when the day of his death came he seemed very easy and contended under it, declaring, however, at last that he died in the communion of the Church of Rome. This was on the twenty-seventh of June, seventeen twenty-six, being then not much above eighteen years old. End of Chapter twenty-four. Chapter twenty-five of Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, Volume Two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, Volume Two, by Arthur L. Hayward. Chapter twenty-five. The Life of John Murrell, A Horse Stealer. This malefactor was descended of a very honest and reputable parents in the county of York, who took care not only that he should read and write tolerably well, but also that he should be instructed in the principles of religion. They brought him up in their own way of business, which was grazing of cattle, both black cattle and horses, and afterwards selling them at market. As he grew up a man, he settled in the same occupation, farming what is called in Yorkshire a grazing room, for which he paid near a hundred pounds a year rent, and dealt very considerably himself in the same way which had been followed by his parents. He married also a young woman with a tolerable fortune, who bore him several children, five of which were live at the time of his execution, and lived with their mother upon some little estate she had of her own. For some years after his marriage he lived with tolerable reputation in the country, but being lavish with his expenses he quickly consumed both his own little fortune and what he had with his wife. And then failing in his business, a whim took him in the head to come to London, whether also he brought his son. Here he soon fell into bad company, and getting acquaintance with a woman whom he thought was capable of maintaining him he married her, or at least lived with her as if they had been married, for a considerable space. The news of which reaching his wife in the country affected her so much that she had very nigh fallen into a fit of sickness. Thereupon her friends demonstrated to her, in vain, how unreasonable a thing it was for her to give herself so much pain about a man who treated her at once with unkindness and injustice, in spite of their remonstrances she came up to London, in hopes that her presence might reclaim him. But herein she was utterly mistaken, for he absolutely denied her to be his wife, and even persuaded his son to deny her also for his mother, which the boy with much fear and confusion did, and the poor woman was forced to go down into the country again, overwhelmed with sorrow at the ingratitude of the one and the undutifulness of the other. However, Merle still went on in the same way with the woman he had chosen for his companion. There is all the reason imaginable to suppose that he did not take the most honest ways of supporting himself and his mistress. However, he fell into no trouble nor is there any direct evidence of his having been guilty of any dishonesty within the reach of the law, until he ran away with a mare from a man in town, as to which he excused himself by saying that she had formerly been his own, and that they're having nothing more than a verbal contract between them, he thought fit to carry her off and sell her again. Some time afterwards, going down to Newcastle Fair, for he still continued to carry on some dealing in horse-flesh, he fell there into the company of some merchants in the same way, who found means to get gains and sell very cheap, by paying nothing at the first hand. Among these, there was a countryman of his who went by the name of Brown, with whom Merle had formerly had an acquaintance. This fellow, knowing the company in general to be persons of the same profession, began to talk very freely of his practices in that way, viz of horse-stealing, and amongst other stories related this. He said he once rode away with an officer's horse, who had just bought it with an intent to write him up to London. He carried the creature into the west, and having made such alternations in his name and tale as he thought proper, sold him there to a parson for thirteen guineas, which was about seven less than the horse was worth. But knowing the doctor had another church about eight miles from the parish in which he lived, and that there was a little stable at one angle of the churchyard, where the horse was put up during service, he resolved to make bold with it again. Accordingly, when the people were all at church, having provided himself with a red coat and a horse-soldier's accoutrements, he picked the stable door, clapped them on the priest's beast, and wrote him without the least suspicion as hard as conveniently he could to werechester. There he laid aside the habit of a cavalier, and transforming himself into the natural appearance of a horse-corser. He sold the horse to a physician, telling him at the time he bought it, that it would be greatly the better for being suffered to run that grass a fortnight or so. No doubt on it, said he, but I had some design of so-doing. Yet they were much sooner executed than at first they were intended to have been, by an accident which happened the very day after the beast came into the hands of the physician. For one evening as Brown was taking a walk in the skirts of the city, who should he perceive but this old cornish parson and his foot-man, jogging into town. Guilt struck him immediately with apprehensions at their errand relating to him, so that walking up and down, nor daring to go into town for fear of being taken up and at last supposing it the only way to rid him of danger, he caught the horse once more in the doctor's clothes, and having stolen a saddle and bridle out of the inn where he lodged, he rode him on as far as Essex. There he remained until Northampton Fair, where he sold the horse for the third time, for twenty-seven guineas, to an officer in the same regiment with him from whom it had been first stolen, on whose return from Flanders it was owned and the captain who bought it, though he refused to lose his money, yet gave as good a description as he could of the person who sold it. Upon this the other officer put out an advertisement, describing both the man and the horse, and offering a reward of five guineas for whoever should apprehend him. This advertisement roused both the parson and the doctor, and the former took so much pains to discover him that he was at length apprehended in Cornwall, where at the assays he was tried and convicted for the fact. But the captain who was the original possessor of the horse was so much pleased with his ingenuity that he procured a reprieve for him, and carried him abroad with him where he continued until the peace of Ultrecht, when he returned home and fell to his old way of living, by which he had submitted himself unto the time in which he fell into company with Merle, and then bought five or six horses which had been stolen from the south, to be disposed of at the fair. Merle liked the precedent, and put it in practice immediately by stealing a brown mare which belonged to Jonathan Wood, for which he was shortly after apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next session at the Old Bailey he was tried and convicted on very clear evidence, and during the space in which he lay under condemnation, testified a true sorrow for his sins, though not so just a sense of that for which he died as he ought to have had, and which might have been reasonably expected. For as horse-stealing did not appear any very great sin to him at the time of his committing it, so now, when he was to die for it, such an obstinate partiality towards ourselves is there naturally grafted in human nature, that he could not forbear complaining of the severity of the law, and find fault with its rigor which might have been avoided. What seemed most of all to afflict him under his misfortune, was that he saw his son and nearest relations forsake him, and as much as they could shun have anything to do with his affairs. Of this he complained heavily to the minister of the place, during his confinement in Newgate, who represented to him how justly this had befallen him for first slighting his family, and then leaving them without the least tenderness of respect, either to the ties of a husband or the duty of a parent, so he began to read his sin in his punishment, and to frame himself to a due submission to what he had so much merited by his follies and his crimes. When he was first brought up to receive sentence, he counterfeited being dead so exactly that he was brought back again to Newgate, but this cheat served only to gain a little time, for at the next sessions he was condemned and ordered for execution, which he suffered on the 27th of June, 1726, being then between forty and fifty years of age. Chapter 26 The Life of William Hollis A Thief and an Outsbreaker This unhappy lad was born in Portugal, while the English army served there in the late war. His father was drum major of a regiment, but had not wherewith to give his child anything but food, for intending to bring him up a soldier, he perhaps thought learning an unnecessary thing to one of that profession. During the first years of his life the poor boy was a constant campaigner, being transported wherever the regiment removed, with the same care and conveniency as the kettle drum and knapsack, the only thing besides himself which make up the drum major's equipage. When he grew big he got, it seems, on board a man of war in the squadron that sailed up the Mediterranean. This was a proper university for one who had been bred in such a school, so that there is no wonder he became so great a proficient in all sorts of wickedness, gaming, drinking, and whoring which appear not to such poor creatures as sins, but as the pleasures of life, about which they ought to spend their whole care, and, indeed, how should it be otherwise where they know nothing that better deserves it. When he came home to England, his father dying, he was totally destitute, except what care his mother-in-law was pleased to take of him, which was, indeed, a great deal if he would have been, in any degree, obedient to her instructions. But instead of that he looked upon all restraints on his liberty as the greatest evil that could befall him. Wherefore, leaving his mother's house, he abandoned himself to procuring money at any rate to support those lewd pleasures to which he had addicted himself. It happened that he lodged near one John Madison, a working silversmith, into whose house he got, and stole from thence no less than one hundred and forty silver buckles, the goods of one Samuel Ashmelly. For this offense he was apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he was tried, and on the evidence of the prosecutor, which was very full and direct, he was convicted, and, having no friends, he laid aside all hopes of life, and endeavored as far as poor capacity would give him leave to improve himself in the knowledge of the Christian faith, and in preparing for that death to which his follies and his crimes had brought him. The ordinary, in the account he gives of his death, says that he was extremely stupid, a thing no ways improbable considering the wretched manner in which he had spent the years of his childhood and his youth. However, at last, either his insensibility, or having satisfied himself with the little evil there is in death compared with living in misery and want, furnished him with so much calmness that he suffered with greater appearance of courage than could have been expected from him. Just before he died, he stood up in the cart, and turning himself to the spectators said, Good people, I am very young, but have been very wicked. It is true, I have had no education, but I might have labored hard and lived well for all that. But gaming and ill company were my ruin. The law hath justly brought me where I am, and I hope such young men as see my untimely fate will avoid the paths which lead unto it. Good people, pray for our departing souls, as we do, that God may give you all more grace than to follow us thither. He suffered with the malefactors before mentioned, being at the time of his execution between seventeen and eighteen years old. CHAPTER 27 The Life of Thomas Smith, a Highwayman There is a certain commendable tenderness in human nature towards all who are under misfortunes, and this tenderness is in proportion to the magnitude of those evils which we suppose the pitied person to labor under. If we extend our compassion to relieving their necessities, and feeling a regret for those miseries which they undergo, we undoubtedly discharge the duties of humanity according to the scheme both of natural religion and the laws laid down in the Gospel. Perhaps no object ever merited it from juster motives than this poor man who is the subject of the following pages. His parents were people in tolerable circumstances in Southwark. His father was snatched from him by death, while he was yet a child, but his mother, as far as she was able, was very careful that he should not pass his younger days without instruction, and an uncle he then had, being pleased with the docile temper of the youth, was at some expense also about his education. By this means he came to read and write tolerably well, and gained some little knowledge of the Latin tongue, and, having a peculiar sweetness in his behaviour, it won very much upon his relations, and encouraged them to treat him with great indulgence. But unfortunately for him, by the time he grew big enough to go out apprentice or to enter upon any other method of living, his friends suddenly dropped off, and by their death becoming in great want of money, he was forced to resign all the golden hopes he had formed, and, for the sake of present subsistence, submit to becoming footman to a gentleman, who was, however, a very good and kind master to him, till, in about a year's time, he died also, and poor Smith was again left at his wit's end. However, out of this trouble he was relieved by an Irish gentleman who took him into his service, and carried him over with him to Dublin. There he met with abundance of temptations to fall into that loose and lascivious course of life, which prevails more in that city, perhaps, than in any other in Europe. But he had so much grace at that time as to resist it, and, after a stay there of twenty months, returned into England again, where he came into the service of a third master, no less indulgent to him than the two former had been. In this last service, an odd accident befell him, in which, though I neither believe myself, nor incline to impose on my readers that there was anything supernatural in the case of it, yet I fancy the oddness of the thing may, under the story I am going to tell, prove not disagreeable. In a journey which Thomas had made into Hertfordshire, with his first master, he had contracted there an acquaintance with a young woman, daughter to a farmer intolerable circumstances. This girl, without saying anything to the man, fell, it seems, desperately in love with him, and about three months after he left the country, died. One night, after his coming to live with this last master, he fancied he saw her in a dream, that she stood for some time by his bedside, and at last said, Thomas, a month or two hence, you will be in danger of a fever, and when that is over of a greater misfortune, have a care, you have hitherto always behaved as an honest man, do not let either poverty or misfortunes tempt you to become otherwise. And having so said she withdrew. In the morning the fellow was prodigiously confounded, yet made no discovery of what had happened to any but the person who lay with him, though the thing made a very strong impression on his spirit, and might perhaps contribute not a little to his falling ill about the time predicted by the phantom he had seen. This fever soon brought him very low, and obliged him to make a way with most of his things in order to support himself. Upon recovery he found himself in lamentable circumstances, being without friends, without money, and out of business. Unfortunately for him, coming along the hay market one evening, he happened to follow a gentleman somewhat in liquor, who, knowing him, desired that he would carry him home to his house in St. Martin's Lane, to which Thomas readily agreed. But as they were going along with her, a crowd gathered about the gentleman, who became as quarrelsome as they, and took it into his head to box one of the mob, in order to do which more conveniently he gave Smith his hat and cane and his wig. Smith held them for some time, the mob forcing them along like a torrent, till the gentleman, whose name was Brown, made up a court near Northumberland House, and Smith, thereupon, marched off with the things, the necessity he was under, so far blinding him that he made no scruple of attempting to sell them the next day, by which means Mr. Brown hearing of them, he caused Smith to be apprehended as a street robber, and to be committed to Newgate, though he had the good luck, notwithstanding, to get all his things again. It seems he visited the poor man in prison, and if he did not prevaricate at his death, made him some promises of softening, at least, if not of dropping the prosecution, which, as Smith asserted, prevented his making such a preparation for his defense as otherwise he might have done, which proved of very fatal consequence to him, since, on the evidence of the prosecutor, he was convicted of the robbery and condemned. Never poor creature suffered more or severe hardships in the road of death than this poor man did, for by the time sentence was passed all that he had was gone, and he had scarce a blanket to cover him from downright nakedness during the space he lay in the hold under sentence, as he was better principled in religion than any of the other malfactors, he had retained his reading so well as to assist them in their devotions, and to supply in some measure the want of somebody constantly to attend them in their preparation for another world. So he picked up thereby such little assistances from amongst them as prevented his being starved before the time appointed for their execution came. As this man did not want good sense, and was far from having lost what learning he had acquired in his youth, so the terrors of an ignominious death were quickly over with him, and, instead of being affrighted with his approaching fate, he considered it only as a relief from miseries the most piercing that a man could feel, under which he had labored so long that life was become a burden, and the prospect of death the only comfort that was left. He died with the greatest appearance of resolution and tranquility on the 3rd August, 1726, being then about 23 years of age. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, Vol. 2, by Arthur L. Hayward. Chapter 28. The Life of Edward Reynolds. A Thief, etc. Notwithstanding the present age is so much celebrated for its excellency and knowledge and politeness, yet I am persuaded both these qualities, if they are really greater, are yet more restrained than they have been any time here for whatsoever. The common people are totally ignorant, almost even of the first principles of religion. They give themselves up to debauchery without restraint, and what is yet more extraordinary? They fancy their vices are great qualifications, and look on all sorts of wickedness as merit. This poor wretch, who is the subject of our present page, was put to school by his parents, who were in circumstances mean enough, but from a natural aversion to all goodness he absolutely declined making any proficiency therein. Whether he was educated to any business I cannot take upon me to say, but he worked at mop making, and carried them about to the country fairs for sale, by which he got a competency at least, and therefore had not by any means that ordinary excuse to plead that necessity had forced him upon thieving. On the contrary, he was drawn to the greatest part of those evils which he committed, and which consequently brought of those which he suffered by frequenting the ring at Moorfields, a place which, since it occurs so often in these memoirs, put me under a kind of necessity to describe it, and the customs of those who frequent it. It lies between upper and middle Moorfields, and as people of rank, when they turn vicious, frequent some places where under pretense of seeing one diversion in which perhaps there is no moral evil, they either make assignations for lewdness, or parties for gaming or drinking, and so by degrees ruin their estates, and leave the character of debauchees behind them. So those of meaner rank come thither to partake of the diversions of cudgel playing, wrestling's coits, and other robust exercises which are now softened by a game of toss up, hustle cap, or nine holes, which quickly brings on want, and the desire continuing naturally inclines them to look for some means to recruit. And so, when the evening is spent in gaming, the night induces them to thieve under its cover that they may have wherewith to supply the expenses of the ensuing day. Hence it comes to pass that this place and these practices have ruined more young people such as apprentices, journeymen, errand boys, etc., than any other seminary of vice in town. But it is time that we should now return to the affairs of him who hath occasioned this digression. In the neighborhood of this place Reynolds found out a little alehouse to which he every night resorted. There were abundance of wicked persons who used to meet there in order to go upon their several villainous ways of getting money. Reynolds, whose head was always full of discovering a method by which he might live more at ease than he did by working, listened very attentively to what passed amongst them. One Barnum, who had formerly been a waterman, was highly distinguished at these meetings for his consummate knowledge in every branch of the art and mystery of cheating. He had followed such practices for near twenty years, and commonly when they came there at night they formed a ring about the place where he sat and listened with the greatest delight to those relations of evil deeds which his memory recorded. It happened one evening, when these worthy persons were assembled together, that their orator took it in his head to harangue them on the several alterations which the science of stealing hath gone through from the time of his becoming acquainted with its professors. In former days, said he, nights of the road were a kind of military order into which none but decayed gentlemen presumed to intrude themselves. If a younger brother ran out of his allowance, or if a young heir spent his estate before he had bought a tolerable understanding, if an undercourtier lived above his income, or a subaltern officer laid out twice his pay in rich suits and fine laces, this was the way they took to recruit. And if they had but money enough left to procure a good horse and a case of pistols, there was no fear of their keeping up their figure a year or two till their faces were known. And then, upon a discovery, they generally had friends good enough to prevent their swinging, and who, ten to one, provided handsomely for them afterwards, for fear of their meeting with a second mischance, and thereby bringing a stain upon their family. But, nowadays, a petty alehouse keeper, if he gives too much credit, a cheese monger whose credit grows rotten, or a mechanic that is weary of living by his fingers ends, makes no more ado, when he finds his circumstances uneasy, but whips into a saddle, and thinks to get all things retrieved by the magic of those two formidable words, stand and deliver. Hence the profession is grown scandalous, since all the world knows that the same methods now makes an highwayman, that some years ago would have got a commission. But Hark ye, says one of the company, in the days of those gentlemen highwaymen, was there no way left for a poor man to get his living out of the road of honesty? Poof! I replied Barnum, a hundred men were more ingenious then than they are now, and the fellows were so dexterous that it was dangerous for a man to laugh, who had a good set of teeth, for fear of having them stole. They made nothing of whipping hats and wigs off at noonday, whipping swords from folks' sides when it grew dusk, or making a midnight visit in spite of locks, bolts, bars, and such like other little impediments to old misers, who kept their gold molding in chests till such honest fellows at the hazard of their lives came to set at liberty. For my part, continuity, I believe Queen Anne's war swept away the last remains of these brave spirits, for since the piece of U-track, as I think they call it, we have had a wondrous growth of blockheads even in our business, and if it were not for shepherd and frasier, a hundred years hence, they would not think that in our times there were fellows bold enough to get sixpence out of a legal road, or dare to do anything without a quirk of the law to screen them. All his auditors were wonderfully pleased with such discourses as these, and when the liquor had a little warmed them, would each in their turn tell a multitude of stories they had heard of the boldness, cunning, and dexterity of the thieves who lived before them. In all cases, whatever, evil is much sooner learnt than good, and a night debauch makes a ten times greater impression on the spirits than the most eloquent sermon. Between the liquor and the tales, people begin to form new ideas to themselves of things, and instead of looking on robbery as rapine, and stealing as a villainous method of defrauding another, they on the contrary take the first for a gallant action, and the latter for a dexterous piece of cunning, by either of which they acquire the means of indulging themselves in what best suits their inclinations, without the fatigue of business or the drudgery of hard labour. Reynolds, though a very stupid fellow, soon became a convert to these notions, and lost no time in putting them in execution. For the next night he took from a person who, it seems, knew him and his haunts well enough, a coat and a shilling, which, when he came to be indicted for the fact, he pretended they were given him to prevent his charging the prosecutor with an attempt to commit sodomy. An excuse which of late years is grown as common with the men, as it has long been with the women to pretend money was given them for flogging folks, when they have been brought to the bar for picking it out of their pockets, hoping by this reverberation of ignominy to blacken each other, so that the jury may believe neither. However, in this case, it must be acknowledged that Reynolds went to death with the assertion that he received the coat and the shilling on the before-mentioned account, and that he did not take it by violence, which was the crime whereof he was convicted. He had married a poor woman, who lived in very good reputation both before and after. By her he had three children, and though he had long associated himself with other women, and left her to provide for the poor infants, yet he was extremely offended because she did not send him as much money as he wanted under his confinement, and he could not forbear treating her with very ill language when she came to see him under his misfortunes. As he was a fellow of little parts and no education, so his behaviour under condemnation was confused and unequal, as it is reasonable to suppose it should be, since he had nothing to support his hopes, or to comfort him against those fears of death, which are inseparable from human nature. However, he sometimes showed an inclination to learn somewhat of religion, would listen attentively while Smith was reading, and as well as his gross capacity would give him leave, would pray for mercy and forgiveness. At Chapel he behaved himself decently, if not devoutly, and, being by his misfortunes removed from the company of those who first seduced him into his vices, he began to have some ideas of the use of life when he was going to leave it, and his thoughts had received certain ideas, though very imperfect ones, of death and a future state, when the punishment appointed by law sent him to experience them. He died on the 23rd of August, 1726, being then upwards of 26 years of age.