The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous. Volume 1

"Too young!" echoes he addressed as Grimstock. "'Twas bred in the bone in him, the varmint, and the Gallows Fever will come out in the flesh. Too young! he was weaned on rue, and rode between his Father's legs (that swung) i' the cart to Tyburn, and never sailed a cockboat but in Execution Dock. My tobacco-box to a tester an' he dance not on nothing if he comes to holding up his hand before Judge Blackcap, that never spared but one in the Calendar, and then 'twas by Mistake."

These were not very comfortable news for me, poor manacled wretch; and with a great bayonet-wound in my side to boot, that had been but clumsily dressed by a village Leech, who was, I suspect, a Farrier and Cow Doctor as well. But I have always found, in this life's whirligig, that when your Case is at the worst (unless a Man indeed Dies, when there is nothing more to be done), it is pretty sure to mend, if you lie quiet and let things take their chance. I could not be much worse off than I was, wounded and friendless, and a captive; and so I held my tongue, and let them use me as they would. Some scant comfort was it, however, to find, when the battle-field was gone over, that, besides the Grenadier whose crown I had cracked, another had been pistolled by Jowler, and and lay mortally wounded, and Groaning Dismally. Poor Jowler himself would never pistol Foe more. He was dead; for the Men of War, furious at our desperate Resistance, at the worsting of their fine-feathered officer (who was mumbling of his bruised hand as a down-trodden Hound would its paw, and cursing meanwhile, which Dogs use not to do), and driven to Mad Rage by the escape of Captain Night, had fired pell-mell into a Group of which Jowler made one, and so killed him. A bullet through his brain set him clean quit of all indictments under the Black Act, before our Sovereign Lord the King. Likewise was it a matter of rejoicing for our party that, after long seeking the Traitor Coaley, the wretched "Beau" was found duly strangled, and completely a corpse on the staircase. There was something curious about the manner of justice coming to this villain. The Deed had been done with no weapon more Lethal than an old Stocking; yet so tightly was it tied round his false neck, that it had to be cut off piecemeal, and even then the ribs of the worsted were found to be Imbedded, and to have made Furrows in his flesh. Now it is certain that we Blacks had not laid about us with old Wives' hose, any more than we had lunged at our enemies with knitting-needles. There, however, was Monsieur Judas, as dead as a Dolphin two hours on deck. Lord, what an ugly countenance had the losel when they came to wash the charcoal off him! As to who had forestalled the Hangman in his office, no certain testimony could be given. I have always found at Sea, when any doubts arise as to the why and the wherefore of a gentleman's death, that the best way to settle accounts is to fling him overboard; but on dry land your plaguy Dead Body is a sore Stumbling Block, and Impediment, always turning up when it is not Wanted, and bringing other Gentlemen into all kinds of trouble. Crowner's Quest was held on the "Beau;" and I only wonder that they did not bring it in murder against Me. The jury sat a long time without making up their minds, till the Parish constable ordered them in a bowl of Flip, upon which they proceeded to bring in a verdict of Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown. I can scarcely, to this day, bring myself to suspect my pretty maid, that should have married the Pewterer, of such a bold Act, and the rather believe that it was the girl Grip and her Mistress that worked off the Spy and Traitor between them. Not that Mother Drum would have needed any assistance in the mere doing of the thing. She was a Mutton-fisted woman, and as strong in the forearm as a Bridewell correctioner.

Oh, the dreary journey we made that morning to Aylesbury! The Men Blacks were tied back to back, and thrown into such carts as could be pressed into the service from the farmsteads on the skirts of the Chase. One of the constables must needs offer, the Scoundrel, to take horse and go borrow a cartload of fetters from the gaoler at Reading; but he was overruled, and Ropes were thought strong enough to confine us. There was no chance, alas! of any rescue; for those of our comrades who had been fortunate enough through absence to avoid capture, had doubtless by this time scent of the Soldiers, and there was no kicking against those bright Firelocks and Bayonets. Yet had there been another escape. Cicely Grip and Mother Drum were taken, but the pretty maid I loved so for her kindness to me when I was Forlorn had shown a clean pair of heels, and was nowhere to be found. Good luck to her, I thought. Perchance she has met with Captain Night, and they are Safe and Sound by this time, and off to Foreign Parts. For in all this I declare I saw nothing Wrong, and held, in my baby logic, that we Blacks had all been very harshly entreated by the Constables and Redcoats, and that it was a shame to use us so. Mother Drum, the Wench, and my poor wounded Self, were put into one cart together, and through Humanity, a Sergeant (for the Constables would not have done it) bade his men litter down some straw for us to lie upon. There was a ragged Tilt too over the cart; and thinks I, in a Gruesome manner, "The first time you rode on straw under a Tilt, Jack, you were going to school, and now, 'ifegs, you are going to be Hanged." For it was settled on all sides, and even he with the Charitable Countenance came to be of that mind at last, that my fate was to die by the Cord.

"Why," says one, "you've half-brained Corporal Foss with the Demijohn; never did liquor get into a pretty man's head so soon and so deep. They'll stretch your neck for this, my poult, – they will."

The Sergeant interposing, said that perhaps, if interest were made for me, I might be spared an Indictment, and let to go and serve the King as a Drummer till I was old enough to carry a firelock. But at this the soldiers shook their heads; for Captain Poppingjay, their officer, was, it seems, still in a towering rage at having had his fine-lady's hand so wofully mauled by Captain Night, and vowed vengeance against the whole crew of poachers and their whelp, as he must needs be Polite enough to call me.

This Fine Gentleman had been provided with a Horse by the Sheriff, and, as he rode by the cart where I and Drum and the Girl were jogging on, he spies me under the Tilt, and in his cruel manner makes a cut at me with his riding wand, calling me a young spawn of Thievery and Rebellion.

"You coward," I cried in a passion; "you daren't a' done that if my hands were loose, and I hadn't this baggonet-wound in me."

"Shame to hit the boy," growled the charitable Constable, who was on horseback too.

The Soldier-officer turned round quickly to see who had spoken; but the Sergeant, who watched him, pointed with his halbert to the Constable, and he returned the Captain's glance with a sturdy mien. So my Fine Gentleman reins in his beast and lets us pass, eyeing his hand, which was all wrapped up in Bandages, and muttering that it was well none of his own fellows had given him this sauciness.

The day was a dreadful one. How many times our train halted to bait I know not; but this I know, that I fainted often from Agony of my wound and the uneasy motion of my carriage. It is a wonder that I ever came to my journey's end alive, and in all likelihood never should, but for the unceasing care and solicitude of the two poor women who were with me, Prisoners like myself, but full of merciful kindness for one who was in a sorer strait than they. By earnest pleading did Mother Drum persuade the Head Constable – who, the nearer we got to gaol the more authority he took, and the less he seemed to think of our soldier escort – to allow her hands to be unbound that she might minister unto me; and also did she obtain so much grace as for some of the Money belonging unto her, and which had been seized at the Stag o' Tyne, to be spent in buying of a bottle of brandy at one of our halting-places, with which she not only comforted herself and her afflicted Maid, but, mingling it with water, cooled my parched tongue and bathed my forehead.

Brandy was the only medicament this good soul knew; and more lives she averred, had been saved by Right Nantz than lost by bad B. W.; but still brandy was not precisely the kind of physic to give a Patient who before Sundown was in a Raging Fever. But 'twas all one to the Law; and coming at last to my journey's end, we were all, the wounded and the whole, flung into Gaol to answer for it at the 'Sizes.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

I AM VERY NEAR BEING HANGED

Our prison was surely the most loathsome hole that Human beings were ever immured in. It was a Horrible and Shameful Place, conspicuous for such even in those days, when every prison was a place of Horror and Shame. 'Twas one of the King's Prisons, – one of His Majesty's Gaols, – the county had nothing to do with it; and the Keeper thereof was a Woman. Say a Tigress rather; but Mrs. Macphilader wore a hoop and lappets and gold ear-rings, and was dubbed "Madam" by her Underlings. Here you might at any time have seen poor Wretches chained to the floor of reeking dungeons, their arms, legs, necks even, laden with irons, themselves abused, beaten, jeered at, drenched with pailfuls of foul water, and more than three-quarter starved, merely for not being able to pay Garnish to the Gaoleress, or comply with other her exorbitant demands. Fetters, indeed, were common and Fashionable Wear in the Gaol. 'Twas pleaded that the walls of the prison were so rotten through age, and the means of guarding the prisoners – for they could not be always calling in the Grenadiers – so limited, that they must needs put the poor creatures in the bilboes, or run the chance of their escaping every day in the week. Thus it came to pass, even, that they were tried in Fetters, and sometimes could not hold up their hands (weakened besides by the Gaol Distemper), at the bidding of the Clerk of the Arraigns, for the weight of the Manacles that were upon them. And it is to the famous and admirable Mr. John Howard that we owe the putting down of this last Abomination.

We lay so long in this dreadful place before a Gaol Delivery was made, that my wound, bad as it was, had ample time to heal, leaving only a great indented cicatrix, as though some Giant had forced his finger into my flesh, and of which I shall never be rid. Two more of our gang died of the Gaol Fever before Assize time; one was so fortunate as to break prison, file the irons off his legs, and get clear away; and another (who was always of a Melancholy turn) hanged himself one morning, in a halter made from strips of his blanket knotted together. The rest of us were knocked about by the Turnkeys, or abused by the Gaoleress, Mrs. Macphilader, pretty much as they liked. We were, however, not so badly off as some of the poor prisoners – sheep-stealers, footpads, vagrom men and women, and the like, or even as some of the poor Debtors – many of whom lay here incarcerate years after they had discharged the Demands of their Creditors against them, and only because they could not pay their Fees. We Blacks were always well supplied with money; and money could purchase almost any thing in a prison in those days. Roast meats, and wine and beer and punch, pipes and tobacco, and playing cards and song-books, – all these were to be had by Gentlemen Prisoners; the Gaoleress taking a heavy toll, and making a mighty profit from all these luxurious things. But there was one thing that money could not buy, namely, cleanly lodging; for the State Room, a hole of a place, very meanly furnished, where your great Smugglers or ruffling Highwaymen were sometimes lodged, at a guinea a day for their accommodation, was only so much better from the common room in so far as the prisoner had bed and board to himself; but for nastiness and creeping things – which I wonder, so numerous were they, did not crawl away with the whole prison bodily: but 'tis hard to find those that are unanimous, even vermin. – For all that made the Gaol most thoroughly hateful and dreadful, there was not a pin to choose between the State Room, the Common Side, and the Rat's Larder, Clink, or Dark Dungeon, where the Poor were confined in wantonness, and the Stubborn were kept sometimes for punishment; for Madam Gaoleress had a will of her own, and would brook no incivilities from her Lodgers; so sure is it, that falling out one day on the disputed Question of a bottle of Aquavitæ on which toll had not been paid, she calls one of the Turnkeys and bids him clap Mother Drum into the Stocks (that stood in the Prison Yard) for an hour or two, for the cooling of her temper. But this had just the contrary effect; for the whilom Hostess of the Stag o' Tyne, enraged at the Indignity offered to her, did so bemaul and bewray Madam Macphilader with her tongue, shaking her fist at her meanwhile, that the Gaoleress in a fury clawed at least two handfuls of M. Drum's hair from her head, not without getting some smart clapperclawing in the face; whereupon she cries out "Murther" and "Mutiny" and "Prisonrupt," and sends post-haste for Justice Palmworm, her gossip indeed, and one of those trading magistrates that so disgraced our bench before Mr. Henry Fielding the writer stirred up Authority to put some order therein. The Justice comes; and he and the Gaoleress, after cracking a bottle of mulled port between them, poor Mother Drum was brought up before his Worship for mutinous conduct. The Justice would willingly have compounded the case, for Lucre was his only love; but 'twas vengeance the Gaoleress hankered after; and the end of it was that poor Mother Drum was triced up at the post that was by the Stocks, and had a dozen and a half from a cat with indeed but three tails, but that, I warrant, hurt pretty nigh as sharply as nine would have done in weaker hands; for 'twas the Gaoleress that played the Beadle and laid on the Scourge.

At length, when I was quite tired out, and, knowing nothing of the course of Law, began to think that we were doomed to perpetual Imprisonment, His Majesty's Judges of Assize came upon their circuit, and those whom the Fever and Want and the Duresse of their Keeper had spared were put upon their trial. By this time I was thought well enough, though as gaunt as a Hound, to be put in the same Gaol-bird's trim as my companions; so a pair of Woman's fetters – ay, my friends, the women wore fetters in those days – were put upon me; and the whole of us, all shackled as we were, found ourselves, one fine Monday morning, in the Dock, having been driven thereinto very much after the fashion of a flock of sheep. The Court was crowded, for the case against the Blacks had made a prodigious stir; and the King's Attorney, the most furious Person for talking a Fellow-creature's Life away that ever I remember to have seen or heard, came down especially from London to prosecute us. Neither he nor His Lordship the Judge, in his charge to the Grand Jury, had any but the worst of words to give us; and folks began to say that this would be another Bloody Assize; that the Shire Hall had need to be hung with scarlet, as when Jeffreys was on the bench; and that as short work would be made of us as of the Rebels in the West. And I did not much care, for I was sick of lying in hold, amidst Evil Odours, and with a green wound. It came even to whispering that one of us at least would be made a Gibbeting-in-chains example for killing the Grenadier, if that Act could be fixed on any particular Black. And half in jest, half in earnest, the Woman-Keeper told me on the morning of the Assizes that, young as I was (not yet twelve years of age), my bones might rattle in a birdcage in the midst of Charlwood Chase; for if I could brain one Grenadier, I could kill another. But yet, being so weary of the Life, I did not much Care.

It was still somewhat of a Relief to me to come into the Dock, and look upon State and Rich Clothes (in which I have always taken a Gentleman-like pleasure), in the stead of all the dirt and squalor which for so long had been my surrounding. There were the Judges all ranged, a Terrible show, in their brave Scarlet Robes and Fur Tippets, with great monstrous Wigs, and the King's Arms behind them under a Canopy, done in Carver's work, gilt. They frowned on us dreadfully when we came trooping into the Dock, bringing all manner of Deadly pestilential Fumes with us from the Gaol yonder, and which not all the rue, rosemary, and marjoram strewn on the Dock-ledge, nor the hot vinegar sprinkled about the Court, could mitigate. The middle Judge, who was old, and had a split lip and a fang protruding from it, shook his head at me, and put on such an Awful face, that for a moment my scared thoughts went back to the Clergyman at St. George's, Hanover Square, that was wont to be so angry with me in his Sermons. Ah, how different was the lamentable Hole in the which I now found myself cheek by jowl with Felons and Caravats, to the great red-baize Pew in which I had sat so often a Little Gentleman! He to the right of the middle Judge was a very sleepy gentleman, and scarcely ever woke up during the proceedings, save once towards one of the clock, when he turned to his Lordship (whom I had at once set down as Mr. Justice Blackcap, and was in truth that Dread Functionary), saying, "Brother, is it dinner-time?" But his Lordship to the left, who had an old white face like a sheep, and his wig all awry, was of a more placable demeanour, and looked at me, poor luckless Outcast, with some interest. I saw him turn his head and whisper to the gentleman they told me was the High Sheriff, and who sat on the Bench alongside the Judges, very fine, in a robe and gold chain, and with a great sheathed sword behind him, resting on a silver goblet. Then the High Sheriff took to reading over the Calendar, and shrugged his shoulders, whereupon I indulged in some Hope. Then he leans over to Mr. Clerk of the Arraigns, pointing me out, and seemingly asking him some question about me; but that gentleman hands him up a couple of parchments, and my quick Ear (for the Court was but small) caught the words, "There are two Indictments against him, Sir John." Whereupon they looked at me no more, save with a Stern and Sorrowful Gravity; and the Hope I had nourished for a moment departed from me. Yet then, as afterwards, and as now, I found (although then too babyish to reason about it), that, bad as we say the World is, it is difficult to come upon Three Men together in it but that one is Good and Merciful.

I feel that my disclaimer notwithstanding the Bark of my Narrative is running down the stream of a Garrulous talkativeness; but I shall be more brief anon. And what would you have? If there be any circumstances which should entitle a man to give chapter and verse, they must surely be those under which he was Tried for his Life.

The first day we only held up our hands, and heard the Indictment against us read. Some of us who were Moneyed had retained Counsellors from London to cross-question the witnesses; for to speak to the Jury in aid of Prisoners, who could not often speak for themselves, the Gentlemen of the Law were not then permitted. And this I have ever held to be a crying Injustice. There was no one, however, not so much as a Pettifogger, to lift tongue, or pen, or finger, to save little Jack Dangerous from the Rope. My Protector, Captain Night, was at large; Jowler, my first friend among the Blacks, was dead; and, as Misery is apt to make men Selfish, the rest of my companions had entirely forgotten how friendless and deserted I was. But, just as we were going back to Gaol, up comes to the spikes of the Dock a gentleman with a red face, and a vast bushy powdered wig, like a cauliflower in curls. He wore a silk cassock and sash, and was the Ordinary; but he had forgotten, I think, to come into the Prison and read prayers to us. He kept those ministrations against such time as the Cart was ready, and the Tree decked with its hempen garland. This gentlemen beckons me, and asks if I have any Counsellor. I told him, No; and that I had no Friends ayont Mother Drum, and she was laid up, sick of a pair of sore shoulders. He goes back to the Bench and confers with the Gentlemen, and by and by the Clerk of the Arraigns calls out that, through the Humanity of the Sheriff, the prisoner John Dangerous was to have Counsel Assigned to him. But it would have been more Humane, I think, to have let the Court and the World know that I was a poor neglected Castaway, knowing scarcely my right Hand from my left, and that all I had done had been in that Blindfoldedness of Ignorance which can scarcely, I trust, be called Sin.

Back, however, we went to Gaol, and a great Rout there was made that night by Mrs. Macphilader for the payment of all arrears of Fees and Garnish to her; for, you see, being a prudent Woman, she feared lest some of the prisoners should be Acquitted, or Discharged on proclamation. And our Gang of Blacks, for whose aid their friends in ambush – and they had friends in all kinds of holes and corners, as I afterwards discovered to my surprise – had mostly bountifully come forward, did not trouble themselves much about the peril they were in, but bestowed themselves of making a Roaring Night. And hindered by none in Authority, – for the Gaolers and Turnkeys in those days were not above drinking, and smoking, and singing, and dicing with their charges, – they did keep it up so merrily and so roaringly, that the best part of the night was spent before drowsiness came over Aylesbury Gaol.

Then the next day to Court, and there the Judges as before, and Sir John the High Sheriff, and the Counsel for the Crown and for us, and twelve honest gentlemen in a box by themselves, that were of the Petty Jury, to try us; and, I am ashamed to say, a great store of Ladies, all in ribbons and patches and laces and fine clothes, that sate some on the Bench beside the Judges, and others in the body of the Court among the Counsel, and stared at us miserable objects in the Dock as though we had been a Galantee Show. It is some years now since I have entered a Court of Criminal Justice, and I do hope that this Indecent and Uncivil Behaviour of well-bred Women coming to gaze on Criminals for their diversion has utterly given way before the Benevolence and good taste of a polite Age.

When, at the last, I was told to plead, and at the bidding of an Officer of the Court, who stood underneath me, had pleaded Not Guilty, and had been asked how I would be tried, and had answered, likewise at his bidding, "By God and my Country," and when after that the Clerk of the Arraigns had prayed Heaven – and I am sure I needed it, and thanked him heartily at the time, kind Gentleman, thinking that he meant it, and not knowing that it was a mere Legal Form – to send me a good Deliverance, – the Judge bids me, to my great surprise, to Stand By. I thought at first that they were going to have Mercy on me, and would have down on my knees in gratitude to them. But it was not so; and the sleepy old Judge, suddenly waking up, told me that there were two Indictments against me, and that I should have the honour of being tried separately. Goodness save us! I was looked upon as one of the most desperate of the Gang, and was to be tried, not only under the Black Act, but that, not having the fear of God before my eyes, but being moved by the instigation of the Devil, I had, against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, attempted feloniously to kill, slay, and murder one John Foss, a Corporal in his Majesty's Regiment of Grenadier Footguards, by striking him, the said John Foss, over the back, breast, hips, loins, shoulders, thighs, legs, feet, arms, and fingers, with a certain deadly and lethal weapon, to wit, with a demijohn of Brandy.

I was put back and kept all day in the prison. At evening came in my comrades, and from them I learnt that the case had gone dead against them from the beginning, that the Jury had found them guilty under the Statute without leaving the box; and that, as the felony was one without the benefit of Clergy, Judge Blackcap had put on a wig as black as his name, and sentenced every man Jack of them to be hanged on the Monday week next following.

So then it came to my turn to be tried. The ordeal on the first Indictment was very short; for, at the Judge's bidding, the Jury acquitted me of trying to murder Corporal Foss before I had been ten minutes in the dock. I did not understand the proceedings in the least at that time; but I was told afterwards that the clever legal gentleman who had drawn up the Indictment against me, while very particularly setting down the parts of the body on which I might have struck Corporal Foss, omitted to specify the one place, namely, his head, on which I did hit him. Counsel for the Crown endeavoured, indeed, to prove that a splinter from the broken demijohn had grazed the corporal's finger, but the evidence for this fell dead. And, again, it coming out that I was arraigned as John Danger, whereas I had given the name of John Dangerous, to which I had perhaps no more right than to that of the Pope of Rome, the Judge roundly tells the Jury that the Indictment is bad in law, and I was forthwith acquitted as aforesaid.

But I was not scot-free. There was that other Indictment under the Black Act; and in that, alas, there was no flaw. The Solemn Court freed itself, to be sure, of the Mockery of finding a child under twelve years Guilty of the attempted murder of a Grenadier six feet high; but no less did the witnesses swear, and the Judge sum up, and Counsel for the Crown insist, and my Counsel feebly deny, and the Jury at last fatally find against me, that I had gone about armed and Disguised by night, and wandered up and down in the King's Forests, and stolen his Deer, and Goodness can tell what besides; and so, being found guilty, the middle Judge puts on his black cap again, and tells me that I am to be hanged on Monday week by the neck.

He did not say any thing about my youth, or about my utter loneliness, or about the evil examples which had brought me to this Pass. Perhaps it was not his Duty, but that of the Ordinary, to tell me so. The Hanging was his department, the praying belonged to his Reverence. They led me back to prison, feeling rather hot and sick after the words I had listened to about being "hanged by the neck until I was dead," but still not caring much; for I could not rightly understand why all these fine gentlemen should be at the pains of Butchering me merely because I had run away from school (being so cruelly entreated by Gnawbit), and, to save myself from starvation, had joined the Blacks.

Being to Die, it seemed for the first time to occur to them that I was not as the rest of the poor souls that were doomed to death, and that it behoved them to treat me rather as a lamb that is doomed for the slaughter than as a great overgrown Bullock to be knocked down by the Butcher's Pole-axe. So they put me away from the rest of my companions, and bestowed me in a sorry little chamber, where I had a truckle-bed to myself. Dear old Mother Drum, being still under disgrace, was not suffered to come near me. Her trial, with that of Cicely Grip, for harbouring armed and disguised men, under the Black Act, which was likewise a felony, was not to come on till the next session. I believe that the Great Gentlemen at Whitehall were, for a long time after my conviction, in a mind for Hanging me. 'Twas thought a small matter then to stretch the neck of a Boy of Twelve, and children even smaller than I had worn the white Nightcap, and smelt the Nosegay in the Cart. Indeed, I think the Ordinary wanted me to be Finished according to Law, that he might preach a Sermon on it, and liken me to one of the Children that mocked the Prophet, and was so eaten up by the She-Bears that came out of a Wood. When I think on the Reverend and Pious Persons who now attend our Criminals in their last unhappy Moments, and strive to bring them to a Sense of their Sins, it gives me the Goose-flesh to remember the Profane and Riotous Parsons who, for a Mean Stipend, did the contemned work of Gaol Chaplains in the days I speak of. Even while the Hangman was getting into proper Trim, and fashioning his tools for the slaughter, these callous Clergymen would be smoking and drinking with the keepers in the Lodge, talking now of a Main at Cocks and now of him who was to suffer on the Morrow, fleering and jesting, with the Church Service in one sleeve of their cassock and a Bottle Screw or a Pack of Cards in the other. And the Condemned persons, too, did not take the matter in a much more serious light. They had their Brandy and Tobacco even in their Dismal Hold, and thought much less of Mercy and Forgiveness than of the ease they would have from their Irons being stricken off, or the comfort they would gain from a last bellyful of Meat. I have not come to be sixty-eight years of age without observing somewhat of the Things that have passed around me; and one of the best signs of the Times in which I live (and due in great part to the Humane and Benignant complexion of his Majesty) is the falling off in bloodthirsty and cruel Punishments. If a Dozen or so are hanged after each Gaol Delivery at the Old Baily, and a score or more whipped or burnt in the Hand, what are such workings of justice compared with the Waste of Life that was used to be practised under the two last monarchs? At home 'twas all pressing to death those who would not plead, hanging, drawing, and quartering (how often have I sickened to see the pitch-seethed members of my Fellow-creatures on the spikes of Temple Bar and London Bridge!), taking out the entrails of those convict of Treason (as witness Colonel Towneley, Mr. Dawson, and many more unfortunate gentlemen on Kennington Common), to say nothing of the burning alive of women for petty treason, – and to kill a husband or coin a groat were alike Treasonable, – the Scourging of the same wretched creatures in Public till the blood ran from their shoulders and soaked the knots of the Beadle's lash; the cartings, brandings, and dolorous Imprisonments which were then inflicted for the slightest of offences. Why, I have seen a man stand in the Pillory in the Seven Dials (to be certain, he was a secure scoundrel), and the Mob, not satisfied, must take him out, strip him to the buff, stone him, cast him down, root up the pillory, and trample him under foot, till, being Rescued by the constables, he has been taken back to Newgate, and has died in the Hackney Coach conveying him thither. Oh, 'tis woe to think of the Horrors that were then done in the name of the Law and Justice, not only in this country but in Foreign Parts, – with their Breakings on the Wheel, Questions Ordinary and Extraordinary, Bastinadoes, Carcans, Wooden horses, Burning alive too (for vending of Irreligious Books), and the like Barbarities. Let me tell you likewise, that, for all the evil name gotten by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, – for which I entertain, as a Protestant, due Detestation and Abhorrence, – the darkest deeds ever done by the so called Holy Office in their Torture Chambers were not half so cruel as those performed with the full cognisance and approbation of authority, in open places, and in pursuance of the sentence of the Civil Judges. But a term has come to these wickednesses. The admirable Mr. Howard before named (whom I have often met in my travels, as he, good man, with nothing but a Biscuit and a few Raisins in his pocket, went up and down Europe Doing Good, smiling at Fever and tapping Pestilence on the cheek), – this Blessed Worthy has lightened the captive's fetters, and cleansed his dungeon, and given him Light and Air. Then I hear at the Coffee House that the great Judge, Sir William Blackstone, has given his caveat against the Frequency of Capital Punishment for small offences; and as His Majesty is notoriously averse from signing more than six Death Warrants at once (the old King used to say at council, in his German English, "Vere is de Dyin' speech man dat hang de Rogue for me?" meaning the Recorder with his Report, and seeming, in a sort, eager to despatch that awful Business, of which the present Prince is so Tender), I think that we have every cause to Bless the Times and Reign we live in. For surely 'tis but affected Softness of Heart, and Mock, Sickly Sentiment, to maintain that Highwaymen, Horse-stealers, and other hardened villains, do not deserve the Tree, and do not righteously Suffer for their misdeeds; or that wanton women do not deserve bodily correction, so long as it be done within Bridewell Walls, and not in front of the Sessions House, for the ribald Populace to stare at. Truly our present code is a merciful one, although I do not hold that the Extreme Penalty of the law should be exacted for such offences as cutting down growing trees, forging hat-stamps, or stealing above the value of a Shilling, or even of forty; nevertheless crime must be kept under, that is certain.[14 - Captain Dangerous, it will be seen, was, in regard to our criminal code, somewhat in advance of the ideas of his age, but he was scarcely on a level with those of our own, and, I think, would have perused with some surprise the speeches of Mr. Ewart and the Vacation Thoughts on Capital Punishments of the late Mr. Commissioner Phillips. – Ed.]

At all events, they didn't hang John Dangerous. For a time, as I have said, the Great Gentlemen at Whitehall hesitated. I have heard that Justice Blackcap, being asked to intercede for me, did, with a scurril jest, tell Mr. Secretary that I was a young Imp of the Evil One, and that a little Hanging would do me no harm. Five, indeed, of my miserable companions were put to death, at different points on the borders of Charlwood Chase, and one, the unlucky Chaplain, met his fate before the door of the Stag o' Tyne. The rest of the Blacks, of whom, to my joy, I shall have no further occasion to speak, were sent to be Slaves in the American Plantations.

I had lain in Gaol more than a month after my Sentence, when Mr. Shapcott, a good Quaker Gentleman of the place (who had suffered much for Conscience' sake, and was very Pitifully inclined to all those who were in Affliction), began to take some interest in my unhappy Self; calling me a strayed Lamb, a brand to be snatched from the burning, and the like. And he, by the humane connivance of the Mayor and other Justices, was now permitted to have access unto me, and to conciliate the Keeper, Mrs. Macphilader, by money-presents, to treat me with some kindness. Also he brought me many Good Books, in thin paper covers; the which, although I could understand but very little of their Saving Truths, yet caused me to shed many Tears, more Sweet than Bitter, and to acknowledge, when taxed with it in a Soothing way, that my former Manner of Life had been most Wicked. But I should do this good man foul injustice, were I to let it stand that his benevolence to me was confined to books. He and (ever remembered) Mistress Shapcott, his Meek and Pious Partner, and his daughter, Wingrace Shapcott (a tall and straight young woman, as Beautiful as an Angel), were continually bringing me Comforts and Needments, both in Raiment and Food. It churns my Old Heart now to think of that Beautiful Girl, sitting beside me in my dank Prison Room, the tears streaming from her mild eyes, calling me by Endearing names, and ever and anon taking my hand in hers, and sinking on her knees to the sodden floor (with no thought of soiling her kirtle), while with profound Fervour she prayed for the conversion of errant Me. Sure there are Hearts of Gold among those Broadbrims and their fair strait-laced Daughters. Many a Merchant's Money-bags I have spared for the sake of Mr. Barzillai Shapcott (late of Aylesbury). Many a Fair Woman have I intermitted from my Furious Will in remembrance of the good that was shown me, in the old time, by that pale, strait-gowned Wingrace yonder, with her meek Face and welling Eyes. Of my deep and grievous Sins they told me enow, but they forbore to Terrify me with Frightful Images of Unforgiving Wrath; speaking to me of Forgiveness alway, rather than of Torment. And once, when I had gotten, through favour of the Keeper, Mr. Dredlincourt his book on Death (and had half frightened myself into fits by reading the Apparition of Mrs. Veal), these good people must needs take it from me, telling me that such strong meat was not fit for Babes, and gave me in its place a pretty little chap-book, called "Joy for Friendly Friends." But that I am old and battered, and black as a Guinea Negro with sins, I would go join the Quakers now. Never mind their broad-brims, and theeing and thouing. I tell you, man, that they have hearts as soft as toast-and-butter, and that they do more good in a day than my Lord Bishop (with his coach-horses, forsooth!) does in a year. And oh, the pleasure of devalising one of these Proud Prelates, as I – that is some of my Friends – have done scores of times!

Nothing would suit the good Shapcotts but that I should write in mine own hand a Petition to the King's Majesty. The Magistrates, who now began to take some interest in me, were for having it drawn up by their Town Clerk, and me only to put my Mark to it; for they would not give a poor little Hangdog of a Black any credit of Clergy. But being told that I could both read and write, after a Fashion, it was agreed that I was to have myself the scrivening of the Document; they giving me some Forms and Hints for beginning and ending, and bidding me con my Bible, and choose such texts as I thought bore on my Unhappy Condition. And after Great Endeavours and many painful days, and calling all my little Scholarship under my Grandmother, the kind old schoolmistress of Foubert's Passage, Gnawbit (burn him!), and Captain Night, I succeeded in producing the following. I give it word for word as I wrote it, having kept a copy; but I need not say that, as a Gentleman of Fortune, my Style and Spelling are not now so Barbarous and Uncouth.

This was my Petition to His Majesty:

"The Humble Pettyshon of Jon Dangerous now a prisinner under centense off Deth in His Maggesty's Gayle at Alesbury to his Maggesty Gorge by the grease of God King of Grate Briton Frans and Eyearland Deffender off the Fathe Showeth That yore Petetioner which I am Unfortunate enuff to be mixed up in this business Me and the others wich have suffered was Cast by the Jewry and Justis Blackcapp he ses that as a Warming and Eggsample i am to be Hanged by the Nek till you are Ded and the Lord have Mercy upon his Soul Great Sur your Maggesty the Book ses that wen the wicked man turneth away from his Wickedness wich he have committed and doeth that wich is Lawful and Rite he shall save his Sole alive Therefore deer Great Sur wich a repreive would fall like Thunder upon a Contrite Hart and am most sorrowful under the Black Act wich it is true I took the deere but was led to it Deere Sur wich Mungo and others was repreeved at the Tree and sent to the Plantations but am not twelve yeeres old And have always been a Prottestant Great Sur i shall be happy to serve his Maggesty by see or land and if the Grannydeere he had not Vexed me but had no other way being in a Korner and all Fiting and so i up with the demmyjon which i hoap he is better And your Petishioner will ever pray your Maggesty's loving Subject and Servant

    Jon Dangerous.

My Granmother was a Lady of Quality and lived in her own House in Hannover Squair and was used after her Deth very cruelly by one Mistress Tallmash and Kadwallader which was the Stoard and was sent in a Waggin like a Beggar Deere Sur Mr. Gnawbit he used me shameful wich I was Blak and Blue and the Old Gentleman he ses you Run away ses he into Charwood chaise and join the Blaks Deere Sur this is All which Captain Nite would sware but as eloped I am now lying here many weekes Deere Sur I shood like to be hanged in Wite for I am Innocent leastways of meaning to kill the Grannydeere."

This was a Curious kind of Schoolboy letter. Different I take it from those one gets from a Brother, asking for a Crown, a Pony, or a Plumcake. But my Schools had been of the hardest, and this was my Holiday letter.

When the Mayor read it, he burst out a-laughing, and says that no such Thieves' Flash must be sent to the Foot of the Throne. But Mr. Shapcott told him that he would not have one word altered; that he would not even strike out the paragraph where I had been irreverent enough to quote a Text (and spell it badly); and that what I had written, and naught else, should go to the King. He took it to London himself, and his Majesty being much elated by some successes in Germany, and the Discovery of a Jacobite Plot, and moved moreover by the intercession of a Foreign Lady, that was his favourite, and who vowed that the little Deer-Stealer's Petition was Monstrous Droll, and almost as good as a Play, – His Majesty was graciously pleased to remit my Sentence, on condition of my transporting myself for life to His Majesty's Plantations in North America.

As to my transporting "myself," that was a Fiction. I was henceforth as much a Slave to my own Countrymen as I was in after days to the Moors. The Shapcotts would willingly have provided me with the means of going to the uttermost ends of the World, but that was not the way the thing was to be done. Flesh and Blood were bought and sold in those days, and it did not much matter about the colour. By that strange Laxity which then tempered the severity of the Laws, I was permitted, for many days after my Fate was settled, to remain in a kind of semi-Enlargement. I suppose that Mr. Shapcott gave bail for me; but I was taken into his Family, and treated with the most Loving Kindness, till the fearful intelligence came that I, with two hundred other Convicts, had been "Taken up" for Transportation by Sir Basil Hopwood, a rich Merchant and Alderman of London, who paid a certain Sum a head for us to the King's Government for taking us to America, where he might make what profit he pleased, by selling our wretched Carcasses to be Slaves to the Planters.

Oh, the terrible Parting! but there was no other Way, and it had to be Endured. My kind friends made me up a packet of Necessaries for the Voyage, and with a Heavy Heart I bade them farewell. These good people are all Dead; but their woman-servant, Ruth, a pure soul, of great Serenity of Countenance, still lives; and every Christmas does the Carrier convey for me to Aylesbury a Hamper full of the Good Things of this Life, and Ten Golden Guineas. And I know that this Good and Faithful Servant (who has been well provided for) just touches the Kissing-crust of one of the Pies my Lilias has made for her, and that she goes straight with the rest, Money and Cates, to the Gaol, and therewith relieves the Debtors (whom Heaven deliver out of their Captivity!). And it is more seemly that she rather than I should do this thing, seeing that there are those who will not believe that after a Hard Life a man can keep a fleshy heart, and who would be apt to dub me Hypocrite if these Doles came from me directly.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME

notes

1

1780.

2

This Lady Lisle was a very virulent partisan woman, and, according to my Grandmother's showing, was so bitter against the Crown that, being taken, when a young woman, to witness the execution of King Charles, and seeing one who pressed to the scaffold after the blow to dip her kerchief in the Martyr's blood, she cried out "that she needed no such relic; but that she would willingly drink the Tyrant's blood." This is the same Alice Lisle who afterwards, in King James's time, suffered at Winchester for harbouring two of the Western Rebels.

3

Those desirous of learning fuller particulars of my Grandmother's History, or anxious to satisfy themselves that I have not Lied, should consult a book called The Travels of Edward Brown, Esquire, that is now in the Great Library at Montague House. Mr. Brown is in most things curiously exact; but he errs in stating that Mrs. Greenville's name was Letitia, – it was Arabella.

4

The Austrian, not the Prussian Trenck. – Ed.

5

This does not precisely tally with the Captain's disclaimer of feeling any apprehension when passing Execution Dock. – Ed.