by Cate Ludlow
Until all these measures had been effectuated, Morgan did not announce his plan to his companions. He proposed nothing less than to attack Panama, that great and opulent city, where he hoped to find accumulated all those heaps of gold and silver which were annually sent, as a tribute, from America to Europe. The difficulties in executing such a plan were apparently innumerable. The chief obstacle was, the great distance of that city from the sea; and not an individual on board the fleet was acquainted with the road that led thither. To remedy this inconvenience, the admiral determined in the first instance to go to the island of St Catherine, where the Spaniards confined their criminals, and thence to provide themselves with guides.
The passage was rapid. Morgan landed in that island one thousand men; who, by threatening to put to death every one that refused to surrender so terrified the Spaniards that they speedily capitulated. It was stipulated that, to save at least the honour of the garrison, there should be a sham fight: in consequence of this, a very sharp fire ensued, from the forts on one side, and from the ships on the other; but on both sides the cannons discharged only powder. Farther, to give a serious appearance to this military comedy, the governor suffered himself to be taken, while attempting to pass from fort Jerome to another fort. Hence followed an apparent disorder. At the beginning, the crafty Morgan did not rely too implicitly on this feint; and to provide for every event, he secretly ordered his soldiers to load their fusees with bullets, but to discharge them in the air, unless they perceived some treachery on the part of the Spaniards. But his enemies adhered most faithfully to their capitulation: and this mock engagement, in which neither party was sparing of powder, was followed for some time with all the circumstances which could give it the semblance of reality. Ten forts surrendered, one after another, after sustaining a kind of siege or assault: and this series of successes did not cost the life of a single man, or even a scratch, on the part of the victors or of the conquered.
All the inhabitants of the island were shut up in the great fort of Santa Teresa, which was built on a steep rock: and the conquerors, who had not taken any sustenance for twenty-four hours, declared a most furious war against the horned cattle and game of the district.
In the Isle of St Constantine, he found four hundred and fifty-nine persons of both sexes; one hundred and ninety of whom were soldiers, forty-two criminals, eighty-five children, and six-six negroes. There were ten forts, containing sixty-eight cannons, and which were so defended in other respects by nature, that very small garrisons were deemed amply sufficient to protect them. Beside an immense quantity of fusees and grenades (which were at that time much used), upwards of three hundred quintals of gunpowder were found in the arsenal. The whole of this ammunition was carried on board the pirates’ ships: the cannon, which could be of no service to them, were spiked; their carriages were burnt; and all the forts demolished excepting one, which the free-booters themselves garrisoned. Morgan selected three of the criminals to serve him as guides to Panama; and whom he afterwards, on his return to Jamaica, set at liberty; even giving them a share in the booty.
The plan, conceived by this intrepid chieftain, inspired all his companions in arms with genuine enthusiasm: it had a character of grandeur and audacity that enflamed their courage; how capable they were of executing it, the subsequent pages will demonstrate.
Resurrection Of A Highwayman
Patrick O’Brian, a native of Ireland, after committing a series of atrocities, was at length apprehended and executed at Gloucester for highway robbery; and when he had hung the usual time, his body was cut down, and given to his friends; but when carried home he was observed to move, on which a surgeon was immediately sent for, who bled him, and other means being used, he recovered life. This fact was kept a secret, and it was hoped that it would have a salutary effect upon his future conduct. His friends were very willing to contribute towards his support, in order that he might live in the most retired manner. He engaged to reform his life, and for some time kept his promise; but the impressions of death, and all the tremendous consequences, soon wearing off his mind, he returned to his vicious courses. Abandoning his friends, and purchasing a horse and other necessaries, he again visited the road.
In about a year after his execution, he met the same gentleman who was his former prosecutor, attacked him in the same manner as before. The gentleman was surprised to see himself stopped by the same person who had formerly robbed him, and who was executed for that crime. His consternation was so great, that he could not avoid acknowledging it, and asked him, ‘How comes it to pass? I thought you had been hanged a twelvemonth ago.’ ‘So I was, and therefore you ought to imagine that what you now see is only my ghost. However, lest you shall be so uncivil as to hang my ghost too, I think it my best way to secure you.’ Upon this he discharged a pistol through the gentleman’s head, and alighting from his horse, cut his body in pieces with his hanger.
One barbarity was followed by a greater. O’Brian, accompanied by another four, attacked the house of Launcelot Wilmot, Esquire, of Wiltshire; entered and bound all the servants, then went up to the gentleman’s own room, and bound him and his wife. They next proceeded to the daughter’s chamber; used her in a brutal manner, and stabbed her to the heart. They then returned – in the same manner, butchered the old people, and rifled the houses to the value of two thousand five hundred pounds.
This miscreant continued his depredations two years longer, until one of his accomplices confessed his crime, and informed upon all who were concerned. Our adventurer was seized at his lodgings in Little Suffolk Street, and conveyed to Salisbury, where he acknowledged his crime. He was a second time executed, and, to prevent a second resurrection, he was hung in chains near the place where the crime was perpetrated.
Pressing To Death
The horrid punishment of pressing to death, which the English law imposes on persons standing mute when put on their trial, was frequently inflicted in former times, and some instances of it are even to be met with, of as late a date as the reign of George II.
At the Kilkenny assizes, in 1740, one Matthew Ryan was tried for highway robbery. When he was apprehended, he pretended to be a lunatic, stripped himself in the gaol, threw away his clothes, and could not be prevailed upon to put them on again, but went as he was to the court to take his trial. He then affected to be dumb, and would not plead; on which the judges ordered a jury to be impanelled, to inquire and give their opinion, whether he was mute and lunatic by the hand of God or wilfully so. The jury returned in a short time, and brought in a verdict of ‘Wilful and affected dumbness and lunacy.’ The judges on this desired the prisoner to plead; but he still pretended to be insensible to all that was said to him. The law now called for the peine forte et dure; but the judges compassionately deferred awarding it until a future day, in the hope that he might in the meantime acquire a juster sense of his situation. When again brought up however, the criminal persisted in his refusal to plead; and the court at last pronounced the dreadful sentence, that he should be pressed to death. This sentence was accordingly executed upon him two days after, in the public market of Kilkenny. As the weights were heaping on the wretched man, he earnestly supplicated to be hanged; but it being beyond the power of the sheriff to deviate from the mode of punishment prescribed in the sentence, even this was an indulgence which could no longer be granted to him.
In England, the latest instance (we believe) of a similar kind occurred in a case where Baron Thompson presided as judge. It is an odious and revolting mode of satisfying public justice; yet it is only a necessary adjunct to that fondness of capital punishments which pervades, and is a stain to the whole of the English penal code.
Confessions Of A Highwayman
Henry Simms was tried and executed for a highway robbery in 1745, after conviction he gave the following account of his exploits:
‘I will begin,’ says he, ‘with my nativity. I was born in the parish of St Martin in the Fields, in the county of Middlesex, and should be thir
ty-one years of age, were I to live until next October; my parents who were honest people, died when I was an infant, and after their deaths, I was taken into the care of my grandmother, who lived in St James’s parish, Westminster, who was the wife of a commissioned officer in his late majesty’s land forces, and is still living, and receives a widow’s pension from the crown.
This good old woman, when I was but six years of age, put me to school to one of her own religion, she being a Dissenter; but not approving of his way of teaching, she took me from him, and sent me to an academy in Charles-street, St James’s, where I learnt arithmetic throughout, and some French and Latin; but frequently playing truant, I often ran into vice, before I was nine years of age, and frequently laid out nights, with other boys as wicked as myself; for which ill practices my grandmother used to correct me severely.
The first fact I ever committed was before I was ten years old. My Grandmother went to pay a visit to a Dissenting minister, at one Mr Palmer’s, a soap-boiler, in Crown-court, St Anne’s, and while she was in company with him, I got to the shop till, and took out about twenty shillings in silver, but was detected, and got a severe beating.
I frequently used to pick my grandmother’s pocket of two or three shillings, which she seldom missed; or if she did suspect me, or challenge me with it, I had always something to say to prove me innocent. By my laying out of nights I soon got into bad company; and they led me to the worst of houses, particularly the Two-Penny Runs in St Giles’s parish. This company persuaded me to rob my grandmother; and one morning, I opened a large chest in her house, and took away about £17 in gold and silver, and my best clothes, all which I carried to my new companions, and distributed the money very liberally amongst them, for which they greatly caressed me, made me drunk, and carried me to their house (as they called it) in Church-lane, St Giles’s, where they put me to bed, and as soon as I was asleep, they stript me stark naked, leaving me alone; and when I awaked in the morning, I found they had left me nothing but rags to cover my nakedness.
What could I do, I could not tell, for it was impossible for me to go home to my grandmother’s; at last I proposed to go to the Two-Penny Run in Vine-street, to enquire after my companions, but could hear nothing of them. The landlord took compassion on me, and gave me some victuals, and went to my grandmother’s, to let her know where I was. The old gentlewoman came crying, ready to break her heart, and after being a little composed, she asked me what I had done with her money, and how I had disposed of my clothes? I told her several impudent lies, and seemed sorrowful for my fault, though I slily laughed in my sleeve to think I had bit the old woman. The landlord was more ingenuous than I was, and told her who had brought me thither. The names of my hopeful companions were Wry-neck Jack, George Monk, Nunkey Watson, and several more, all pilfering thieves, and petty pickpockets.
None of these gentry could be found; so the old gentlewoman took me with her, and caused me to be chained to the kitchen grate, with an iron chain and a padlock she had brought for that purpose; in which confinement I was continued for three months all day long, but was indulged with a bed in the night time, and a strict watch kept on me.
On my promise of amendment I got released, and more new clothes were bought me, which, when I got, I went to my old haunts, and this being the time of Tottenham-court fair, I went thither, and saw my companions tossing up for money. They soon recollected me, and were glad to see me, so I went with them to a music booth, where they made me almost drunk with gin, and began to talk their flash language, which I did not then understand.
Night coming on, and I wanting to go to sleep, they took me to a brick-kiln in Tottenham Court Road, and the kiln being burning, they broiled some meat, and made me eat part of it.
We had not been there long, before several women came to us, who were all very ragged; they brought with them a keg of gin, which they had stolen, and began to sing their flash songs, and I was as merry as the best of them.
The women were very fond of me, and being drunk, I began to swear, which pleased them wonderfully. One of them took a silk handkerchief out of her pocket, and taking off my stock, in which was a silver buckle, she put her handkerchief about my neck, and then unbuckled my shoes, and unbuttoned the knees of my breeches, and tied my garters below knee, telling me that was the way the Bowman boys wore them.
As soon as my companions found me asleep, they stript me of all my clothes, and everything else, except my shirt, and on their taking leave, threw some water over me, for when I awaked I found myself very wet, and almost perished with cold. I began to cry and lament sadly, when two or three women came up, and offered me their service to go and find out the people who had robbed me; and carried me to a place where they sift cinders, and got two old shoes, which I put on, and was going with them towards Tottenham-court Fair; but in the long field I saw my grandmother’s man come running after me, upon some intelligence the old woman received where I was. On his seizing me the women ran away.
Being now at home with my grandmother, I behaved pretty well for some time; and she proposed to put me apprentice to a breeches-maker, one of her religion, and a very honest man. To him I was bound, but being lazy, wicked, and unruly, he beat me heartily, so I ran away from him in less than three weeks.
I went home to my grandmother, and taking an opportunity of her being abroad, I took all my best clothes, went to Rag-fair, and sold them, and spent the money among my old companions.
My grandmother finding I was not to be reclaimed, removed from her own house to lady St-nh-pe’s, where she continued while her ladyship was in the country; and thither I went one night, and because I could not directly get admittance one night I broke a great many windows, and the old woman was at last obliged to let me in. There lived a silversmith next door, and one day, whilst the workmen were gone to dinner, I got over the wall, and stole a silver candlestick, and a stand for a tea-kettle, which I carried off, with all the lady’s housekeeper’s linen; and went directly to Mary-le-bone Park, to a barn, which my companions and I harboured in, where I found Jack Sutton, Jack Skinner, and two or three women, and to them I produced my booty; at the sight of which they seemed greatly rejoiced, and told me they were sure I should turn out a very promising young fellow. We sold the things in Peter-street, Soho, and had £9 for the plate and linen.
The plate being missed, my grandmother and several neighbours were after me, and I was seized in Paradise Row, Tyburn-road, and brought home, and threatened with justice; I confessed where the plate and the linen was sold, but the woman was gone, and could not be heard of, so they were never recovered. This affair was made up by means of lady St-nh-pe; but my grandmother for ever after excluded me that house; so I went to my old companions at Mary-le-bone, and concluded that night to rob any one we met; which we did, and picked up some small sums.
About a fortnight after I was taken up on suspicion of being concerned with them in divers robberies; and was committed to Newgate; but there being no proof against me, I was cleared at the sessions: my grandmother was so kind as to get me out of gaol and take me home, where I continued not long before I broke out again, and got acquainted with one Henry Chamberlain; who used to write incendiary letters; and he persuaded me to write a threatening letter to Mr Dawson in the Mint in the Tower, which I did, and demanded five guineas.
For this piece of villany, I was apprehended, and sent to the Tower gaol; but disguising my hand, and saying a man gave me a shilling to carry the letter, after three days confinement, and several examinations before the governor of the Tower, I was discharged.
My next acquaintance was with two brothers, named Toon, and one James Mahony, and we committed several robberies together: they were taken up and transported, but I had the good luck to escape; though their fate gave me some uneasiness; and I thought of relinquishing all vice, and told my grandmother my intention; and she promised if I would keep my word, she would love me more tenderly than ever; and on my faithful promise to do so, she took me home again; and I
tarried with about four months; and did nothing but divert myself at duck-hunting and bear-baiting, where I got acquainted with thieves from all quarters of the town, who soon perverted me from my good resolutions.
Being one day washing in Mary-le-bone Basin, I perceived an elderly gentleman walking through the park, and up a bye-place, called the Bear-gardens, and following him, met with Jack Robinson, and Joe S-------------e, and we agreed to rob him, and accordingly knocked him down, and took his silver watch, a gold ring, and about forty shillings in silver, tied him, and flung him into a ditch, left him, then made off, and divided the booty between us.
Abundance of my acquaintance being either transported or hanged, I began to think of another course of life, and being recommended to the late Mr Blunt, he hired me as a postillion. This business made me acquainted with almost all the roads in England; so that no one was ever better qualified for a highwayman than myself; and having a good share of impudence, I thought the highway would make me a gentleman at once; however, I deferred this dangerous undertaking for some time. After Mr Blunt’s death, I served Mr Tatloe, who succeeded him; I was hired as a postillion to a noble duke, where I remained but a short time.
