CAPTAIN JAMES HIND.
The father of Hind was an industrious saddler, a cheerful companion, and a good Christian. He was a native of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, where James was born. As our hero was his only son, he received a good education, and remained at school until he was fifteen years of age.
He was then sent as an apprentice to a butcher in that place, and continued in that employment during two years. Upon leaving his master’s service, he applied to his mother for money to bear his expenses to London, complaining bitterly of the rough and quarrelsome temper of his master. The complying mother yielded, and, giving him three pounds, she, with a sorrowful heart, took farewell of her beloved son.
Arrived in the capital, he soon contracted a relish for the pleasures of the town. His bottle and a female companion became his principal delight, and occupied the greater part of his time. He was unfortunately detected one evening with a woman of the town who had just robbed a gentleman, and along with her confined until the morning. He was acquitted because no evidence appeared against him, but his fair companion was committed to Newgate.
Captain Hind, soon after this accident, became acquainted with one Allan, a famous highwayman. While partaking of a bottle, their conversation became mutually so agreeable that they consented to unite their fortunes.
Their measures being concerted, they set out in quest of plunder. They fortunately met a gentleman and his servant travelling along the road. Hind being raw and inexperienced, Allan was desirous to have aproof of his courage and address; he, therefore, remained at a distance, while Hind boldly rode up to them and took from them fifteen pounds, at the same time returning one to bear their expenses home. This he did with so much grace and pleasantry, that the gentleman vowed that he would not injure a hair of his head though it were in his power.
About this period, the unfortunate Charles I. suffered death for his political principles. Captain Hind conceived an inveterate enmity to all those who had stained their hands with their sovereign’s blood, and gladly embraced every opportunity to wreak his vengeance upon them. In a short time, Allan and Hind met with the usurper, Oliver Cromwell, riding from Huntingdon to London. They attacked the coach, but Oliver being attended by seven servants. Allan was apprehended, and it was with no small difficulty that Hind made his escape. The unfortunate Allan was soon after tried, and suffered death for his audacity. The only effect which this produced upon Hind was to render him more cautious in his future depredations. He could not, however, think of abandoning a course on which he had just entered, and which promised so many advantages.
The captain had ridden so hard to escape from Cromwell and his train that he killed his horse, and having no money to purchase a substitute, he was under the necessity of trying his fortune upon foot, until he should find means to procure another. It was not long before he espied a horse tied to a hedge with a saddle on and a brace of pistols attached to it. He looked round and observed a gentleman on the other side of the hedge. “This is my horse,” exclaimed the captain, and immediately vaulted into the saddle. The gentleman called out to him that the horse was his. “Sir,” said Hind, “you may think yourself well off that I have left you all the money in your pocket to buy another, which you had best lay out before I meet you again, lest you should be worse used.” So saying, he rode off in search of new booty.
There is another story of Hind’s ingenious method of supplying himself with a horse upon occasion. It appears that, being upon a second extremity reduced to the humble station of a footpad, he hired a sorry nag and proceeded on his journey. He was overtaken by a gentleman mounted on a fine hunter, with a portmanteau behind him. They entered into conversation upon such topics as are common to travellers, and Hind was very eloquent in the praise of the gentleman’s horse, which inclined the other to descant upon the qualifications of the animal. There was upon one side of the road a wall, which the gentleman said his horse would leap over. Hind offered to risk a bottle on it, to which the gentleman agreed, and quickly made his horse leap over. The captain acknowledged that he had lost his wager, but requested the gentleman to let him try if he could do the same; to which he consented, and the captain, being seated in the saddle of his companion, rode off at full speed and left him to return the other miserable animal to its owner.
At another time the captain met the regicide Hugh Peters in Enfield chace, and commanded him to deliver his money. Hugh, who was not deficient in confidence, began to combat Hind with texts of scripture, and to cudgel our bold robber with the eighth commandment: “It is written in the law,” said he, “that ‘Thou shalt not steal:’ and furthermore, Solomon, who was surely a very wise man, spoke in this manner, ‘Rob not the poor, because he is poor.’” Hind was desirous to answer him in his own strain, and for that purpose began to rub up his memory for some of the texts he had learned when at school. “Verily,” said Hind, “if thou hadst regarded the divine precepts as thou oughtest to have done, thou wouldst not have wrested them to such an abominable and wicked sense as thou didst the words of the prophet, when he said, ‘Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron.’ Didst thou not then, detestable hypocrite, endeavor, from these words, to aggravate the misfortunes of thy royal master, whom thy cursed republican party unjustlymurdered before the gate of his own palace?” Here Hugh Peters began to extenuate that proceeding, and to allege other parts of scripture in his own defence. “Pray, sir,” replied Hind, “make no reflections against men of my profession, for Solomon plainly said, ‘do not despise a thief.’ But it is to little purpose for us to dispute; the substance of what I have to say is this, deliver thy money presently, or else I shall send thee out of the world to thy master, the devil, in an instant.” These terrible words of the captain’s so terrified the old Presbyterian, that he forthwith gave him thirty broad pieces of gold and then departed.
But Hind was not satisfied with allowing so bitter an enemy to the royal cause to depart in such a manner. He accordingly rode after him at full speed, and, overtaking him, addressed him in the following language:—“Sir, now I think of it, I am convinced this misfortune has happened to you because you did not obey the words of the scripture, which expressly says, ‘provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses, for your journey,’ whereas it is evident that you had provided a pretty decent quantity of gold. However, as it is now in my power to make you fulfil another commandment, I would by no means slip the opportunity; therefore, pray give me your cloak.” Peters was so surprised that he neither stood still to dispute nor to examine what was the drift of Hind’s demand. But he soon made him understand his meaning, when he added, “You know, sir, our Savior has commanded, that if any man take away thy cloak, thou must not refuse thy coat also; therefore, I cannot suppose that you will act in direct contradiction to such an express command, especially as you cannot pretend you have forgot it, seeing that I now remind you of that duty.” The old Puritan shrugged his shoulders some time before he proceeded to uncase them; but Hind told him that his delay would be of no service to him, for he would be implicitly obeyed, because he was sure that what he requested was entirelyconsonant with the scripture. He accordingly surrendered, and Hind carried off the cloak.
The following sabbath, when Hugh ascended the pulpit, he was inclined to pour forth an invective against stealing, and selected for his subject these words: “I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on?” An honest plain man, who was present, and knew how he had been treated by the robber, promptly cried out, “Upon my word, sir, I believe there is nobody here can tell you, unless captain Hind were here.” Which ready answer to Hugh’s scriptural question put the congregation into such an outrageous fit of laughter, that the parson was made to blush, and descended from his pulpit, without prosecuting the subject farther.
The captain, as before mentioned, indulged a rooted hatred against all those who were concerned in the murder of the late king; and frequently these men fell in his way. He was one day riding on the road, when president Bradshaw, who had sat as judge upon the king, and passed the sentence of death upon him, met with the captain. The place where they came into collision was on the road between Sherbourne and Shaftesbury. Hind rode up to the coach, and demanded Bradshaw’s money, who, supposing that his very name would convey terror along with it, informed him who he was. “Marry,” cried Hind, “I neither fear you nor any king-killing villain alive. I have now as much power over you, as you lately had over the king, and I should do God and my country good service, if I made the same use of it; but live, villain, to suffer the pangs of thine own conscience, till justice shall lay her iron hand upon thee, and require an answer for thy crimes, in a way more proper for such a monster, who art unworthy to die by any hands but those of the common hangman, or at any other place than Tyburn. Nevertheless, though I spare thy life as a regicide, be assured, that unless thou deliver up thy money immediately, thou shalt die for thy obstinacy.”
Bradshaw began to perceive that the case was notnow with him as it was when he sat at Westminster hall, supported by all the strength of the rebellion. A horror took possession of his soul, and discovered itself in his countenance. He put his trembling hand into his pocket, and pulled out about forty shillings in silver, which he presented to the captain, who swore he would that minute shoot him through the heart, unless he found him coin of another species. To save his life, the sergeant pulled out that which he valued next to it, and presented the captain with a purse full of Jacobuses.
But though Hind had got possession of the cash, he was inclined to detain the sergeant a little longer, and began the following eulogium upon the value of money:—
“This, sir, is the metal that wins my heart forever! O precious gold! I admire and adore thee as much as either Bradshaw, Prynne, or any other villain of the same stamp, who, for the sake of thee, would sell his Redeemer again, were he now upon earth. This is that incomparable medicament, which the republican physicians call the wonder-working plaster; it is truly catholic in operation, and somewhat of kin to the Jesuit’s powder, but more effectual. The virtues of it are strange and various; it maketh justice deaf as well as blind; and takes out spots of the deepest treasons as easily as Castile soap does common stains; it alters a man’s constitution in two or three days, more than the virtuoso’s transfusion of blood can do in seven years. It is a great alexipharmic, and helps poisonous principles of rebellion, and those that use them; it miraculously exalts and purifies the eye-sight, and makes traitors behold nothing but innocence in the blackest malefactors: it is a mighty cordial for a declining cause; it stifles faction and schism as certainly as rats are destroyed by common arsenic: in a word, it makes fools wise men, and wise men fools, and both of them knaves. The very color of this precious balm is bright and dazzling. If it be properly applied to the fist, that is, in a decent manner, and in a competent dose, itinfallibly performs all the above-mentioned cures, and many others too numerous to be here mentioned.”
The captain, having finished his panegyric upon the virtues of the glittering metal, pulled out his pistol, and again addressed the serjeant, saying, “You and your infernal crew have a long while run on, like Jehu, in a career of blood and impiety, falsely pretending that zeal for the Lord of Hosts has been your only motive. How long you may be suffered to continue in the same course, God only knows. I will, however, for this time, stop your race in a literal sense of the word.” And without farther delay, he shot all the six horses that were in the carriage, and left Bradshaw to ponder upon the lesson he had received.
Hind’s next adventure was with a company of ladies, in a coach upon the road between Petersfield and Portsmouth. He accosted them in a polite manner, and informed them that he was a protector of the fair sex, and it was purely to win the favor of a hard-hearted mistress that he had travelled the country. “But, ladies,” added he, “I am at this time reduced to the necessity of asking relief, having nothing to carry me on in the intended prosecution of my adventures.” The young ladies, who had read many romances, could not help concluding that they had met with some Quixote or Amadis de Gaul, who was saluting them in the strains of knight-errantry. “Sir knight,” said one of the most jocular of the company, “we heartily commiserate your condition, and are very much troubled that we cannot contribute towards your support; for we have nothing about us but a sacreddepositum, which the laws of your order will not suffer you to violate.” The captain was much pleased at having met with such a pleasant lady, and was much inclined to have permitted them to proceed; but his necessities were at this time very urgent. “May I, bright ladies, be favored with the knowledge of what this sacred depositum, which you speak of, is, that so I may employ my utmost abilities in its defence, as the laws of knight-errantry require.” The ladywho had spoken before told him, that the depositum she had spoken of was 3000l.the portion of one of the company, who was going to bestow it upon the knight who had won her good-will by his many past services. “Present my humble duty to the knight,” said he, “and be pleased to tell him that my name is captain Hind; that out of mere necessity I have made bold to borrow part of what, for his sake, I wish were twice as much; that I promise to expend the sum in defence of injured lovers, and in the support of gentlemen who profess knight-errantry.” Upon the name of captain Hind, the fair ones were sufficiently alarmed, as his name was well known all over England. He, however, requested them not to be affrighted, for he would not do them the least injury, and only requested 1000l.of the 3000l.As the money was bound up in several parcels, the request was instantly complied with, and our adventurer wished them a prosperous journey, and many happy days to the bride.
Taking leave of the captain for a little, we shall inform our readers of the consequences of this extorted loan of the captain’s. When the bride arrived at the dwelling of her intended husband, she faithfully recounted to him her adventures upon the road. The avaricious and embryo curmudgeon refused to accept her hand until her father should agree to make up the loss. Partly because he detested the request of the lover, and partly because he had sufficiently exhausted his funds, the father refused to comply. The pretended lover, therefore, declined her hand, because it was emptied of the third part of her fortune; and the affectionate and high spirited lady died of a broken heart. Hind often declared, that this adventure caused him great uneasiness, while it filled him with detestation at the dishonorable and base conduct of the mercenary lover.
The transactions of Hind were now become so numerous, and made him so well known, that he was forced to conceal himself in the country. During this cessation from his usual industrious labors, his fundsbecame so exhausted, that even his horse was sold to maintain his own life. Impelled by necessity, he often resolved to hazard a few movements upon the highway; but he had resided so long in that quarter, that he durst not risk any such adventure. Fortune, however, commiserated the condition of the captain, and provided relief. He was informed that a doctor, who resided in the neighborhood, had gone to receive a handsome fee for a cure which he had effected. The captain then lived in a small house which he had hired upon the side of a common, and which the doctor had to pass in his journey home. Hind, having long and impatiently waited his arrival, ran up to him, and in the most piteous tone and suppliant language, told the doctor his wife was suddenly seized with illness, and that unless she got some assistance she would certainly perish, and entreated him just to tarry for a minute or two and lend her his medical assistance, and he would gratefully pay him for his trouble as soon as it was in his power.
The tender-hearted doctor, moved with compassion, alighted and accompanied him into his house, assuring him that he should be very happy to be of any service in restoring his wife to health. Hind showed the doctor up-stairs; but they had no sooner entered the door, than he locked it, presented a pistol, showing, at the same time, his empty purse, saying: “This is my wife; she has so long been unwell, that there is now nothing at all within her. I know, sir, that you have a sovereign remedy in your pocket for her distemper, and if you do not apply it without a word, this pistol will make the day shine into your body!” The doctor would have been content to have lost his fee, upon condition of being delivered from the importunities of his patient; but it required only a small degree of the knowledge of symptoms to be convinced, that obedience was the only thing which remained for him to observe: he therefore emptied his own purse of forty guineas into that of the captain, and thus left our hero’s wife in a convalescent state. Hind theninformed the doctor, that he would leave him in possession of his whole house, to reimburse him for the money which he had taken from him. So saying, he locked the door upon the doctor, mounted that gentleman’s horse, and went in quest of another county, since this had become too hot for him.
Hind has been often celebrated for his generosity to the poor; and the following is a remarkable instance of his virtue in that particular. He was upon one occasion extremely destitute of cash, and had waited long upon the road without receiving any supply. An old man, jogging along upon an ass, at length appeared. He rode up to him, and very politely inquired where he was going. “To the market,” said the old man, “at Wantage, to buy me a cow, that I may have some milk for my children.” “How many children have you?” The old man answered, “Ten.” “And how much do you mean to give for a cow?” said Hind. “I have but forty shillings, master, and that I have been scraping together these two years.” Hind’s heart ached for the poor man’s condition; at the same time he could not help admiring his simplicity; but, being in absolute want himself, he thought of an expedient which would serve both himself and the poor old man. “Father,” said he, “the money which you have is necessary for me at this time; but I will not wrong your children of their milk. My name is Hind, and if you will give me your forty shillings quietly, and meet me again this day se’nnight at this place, I promise to make the sum double.” The old man reluctantly consented, and Hind enjoined him to “be cautious not to mention a word of the matter to any body between this and that time.” The old man came at the appointed time, and received as much as would purchase two cows, and twenty shillings more, that he might thereby have the best in the market.
Though Hind had long frequented the road, yet he carefully avoided shedding blood; and the following is the only instance of this nature related of him. He had one morning committed several robberies, andamong others, had taken more than 70l.from colonel Harrison, the celebrated parliamentary general. As the Roundheads were Hind’s inveterate foes, the colonel immediately raised the hue-and-cry after him, which was circulated in that part of the country before the captain was aware of it. At last, however, he received intelligence at one of the inns upon the road, and made every possible haste to fly the scene of danger. In this situation the captain was apprehensive of every person he met upon the road. He had reached a place called Knowl Hill, when the servant of a gentleman, who was following his master, came riding at full speed behind him. Hind, supposing that it was one in pursuit of himself, upon his coming up, turned about, and shot him through the head, when the unfortunate man fell dead upon the spot. Fortune favored the captain at this time, and he got off in safety.
The following adventure closes the narrative of Hind’s busy life. After Charles I. was beheaded, the Scots remained loyal, proclaimed his son Charles II., and resolved to maintain his right against the usurper. They suddenly raised an army, and entering England, proceeded as far as Worcester. Multitudes of the English joined the royal army, and among these captain Hind, who was loyal from principle, and brave by nature. Cromwell was sent by Parliament with an army to intercept the march of the royalists. Both armies met at Worcester, and a desperate and bloody battle ensued. The king’s army was routed. Captain Hind had the good fortune to escape, and, reaching London, lived in a retired situation. Here, however, he had not remained long, when he was betrayed by one of his intimate acquaintances. It will readily be granted that his actions merited death by the law of his country, but the mind recoils with horror from the thought of treachery in an intimate friend.
Hind was carried before the speaker of the house of commons, and, after a long examination, was committed to Newgate and loaded with irons; nor wasany person allowed to converse with him without a special permission. He was brought to the bar of the session-house at the Old Bailey, indicted for several crimes, but, for want of sufficient evidence, nothing worthy of death could be proved against him. Not long after this, he was sent down to Reading under a strong guard, and, being arraigned before judge Warburton, for killing George Symson at Knowl Hill, as formerly mentioned, he was convicted of wilful murder. An act of indemnity for all past offences was issued at this time, and he hoped to have been included; but an order of council removed him to Worcester gaol, where he was condemned for high treason, and hanged, drawn, and quartered, on the 24th September 1652, aged thirty-four years. His head was stuck upon the top of the bridge over the Severn, and the other parts of his body placed upon the gates of the city. The head was privately taken down and interred, but the remaining parts of his body remained until consumed by the influence of the weather.
In his last moments he declared that his principal depredations had been committed against the republican party, and that he was sorry for nothing so much as not living to see his royal master restored.