Decorative bannerCHAPTERX.(1716.)
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twodays after the last trial, the Lord High Steward stood up and declared that there was nothing more to be done by virtue of his present commission. The House of Lords then ordered that a full report of the Earl of Wintoun’s trial should be printed. This was on Wednesday, March 21st. Mr. Cowper, clerk of the Parliaments, accordingly appointed Jacob Tonson to print and publish it; and my Lords ‘forbade any other person to print the same.’ Jacob, forthwith, issued an edition, handsome in the getting up, and rather high in price. Immediately, a spurious edition, in six folio pages, tempted the general public—at two pence! It bore the name of ‘Sarah Popping, at the Black Raven, Paternoster Row.’ The Lords, angry at this contempt, ordered Mrs. Popping to be brought before them. On the 13th of April, the famous antiquary, Sir William Oldys, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, appeared before the House with the statement that he had Sarah Popping under arrest, but, saidOldys, ‘She is so ill that she is not in a condition to be brought to the bar; but a person is attending at the door who can give an account concerning the said Paper.’ Whereupon, one Elizabeth Cape was brought in, and she deposed to such effect, that the Lords ordered the immediate arrest of two Fleet-Street publishers and booksellers,—one, a John Pemberton; the other, the notorious Edmund Curll.
EDMUND CURLL.
While the deputies of the Gentlemen Ushers of the Black Rod were in search of Curll and Pemberton, Sarah Popping petitioned the Lords for a full pardon, on the ground that she, being ill, knew nothing of the printing of the trial, which had been unwittingly undertaken by her sister, and ‘it being usual in such cases to discharge the publisher upon the discovery of the bookseller’—that is of the retailer, such as Curll was, in this case. The Lords, having all the incriminated persons before them, on Thursday, the 26th of April, discharged Popping and Pemberton, ordered that Curll be detained in custody, and issued a warrant for the arrest of Daniel Bridge, charged with being joined in the printing of the earl’s trial. Bridge, on the 2nd of May, confessed to the House that he was the printer of the twopenny edition; and he accused Curll of having furnished him with the ‘copy’ to print from. Curll and Bridge were ‘laid by the heels,’ but in a couple of days they sent up a petition, in which they pleaded utter ignorance of their Lordships’ prohibition to print any other account of the trial than that which Tonson alone was authorised to put forth. Theyacknowledged that their Lordships were justly offended; and they asked to be set free, as they had families ‘which must be entirely ruined unless your Lordships have compassion on them.’ Their Lordships were not hard upon the offenders; both of whom were to be seen, one afternoon before the week was out, humbly kneeling as they listened to a sharp reprimand from the Lord Chancellor. After which process, the offenders paid their fees, and then walked from Westminster to Fleet Street together. To Curll, this 1716 was an eventful year. In it were included his first appearance in the House of Lords, his quarrel with Pope, and the humiliating indignities which he underwent at the hands and ‘tyrannick rod’ of the boys in Westminster School.
THE NEW POEMS.
Another publisher took advantage of the State trials to stimulate the public to purchase three little poems, on the ground that they were ‘Published faithfully, as they were found in a Pocket-Book taken up in the Westminster Hall the last day of the Lord Wintoun’s Tryal.’ Roberts, the publisher in Warwick Lane, stated in his advertisement that, upon reading them at theSt.James’s coffee-house, they were with one voice pronounced to be by aLady of Quality. The foreman of the poetical jury at Button’s, considering the style and thought, declared that ‘Mr. Gay must be the Man.’ On the other hand, a gentleman of distinguished merit, who lived not far from Chelsea, protested that the poems could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of Homer. The wits atSt.James’s were of course nearest the mark, and it is now known, as Mr. Roberts knew then, that these ‘Court Poems,’ ‘The Basset Table,’ ‘The Drawing-Room,’ and ‘The Toilet’ were from the pen of that lively lady, Mary Wortley Montague.
PRINCESS OF WALES AND LADY KENMURE.
Another lady, the widowed Viscountess Kenmure, was otherwise engaged in the stern prose of life. She prepared a petition to the king in which she prayed that 150l.a year might be added to her jointure, for the education of her children. She asked for that sum out of her late lord’s confiscated estate. The young widow earnestly prayed for an interview with the Princess of Wales. When this was made known to her royal highness, that lady said, ‘I know that she will burst into a flood of tears and I shall do the same, and I shall not be able to bear the sight of so much grief as she will bring with her.’ This way of declining the interview was made known to the viscountess. Lady Kenmure eagerly replied that, if the princess would only see her, she would not shed a single tear nor utter one poor sob. Caroline consented. She not only received Lady Kenmure with cordial sympathy, but after some conversation, the princess took her by the hand and led her to the king’s apartments. On presenting her to the sovereign, Caroline recommended the poor lady to his generous consideration, and she did this so well that the king not only granted the petition, but made her a present of 300l.The Princess of Wales again took Lady Kenmure by the hand back to her own apartments, where she added 200l.to the sumgiven by the king; and finally, she conducted her interesting visitor to the very foot of the stairs. The papers state that Lady Kenmure was subsequently heard to say, ‘Good God! are these the people that have been represented so odious to us, and for rebelling against whom I have lost my dear husband? Sure, if this had been known, we had never been so unfortunate!’ The royal example had beneficial influence. The Duchess of Marlborough collected subscriptions among her lady friends, and her grace placed fourteen hundred guineas in the widow’s hands to carry with her back to Scotland.
LUXURY IN NEWGATE.
The execution of Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater, and the sentence on Lord Wintoun, sobered the spirits in Newgate, where the too profuse liberality of the outside Jacobites had caused many of the captive rebels to put off dignity and decency, for riot, revelry, and licentiousness. The author of the ‘History of the Press Yard’ states, that they, after a time, lived profusely and fared voluptuously, by the help of daily visitors, and of sympathisers who sent their money, but avoided personally appearing. ‘While it was difficult to change a guinea almost at any house in the street, nothing was more easy than to have silver for gold, in any quantity, and gold for silver, in the prison; those of the fair sex, from persons of the first rank to tradesmen’s wives and daughters, making a sacrifice of their husbands’ and parents’ rings and other precious movables, for the use of those prisoners.’ The aid was so reckless that forty shillings for a dish of early peas andbeans, and thirty shillings for a dish of fish, with the best French wine, ‘was an ordinary regale!’
GENERAL FORSTER’S ESCAPE.
During the first ten days of April the Jacobite sympathy was everywhere manifested for ‘General Forster,’ who was to be tried on the 18th. On the 11th of the month, Jacobite London was in ecstacy. In every Jacobite mouth was the joyous acclaim: ‘Tom Forster is off and away!’ The Whigs damned themselves, the Tories, and Pitt, the keeper of Newgate, that ‘the rascalliest of the crew had broke bonds.’ The Government shut up Pitt in one of his own dungeons, offered 1,000l.for the recovery of the ‘General,’ and ordered strict examination of all persons at the different sea-ports attempting to leave England. Forster did not intend to come in the way of such examination. His escape was well planned and happily executed. His sharp servant found means to obtain an impression of Pitt’s master-key, from which another key was made and conveyed to Forster, without difficulty. Pitt loved wine, and Forster seems to have had a cellar full of it. He often invited the governor to get drunk on the contents. One night Pitt got more drunk than usual, finished the wine, and roared for more. Forster bade his servant to fetch up another bottle. This was the critical moment. The fellow was long, and Forster swore he would go and see what the rascal was at. On going, he locked the unconscious Pitt in the room, and, the way being prepared by his servant, and turnkeys, as it would seem, subdued by the ‘oil of palms,’master and man walked into the street, where friends awaited them. Pitt soon sounded an alarm, but everything had been well calculated. A smack lay at Holy Haven, on the Thames, which had often been employed by the Jacobites in running between England and France.A RIDE FOR LIFE.At midnight two gentlemen, a lady, and a servant arrived in a coach at Billingsgate, and made enquiries touching this suspicious vessel. So ran a popular report. The Dogberrys concluded that Forster was one of these men, and that he was lying hidden by the river side. He was, however, far off beyond their reach. He was so well served and so well protected, that by four in the morning he and five horsemen gallopped into Prittlewell, near Rochford, in Essex. They quietly put up at an upland ale-house, and sent for a skipper who expected them. This man, Shipman, took them three miles below Leigh, where a vessel awaited them. Men and horses were there embarked at noon, and Shipman accompanied them to France, on which coast they were safely landed. The joy of the Jacobites was uncontrollable. The Whigs shook their heads and doubted if such an escape could have been accomplished without connivance on the part of persons in high places.
Forster’s escape was so easily effected as to almost warrant a suspicion that, for service rendered, he was allowed to get away. Others, however, got off from Newgate and the Tower whom the Government undoubtedly intended to keep there, with Tyburn in view as their utmost limit abroad. In the oldballad—
Lord Derwentwater to Forster said:—Thou hast ruin’d the cause and all betray’d,For thou did’st vow to stand our friend,But hast prov’d traitor in the end.Thou brought’st us from our own country,We left our home and came with thee;But thou art a rogue and a traitor both,And hast broke thy honour and thy oath.’
Lord Derwentwater to Forster said:—Thou hast ruin’d the cause and all betray’d,For thou did’st vow to stand our friend,But hast prov’d traitor in the end.Thou brought’st us from our own country,We left our home and came with thee;But thou art a rogue and a traitor both,And hast broke thy honour and thy oath.’
Lord Derwentwater to Forster said:—
Thou hast ruin’d the cause and all betray’d,
For thou did’st vow to stand our friend,
But hast prov’d traitor in the end.
Thou brought’st us from our own country,
We left our home and came with thee;
But thou art a rogue and a traitor both,
And hast broke thy honour and thy oath.’
THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER.
The remaining prisoners and their possible destiny continued to occupy the public mind. One day, a group of them might be seen on their way to the Thames, where they were to be shipped for ‘the Carolinas.’ Lord Carnwath, it was said, would be pardoned, but Lords Widdrington and Nairn would be transported to the Plantations for seven years, and then set free on finding bail for their future good behaviour. The captives in Newgate fought in the court-yard, or laid informations against each other, while their wives traversed London wearily in search of powerful friends to liberate them. Great interest was evinced in Lord Wintoun. This was increased when a morning paper quaintly informed its readers that ‘as for the Earl of Wintoun, his Counsel having insinuated that he is not perfect in his Intellectuals, ’tis said he will be confined for Life!’
The lords, under sentence of death, in the Tower, continued to be reprieved from time to time. As various alterations in the process of the trials followed, it was not doubted, ‘Mercurius’ says, ‘but there had some light been given in return for that grace, by which further discoveries were made than had beenbefore.’ If this be true, the baseness of such informers was more detestable than that of the Rev. Mr. Patten. This man began now to be treated by the public as a double-dyed rascal; and this treatment urged him to publish his reasons for turning king’s evidence, in a letter addressed to one of the Shaftoes, a rebel prisoner in Newgate. The letter is long and very wide of its pretended purpose. It affects indeed a certain horror of rebellion against the Church and Throne; and it insinuates that Shaftoe might do well to follow the example of the writer, who mendaciously pretended that in becoming a witness against his old confederates, no promise of pardon or of any advantage was made to him, and that he was utterly ignorant as to the way in which it might please God that he should die!
PATTEN ON THE PRINCE OF WALES.
‘I shall mention one particular,’ he says, ‘which has been a matter of astonishment to me to find out a Falsehood so industriously reported. I hope it will be so with you when I assure you it was industriously reported that the Prince of Wales, who was represented to us under the greatest disadvantages, as to the Shape and Frame of his Person, is quite the Reverse of all Reflections, for he has really a comely Appearance, and a Liveliness in his Looks and Gesture, which is very taking, and speaks a great deal of Goodness. This I beheld with Admiration at Westminster Hall, when I was present at the Trial of the Earl of Wintoun.’
Among a batch of 180 Jacobite convicts sent to Maryland, there was one who was both malefactor and Jacobite. His name was Wriggelsden. He was such a hater of King George, that he tried to carry off hisMajesty’s plate from the Chapel Royal in Whitehall. The Tory thief was transported, but the Whig papers in London soon abounded with complaints that this enemy of kings and men was better off than he had ever been before. ‘He had got,’ says the News Letter, ‘a cargo of cutlery ware, and a Mistress like a Woman of Fashion, in rich clothes and a gold striking watch, with other proper equipage, at Annapolis, where they live with great show of affluence.’ The Whigs complained that knaves and traitors should thus flourish. They also complained that the sentinels atSt.James’s Palace neglected to safely guard the prince and princess; that Tory inn-keepers cursed the king, even on his coronation-day, and that Nonjurors were not to be trusted, even though they took the oath of fidelity, like the Rev. Nicholas Zintens, who, they sneeringly say, ‘took the oath by mere impulse of conscience in the absence of his wife.’
IN AND OUT OF NEWGATE.
Meanwhile, detachments of Horse Guards patrolled the suburbs, and delegations of Scotch Presbyterian ministers marched up, day after day, toSt.James’s, to congratulate the king on being securely seated on his throne. Now and then one of the above guards, yielding to love of liquor, would drink the Pretender’s health, for a draught of ale, gratis; and would find himself next day, in Newgate, in the company of priests whose papers and persons had just been seized by Messengers, or in the place of rebel-prisoners who had just escaped, or who had died, aspoorcaptives died, of that loathsome confinement. Captivity could not tame the bolder spirits. Sunderland, the coffee-house man,locked up for circulating that inflammatory pamphlet,—‘Robin’s Last Shift,’—talked more Jacobitism in prison than out of it; while Flint,—ultra-Jacobite author of the ‘Weekly Remarks,’—wrote more seditiously in his cell than in his own printing office;—till orders came down to keep pen, ink, and paper from a man who made such bad use of them.
POLITICS ON THE STAGE.
As Oxford and Cambridge represented, the first, Tory;—the second, Whig principles; so Drury Lane Theatre was popular with the Whigs, while the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields lay under the suspicion of being Jacobite. The suspicion probably arose from the fact that, in the days of Queen Anne, one of the company, the handsome actor, Scudamore, had often gone toSt.Germain as an agent of the London Jacobites. The Lincoln’s Inn Fields’ players, however, repudiated all grounds for suspicion against their loyalty. Mrs. Knight, on the occasion of her benefit, published an address in which she told the Jacobites their money was as good as that of other people, but that their political principles werenotso good. She told the Whigs that her ‘zeal for government had been expressed in the worst of times.’ At night, she delivered an epilogue, in the character she had been playing, ‘Widow Lockit,’ in which politics were thus introduced into the domain of thedrama:—
Whatever t’other House may say to wrong us,We have, as well as they, some honest Whigs among us,Who do our Country’s Enemies disdain,And hate disloyalty as much as Drury Lane.
Whatever t’other House may say to wrong us,We have, as well as they, some honest Whigs among us,Who do our Country’s Enemies disdain,And hate disloyalty as much as Drury Lane.
Whatever t’other House may say to wrong us,
We have, as well as they, some honest Whigs among us,
Who do our Country’s Enemies disdain,
And hate disloyalty as much as Drury Lane.
But there were dramas elsewhere, as interesting as any on the stage.
SIMON FRASER, AS A WHIG.
On the 28th of April, two travellers arrived in town from the North, whose arrival caused considerable sensation. One was the young Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, under the care of his uncle, the Earl of Selkirk. ‘He was destined for Eton, in order to perfect him for one of the Universities.’ This boy was met in the northern suburbs by about a hundred noblemen and gentlemen on horseback, and many more noble and gentle ladies, in coaches, who escorted his hopeful grace to his house inSt.James’s Square. The second, Simon Fraser, afterwards known as Lord Lovat, came more privately. The king received that faithful person, two days later, with condescending cordiality. In every tavern, it was soon known that his Majesty had spoken highly of Fraser’s services, and had promised to give him marks of his royal favour. Simon Fraser, on that day, kissed the hands of the king and the Prince of Wales, after which the ‘Duke of Argyle took him in his own carriage to pay visits to the various ministers.’
Early in the month of May, Bishop Atterbury, who had not been quite three years in possession of the see of Rochester, gave unmistakable signs as to the wayhewas going. A large body of the Dutch troops who had served in Scotland, had marched back to London. They were thence sent down to Gravesend, where they were quartered, till they sailed to their own country.
DUTCH SERVICE IN GRAVESEND CHURCH.
They were supposed to be God-fearing men; and they had an undoubtedly pious commander. This Dutch Colonel, one Saturday in May, waited upon the Rev. Mr. Gibbons (a curate who had in his sole charge the religious welfare of the place), and asked him for the use of the Church at eight o’clock on the Sunday morning, that his men might have the benefit of attending Divine Service, conducted by their own chaplains. The service, the Colonel said, would be over long before the hour for the regular Church of England one to begin.
Worthy Mr. Gibbons asked if, on the march from Scotland, English clergymen had granted the use of their churches for Dutch services on the Sundays on which the soldiers had halted. He was assured that such had been everywhere the case. The curate no longer hesitated. The Dutch were the king’s faithful Christian allies, and they should have the church for the good purpose desired,—the more particularly as the churchwardens sanctioned the whole proceeding.
The Dutch soldiers marched to the old edifice accordingly; joined in the prayers with soldierly devotion; sat covered during the sermon; and marched back to their parade ground, to the admiration of nearly all who saw them. The whole affair was the talk of the town; and the ‘High-fliers’ were furious.
Furious too was the Bishop of Rochester. Shortly after the event, Atterbury had to officiate at a confirmation at Gravesend. On the moment of his arrival in the church, he sent for the curate, and demanded howhe had dared to grant the use of the church for the Dutch service, and why he had not first sent toHIM? ‘My lord,’ said the curate, ‘Christian charity compelled me; the churchwardens sanctioned it, and the time, too short to allow for deliberation, did not leave me the opportunity of applying to your lordship.’
AIDS TO ESCAPE.
Atterbury answered in a high tone and acted with a high hand. He announced that he himself would preach, and he prohibited the curate from even reading prayers. The prelate’s sermon so exalted his wrath, that, at the conclusion, he was not satisfied with this suspension of Mr. Gibbons from duty, but Atterbury turned the poor clergyman out of his cure! The bishop, however, was made to feel that he had gone too far. The record of suspension was erased; the dismissal of Mr. Gibbons from his cure was followed by his restoration, and it is agreeable to read that, on the great Thanksgiving Day, he preached in his old church ‘an Excellent, Loyal, and Honest Sermon.’
In London itself, loving hearts and planning heads, outside Newgate, were doing all that sympathy and cunning could effect, for the relief of those who were inside. Women lingered about the walls, and men lounged near, ready to obey any call for the deliverance of the remaining captives. As this seemed more and more hopeless, an attempt was made on the virtue of a sentinel. A lady offered him 30l.in hand, and a bill (a very questionable bill) for 500l.more, the former for present aid in setting the prisoners free; the latter to be cashed when they were beyond recapture. Thesentinel’s integrity could not be overcome. He went and swore to the whole story, before the Lord Mayor. That official put the governor and subordinates on the watch. The guard was increased. An unceasing vigilance was enjoined; and the Jacobite prisoners were looked upon as men doomed to the scaffold, or to some fate as bad, if not worse. Mackintosh, nevertheless, appeared to be perfectly at his ease; and the equanimity of the old brigadier gave hope and courage to such other ‘rebels’ as needed them.
SHIFTING OF PRISONERS.
In the first days of May, the public had promise of fresh excitement. On the 3rd a Committee of Council examined Mr. Harvey, of Combe. Finding him recovered from the stab he had inflicted on himself, they sent him from the custody of a messenger to Newgate. This the public heard. On the following day, they saw Basil Hamilton, a son of Lord Nairn, and the Honourable Mr. Howard publicly carried, at mid-day, from the Tower to the same prison. The day’s spectacle was followed by another just before twilight. Crowds witnessed the brief march of ten pinioned prisoners, from the Fleet to Newgate also. The expectation of their trials following close upon this change in no wise affected the spirits of the Jacobite captives.
BREAKING OUT OF NEWGATE.
Their arrival within the walls of the latter, ill-kept gaol, was welcomed in the usual way. Anyone detained there could eat or drink whatever he could pay for. Gold not being wanting, dainties graced the board, wine flowed, punch was sent round, and thebanquet was not confined to a single day. At that period, Newgate chaplains drank with the prisoners and gallantly saw their female visitors to the outer gate. The practical example of such reverend gentlemen was cheerfully followed by guardians whose vigilance relaxed under the strength of good liquor. The prisoners were now allowed indulgences beyond what was usual. They might cool themselves after their drink, by walking and talking, singing and planning, in the court-yard, till within an hour of midnight. Evil came of it. On the night of the 4th, the feast being over, nearly five dozen of the prisoners were walking about the press-yard. Suddenly, the whole body of them made an ‘ugly rush’ at the keeper with the keys. He was knocked down, the doors were opened, and the prisoners swept forth to freedom. All, however, did not succeed in gaining liberty. As the attempt was being made, soldiers and turnkeys were alarmed. The fugitives were then driven in different directions. Brigadier Mackintosh, his son, and seven others overcame all opposition. They reached the street, and they were so well befriended, or were so lucky, as to disappear at once, and to evade all pursuit. They fled in various directions. Most of them knew where safety lay, others trusted to chance. About fifteen more got also through the gates into the street, but seven of them were overtaken and brought back. Thirty others took a wrong turning, into the keeper’s house, which was immediately entered by the soldiers who drove the whole of them into a parlour,where the Jacobites attempted a desperate defence. The soldiers simply fired into the flurried group. The smell of the powder was stronger than all other argument. They yielded, were carried within the gaol, and with the other recaptured fugitives, were not only heavily ironed, and thrust into loathsome holes, but were treated with exceptional brutality. This treatment was resorted to by the guardians to compensate for their own carelessness, and to manifest their good will for the Government.
PURSUIT.
There was a very prevalent idea that only the richest men had escaped. Seven of the fifteen who got into the street, but who were not so lucky as to disappear from pursuit as quickly as Mackintosh and his son, took a wrong turning into Warwick Court, which had no thoroughfare. As they were returning, all bewildered, yet eager and furious, they were met by an armed force, were driven into a corner, and there bound tightly and escorted back to dark dungeons, heavy fetters, and a certainty of the halter.
Mackintosh took his own method of enlargement so coolly as to lead to the conviction that if he was helped from without, he was unobstructed from within. Four of his companions in flight turned down Newgate Street and were soon lost in Cheapside. The brigadier and two others turned in an opposite direction. They ‘went softly and boldly,’ so contemporary prints record, ‘through the Gates of Newgate, where the Watch and Guards were set, and passed without any examination.’ It is added that this occurred because the ‘Constableswere not come to the Watch.’ The Dogberrys were the questioners. The military guard took into their keeping such suspicious persons as Dogberry and Verges consigned to their ward.
HUE AND CRY.
Who had got clear off was hardly known till the Lord Mayor and Aldermen had come down, affrighted, to the gaol, and called over the names. No answer of ‘here’ came from Brigadier William Mackintosh, from his son, nor from his brother, John Mackintosh; nor from Robert Hepburn, Charles Wogan, William Dalmahoy, Alexander Dalmahoy, John Turner, and James Talbot. There were some others who were of minor importance, and the deputy keeper (Pitt being a prisoner, under suspicion of favouring the escape of Forster) took the first step towards repairing a serious fault, by offering money for the recapture of the brigadier especially, whose escape, it was thought, was the purchased consequence of money cautiously invested. The brigadier, or ‘William Mackintosh, commonly called Brigadier Mackintosh,’ was so well described in the placards set up, in, and about London by the chief turnkey of Newgate, that we seem to see the man clearly before us:—‘A tall, raw-boned man, about 60 Years of age, fair Complexioned, Beetle-browed, Grey Eyed, speaks broad Scotch.’ For his recapture the sum of 200l.was offered by Bodenham Rowse, the turnkey.
DOMICILIARY VISITS.
Old Mackintosh and his son safely reached the Thames, where a boat received them, and took them on board a vessel, from which they were landed on the French coast. The brigadier’s brother lost his way,and after some time, was retaken. The Jacobite bards expressed their feelings in thewords,—
—Old Mackintosh and his friends are fled,And they’ll set the hat on another head;And whether they are gone beyond the sea,Or, if they abide in this country,Tho’ the King would give ten thousand pound,Old Mackintosh will scorn to be found.
—Old Mackintosh and his friends are fled,And they’ll set the hat on another head;And whether they are gone beyond the sea,Or, if they abide in this country,Tho’ the King would give ten thousand pound,Old Mackintosh will scorn to be found.
—Old Mackintosh and his friends are fled,
And they’ll set the hat on another head;
And whether they are gone beyond the sea,
Or, if they abide in this country,
Tho’ the King would give ten thousand pound,
Old Mackintosh will scorn to be found.
The king, by advice of his Privy Council, proclaimed in the ‘London Gazette’ that he expected all his loving subjects to join in recapturing those audacious prisoners at large. The sum of 500l.was to be the guerdon of him who should deliver any one of the prisoners to the next justice of the peace,—excepting Brigadier Mackintosh. For that noble quarry the king offered 1,000l.
There was hot pursuit, chiefly made at hap-hazard, after the fugitives. Any gentleman heard of in private lodgings, and keeping pretty close within them, might reckon on having his apartments invaded by the eager constables. A gentleman was said to be living very quietly in rooms inSt.Martin’s Lane. A group of informers and officers broke in upon him, and found him to be Mr. Thomas Harley, the brother of the Earl of Oxford. Now, the former gentleman had been committed to the Gate House, and was not known to be at large. The keeper of the Gate House entertained such a regard for his gentleman-prisoner that he allowed him to live in private lodgings, with an understanding that he was not to break bounds, but to be within call. This understanding was further secured by the presenceof a keeper, who probably passed as a servant. The gaoler justified the course he had taken on the ground that the poor gentleman was in ill-health. The authorities had nothing to say against this clemency; but Mr. Harley was ordered back into durance.
TALBOT RECAPTURED.
Another prisoner, the ultra-Jacobite Talbot, found a temporary asylum in a house in Drury Lane. The Whigs styled it ‘a Popish House.’ In a day or two he removed to a box-maker’s, in a court in Windmill Street, at the top of the Haymarket. ‘Talbot, with the white hand,’ loved drink, as was natural in the alleged son, though illegitimate, of drunken Dick Talbot, once Earl of Tyrconnel, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Talbot and the box-maker sent so frequently for considerable amounts of liquor, to a neighbouring tavern, that mine host expressed his wonder to the Hebe, who fetched it, as she said, for her master and for ‘master’s cousin.’ The cousin had come to be a lodger, she added, but for private reasons she suspected the cousinship. This babble of this maid-of-all-work awakened the curiosity and the cupidity of her hearers. The escape of the prisoners, the king’s proclamation, hopes of reward, flashed into their minds. With a couple of constables they rushed into the presence of the thirsty tipplers, and had no difficulty in discovering or in seizing poor Talbot. They carried him before a Secretary of State, with whose warrant they brought him back to Newgate. They conveyed the luckless fellow in a sort of brutal triumph. As soon as the doors of the old prison closed behind him, Talbot was loaded with double fetters,and was flung into the Condemned Hole, where he had leisure to curse his outrageous thirst. His captors went home with the complacent feeling of loyal men who had earned 500l.by bringing a poor devil within reach of the halter.
ESCAPE OF HEPBURN OF KEITH.
John Mackintosh, the brigadier’s brother, was suddenly come upon at Rochester, where he had safely arrived with the intention of reaching the coast. Messengers in search of the fugitive Jacobites were often roughly treated by Jacobite sympathisers. The latter feigned loyalty to King George, and pretended to see in the messengers some of the men who had broken prison. This obstruction facilitated the escape of several fugitives. Accident helped others, of whom Hepburn of Keith was one. Hepburn’s wife and family lodged near Newgate. They knew of the attempt that was to be made, and they prepared for it accordingly. Hepburn, in the rush from prison, was encountered by a turnkey, whom he overpowered, and he then gained the street. As he was an utter stranger in the locality, he did not well know what direction to take. He was afraid to ask his way lest his speech should betray him. He plunged on therefore, but not altogether at haphazard. He went on till, on that May night, he saw in a window a plated flagon, well known in his family as the Keith Tankard. It was the signal that the fugitive would find safety within. He entered without hesitation, and found himself in the arms of his wife and children.