BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE HADFIELD CASE

Mary of Buttermere.

Since the days of ‘Old Patch’ no impostor had reached the eminence of Hadfield. Born of well-to-do parents at Cradden-brook, Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire—where a neighbouring village may have lent his family its surname—forty-three years before the adventure at Keswick, his habits and disposition had always been superior to his station in life. As a youth he was apprenticed to the woollen trade, but proved too fond of adventure to succeed in business. Though much of his career is wrapped in mystery, we know that he was in America between the years 1775-1781, during the War of Independence, and that he married a natural daughter of a younger brother of that famous warrior the Marquis of Granby.

Having squandered the small fortune he had received with her, the elegant Hadfield left his wife and their children to take care of themselves, and by means of credit managed for a short time to enjoy a career of dissipation in London. By his favourite device of extortion—passing drafts or bills of exchange upon persons of wealth, who would be unlikely to prefer a charge against him—he was enabled to continue his impositions without any more serious consequence than an occasional visit to gaol.

The King’s Bench Prison, where in 1782 he was confined for a debt of £160, appears as the next grim landmark in his life. By a lucky chance he was able to lay his case before the Duke of Rutland, who, having discovered that the prisoner had married a daughter of his late uncle, but being ignorant that the wife had died of a broken heart in consequence of her husband’s desertion, generously paid the sum necessary to obtain his release. For many years the impostor’s dexterity in obtaining money under false pretences from credulous strangers, who believed him to be a connection of the Manners family, made it possible for him to associate with those far above his rank.

During 1784, after a brief career of fraud in Dublin, where he posed as a relative of the Viceroy, and by means of this falsehood contracted a host of fraudulent debts, he was lodged in the Marshalsea Prison. With unblushing impudence he appealed to the Lord Lieutenant—his previous benefactor, the Duke of Rutland—who agreed to pay his debts on the understanding that he should leave Ireland immediately.

In the year 1792 Scarborough became the scene of his depredations. Staying at one of the principal hotels, he announced his intention of representing the town in Parliament in the interest of the Manners family. A portrait of poor Captain Lord Robert caused him to burst into tears, which evidence of feeling won the sympathy of all who witnessed it. As usual, his sparkling conversation and distinguished appearance disarmed suspicion, and for several weeks he lived in princely style at the expense of his landlord. When pressed for money he did not hesitate to offer bills of exchange, which the local tradesmen accepted without demur. Yet the day of reckoning, which this remarkable man never seemed to anticipate, could not be postponed. On the 25th of April he was arrested for the hotel debt, and, not being able to find bail, was cast into prison. Some weeks later, a detainer was lodged against him by a London creditor, and for eight years he remained an inmate of the Scarborough Gaol.

During his long confinement he maintained his favourite pose as a luckless aristocrat, writing poetry, and publishing much abuse against the authorities. At last fortune smiled upon the interesting captive. Neither Faublas nor Casanova ruled with more success over the female heart, and it was to a woman that he owed his release. A Devonshire lady, named Nation, who, it is said, occupied rooms facing the prison, took compassion upon him, and paid his debts. On the 13th ofSeptember 1800 the impostor became a free man, and the next morning, notwithstanding that hitherto they had been strangers, he married his benefactress. The pair made their home at Hele Bridge, near Dulverton, on the borders of Somerset and Devon, where the bride’s father was steward to a neighbouring landowner, and before very long Hadfield plunged once more into a career of fraud.

A marvellousaplomb, his previous commercial experience, and a deposit of £3000 which he contributed towards the firm, induced Messrs Dennis and Company, merchants of repute in the neighbouring town of Tiverton, to admit him as a partner. In consequence of this new enterprise, he removed during the summer of 1801 with his wife and child to a cottage at the village of Washfield to be near his business. As before, the utter lack of prescience and sagacity characteristic of the man prevented him from reaping the fruits of his perverted genius, as a less clever but more prudent would have done. The whole transaction was a smartly conceived but clumsily arranged swindle. Since the money for the partnership had been obtained by inducing a Mr Nucella, merchant of London, to transfer Government stock, which soon would have to be replaced, to the credit of Messrs Dennis, Hadfield was compelled to realise his winnings without delay. For the sake of a few hundred pounds of ready cash, he seems to have been eager to sacrifice all that a man usually holds dear, and to have become a lawless adventurer once again.

In April 1802 he was obliged to decamp from Devonshire, leaving his wife and children as before, while his partners in Tiverton, who soon discovered that they had been defrauded by a swindler, proceeded to strike his name off the books of the firm. During the following June he was declared a bankrupt. Meanwhile he hadproceeded to cut a dash in London, and it is said that he came forward as candidate for Queenborough, with the object of obtaining immunity from arrest as a member of Parliament. Being still provided with funds, he made no attempt to surrender to the commission issued against him; but compelled, through fear of exposure, to relinquish his political ambitions, he went on a leisurely tour through Scotland and Ireland, and in the month of July appeared at Keswick as ‘Colonel Hope’ to work the crowning mischief of his life.

There has been much conjecture with regard to the motives of Hadfield in his conduct to poor Mary Robinson. The explanation that he was actuated by pure animalism cannot be reconciled with our knowledge of his temperament or his methods, setting aside the initial objection that the sensualist, already cloyed by innumerable conquests, does not usually play a heavy stake to gratify a passing fancy. Nor is it credible that a man who had the heart to forsake two wives and five children could have been influenced by love. At first sight it seems probable that, just as the most reckless speculator often cuts a desperate loss, he wished to quit a hazardous career of fraud, and to live a life of quiet and seclusion in the humble home of the Beauty of Buttermere. Such foresight, however, was wholly inconsistent with the nature of the man; and even had he been capable of this reasoning, a moment’s reflection must have taught him that his recent ostentation had made retirement impossible. No; like that of every gambler, John Hadfield’s destiny was ruled by chance. Each stake he played was determined by the exigency of the moment; win or lose, he could not draw back nor rest, but must follow blindly the fortunes of the day to cover the losses of the past. Although not able to possess his Irish heiress, the tiny dowry of Mary Robinson, the poor little inn at Buttermere, seemed to lie at his mercy, and so he seized uponit and threw it—as he would have thrown his winnings of any shape or kind—into the pool. John Hadfield was a fatalist, and his motto,Quam minimum credula postero.

After the interview with Judge Hardinge, the adventurer became the sport of chance once more. When he took boat from Keswick on the evening of his clever escape, he steered his course to the southern extremity of Derwentwater. The cluster of little islands soon must have hid him from view, and no one thought of pursuit. Whatever may have been his impulse, there was no time to bid adieu to his bride. The path to safety lay far ahead over the high mountains. Having left the lake under the guidance of his faithful friend Burkett the fisherman, his course for a few miles was a comparatively easy one; but twilight must have fallen before he had traversed the gorge of Borrowdale, and his flight up the desolate Langstrath valley, which cleaves its way between Glaramara and Langdale Pike, was made in the darkness. By night the journey was a terrible one—over rocks and boulders, along a broken path winding its course beside the mountain torrent, up the face of the precipitous crags, and across the Stake, a tremendous pass high up in the hills, dividing northern lakeland from the south. From Langdale he struck west towards the coast, and after a journey of some fourteen miles reached the seaport of Ravenglass, on the estuary of the Esk. In this place he borrowed a seaman’s dress, and took refuge in a little sloop moored near the shore, and here he was recognised on the 25th of October. With a hue and cry against him, it was not safe to remain near the scene of his latest crime. Going by coach to Ulverstone, he continued his flight thence to Chester, where early in November he was seen at the theatre by an old acquaintance. Then he appears to have walked on to Northwich, and there for some time all trace of him was lost. An advertisement, describing his appearance and offering a reward of fiftypounds for his arrest, was published on the 8th of November and scattered broadcast over the country.

The next tidings of him came from Builth in Wales, where, on the 11th of November, he is said to have swindled a friend, who had no knowledge that he was the Keswick impostor, by the usual device of a bill of exchange. On the day following this performance, the London post brought the newspapers containing the description of his person, and he hurried away from the little town on the banks of the Wye in his flight towards the south. For a time he still baffled capture, but the pursuers steadily closed upon his track. On the 22nd of November the authorities at Swansea were informed that a man resembling the published account of the impostor had been seen in the mountains beyond Neath, and the next day Hadfield was run to earth at the ‘Lamb and Flag’ an old coaching inn about seventeen miles from the seaport town. At once he was lodged in Brecon Gaol, and in about a fortnight’s time the newspapers inform us that he was brought up to town by one Pearkes, robin-redbreast.

The romance of the case attracted a great crowd to Bow Street when the notorious swindler was brought up for examination by Sir Richard Ford on the 6th of December, and the investigation appears to have been difficult and tedious, for he appeared before the magistrate each Monday morning during the next three weeks. On one of these occasions his attire is described as “respectable, though he was quiteen déshabillé,” his dress being a black coat and waistcoat, fustian breeches, and boots, while his hair was worn tied behind without powder, and he was permitted to appear unfettered by irons. Among other requests he asked for a private room at Tothill Fields Prison, as he objected to herd with common pickpockets, and he desired also to be sent as soon as possible to Newgate. Although hiswishes were not granted, the solicitor for his bankruptcy made him an allowance of a guinea a week.

Most pathetic was the loyalty of the wife and benefactress whom he had used so cruelly. The poor woman, who was the mother of two children, travelled from Devonshire—a journey occupying a couple of days and a night—to spend Christmas Day in prison with her unfaithful husband. Numerous celebrities visited the court during the examination of the impostor. Amongst those who were noticed more than once was the Duke of Cumberland, drawn possibly by a fellow-feeling for the culprit, and Monk Lewis, on the look-out for fresh melodrama. At last all the charges against him were proved to the hilt—his offence against the law of bankruptcy, his repeated frauds on the Post Office, the two bills of exchange forged at Keswick. Still, although the iniquities of his past were fully revealed, and although a shoal of unpaid debts, fraudulently contracted, stood against his name, one circumstance alone was responsible for the great popular interest, and aroused also universal abhorrence. John Hadfield had been damned to everlasting fame as the seducer of Mary of Buttermere.

The extent of his baseness was disclosed in the course of the proceedings at Bow Street. It was found that the poor girl was destined to become the mother of his child, and that he was in debt to her father for a sum of £180. Indeed, the motive of his mock marriage became apparent, for he had endeavoured to persuade the trusting parents to allow him to sell the little inn on their behalf, and possibly, but for the interference of Justice Hardinge, he might have succeeded. Mary refused to prosecute him for bigamy, but she was induced to send a letter to Sir Richard Ford, which was read in court at Hadfield’s fourth examination.

“Sir,” she wrote, in the first agony of her crueldisenchantment, “the man whom I had the misfortune to marry, and who has ruined me and my aged and unhappy parents, always told me that he was the Honourable Colonel Hope, the next brother to the Earl of Hopetoun.”

Contemporary newspapers show that the Beauty of Buttermere became the heroine of the hour—she was the theme of ballads in the streets; her sad story was upon every lip; never was there so much sympathy for one of her humble birth.

Early in the new year, Hadfield, who received as much notice from the journals as Madame Récamier’s wonderful new bed, was committed to Newgate. With cool effrontery he dictated a letter to the press, asking the public to reserve judgment until his case was heard, and, as a wanton Tory newspaper declared, like Mr Fox and Mr Windham, he complained bitterly of misrepresentation. A long interval elapsed before he was sent north to stand his trial, and he did not reach Carlisle Gaol until the 25th of May, whither he was conveyed by an officer from Bow Street, who bore the appropriate name of Rivett.

At the next assizes, on the 15th of August, he was arraigned before Sir Alexander Thomson, nicknamed the ‘Staymaker’ owing to his habit of checking voluble witnesses—a figure to be held in dread by law-breakers of the northern counties, as the Luddite riots in a few years were to show. Hadfield was not lucky in his judge, for the man who, at a later date, could be harsh enough to consign to the hangman the poor little cripple boy Abraham Charlson, was not likely to extend mercy to a forger.

The prisoner stood charged upon three indictments:—

(a) With having drawn a bill of exchange upon John Gregory Crump for the sum of £20, under the false and fictitious name of the Hon. Alexander Augustus Hope.

(b) With having forged a bill of exchange for £30,drawn upon John Gregory Crump, and payable to Colonel Nathaniel Montgomery Moore.

Only the first two were capital offences.

James Scarlett, afterwards Baron Abinger, was counsel for the Crown, and Hadfield was defended by George Holroyd, who, as a judge, displayed masterly strength fourteen years later in directing the acquittal of Abraham Thornton. It is recorded by some aggrieved journalist that the crowd was so great it was difficult to take notes. Such odium had been aroused against the betrayer by the sad story of Mary of Buttermere, that ladies and gentlemen are said to have travelled twenty miles to be present at his condemnation. At eleven o’clock in the morning the prisoner was placed in the dock. The principal witnesses for the Crown were George Wood, landlord of the ‘Queen’s Head’ Keswick; the Rev. John Nicholson; and good-natured Mr Crump, who proved conclusively that he had assumed a false name and had forged a bill of exchange. A clerk in the house of Heathfield, Lardner and Co. (late Dennis), of Tiverton, called Quick, and a Colonel Parke, a friend of the real Colonel Alexander Hope, supplied other necessary evidence. One witness only—a lawyer named Newton, who had been employed by Hadfield in the summer of 1800 to recover an estate worth £100 a year, which he had inherited from his late wife—was summoned by the defence.

The prisoner bore himself in a calm and dignified manner, taking copious notes, and offering suggestions to his counsel. But his speech to the jury—for still, and for many years afterwards, a barrister was not allowed to address the court on behalf of his client, except on some technical point of law—shows that he anticipated his doom. “I feel some degree of satisfaction,” he declared,“in having my sufferings terminated, as I know they must be, by your verdict. For the space of nine months I have been dragged from prison to prison, and torn from place to place, subject to all the misrepresentation of calumny. Whatever will be my fate, I am content. It is the award of justice, impartially and virtuously administered. But I will solemnly declare that in all transactions I never intended to defraud or injure those persons whose names have appeared in the prosecution. This I will maintain to the last of my life.”

Very properly the judge would not accept the plea set up by the defence, that the financial position of the prisoner was a guarantee that no fraud had been meditated. At seven o’clock in the evening, after a consultation of ten minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Hadfield received the announcement with composure, and when he was brought up for sentence the next day—as was the barbarous custom of those times—he displayed equal coolness. Kneeling down, and looking steadily at the judge—who began to roll out a stream of sonorous platitudes—he did not speak a word.

From the first he seems to have been resigned to his fate, and gave no trouble to his gaolers, but spent his time quietly in writing letters and reading the Bible. Indeed, his whole behaviour was that of one utterly weary of existence, and he does not appear to have desired or expected a reprieve. All his life he had posed as a religious man, and he lent an eager ear to the ministrations of two local clergymen who attended him. Since there is no evidence that he was penitent, we may adopt the more rational supposition that he was playing for popular sympathy. It was seldom that he spoke of himself, and the only reference he made to his own case was that he had never sought to defraud either John Crump or Colonel Moore. A contemporaryreport states that “he was in considerable distress before he received a supply of money from his father. Afterwards he lived in great style, frequently making presents to his fellow-felons. In the gaol he was considered as a kind of emperor, being allowed to do what he pleased, and no one took offence at the air of superiority which he assumed.” Some days before his death he sent for an undertaker to measure him for a coffin, and gave his instructions to the man without any signs of agitation.

On the day of his sentence, Wordsworth and Coleridge, who were passing through Carlisle, sought an interview with him. While he received the former, as he received all who wished to see him, he denied himself to Coleridge, which makes it clear that he had read and resented the articles written by the latter to theMorning Post. Neither his father (said to have been an honest man in a small way of business) nor his sisters visited him. Also his faithful wife, since probably the state of her health or her poverty would not allow her to make the long journey from Devonshire to Carlisle, was unable to bid him farewell.

There has been much idle gossip concerning the conduct of Mary of Buttermere after her betrayer was condemned to die. Some have said that she was overwhelmed with grief, that she supplied him with money to make his prison life more comfortable, and that she was dissuaded with difficulty from coming to see him. Without accepting the alternative suggested, among others, by De Quincey, that she was quite indifferent to his fate, there are reasons for rejecting the other suppositions. It is impossible that the most amiable of women would continue to love a man who had shown so little affection towards her, and whose hard heart did not shrink from crowning her betrayal by the ruin of her parents. The story of the gift of money, also, seemsunlikely, as her father had been impoverished by the swindler, and the fund for his relief, raised by a subscription in London—which did not receive too generous support—had not yet been sent to Buttermere. And, finally—alas! for romance—since the moral code even of the dawn of the nineteenth century did not allow Mary Robinson to usurp the duties, more than the name, of wife to the prisoner, it is incredible that a modest woman would wish to renew the memories of her unhallowed union by an interview with the man whose association with her had brought only dishonour.

The execution of John Hadfield took place on Saturday, the 3rd of September. Rising at six, he spent half an hour in the prison chapel. At ten o’clock his fetters were removed, and he was occupied most of the morning in prayer with the two clergymen, who, we are told, drank coffee with him. The authorities do not seem to have had any fear that he would attempt his life, for they allowed him the use of a razor. About the hour of three he made a hearty meal, at which his gaoler kept him company. In those times there was a tradition in Carlisle that a reprieve had once arrived in the afternoon for a criminal who was hanged in the morning. Thus, nearly three weeks had been allowed to elapse between Hadfield’s trial and execution—in order that there might be plenty of time for a communication from London—and even on the last day the fatal hour was postponed until the mail from the south was delivered.

Although it had been the opinion of the town that he would not suffer the extreme penalty, the Saturday post, which arrived early in the afternoon, brought no pardon. At half-past three he was taken to the turnkey’s lodge, where he was pinioned, his bonds being tied loosely at his request. Here he showed a great desire to see the executioner—who, oddly enough, hailed from Dumfries, the town which the real Colonel Hope had represented inParliament—and gave him half a crown, the only money he possessed. It was four o’clock when the procession started from the prison, in the midst of an immense concourse of spectators. Hadfield occupied a post-chaise, ordered from a local inn, and a body of yeomanry surrounded the carriage. Without avail he petitioned for the windows to be closed. The gallows—two posts fixed in the ground, about six feet apart, with a bar laid across them—had been erected during the previous night on an island, known locally as the Sands, formed by the river Eden on the south side of the town beyond the Scotch gate, and between the two bridges. A small dung-cart, boarded over, stood beneath the cross-bar, Tyburn fashion, in lieu of the new drop. As soon as it met his eyes, the condemned man asked if this was where he was to die, and upon being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed, “Oh, happy sight! I see it with pleasure!”

John Hadfield met his fate with the heroism which great criminals invariably exhibit. Aged since his arrest, for he had been in prison nearly ten months, he looked at least fifty. In every respect he had become very different from the sprightly ‘Colonel Hope’ of the previous summer. When he alighted from the carriage at the shambles he seemed faint and exhausted, but this weakness was due to physical infirmity and not to fear. A feeble and piteous smile occasionally played over his white face. Yet none of the arrogance of pseudo-martyrdom marked his bearing, but his quiet resignation and reverent aspect won the pity of the vast crowd, bitterly hostile to him a short while before. It was remarked that he had still an air of distinction, and was neatly dressed; his jacket and silk waistcoat were black, and he wore fustian breeches and white thread stockings. Just before he was turned off he was heard to murmur, “My spirit is strong, though my body is weak.” We are told that he seemed to die in a moment without anystruggle, and did not even raise his hands. An hour and a half later he was lying in a grave in St Mary’s Churchyard, for his request that he should be buried at Burgh-on-Sands was disregarded out of consideration for the pious memory of Edward I.

Were it not for his dastardly treatment of the women who gave him their love, the fate of John Hadfield would seem hard. He was not hanged for swindling John Crump out of £50—which indeed the value of his carriage and its contents, left behind at Keswick, would have more than cancelled—but for attempting to swindle him under the fictitious name of Colonel Hope. Thus by assuming the character of another man he became entangled in one of the fine-spun meshes of the law, and was held guilty of an intention to defraud. Our great-grandfathers, who, with the assistance of Sir Alexander Thomson, could hang an old woman for stealing a few potatoes in a bread riot, thought it expedient also to kill a man who obtained £50 by telling a lie.

There is much truth in the proposition, which has been stated with such inaccuracy by De Quincey, that, but for his heartless conduct to Mary of Buttermere, John Hadfield might have escaped the gallows. It is probable that Mr Crump would have been loth to advertise himself as a credulous dupe, unless he had thought that it was his duty to give evidence against a heartless seducer. Parson Nicholson, also, would have had no reason to depart from the attitude he had taken up before he was aware that he had officiated at a bigamous marriage.

MaryofButtermere.Sketched from Life July 1800

MaryofButtermere.

Sketched from Life July 1800

Notwithstanding that his career was marked by so many villainies, John Hadfield is in many respects an admirable rascal. Setting aside his behaviour towards women—if that is possible even for a moment—he played a part which required infinite tact and magnificent courage. Although occasionally he robbed a man whowas not rich, yet until the crime of Buttermere such an occurrence was in the nature of an accident, and was rather the fault of the wronged one for putting himself in the path. Like Claude Duval, the Keswick impostor was in the main merciful towards the impecunious; not indeed for conscience sake, but because he believed that his rightful place was among the wealthy. A hunter of big game, dukes, members of Parliament, and prosperous merchants were his proper prey! And the man who could maintain a decent social position for twenty years, in spite of the heavy handicaps of poverty and lowly birth, and could compel those whom one of his class should have met only as a lackey to receive him on equal terms, was more than a common trickster. An insatiable love of pleasure robbed him of all foresight and prudence, or such a consummate liar might have climbed high. Even as he was—had an earl been his father—he might have gone down to posterity as one of the greatest diplomats the world has ever seen.

The career of Samuel Denmore Hayward, hanged at the Old Bailey for forgery on the 27th of November 1821, a picture of whom, dancing with ‘a lady of quality’ ornaments one version of theNewgate Calendar, is similar to that of the Keswick impostor. Both men seem to have had culture and address; each was distinguished for his social ambition, and both were famous for gallantry. With the exception of James Maclean, illustrious as the friend of Lady Caroline Petersham and little Miss Ashe, none of our rogues—not even William Parsons, the baronet’s son—have been such fine gentlemen.

Mary Robinson’s child was born early in June 1803, but did not survive its birth. Who can tell whether she wept over it; or if the words that came from the lips of her parents, when they heard of the death of her betrayer, did not seem a fitting epitaph—“God be thanked!” To avoid the gaze of curious travellers theunhappy girl was obliged for a period to leave her native place, and the shadow that had fallen upon her young life was not lifted for many years. Yet, brighter days were in store for the Maid of Buttermere. In the course of time she was wooed and won by a Cumberland ‘statesman’ named Richard Harrison, to whom she was married at Brigham Church in the May of 1808. Two of her sons, born at Buttermere, where she resided for a period after her marriage, died in infancy; but when her husband took her to his farm at ‘Todcrofts’ Caldbeck, beyond Skiddaw—where the Harrison family had been ‘statesmen’ for generations—she became the mother of five more children, three daughters and two sons, all of whom grew up and married. In later years it was remarked that her girls were as pretty as Mary had been herself when she was the Maid of the Inn. There is reason to believe that the rest of her career was happy and prosperous, and she lived tranquilly in her home at ‘Todcrofts’ where she died in her fifty-ninth year. The tombstone records that she passed away on the 7th of February 1837, while her husband survived her for sixteen years. Both rest in the churchyard that holds the ashes of immortal John Peel, who followed Richard Harrison to ‘the happy hunting-fields’ within a few months.

(I am indebted to the kindness of Mr Richard Greenup, of Beckstones, Caldbeck, one of Mary Robinson’s few surviving grandchildren, for much interesting information.)

1.Report of the Proceedings on the Trial of John Hatfield, London. Printed for A. H. Nairne and B. Mace. Sold by Crosby and Company price 6d. 1803. Brit. Mus.

Although always spoken of as John Hatfield, the proper name of the ‘Keswick Impostor’ if the register of his baptism is an authority, was Hadfield.

2.The Life of Mary Robinson, the celebrated Beauty of Buttermere, Embellished with an elegant coloured Print. London. Printed by John Rhynd, 21 Ray Street, Cold Bath Fields. Sold by Crosby and Company, Paternoster Row. Price 1/. 1803. Brit. Mus.

3.The Life of John Hatfield, Printed and Published by Scott and Benson. Keswick. James Ivison, Market Place 1846. Brit. Mus.

Coleridge and the “Morning Post.”

Three accounts from the pen of Coleridge, which appeared in theMorning Postof October 11, October 22, and November 5 respectively, under the titles “Romantic Marriage” and “The Fraudulent Marriage,” find a place in Coleridge’s “Essays on His Own Times,” edited by his daughter. The late Mr H. D. Traill, in his monograph in the “English Men of Letters” series, has pointed out (note, p. 80) that “it is impossible to believe that this collection, forming as it does but two small volumes, and a portion of a third, is anything like complete.” It is not an unwarrantable assumption that two subsequent articles in theMorning Post, which appeared on November 20 and December 31, were written from Greta Hall, and that Coleridge therefore was responsible for the sobriquet “The Keswick Impostor.”Sir Alexander Hope, brother of the third Earl Hopetoun, whom Hadfield impersonated, was not (as stated in theDic. Nat. Biog.) the second but theeighthson of the second earl (videGentleman’s Magazine, 1837, part ii. p. 423).

Sir Alexander Hope, brother of the third Earl Hopetoun, whom Hadfield impersonated, was not (as stated in theDic. Nat. Biog.) the second but theeighthson of the second earl (videGentleman’s Magazine, 1837, part ii. p. 423).

Note I.—A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes in Westmorland, Lancashire and Cumberland.

This book is reviewed at full length in theGentleman’s Magazine, December 1792, pt. ii. pp. 1114-16, and in theEuropean Magazine, December 1892, pt. ii. p. 436. The author, Joseph Budworth, who afterwards adopted his wife’s surname, Palmer, was a contributor to the former journal. Mary Robinson is described under the pseudonym ‘Sally of Buttermere’ The second edition of theFortnight’s Rambleis reviewed inGentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxvi. pt. i. p. 132, February 1796.

Note II.—A Revisit to Buttermere.Letter from a rambler to ‘Mr. Urban’ dated Buttermere, January 2 (videGentleman’s Magazine, January 1800, pp. 18-24).

This account was inserted in the third edition ofA Fortnight’s Ramble, published in 1810. Joseph Budworth tells us that his second visit to Buttermere took place in January 1798.

Note III.—The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind, by Wm. Wordsworth. Commenced 1799, finished 1805, published 1850. The Centenary edition of the works of Wm. Wordsworth. Six vols. Edited by E. Moxon, 1870.

Book VII., “Residence in London,” contains the famous reference to Mary of Buttermere and her story. Describing various dramas he has seen at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the poet mentions one written around the story of Mary of Buttermere.Notes and Queries, Tenth Series, i. pp. 7, 70, 96.

Note IV.—The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey.Edited by David Masson. A. & C. Black (1889-90);videLiterary Reminiscences, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. ii. pp. 138-225.

The description of ‘The Hadfield Affair’ occupies pp. 174-184, and its numerous errors were the subject of a smart attack by a correspondent inNotes and Queries(First Series, vol. viii. p. 26), July 9, 1853.

Note V.—The Tourist’s New Guide.By William Green. In two volumes. Kendal (1819), vol. ii. pp. 180-5, 221.Seventy-eight Studies from Nature.By William Green. Longman (1809) p. 7.

The various descriptions of Mary Robinson are so conflicting that it is difficult, until one reads the impressions recorded from year to year by Wm. Green, to form an estimate of her personal appearance. It has been shown that Joseph Budworth, who first saw her in 1792, when she was fourteen, raves of her charms, and his second visit to Buttermere six years later did not disillusionise him. De Quincey, however, denies that she was beautiful, and does not praise even her figure. Yet he seems to be unconscious that he is describing, not the world-renowned ‘Maiden of Buttermere’ but a matron of thirty-five, who was now the wife of a prosperous farmer, and who had drank deeply of life’s sorrows. Mr Frederick Reed of Hassness, Buttermere, writing in August 1874 (Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, ii. 175), thirty-seven years after her death, states that “she was not the beauty she is represented to have been. She carried herself well, but got to be coarse-featured.” Still, as it is improbable that Mr Reed saw her till she was past her prime, his criticism is of little value. Sara Nelson, too, who was born during the year of Mary’s great trouble, did not meet her till her good looks had vanished. TheMorning Postof October 11, 1802, contains the following description from the pen of Coleridge:—“To beauty in the strict sense of the word she has small pretensions, being rather gap-toothed and somewhat pock-fretten. But her face is very expressive, and the expression extremely interesting, and her figure and movements are graceful to a miracle. She ought indeed to be called the Grace of Buttermere rather than the Beauty.”William Green tells us that he first saw Mary Robinson in 1791, the yearbefore she was noticed by Captain Budworth. “At that time,” says he, “she was thirteen; and to an open, honest, and pleasant-looking face, then in the bloom of health, was added the promise of a good figure. Her garb, though neat, was rustic; but through it, even while so young, appeared indications of that mild dignity which was afterwards so peculiarly attractive.” He saw her next in 1794. “The infantine prettiness of thirteen was now matured into beauty; her countenance beamed with an indescribable sweetness, and the commanding graces of her fine person were equalled only by her innate good sense and excellent disposition.” After remarking that Captain Budworth’s panegyric seemed to have had no ill effect upon her mind, he proceeds: “Like some other mountain rustics, observed by the writer during his residence amongst these thinly populated wilds, Mary’s beauty was ripened at an early period; for this was, probably, the period of its perfection.” Green did not see her again till 1801. “She was then twenty-three, and though greatly admired for her general appearance and deportment, was on the whole infinitely less interesting than seven years before that time.” In 1805, the date of his next visit to Buttermere, he noted a further change. “Her features were pervaded by a melancholy meekness, but her beauty was fled, and with it, that peculiar elegance of person, for which she was formerly celebrated.” The next time the artist saw her was in 1810. “She was no longer the Beauty of Buttermere, but Mrs. Harrison, the bulky wife of a farmer, blessed with much good humour, and a ready utterance.” This was about the time when De Quincey saw her. Gillray’s sketch, November 15, 1802, corroborates Green’s description.TheDictionary of National Biographygives the date of publication ofThe Tourist’s Guideas 1822. This is an error. It was published in 1819. The same monograph does not mention Green’sSurvey of Manchester.

William Green tells us that he first saw Mary Robinson in 1791, the yearbefore she was noticed by Captain Budworth. “At that time,” says he, “she was thirteen; and to an open, honest, and pleasant-looking face, then in the bloom of health, was added the promise of a good figure. Her garb, though neat, was rustic; but through it, even while so young, appeared indications of that mild dignity which was afterwards so peculiarly attractive.” He saw her next in 1794. “The infantine prettiness of thirteen was now matured into beauty; her countenance beamed with an indescribable sweetness, and the commanding graces of her fine person were equalled only by her innate good sense and excellent disposition.” After remarking that Captain Budworth’s panegyric seemed to have had no ill effect upon her mind, he proceeds: “Like some other mountain rustics, observed by the writer during his residence amongst these thinly populated wilds, Mary’s beauty was ripened at an early period; for this was, probably, the period of its perfection.” Green did not see her again till 1801. “She was then twenty-three, and though greatly admired for her general appearance and deportment, was on the whole infinitely less interesting than seven years before that time.” In 1805, the date of his next visit to Buttermere, he noted a further change. “Her features were pervaded by a melancholy meekness, but her beauty was fled, and with it, that peculiar elegance of person, for which she was formerly celebrated.” The next time the artist saw her was in 1810. “She was no longer the Beauty of Buttermere, but Mrs. Harrison, the bulky wife of a farmer, blessed with much good humour, and a ready utterance.” This was about the time when De Quincey saw her. Gillray’s sketch, November 15, 1802, corroborates Green’s description.

TheDictionary of National Biographygives the date of publication ofThe Tourist’s Guideas 1822. This is an error. It was published in 1819. The same monograph does not mention Green’sSurvey of Manchester.

Note VI.—East Cheshire.By J. P. Earwaker, 1880, vol. ii. p. 136.

Gives the following extract from the register of baptisms at the parish church of Mottram-in-Longdendale:—“1759. May 24, John, son of William Hadfield, and Betty, his Wife.” The church register confirms this reference.John Hadfield’s father, who lived at Crodenbrook or Craddenbrook, Longden, must have been a man of means, for in 1760 he gave £20 to the poor.

Gives the following extract from the register of baptisms at the parish church of Mottram-in-Longdendale:—

“1759. May 24, John, son of William Hadfield, and Betty, his Wife.” The church register confirms this reference.

John Hadfield’s father, who lived at Crodenbrook or Craddenbrook, Longden, must have been a man of means, for in 1760 he gave £20 to the poor.

Note VII.—Dic. Nat. Biog.This excellent sketch is only marred by the misspelling of Hadfield’s name, and the error in the date of his birth.

“Then, list, ingenuous youth....And once forego your joy,For your 176 instruction I displayThe life of Fauntleroy.”The Dirge of Fauntleroy,James Usher, 1824.

In the year 1792—not one of the least disastrous in our annals of commerce—a small party of capitalists established a private bank under the name of Marsh, Sibbald & Company of Berners Street. The chief promoters—William Marsh, a naval agent, and James Sibbald of Sittwood Park, Berkshire, a retired official of Company John—were gentlemen of substance and position; while their managing partner, William Fauntleroy (previously employed at the famous house of Barclay), was a man of ability and business experience. Four years later, a younger son of Sir Edward Stracey, a Norfolk baronet, who married eventually the niece of Sir James Sibbald, was admitted into the firm.

HENRY FAUNTLEROY.

Although never a bank of great resources, it appears to have made a fair return to its proprietors, and because of its connection with two baronets—one of whom became Sheriff of his county—it was regarded as a house of repute. In the spring of 1807 the firm receiveda severe blow through the death, when only in his fifty-eighth year, of the active partner, William Fauntleroy, in whom his colleagues placed implicit trust. Luckily, however, it was possible to fill his place, for his second son Henry, who had been employed as a clerk for seven years, although only twenty-two, was fit and eager for the post. None of the members of the firm were able to devote much attention to their bank, and thus, by a strange chance, the sole control was left in the hands of young Fauntleroy.

A remarkable man in every respect, this youthful manager, who carried with ease the burden of a great business on his shoulders. During the second decade of last century no figure was better known to those familiar with the west end of Oxford Street. Neat and elegant as Brummell, grave and industrious as Henry Addington, he seemed a model for all young men of commerce. Each morning at the same hour, the front door of No. 7 Berners Street, where he lived with his mother and sister, was thrown open, and the banker would step briskly into the adjoining premises—the counting-house of Messrs Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham. For he was a partner, also, as well as absolute manager, this solemn young gentleman whose air of ponderous respectability won the confidence of all.

At first sight, his cleanly-chiselled features seemed to express merely gentleness and simplicity, but a second glance would reveal a picture of resolution and strength. In fact, the massive brow, the broad cheekbones, and the firm, bold contour of the chin suggested a strange likeness—one that he sought to emphasise by the close-cropped hair made to droop over his forehead. It was his foible, this belief that he bore a resemblance to the great Buonaparte—whose bust adorned his mantelpiece—and the final catastrophe that overwhelmed himshould discourage any latter-day egoist who prides himself upon a similar likeness.

Springing from an industrious Nonconformist stock (for his father had been the architect of his own fortunes, while his elder brother William, who fell a victim to consumption at an early age, was a youth full of the promise of genius), the temperament of Henry Fauntleroy appears to have been as complex a piece of mechanism as Nature ever enclosed within a human tenement. The love of toil, and an indomitable perseverance, seemed to be the guiding principles of his life. Not only did his fine courage never waver amidst the terrors of the financial tempest, through which he stood at the helm of his frail bark, but he gave no sign to his colleagues of the misgivings that must have lurked within his mind. For commerce had fallen upon evil days. On every side he beheld the crash and wreckage of his fellows, but, inspired by the confidence which only the knowledge of power can bestow, he resolved to continue his struggle against the storm. With a brain capable of grappling with huge balance-sheets, an almost superhuman dexterity in figures being his natural gift, the work of three men was the daily task of this Napoleon of commerce. Although the members of his firm were compelled to dive deeply into their pockets during these hazardous years, to meet losses occasioned by the failure of clients engaged in building speculations, the Berners Street Bank was handled so skilfully that it managed to weather the storm.

In spite of his vast abilities, there was nothing of bombast in Fauntleroy’s nature, nor did external evidence show that he was engaged in deadly warfare against the unpropitious fates. A gentle, unassuming man, with a quiet charm of address, he won universal regard from all with whom he came into contact. The gift of friendship, the infectious knack of social intercourse, was partof his character. Naturally, the circle in which he moved was composed of persons of refinement and, in some cases, of eminence in the commercial world. While his hand was ever open to the cry of distress, his board always had a place for those who had gained his esteem. All the leisure he could snatch seemed devoted to simple pleasures—a choice little dinner to a few kindred spirits, a holiday at his suburban villa, or a week-end visit to his house in Brighton. Though his earnest, florid face might be seen often beneath the hood of his smart cabriolet, this carriage was used principally in journeys between Berners Street and the City. In short, few business men in London were held in greater respect than this hard-working young banker, who was so like the Emperor Napoleon.

Yet there was another side to the picture. Although ostensibly he lived this simple and strenuous existence, a few bosom companions knew him in another guise. Unknown to the world, those week-end parties at his villa in the suburbs were tainted and ungodly. The sweet girl who sat at the head of his table as mistress of his home had lost her maiden innocence while her fresh young beauty was in its bud, lured by the sensuous Fauntleroy almost from school. All her pretty friends belonged to the same frail sisterhood, Cyprians beyond question, though modest perhaps in demeanour and speech. And with these ‘Kates and Sues’ of the town came Fauntleroy’s intimates, ‘Toms and Jerries’ unmistakably, though possibly only in travesty, becoming sober men once more in business hours.

Or one might have seen him driving past the fetid Pavilion at Brighton in his smart carriage, with its fawn-coloured lining, and have recognised in the shameless features of the flashy lady at his side the notorious ‘Corinthian Kate’ herself—in real life Mrs ‘Bang’ most ‘slap-up of ladybirds’ Then, again, at hisluxurious seaside home in Western Place, with its conservatories and sumptuous billiard-room-draped as a facsimile of Napoleon’s travelling tent—his Kate’s dear friend Harriet Wilson, or other illustrious fair ones, would come to amuse his bachelor companions. Thus, in his leisure moments, the industrious Fauntleroy enjoyed secretly the life of an epicure and sensualist. Deep-buried in his soul the love of vice was ever present. “There only needed one thing to complete your equipage,” he writes, in plaindouble ententethat indicates his ruling passion, to his friend Sheriff Parkins, “instead of the man at your side, a beautiful angel!”

Marriage had meant no sowing of wild oats to Henry Fauntleroy. A mystery surrounds his union to the daughter of a naval captain named John Young. It is known only that, although a son was born, the match from the first was an unhappy one, and an early separation took place. During the year of Waterloo a liaison with a married lady, who had a complacent or shortsighted husband, increased the habits of extravagance which in the end brought the banker to ruin. Later, the pretty young girl Maria Fox, who had been educated at a convent in France, consented to become the mistress of his suburban home. Thus the double life continued; while to those who knew him only in Berners Street, Mr Fauntleroy appeared the most righteous and respectable of men.

What was the nominal income of the young bank manager it is impossible to ascertain; but whatever the sum, it is certain that before very long his expenditure began to exceed his means. Probably he took the first step on his downward march during the year of the hejira to Elba. The strength and weakness of his character combined to make the position of Tantalus unendurable. Nothing seemed more certain than that the Berners Street house, which had never recoveredfrom its unfortunate speculations, would return large profits if its capital was sufficient to meet all claims. Thus Fauntleroy decided not to take his colleagues into his confidence. Such a step would have caused the business to be wound up, and he would have lost his handsome salary. As one of his most severe critics has pointed out, “he had not enough moral courage to face the world in honest, brave poverty.” On the contrary, his courage took another form. Confident that he must conquer evil fortune, the self-reliant man resolved to commence a life-and-death battle with fate, alone and unaided. And his choice was the frightful expedient of forgery!

The methods of Fauntleroy were of unparalleled audacity. Then, as now, clients were in the habit of placing the certificates of their securities in the hands of their bankers for safe custody. So, by boldly forging the signature of the proprietor upon a power of attorney, he was able to sell any particular investment that he desired. Naturally, his depredations were confined to Government securities—Consols, Long Annuities, Exchequer Bills—and thus in effecting the fraudulent transfers his negotiations were with the Bank of England. For a period of almost ten years this incomparable swindler maintained the credit of his house in this manner, selling stocks belonging to his clients to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds. As the proprietors received their dividends as regularly as ever—for Fauntleroy took care that their pass-books were credited with the half-yearly payments—they never knew that their investments had been abstracted. On the death of an owner the stolen stock was replaced, and thus the trustees were unaware of the theft. So the frauds went on, each forgery being shrouded by another, until the total deficit of the Berners Street Bank exceeded half a million!

Narrow escapes were inevitable. On one occasion he was handing over a power of attorney for the transfer of stock to one of the clerks in the Consols Office at the Bank of England, when the person whose name he had forged entered the room. Yet Fauntleroy’saplombdid not fail him. As soon as he perceived the new-comer, he requested the clerk to return the document, with the excuse that he wished to correct an omission. Then, having secured the paper, he went to greet the friend whom he was about to rob, and they strolled out of the bank together. Another day, one of his lady clients instructed a London broker to sell some stock for her. Finding no such investment registered in her name, the man called at Berners Street to make inquiries. To his surprise the plausible banker informed him that the lady had already desired him to effect the sale. “And here,” continued the smiling Fauntleroy, producing a number of Exchequer bills, “are the proceeds.” Although his customer protested that she had never authorised the transaction, the matter was allowed to drop. While a friend was chatting in his private office he is said to have been imitating his signature, which he took out to the counting-house before his companion had departed. One of the last occasions when he visited the Bank of England was on the 5th of January, the day on which Thurtell and Hunt were tried for the Gillshill murder. While the clerk was crediting the dividend warrants due to his firm, the banker conversed about the crime. It was noted as a strange coincidence that the same clerk was one of the witnesses against him.

One day in September 1824, Mr J. D. Hulme, an official of the Custom House, wishing to examine a list of investments belonging to an estate of which he had become a trustee, paid a visit to the Bank of England. To his amazement he found that a sum of £10,000 inConsols was missing, and inquiry proved that the stock had been sold by the Berners Street manager under a power of attorney. On the advice of Mr Freshfield, solicitor of the bank, an application was made to Mr Conant of Marlborough Street, who was induced to grant a warrant for the arrest of the suspected man. At last the wily Fauntleroy had been caught napping; for although he was aware that there was a risk of exposure, and had made preparations to reinvest the stolen Consols, he had not yet been able to complete the transaction.

During the whole of Thursday night, Samuel Plank, chief-officer of Marlborough Street, finding that the banker was away from home, paraded Berners Street watching for his return. On the next morning, the 10th of September, at his usual hour, the grave, neatly dressed forger walked into his place of business. A mean trick marked the arrest. Mr Goodchild, the other co-trustee of the plundered estate, entered the counting-house a few moments before Plank, and proceeded into the private office, while the constable, pretending to cash a cheque, remained at the counter. When through the half-closed door of the inner room he saw that the victim and decoy were closeted together, the police-officer pushed past the astonished clerks, explaining that he wanted to speak to their employer. As Fauntleroy raised his eyes from his desk, and saw a warrant in the intruder’s hand, he realised that the visit of his friend was merely a device to place him in the hand of the law.

“Good God!” exclaimed the doomed man. “Cannot this business be settled?”

And tradition relates that he offered Plank a bribe of ten thousand pounds to allow him to escape. But the officer proved incorruptible, and soon the banker was standing in the presence of his astonished friend, Magistrate John Conant, who, though sore distressed,was compelled to commit him to Coldbath Fields prison.

“I alone am guilty,” cried the wretched Fauntleroy, in a burst of penitence. “My colleagues did not know!”

Like the great model whom he had striven to emulate, the vain man had found his Moscow. No longer was he the dandy banker of Berners Street, whose friendship had been sought by so many rich men from the City. The days of the lavish Corinthian, the associate of ‘bang-up pinks and bloods’ had passed away for ever, and he had become a criminal, standing beneath the shadow of the gallows!

While Mr Freshfield, with the aid of the constable, proceeded to execute his right of search, the members of the firm were summoned to town. At first the catastrophe was not appreciated to the full extent. On the following morning the bank opened its doors, and customers paid and drew their cheques as usual. However, before the close of the day the proprietors sent an announcement to the press that “in consequence of the extraordinary conduct of their partner,” they had determined for the present to suspend payment.

During the whole of Monday, the 13th of September, an excited throng took possession of Berners Street—neighbouring tradesmen trembling for their deposits; men from the City dismayed by the wildest rumours. A force of police was deemed necessary to prevent a riot. “Arrest of Mr Fauntleroy, the well-known banker!” The amazing tidings was upon every lip. A similar sensation had not been experienced in the memory of man. Since the days of Dr Dodd, half a century before, none so high in the social scale had been accused of such a crime. All the week, panic reigned in business houses. It was whispered that the defalcations would reach half a million pounds: that the greatestcommercial scandal of the age would be disclosed. One day, it was said that Fauntleroy had arranged a plan of escape; on another, that he had cut his throat with a razor.

In the presence of a crowd of his creditors, the forger—crushed, despairing, overwhelmed with the deepest shame—was brought up for his first examination at Marlborough Street on the following Saturday. Although not more than forty, his hair, prematurely grey, made him look much older. During ten long years of torture the slow fires of suspense must have burnt deep into his soul, and the reality of this fatal hour would seem less cruel than the dreaded expectation. One observer states that “his expression is of pure John Bull good-nature”; another declares that he had “a mild Roman contour of visage”; while his dress was the inevitable blue tail-coat and trousers, with half-boots and a light-coloured waistcoat—the morning attire of all gentlemen of the period from Lord Alvanley and Ball Hughes down to Corinthian Tom.

On the Friday week following his first examination, the forger stood once more in the dock at Marlborough Street. Two maiden ladies, Miss Frances and Miss Elizabeth Young, whose small fortune had been stolen, gave testimony against the prisoner. Pained to see the man whom they had honoured and trusted in this terrible position, the tender-hearted women were tearful and distressed. Since the maiden name of Mrs Henry Fauntleroy was the same as theirs, rumour leapt to the conclusion that these witnesses were the sisters of the prisoner’s wife. When the unfortunate banker was seen to flush deeply as Miss Young appeared in the witness-box, the error was confirmed.

It was not until the 19th of October that the accused went through his third and last examination. Although well-groomed and immaculate as ever, he was a mereshadow of the placid, inscrutable man of business who had borne his guilty secret so boldly and so long. There was “rather a ghastly than a living hue upon his countenance,” remarks the stylist who reports forThe Times. All the necessary charges being proved, he was committed to Newgate, his removal being postponed until Thursday, the 21st of October, on the application of his solicitor.

Meanwhile the London press had revelled in the case. Scarcely a day passed without a reference to the forger or to the forgery, and there was the greatest strife among the various newspapers to secure the most lurid reports. Many times we have the amusing spectacle of two journals belabouring each other like the envious editors inPickwick. Even the recent crime of John Thurtell—for in this wonderful fourth year of his Gracious Majesty King George IV. the lucky public was satiated with melodrama, while Jemmy Catnach’s pockets were overflowing with gold—did not offer such chances of sensational reports. It was announced to an amazed public that Fauntleroy had squandered the proceeds of his forgeries in riot and dissipation. One-half of his private life was disclosed to public ears; and though some of the newspapers were merciful, just as others were hostile to the prisoner, one and all, with very few exceptions, probed deep into his murky past.

Happily, there is no evidence to justify the supposition that the partners in the Berners Street bank—and in particular Mr J. H. Stracey, who thirty years later succeeded to the baronetcy held in turn by his father and his two brothers—were responsible for the dastardly attacks upon the defenceless man. Even had he given no public denial to the charge, such an assumption is impossible in the case of an honourable man like the late Sir Josias Stracey. Moreover, the identity of the personwho inspired the disgraceful accounts inThe Timesand other journals is easy to discern.

This spiteful enemy bursts upon the stage of the sad tragedy of Fauntleroy like the comic villain of melodrama—too contemptible to hate, but with a humour too crapulous for whole-hearted laughter. Joseph Wilfred Parkins—elected Sheriff of London on the 24th of June 1819—appears to have been one of the most blatant humbugs that ever belonged to the objectionable family of Bumble. Tradition relates that he was the son of a blacksmith who lived on the borders of Inglewood Forest in Cumberland; but Parkins, too proud to know from whence he came, preferred to pass as a bastard of the Duke of Norfolk. In his early youth, we are told that “he was apprenticed to a breeches-maker in Carlisle, but his dexterity as a workman not being commensurate with his powers of digestion, a separation took place.” Afterwards he sailed to Calcutta, where, assisted by letters of introduction from his patron the Duke, he established a lucrative business. In other ways, according to account, he was a success in India, where he became famous for hunting tigers with English greyhounds, and once shot a coolie for disobeying his orders, two miles and a half distant, right through the head, across the Ganges, and through an impenetrable jungle! On another occasion he claimed to have ridden stark naked in mid-day, on a barebacked horse without bridle, fifty miles in six hours, for a wager, and to have trotted back for pleasure without even a drink of water. When he returned to his native land with the treasures of the East, it was inevitable that such a man should win notoriety. Having failed to gain the affections of Queen Caroline, who preferred Alderman Wood for a beau, he devoted himself to Olive Serres, ‘Princess of Cumberland’ and became her champion and literary collaborator. One of the achievements on which he most pridedhimself was the refusal to marry a daughter of Lord Sidmouth, who was most eager to become his father-in-law. Sometimes we behold him fawning upon Lord Mayor Waithman and Orator Hunt. At others, no one excels him in hurling abuse at these same celebrities. During a portion of his career a charmer named Hannah White caused him much trouble. Probably he enjoys the unique honour of being the only Sheriff of London upon whom the Court of Common Council has passed a vote of censure for his conduct while in office.

For some years this great Parkins was a familiar friend of Henry Fauntleroy. “I have been looking out for you in town these three or four days,” the banker writes to him in May 1816, “as we have a dance this evening, and lots of pretty girls, and I know you are an admirer of them.” However, just after the arrest, the ex-Sheriff suspected his former associate unjustly of a breach of faith, and thus became his most deadly enemy, placing his intimate knowledge of his friend’s habits at the service of the hostile press. In order to exhibit the bankers depravity, he published a communication from the fair but frail Corinthian Kate, known in real life as ‘Mother Bang’ but the context chiefly serves to indicate that Parkins treasured a grudge because his friend had never introduced him to the lady. Even after the criminal had received sentence his animosity did not cease. “The penalty for forgery should be the gallows,” he declared at a meeting of the Berners Street creditors, “until the law discovered a worse punishment.” When the only son of the condemned man, a youth of fifteen, wrote to the papers, pleading that mercy should be shown to his father, the vindictive ex-Sheriff declared in the columns of theMorning Chronicle(as it proved, falsely) that the boy was not the author of the appeal. Nor did he scruple to print private letters from MrsFauntleroy to her husband in order to show that she was an ill-used wife.

Great indulgence was shown to the banker—for a forger always was treated with lenience—during his term of imprisonment at the Old Bailey. The same consideration—which aroused the ire of Parkins to boiling point—had been paid to him while he was under the care of Mr Vickery, ex-Bow Street runner, at that time the Governor of Coldbath Fields bridewell. On this account there arose a very pretty quarrel, at which, of course, the newspapers assisted, between John Edward Conant of Marlborough Street and an elderly magistrate of Hammersmith named John Hanson. The latter was accused of intruding into Fauntleroy’s room at the House of Correction, when the following conversation is said to have taken place:

“You are the banker from Berners Street, aren’t you?” demanded the visitor.

“Yes, I am that unfortunate person, sir,” answered the prisoner.

“Oh, then you’d better look to your soul,” was the reply. “Look to your Bible. Read your Bible.”

Although poor old Hanson, who was struck off the list of visiting justices in consequence of his officiousness, made many earnest protests that he had been misrepresented, and although Fauntleroy acquitted him of all intent to offend, it would appear that his observations were superfluous, whatever their precise form.

At Newgate the kind-hearted Mr Wontner—keeper of the gaol from 1822 till his premature death at the age of fifty in 1833—allowed the unfortunate banker every privilege that lay in his power. Thus his prison was no gloomy dungeon, but a large and well-furnished room, occupied by a turnkey named Harris, who removed into an adjacent apartment, and who, together with his wife, watched over and attended to the wants of his charge.Convinced that his case was hopeless, it is said that Fauntleroy resolved to plead guilty; but, urged by his friends, and by his solicitors, Messrs Forbes & Harmer, he was induced at last to abandon the intention.

James Harmer, who conducted his defence, was the great criminal lawyer of his day—a prototype of Mr Jaggers—the prince of Old Bailey attorneys. Among his clients were such diametrically opposite characters as Joseph Hunt of Gillshill fame, and lusty Sam Bamford of Middleton. The incidents of Mr Fauntleroy’s case offered many opportunities for his versatile talents; and although he failed to teach good manners toThe Timesnewspaper, he did much service to his age, by means of a side issue, in getting Joseph Parkins indicted for perjury. Yet the greatest abilities could do little to extenuate the Berners Street forgeries. Still, whether or not he had a weakness for scented soap, Harmer never fought in kid gloves, as the unfortunate Messrs Marsh, Stracey, & Graham—whom he was compelled to damage in the interests of the man he defended—found to their cost. Those inclined to accuse Charles Dickens of exaggeration should bear in mind that murderer Hunt, who chose Jaggers Harmer as his solicitor, escaped the hangman’s rope, while Thurtell, who employed another lawyer, was handed over to Thomas Cheshire.

The trial of Fauntleroy on Saturday, the 30th of October, did not attract the mob of respectables that officialdom had anticipated. A guinea entrance-fee proved prohibitive. Press and law students alone furnished their crowds, and the private galleries were patronised but poorly. Joseph Parkins, eager to witness the humiliation of the man whom he had chosen to regard as an enemy, was an early arrival, taking his place at the barristers’ table in front of the dock, where, in full view of the prisoner, he could gloat over his misery. Luckily, Sheriff Brown, whose humanity—like that ofhis colleague John Key—was in advance of the age, witnessed the manœuvre, and, appreciating the motive of the truculent nabob, sent an officer of the court to tell him that his seat was engaged. Parkins, whose fierce eyes, glaring from beneath bushy, overhanging brows, seemed to inflame his combative features and fiery locks, turned in outraged dignity upon the official.

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