BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WALL CASE

“You that in the condemned hole do lie,Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near,That you before the Almighty must appear.”

About half-past five he awakes with a start as a mail-coach rumbles along Newgate Street.

“Is that the scaffold?” he demands, and they tell him no.

Once more he makes anxious inquiries about the methods of the hangman, and they satisfy him as well as they can. Shortly before seven he is led to the day-room of the Press Yard, where he is joined by Ordinary Forde, who, robed in full canonicals, with a great nosegay beneath his chin, seems prepared for a wedding day. A fire is smouldering on the hearth, and a nauseating smell of green twigs fills the chill stone chamber. Gaunt and terrible is the aspect of the red, untamable giant, who is meek and penitent, but with soul still unbowed. A yellow parchment-like texture is drawn tightly over his sunken features, and through their hollow sockets the piercing eyes shine as though in ghastly reflection to the glance of death—not the triumphant glitter thrown back by Death Magnificent, but the stony, frightful stare imparted by the Medusa of Shame. A suit of threads and patches hangs loosely upon his emaciated limbs—an old brown coat, swansdown vest, and blue pantaloons—a sorry garb for one who has worn a colonel’s uniform in his Majesty’s army. For a moment his piercing gaze falls upon Ordinary Forde.

“Is the morning fine?” is the strange, eager question. “Time hangs heavily,” the hollow far-away voice continues. “I am anxious for the close of this scene.”

As if in response to the wish, Jack Ketch’s lackey, a dwarf with face of a demon, draws near with his cords and binds the giant’s wrists.

“You have tied me very tight,” is the weary complaint.

“Loosen the knot,” commands absolute Forde, and the sulky wretch obeys with low mutterings.

“Thank you, sir,” murmurs the giant. “It is of little moment.” The green twigs upon the hearth crackle in ashower of sparks up the wide chimney, and a shovelful of coals is thrown upon the burning mass. Death’s piercing glitter flashes from the eyes of the dying man while his brain paints pictures in the flames. Then his lips move slowly:

“Ay, in an hour that will be a blazing fire.”

Ay, and you are thinking that in an hour, you poor, red, untamable giant will have finished your long torture, and be lying cold and still—while that fire blazes merrily. In an hour one loving, great-hearted woman will have entered upon the agony-penance that she must endure to the grave. In an hour your little ones will be children of a father upon whom his country has seared the brand of infamy—and these green twigs will have become a blazing fire! Sad—yea, saddest of words that could fall from human lips!

Then the demon of suspense torments the poor giant once again, and he turns to the Ordinary appealingly:

“Do tell me, sir—I am informed that I shall go down with great force; is that so?”

Ordinary’s thoughts cease for a moment to dwell lovingly upon his breakfast-gorge with the Sheriff—the epilogue to every hanging—and professional pride swells his portly soul. With reverent unction he explains the machinery of the gallows, speaking of ‘nooses and knots’ with all the mastery of expert, for Jim Botting and his second fiddle ‘Old Cheese’ are no better handicraftsmen than Ordinary hangman Forde. Presently he in his turn grows curious.

“Colonel Wall,” he inquires, “what kind of men were those under you at Goree?”

The haunting glance of death-shame fades from the piercing eyes, and through the portholes of his soul there flashes the living spirit of defiance.

“Sir,” he cries, “they sent me the very riff-raff!”

Suddenly the reverend Ordinary bethinks himself ofhis holy office, and plunges headlong into prayer; a contrast that must compel the tear of recording angel—smoke-reeking, unctuous, ale-fed Forde and contrite, half-starved, but invincible giant. Sheriff Cox and his myrmidons enter as the clock is striking eight. A look of eagerness passes over the cadaverous lineaments, a gaunt figure steps forward, and a firm, hollow voice murmurs:

“I attend you, sir.”

Although his head is bowed, his tread is that of the soldier on parade as they pass out into the keen winter air. A crowd of felons, destined soon for the gallows, is huddled in groups, here and there, within their courtyard den, and as the procession passes through the quadrangle they hurl forth curses of hell against the man who is marching to his death. The giant head falls lower, and the martial tread beats faster. “The clock has struck,” he cries, as he quickens his step. There is a halt in another chamber beyond the Press Yard. An ingenious law-torment is demanded—the Sheriff’s receipt for a living corpse. A legal wrangle follows; the red giant’s body is not described in good set terms, and there is much quill-scratching, while the giant gazes calmly. Then the march is resumed down the loathsome passages, and the soul of Greatheart warms as eternity draws nearer.

In another moment, the most wondrous prospect of his life opens before his eyes. High upon the stage, with back turned to the towering wall, as befits a soldier, his vision ranges over a tossing sea of savage faces, a human torrent that fills the wide estuary, surging full and fierce to the limits of its boundaries. Then a mighty tumult rises from the depths of the living whirlpool, the exultant roar of a myriad demons thirsting for blood. At last the giant limbs tremble, as the shouts swell fiercer and louder still—three distinct terrific huzzas—unmistakableto trained ears; they come from the angry throats of a thousand British soldiers, the fierce war-cry learnt from the cruel Cossack long ago. The red tyrant is delivered to the mob at last. Some say it is the shout of punters delighted to have won their bets, and loudly press the strange apology; but reason, giving preference to comparative methods, calls to mind the savage exultation that hailed the atonement of skipper Lowry and Mother Brownrigg, of Burke and Palmer, and muses thoughtfully upon this balance of justice.

The gnarled, bony fingers of the red giant grasp the hand of Sheriff Cox, while the foul-odoured beast fumbles with the halter around his neck, withdrawing the noose and slipping it once more over his head. The victim turns to the plump Ordinary with a last request:

“I do not wish to be pulled by the heels.”

The priest deftly draws the cap over the gleaming, shrivelled face, and mumbles from his book. No clanging bell disturbs the peace of the sufferer, for he is a murderer, and this blessed torture is not for those of his class. The bareheaded crowd gazes with rapture upon the wooden scaffold, shorn of its appalling garb of black—another mercy vouchsafed to him who dies guilty of a brother’s blood. Suddenly there is a second mighty shout of triumph. The rope hangs plump between the two posts, and the tall, gaunt form is swaying in empty air. In another moment there are cries of horror, but of horror mingled with applause. The noose has formed an even collar around the giant’s neck, while the knot has slipped to the back of his head, which is still upright and unbent. Horrible convulsions seize the huge, struggling frame. It is a terrific scene—most glorious spectacle of suffering that a delighted crowd has ever gazed upon—Jack Ketch has bungled! Minutes pass, and still the hanging man battles fiercely for breath. Minutes pass, and not a hand is stretchedforth to give him relief. Sheriff’s eyes meet eyes of Ordinary in mutual horror. Sheriff’s watch is dragged from its fob, and when the little steel hands have stretched to a right angle, at last a hasty signal is made to the expectant hangman. Two butchers beneath the scaffold seize upon the sufferer’s legs, and soon his agony of more than a fourth of an hour is brought to a close. A fierce shock, indeed, to reason and the balance of justice argument—a fiercer shock still to those that cling lovingly to the tenets of Hebrew mythology.

With a sigh of relief Sheriff and Ordinary hurry away to coffee and grilled kidneys in Mr Kirby’s breakfast-room, leaving the crowd to watch the victim hanging—which crowd does with gusto, scrambling fiercely a little later for a bit of the rope, which Rosy Emma, worthy helpmate of Jack Ketch, retails at twelvepence an inch, and, furthermore, gloating with delight upon the cart that presently takes the wasted form of the dead giant to the saws and cleavers of Surgeons’ Hall dissecting-room, Saffron Hill. Tight hands at a bargain, these bloodletting, clyster-loving old leeches! They demand fifty, some say a hundred, guineas from the giant’s friends, and they pocket the ransom before they surrender their corpse. Devoted old leeches:sic vos non vobis—we are the learned legatees of your dabblings in anatomy. A few days later—it is a Thursday morning, numbered the 4th of February in the calendar—a few merciful friends bear the giant’s coffin to a resting-place in St Pancras Churchyard. Epitaph does not appear, for cant refuses to superscribe the true one—“England did not expect him to do his duty!”

As we look back upon the glowing perspective of our history, there are few scenes that stand out in fiercer grandeur than the flogging of Goree. Foul-smelling, Lilliputian picture, it shines, nevertheless, with the same unconquerable spirit of genius that clapped a telescopeto the blind eye at Copenhagen. One untamable hero, armed merely with a crimson rope, faces a hundred cut-throats, and, within view of the ramparts of the enemy, cows them into licking his shoes, declaring that an insult to himself is an insult to his King. Truly a David and Goliath picture.

“Wrong,” cry Farmer George and Doctor Henry, glancing timidly, as with mystical prescience, down the vista of ages to Board School days, and quaking at swish of cat and clank of triangles, guilty of as deep anachronism as he who hurled a shell at the tomb of the Mahdi, to the great disturbance of bread-and-milk nerves. For birch twigs and cat—essential forerunners of Standards Six—had much Peninsular and Waterloo work in front of them, and it was just as easy to chain red giants as to hang them.

“Wrong,” cry Farmer Merciful and Doctor Justice, busy with knife and steel, getting ready a keen edge for the grey, gallant head of poor crazy Despard, and eager to paste the town with balance of justice placards—“‘Téméraire’ insubordinates, and red giant of Goree—both hanged. Let foreign nations please copy.” And, doubtless, a burst of inordinate Gallic laughter hailed thisjeu d’esprit, for Gallic neighbours had other things for the encouragement of red giants—a field-marshal’s baton and the like.

There is no place for the musings of modern milksop. The deeds of the parents of his grandfather are for him merely a tale that is told, and as he closes the family record his bread-and-milk soul must only give thanks that his lot is cast in more pleasant places. Modern eye can but discern the red giants of a bygone world through a glass darkly. Cruel, crimson, unscrupulous—they were all that: children of murkiness even as we are children of light, and thus let comparison end. One hundred years—as great a barrier as a millionmiles of ether—has divided our ages,et nos mutamur. A thousand pencils—Saxon and Caledonian—have banished with Dunciad scorn the birchen wand that used to betwig merrily the tender fifteen-year-old flesh of ribald lad and saucy maiden. Triangle and cat, rope’s-end and grating, ceased years ago to terrify the hearts of rolling Jack and swaggering Tommy. Good Mr Fairchild no longer takes little Harry and little Emily to view the carrion of the gibbet,exempli gratiâ, for the modern Mr Fairchild does not remember that such instruments ever had their proper places in the land. Red giants, too—only to be let loose when occasion required—had their proper places in the good old times of birch-rod and gibbet, of Farmer George and Doctor Henry, who found much use for them in the taming of the Corsican ogre. Modern milksop, however, will scarcely concede that such times were good, or, at least, most wrong when inconsistent! Be that as it may, the cat and rope’s-end of the crimson giant were a portion of Britain’s bulwarks, in spite of inconsistent headshakings of Farmer George and Doctor Henry, of Brother Bragge and Brother Hiley—all of which, fortunately, is as repulsive to the soul of modern milksop as the dice and women of Charles Fox, or the two-bottle thirst of the Pilot who weathered the Storm. Lucky, perhaps, for bread-and-milk gentleman that he had fathers before him.

No other case bears the same resemblance to that of Joseph Wall as the incident of Kenneth Mackenzie and his cannon-ball execution. Some, indeed, have a certain affinity, and exhibit the national conscience overwhelmed by periodical fits of morality—a hysterical turning-over of new leaves. A few days before the red giant of Goree passed through the debtor’s door, Sir Edward Hamilton of the ‘Trent’ frigate was dismissed from the navy for an act of cruel tyranny, only to bereinstated in a few months. Thomas Picton, England’s “bravest of the brave,” was shaken by the same wave of humanity. Yet, after all, the guilt of the Admiral or the innocence of the hero of Waterloo were of little moment to a nation that continued to mutilate its enemies in the fashion of a dervish of the desert, under the sacred name of high treason. For, years later, the bloody heads of Brandreth and Thistlewood stained an English scaffold. Luckily for their oppressors, the victims of Hamilton and Picton—officers who did not stand in the desperate position of the Governor of Goree—survived their punishments, not having a leech-Ferrick to reckon with, else Farmer George and Doctor Henry, in the face of those dangling ‘Téméraire’ seamen, would have been in an awkward dilemma.

The case of George Robert Fitzgerald, often held forth as a parallel by contemporary pressmen, has little similarity to that of Wall. Both belonged to the 69th Foot, they were antagonists in a Galway duel in ’69, and both ended their days on the scaffold; but here comparison ends. The retribution that overtook ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’ at Castlebar was the fitting penalty of a vendetta murder, brutal and premeditated, and wrought without a semblance of authority.

Fifty years before the death of Joseph Wall, the London mob was able to indulge its fury in like fashion against another black-beast of its own choosing, one James Lowry, skipper of the merchant ship ‘Molly’ compared to whom the Governor of Goree appears to have been a mild and merciful commander. At different times, three sailors expired beneath the terrible floggings of Captain Lowry, who was wont to salute his dying victim with the cry, “He is only shamming Abraham.” And as the cruel seaman was carried in the cart to Execution Dock, the furious mob howled forth this ghastly catchword, just as they saluted Wallwith the echo of the phrase which they supposed he had uttered while Benjamim Armstrong was being flogged to death, “Cut him to the heart—cut him to the liver.”

Nor was the cruel tyrant only to be found in the merchantman, or was Edward Hamilton a solitary exception. Captain Oakham of the British navy is more than a creature of fiction, as is shown by the trials of Edward Harvey in August 1742, and of William Henry Turton in August 1780, which cast a lurid light upon the conditions of life in our ships of war. Midshipman Turton was a butcherly young gentleman, who turned his sword against a disobedient sailor in a sort of Captain-Sutherland-and-negro-cabin-boy fashion, but, owing to a Maidstone grand-jury petition and the absence of ‘Téméraire’ mutineers, there was no hempen collar for him.

The story of Joseph Wall has no exact parallel in our history, for the Mackenzie incident differs in two essential particulars—the dour Kenneth meant murder from the first, and did not pay the penalty of his crime. Lowry, Turton, and Sutherland were guilty, like ‘Fighting Fitzgerald,’ of common homicide, and themalice prepense, as law-givers understand the phrase, was clear and unmistakable. Even the lax morality of Doctor Henry’s days was compelled to take cognisance of giant Wall’s offence, just as it punished very properly—or tried to do—the sins of Picton and Hamilton; and a verdict of manslaughter, though delivered by a tradesman jury, would not have been an illogical conclusion. However, it remains a judicial murder—one of the most disgraceful that stains the pages of our history during the reign of George III.

1.An Authentic Narrative of Joseph Wall Esqr.By a Military Gentleman. J. Roach, Britannia Printing Office. Russell Court, Drury Lane (1802). Brit. Mus.

Except in the tract published by A. Young—a transparent plagiarism—there is no corroboration of the statement that Wall flogged to death a man named Paterson on the voyage out to Goree. As no reference is made in any contemporary newspapers, it seems probable that the ‘Military Gentleman’ has confused his materials. George Paterson, a soldier, received eight hundred lashes the day after the punishment of Armstrong, and died soon afterwards, which may have caused the mistake. If Wall had done another such deed in 1780, it is probable that it would have obtained greater publicity.

2.The Life, Trial and Execution of Joseph Wall Esqre.By a Gentleman. A. Young, Vera Street, Clare Market (1802). Brit. Mus.

3.The Trial at Large of Joseph Wall Esqre.Also an Account of his escape in 1784. John Fairburn, 146 Minories.

4.The Trial of Lieut. Col. Joseph Wall.Taken in shorthand by Messrs Blanchard and Ramsey. London (1802). Brit. Mus.

5.Life, Trial and Execution of Joseph Wall Esqre.(with a full length portrait). E. Lawrence, C. Chapple, and H. D. Symonds.

This tract is advertised in theMorning Chronicle, February 9, 1802.

6.The Trial of Governor Wall.With particulars of his escape at Reading in 1784 and his subsequent surrender in 1802. Fred Farrah, 282 Strand, (The Only Edition Extant). Brit. Mus. Copied from earlier accounts.

In theMorning Postof August 13, 1783, there appears the report of the court-martial held at the Horse Guards on July 7 and following days, which practically acquitted Wall of the charges brought against him by Captain Roberts. TheGazetteof March 9, 1784, contains the King’s Proclamation, dated March 8, describing the personal appearance of the escaped prisoner, and offering a reward of £200 for his apprehension. To those who consult contemporary journals for a first time there will come a surprise, for they will learn that Governor Wall on July 10 and 11, 1782, flogged to death notoneman butthree. No account later than the Espriella Papers, and not one of the manyNewgate Calendars, gives this information. Surgeon Ferrick’s letter appeared inThe Times, February 5, 1802.

15.The Gentleman’s Magazine(1784), part i. p. 227; (1802), part i. p. 81.

The January number, 1802, endorses the statement that Augustine Wall, the brother of the Governor of Goree, was “the first person, who presumed to publish Parliamentary Reports with the real names of the speakers prefixed.” This evidence is important, as Sylvanus Urban might have grudged such an admission. His own claims, however, are set forth very modestly. “Dr Johnston (in our magazine) dressed them (i.e.the speakers in Parliament) in Roman characters. Others gave them as orators in the senate of Lilliput. Mr Wall laid the foundation of a practice which, we trust for the sake of Parliament, and the nation, will never be abandoned.”

16.The European Magazine(1802), pp. 74, 154-157.

17.The Annual Register.Appendix to Chronicle, pp. 560-568.

Note I.—Dict. Nat. Biog.

Although reference is made to the dubious case of the flogging of the man Paterson during Wall’s outward voyage to Goree, there is no mention of the fact that four other soldiers were flogged by the Governor’s order on the same day and the day following the punishment of Benj. Armstrong, and that two of these also died of their wounds. There seems to be no authority for the statement that Wall “appears to have been in liquor” when he passed sentence on the men, and as such a presumption, which was never put forward by the prosecution, sweeps away all defence, and proves that the act was murder, it should not be accepted without the most trustworthy evidence. Mrs Wall’s father, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, never became Lord Seaforth; her brother did. Since Wall did not remain at Goree for more than two years, and left the island on July 11, 1782, it is evident that he did not become Governor in 1779. His letter to Lord Pelham, offering to stand his trial, was written on October 5, 1801, not on October 28.State Trials, vol. xxviii. p. 99.

Note II.—State Trials of the Nineteenth Century.By G. Latham Brown (Sampson Low, 1882). Vol. i. pp. 28-42.

On page 31 the author states that he has searched the records of the Privy Council in vain for a report of the charges brought against Wall by Captain Roberts in 1783. As stated previously, he would have found what he required in the columns of theMorning Postof August 13, or theGazetteer, August 14, 1783. It is strange that he is unaware that Wall flogged to death two other soldiers besides Benj. Armstrong.

Note III.—Edinburgh Review, January 1883,videcriticism of G. L. Brown’s book, p. 81.

To the writer of this review belongs the credit of being the first to hint a doubt as to the justice of Wall’s conviction.

Note IV.—A Tale without a Name—a tribute to Joseph Wall’s noble wife—will be found in the works of James Montgomery, Longman (1841), vol. iii. p. 278.VidealsoLife of Montgomery, by Holland and Everett. Longman (1855), vol. iii. p. 253.

Note V.—Other contemporary authorities areLetters from England by Don Alvarez Espriella, Robert Southey, vol. i. pp. 97, 108, and the familiarBook for a Rainy Day, by J. T. Smith, pp. 165-173.

“... a story drawnFrom our own ground,—the Maid of Buttermere,—And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wifeDeserted and deceived, the Spoiler came,And woo’d the artless daughter of the hills,And wedded her, in cruel mockeryOf love and marriage bonds....Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earthHer new-born infant....... Happy are they both,Mother and child!...”—The Prelude, Book vii.Wordsworth.

During the late autumn of 1792, a retired military man of amiable disposition and poetic temperament, who had made a recent tour through Cumberland and Westmoreland, published his impressions in a small volume which bore the titleA Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes. The book displays the literary stamp of its period just as clearly as a coin indicates the reign in which it is moulded. Fashion had banished the rigour of the pedant in favour of idyllic simplicity. The well-groomed poet, who for so long had recited his marble-work epistle to Belinda of satin brocade, now spoke to deaf ears; while the unkempt bard, who sang a ballad of some muslin-clad rustic maid, caught the newly-awakened sympathies of the artistic world.

Etched by J. ChapmanJohn Hatfield.Published J. Cundee Ivy Lane

Etched by J. Chapman

John Hatfield.

Published J. Cundee Ivy Lane

The author ofA Fortnight’s Ramble, having the instinct of a good literary salesman, was not backward in sentiment, and among his thumb-nail sketches of rural life he was careful not to omit the portrait of a village damsel. There is certainly much charm in the impression of his humble heroine, whom he discovered in a tiny hamlet on the shores of Lake Buttermere, where, according to the laws of romance, she was the maid of the inn. No doubt the child of fourteen was as beautiful as he describes her—with her long brown curls, big blue eyes, rosy lips, and clear complexion, and with a grace of figure matured beyond her years. The pity is that the picture was ever drawn.

Before the close of the year the charms of ‘Sally of Buttermere’ had been quoted in a London magazine, and henceforth the tourist was as eager to catch a glimpse of the famous young beauty as to visit Scale Force or Lodore. Very soon the inn where she lived—“a poor little pot-house, with the sign of the Char”—became a place of popular resort. Verses in her praise began to cover the white-washed walls; and while she was in the full bloom of youth, wandering artists, who have handed down to us her likeness, took the opportunity of persuading her to sit for them. That Mary Robinson was a modest and attractive girl is shown by the testimony of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and there is evidence that she remained unspoilt in spite of her celebrity.

Six years after the publication ofA Fortnight’s Ramble, its author, Joseph Budworth, paid a second visit to the home of his ‘Sally of Buttermere’ Mary, who was nineteen, and still charming, seemed destined (after the fashion of village maidens) to become a buxom beauty, and it is said, indeed, that she had been most lovely at the age of sixteen. Budworth, however, saw that she was quite pretty enough to attract hosts ofadmirers, and conscience told him that he had not done well in making her famous. There was Christmas merrymaking at the little inn, and she reigned as queen of the rustic ball. Next morning he confessed to her that he had written the book which had brought her into public notice.

“Strangers will come and have come,” said he, “purposely to see you, and some of them with very bad intentions. We hope you will never suffer from them, but never cease to be on your guard.”

Mary listened quietly to this tardy advice, and thanked him politely.

“You really are not so handsome as you promised to be,” Budworth continued. “I have long wished by conversation like this to do away what mischief the flattering character I gave of you may expose you to. Be merry and wise.”

Then, taking advantage of his seniority of twenty-three years, the good-natured traveller “gave her a hearty salute,” and bade her farewell. Unfortunately, he repeated his previous indiscretion by publishing another long account of the Buttermere Beauty in theGentleman’s Magazine, and, like Wordsworth, who in similar manner paraded the charms of ‘little Barbara Lewthwaite’ he lived to regret what he had written.

Two years later, a handsome middle-aged gentleman of fine presence and gallant manners paid a visit to the Lake District, bearing the name of Alexander Augustus Hope (brother to the third Earl Hopetoun), who, after a successful military career, had represented the burgh of Dumfries, and now sat in Parliament as member for Linlithgowshire. An active, strong-limbed fellow, with courtly demeanour and an insinuating Irish brogue, the contrast between his thick black brows and his fair hair, between the patch of grey over his right temple and the fresh colour of his face, added toan appearance of singular attractiveness. These were the days of the dandies, when young Mr George Brummell was teaching the Prince of Wales how a gentleman should be attired; and Colonel Hope was distinguished by the neatness and simplicity of a well-dressed man of fashion.

The new-comer reached Keswick about the third week in July, travelling in his own carriage without ostentation, having hired horses and no servant. Soon after his arrival he went over to Buttermere, and remained there for two or three days. Towards the end of the month he visited Grassmere, where he became acquainted with a genial merchant from Liverpool, whose name was John Crump. Being a most entertaining companion—for he was a great traveller, had fought in the American War, and, as might be expected of one so gallant and handsome, had been engaged in numerous duels—Colonel Hope had the knack of fascinating all whom he met. With Mr Crump, who for some reason was not in favour with the young poet at Greta Hall, he struck up a great friendship during his three weeks’ stay at Grassmere, and a little later the merchant showed his appreciation by christening one of his children ‘Augustus Hope’ as a compliment to his new acquaintance.

About the end of the third week in August the member of Parliament, whose passion, we are told, was a rod and fly, left Grassmere, and, for the sake of the char-fishing, took up his quarters at the little inn at Buttermere. So pleased was he with the district, that he contemplated the purchase of an estate, and Mr Skelton, a neighbouring landowner, went with him to inspect a property near Loweswater. During his sojourn at the Char Inn he paid frequent visits to Keswick to meet his friend John Crump. Although wishing, for the sake of quiet and seclusion, to travel incognito, Colonel Hopeseems to have been a gregarious person, and could not help extending the number of his acquaintances. At the ‘Queen’s Head’ Keswick, where his Liverpool friend was in the habit of stopping, he came across a kindred spirit in Colonel Nathaniel Montgomery Moore, who had represented the town of Strabane in the recently extinct Irish Parliament.

Since the two had much in common, a close intimacy ensued; but there was another reason for Colonel Hope’s friendly advances. A pretty young lady of fortune, to whom Mr Moore was guardian, was one of his party, and the new acquaintance began to pay her the most evident attention. Colonel Hope, in fact, always had been remarkable for his insinuating behaviour in the society of women, and since his arrival in the Lake District he had been concerned in an affair of gallantry with at least two local maidens far beneath him in station. However, this was a pardonable weakness, for the Prince himself, and his brothers of York and Clarence, did not disdain to stoop to conquer. But on the present occasion the gay Colonel apparently had fallen in love, and when, before very long, he asked the lady to be his wife, he was accepted.

It is not strange that a man of his power of fascination and handsome appearance should have met with success even on so short an acquaintance. The match seemed a most suitable one in every respect, and Mr Moore would have been well satisfied that his ward should be engaged to a man of Alexander Hope’s rank and position. Yet the lover did not hasten to take the guardian into his confidence. Remaining at the little inn on the shores of Buttermere, only occasionally he made the fourteen miles’ drive to visit hisfiancéeat Keswick. Colonel Moore, who could not remain blind to the flirtation, became anxious lest his ward should place herself in a false position. It was evident that the twobehaved to each other as lovers, and the Irishman was impatient for the announcement of the betrothal. Still, the love affair ran a smooth course until the close of the third week in September; but as the time went on, and the engagement remained a secret, the suspicions of the lady’s guardian began to be aroused. Since it was apparent that his friend had committed himself, his duty was plain. There were only three explanations of his reticence. Colonel Hope was not the man he pretended to be, or he had quarrelled with his relatives, or else his passion was beginning to cool.

The first proposition already had been whispered among a few. Although hisbonhomieand air of distinction had made him a great favourite with his inferiors, yet the fact that the reputed Colonel Hope was travelling without servants, and had selected a woman of fortune as his conquest, prejudiced critical minds. Coleridge, who was engaged in basting the succulent humour of the gentle Elia before a roasting fire, seems to have cast the eye of a sceptic upon the popular tourist from the day of his arrival. However, no open rupture took place between the Irishman and Alexander Hope, but towards the close of September they met less frequently.

On Friday, the 1st of October, Colonel Hope sent over a letter to his friend at Keswick, explaining that business called him to Scotland, and enclosing a draft for thirty pounds, drawn on Mr Crump of Liverpool, which he asked him to cash. Pleased, no doubt, at this mark of confidence, which may have appeared a favourable augury of his ward’s happiness, Colonel Moore at once obeyed the request, and forwarded ten pounds in addition, so that his friend might not be short of funds on his journey. On the next day, the sensation of a lifetime burst upon the people of Keswick. At noon, the landlord of the ‘Queen’s Head’ returning from the country,brought with him the great intelligence that the Hon. Colonel Hope had married the Beauty of Buttermere!

It was obvious to everyone—aye, even to the sceptic of Greta Hall—that the mystery was at an end. Alexander Hope was no impostor. Avarice had not led him to attempt the capture of a lady of fortune. Torn between love and honour, he had doubted whether to give his hand when his heart was disposed elsewhere, or to break his word. Thus, obeying the impulse of love, he had married a girl of the people. Native pride in the Beauty of Buttermere was strong in every breast, and the next mail conveyed to London the news of her great triumph.

But Colonel Moore, who had the right to be wroth and suspicious, would not be appeased by the explanations which satisfied the multitude. Since he could not believe that a gentleman would behave in such a fashion, he made haste to test the credentials of his late friend. The bill of exchange was forwarded to Mr Crump, who, delighted to be of service to Colonel Hope, from whom he had received an affectionate note requesting the favour, at once accepted it! Still the Irishman refused to be convinced, and he sent a letter to the bridegroom, informing him that he should write to his brother, Lord Hopetoun. Moreover, he told all friends of his intentions.

J. Smith, sculp.The Beauty of Buttermere.Published in the Act directs. June 25-1803.

J. Smith, sculp.

The Beauty of Buttermere.

Published in the Act directs. June 25-1803.

During his five or six weeks’ residence at the Char Inn, the amorous tourist must have had full opportunity of forming a contrast between the Irish girl and Mary Robinson. The Beauty of Buttermere was now in her twenty-fifth year. A healthy outdoor life had matured her robust physique, and her figure, though graceful still, had lost the lines of perfect symmetry. The keen mountain air had robbed her complexion of its former delicacy, and with the advance of womanhood her features had not retained their refined, girlish prettiness.Still, her face was comely and pleasant to look upon. The charm of her kind and modest nature was felt by all who met her, and she seems to have possessed culture and distinction far in advance of her lowly station. Indeed, one of her most celebrated admirers hints plainly that a mystery surrounded her parentage, and that her breadth of mind and her polished manners were the result of gentle birth. However, there appears no warrant for such a surmise.

So, at last, Colonel Hope had begun to waver in his ardour for the Irish girl. Naturally, she was not content to remain under a secret engagement, and her inclinations favoured a brilliant wedding, which her husband’s noble relatives should honour with their presence. Such delay had not pleased the lover, who wished the announcement of the betrothal to be followed by a speedy marriage. In this respect his other inamorata had been less exacting. Poor Mary expected no pomp or ceremony, and had never imagined that a peer and his people would come to her wedding. All the odium that can attach to the man who pays his addresses to two women at the same time is certainly his, for it is stated on good authority that he made his first proposal to the Cumberland girl before he commenced the courtship of Colonel Moore’s rich ward.

Then, when the heiress refused to fall in with his wishes, he made the final choice. On the 25th of September he went over to Whitehaven—about twelve miles as the crow flies from Buttermere—with the Rev. John Nicholson, chaplain of Loweswater, a friend of two weeks’ standing, to obtain a special licence for his marriage with Mary Robinson. Naturally, no opposition was raised by the parents; and although it has been said that the reluctant girl was overruled by their persuasions, it is certain—as far as any judgment of human nature can be certain—that she was a willing bride. Nor—sincehis record shows that each woman whom he cared to fascinate was unable to resist him—is it difficult to believe that Mary was in love with her handsome suitor.

On the morning of Saturday, the 2nd of October, the wedding took place in the picturesque old church at Loweswater, in the beautiful vale of Lorton, about seven miles from Buttermere. The ceremony was performed by Mr Nicholson, who had become as firm a friend of the bridegroom as Crump himself. Immediately after the service the newly married pair posted off north to visit Colonel Hope’s Scotch estate. Their first day’s journey was a remarkable one. Passing through Cockermouth and Carlisle, they reached Longtown, near Gretna Green, at eight o’clock in the evening, a distance of over forty miles. The next day being Sunday, the bridegroom, who on occasions could affect much religious zeal, is careful to record, in a letter to the chaplain of Loweswater, that they made two appearances in church. On Tuesday or Wednesday they continued their tour across the Border, but on the following Friday, owing to Mary’s anxiety to receive news from her parents (so her husband alleged), they retraced their steps to Longtown. Here, two days later, important communications reached Colonel Hope, which made him resolve to return to Buttermere without delay.

Friend Nicholson wrote that scandalous reports concerning his honour had been spread in the neighbourhood since his departure, and that his wife’s parents had been much disturbed by the rumours that had reached their ears—informing him also of Colonel Moore’s opinion of his behaviour. This latter news was superfluous, for there was a letter from the Irishman himself. Its contents may be gathered from the reply that the traveller despatched to Nicholson on the 10th of October. With amazing effrontery he tells his friend that his attentions to the Irish heiress had never been serious, and expresseshis astonishment that Colonel Moore should censure his conduct. Yet he shows his concern for the attacks on his integrity, declaring that he will come back at once to meet his calumniators face to face. Moreover, he was as good as his word. Probably he left Longtown for Carlisle, according to promise, the next morning, and arrived at Buttermere on Tuesday, the 12th of October. Thus Mary’s brief honeymoon came to an end.

As luck would have it, a somewhat remarkable person, who happened to be acquainted with Colonel Hope, was now staying at Keswick. This was George Hardinge, senior justice of Brecon, the late Horace Walpole’s friend and neighbour, the ‘waggish Welsh judge’ of whom Lord Byron has sung. Having heard of the romantic marriage, and being anxious to meet Colonel Hope, he sent a letter to Buttermere requesting a visit. Early on Wednesday morning the newly married man drove over to Keswick in a carriage and four, accompanied by his factotum, the Rev. John Nicholson, to answer the summons in person. The meeting, which took place at the ‘Queen’s Head’ Hotel, was an embarrassing one. Pertinacious Nathaniel Moore, who no doubt had kindled in Justice Hardinge’s mind the suspicions which had caused him to solicit the interview, was present at the encounter. The Welsh judge found that Colonel Hope of Buttermere renown was an entire stranger to him!

However, the other was in no way abashed, but pointed out pleasantly that the mistake had arisen through the coincidence of names. Mr Hardinge persisted that it was remarkable that he should be Alexander Augustus Hope, M.P. for Linlithgowshire, when the name of the representative of that county was Alexander Hope. The reply was a flat denial that these names and titles had been assumed, and we are told that the credulous clergyman bore witness to the truth of thisstatement. Nevertheless, other testimony against the accused man had more weight with the astute George Hardinge. Not only was there Colonel Moore’s declaration that the stranger had always passed as Lord Hopetoun’s brother, but the Keswick postmaster was able to prove that he had franked letters as a member of Parliament. The result was an appeal for a warrant of arrest to a neighbouring magistrate, and the suspected Mr Hope was placed in charge of a constable.

Still, he did not appear disconcerted, but treated the whole matter as a joke. Others, too, were of the same opinion, for during the course of the day he presented a bill of exchange for twenty pounds, drawn once more on John Crump, to the landlord of the ‘Queen’s Head’ which that individual cashed without hesitation. The stranger at once sent £10 to Colonel Moore to cancel the gratuitous loan received before his departure to Scotland. Faithful Nicholson, too, retained full confidence in his genial friend, who ordered dinner to be prepared for both at the hotel, and continued to bear him company.

Presently, the prisoner, chafing at the thought of being kept in durance, asked permission to sail on the lake. As this appeared a reasonable request, the wise constable gave his consent. The clergyman accompanied his companion to the water’s edge, while he made fervent protests of innocence.

“If he were conscious of any crime,” he told his trusting friend, “a hair would hold him.”

Since, however, he declared that he was guiltless, as a natural corollary he had no intention of being held by the whole force of the Keswick constabulary, and Nicholson must have been aware of his design. For not only did he give his friend a guinea to pay for the dinner at the ‘Queen’s Head’ which was a plain hint that he did not mean to return, but he told him that, as his carriage had been seized by his accusers, his onlychance of rejoining his wife at Buttermere was by rowing down the lake.

Luck favoured him. A fisherman named Burkett, who had been his companion on many previous expeditions, had a boat ready for him, and soon he was far across Derwentwater. A crowd of sympathisers, full of wrath against his enemies, for they were sure he was a great man (as an impostor would have had no motive in marrying poor Mary), stood on the shore with Nicholson and the intelligent constable to watch his departure. Soon the short October day drew to a close, and darkness fell upon the waters, but ‘Colonel Hope’ did not return. Keswick never saw his face again.

The conduct of the Rev. John Nicholson has been the subject of keen censure. Although the province of a parson is not that of the detective, it is unfortunate that he did not suggest to the parents of Mary of Buttermere that it would be wise to verify the statements of their daughter’s suitor. On the other hand, it must be admitted that everyone was infatuated by the splendid impostor, and it is evident that the clergyman was not aware of the flirtation with the Irish heiress. It is more difficult to defend Nicholson’s conduct at the interview between Judge Hardinge and the swindler; for although we have no precise details of the conversation, it is plain that the chaplain of Loweswater was guilty of a strange reticence. Naturally, he knew that his mysterious friend had passed under the name of Colonel Hope, and had franked letters as a member of Parliament. Still, not only did he refrain from exposing, but even continued to trust him, though he must have perceived him to be a liar. However, charity may suggest the conclusion that the clergyman was full of compassion for Mary Robinson; and since he believed that her husband would join her at the little Char Inn, he was determined, whether felon or not, that he should have the chance of escape.

The first announcement of the marriage of the celebrated Buttermere Beauty with the brother of the Earl of Hopetoun was printed in theMorning Poston the 11th of October. Yet, three days later—the morning after the remarkable escape at Derwentwater—a letter, written on the highest authority, appeared in the same journal, denying the previous report and stating that the real Colonel Alexander Hope was travelling on the Continent. Thus, by chance, London and Keswick became aware almost simultaneously that Mary Robinson had been the victim of a cruel fraud.

Although his flight had made it evident that the pretended member of Parliament was an impostor, it was not until the last day of October that his identity was discovered. Meanwhile, the most strange rumours had been aroused. The fact that all his plate and linen were found packed in his travelling carriage, which was retained by the landlord in pledge for his twenty pounds, gave rise to the suspicion that he had meant to desert his poor young bride. On the other hand, his admirers persisted that he was an Irish gentleman, hiding from the authorities because of his share in the recent rebellion. A costly dressing-case, which he had left behind, was examined under warrant from a magistrate, but nothing turned up to reveal his true name. In the end this discovery was made by Mary herself. While looking over the dressing-box more carefully, she disclosed a secret hiding-place containing a number of letters addressed to him who had forsaken her. Alas for the Beauty of Buttermere! No anticipation could have exceeded the cruel reality. The handsome bridegroom was a married man, and these letters had been written by the heart-broken wife whom he had deserted. ‘Colonel Hope’ her supposed rich and noble husband, was a notorious swindler—guilty of a capital felony—whose real name was John Hadfield!

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