BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The Book of Common Prayer. Published by Edward Ryland, May 1, 1755. Nine plates by Ryland—after S. Wale.
2. The Book of Common Prayer in Welsh (1770), with the same plates as in former edition.
3. The Complete Angler, by Isaac Walton, edited by Sir John Hawkins. With fourteen plates, dated 1759, by Ryland—after S. Wale. First edition 1760.
4. “Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine.” Illustrated by J. B. Oudry (1755-59). Seven plates by Ryland in vols. ii., iii., and iv.
5. L’Ecole Des Armes. Par M. Angelo. A Londres: chez R. & J. Dodsley, Pall Mall. February 1763. Second edition 1765. With forty-seven plates. A few copies in colours. Ryland engraved fourteen of these plates. Hall, Grignion, Elliot, and Chamber did the rest—all after drawings by John Gwynn. Thus Henry Angelo’s account of this work is inaccurate.
6. A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings. Edited by Charles Rogers. Published London 1778. Contains fifty-seven plates by Ryland in addition to the mezzotint portrait of Rogers.
7. The School of Fencing, by D. Angelo, edited by Henry Angelo. 1787. With forty-seven plates, the same as in the first edition. This book is not well edited, as the letterpress does not always agree with the pictures.
Note.—In every case the date of the engraving has been copied from an existing impression. Possibly there are earlier and later states.
A SOP TO CERBERUS
THE CASE OF GOVERNOR WALL, 1782-1802
“He wandered here, he wandered there,
A fugitive like Cain,
And mourned, like him, in dark despair
A brother rashly slain.”
—A Tale without a Name. James Montgomery.
On the 26th of August 1782, a captain in the army, named Joseph Wall, just come home from foreign service, sat down to compose his report to the Secretary of State. A glance would tell that he was one of those chosen by destiny to rule man and enslave woman. Although the swift, hot courage of the Celt shone in his fearless eyes and slumbered in his rough-hewn features, the beetling brow, resolute jaw, and fierce, mobile mouth were softened by the gentle mesmeric charm that marks all of his race. In stature he was a giant; while his sweeping shoulders, which towered above the heads of most, the thick, gnarled fingers and stalwart limbs, indicated a mighty strength. For the rest, he was a clean-looking man, with light brown hair and a fresh complexion. Yet the dull grey lines in his face told that the tropics had levied that tax upon his physique which the British soldier is ever eager to pay.
Etched by J. Chapman
Governor Wall.
Published by J. Cundee Ivy Lane Jany, 1804
There was nothing of moment in the officer’s report to Secretary Townshend. It was merely a rough account of the termination of his stewardship while Governor for eighteen months at the island of Goree. Mere chance had thrown this tiny sun-baked rock once more into the possession of Great Britain. Three years previously the French fleet under de Vaudreuil, en route to the West Indies, sweeping down upon Senegal, had seized the English posts at Fort Lewis and Fort James. The victory of Sir Edward Hughes had reversed the position. By the capture of the island of Goree, which nestles south of Cape Verde scarcely three miles from the mainland, the approach to the enemies’ settlements on the opposite shore was placed in the hands of England. Being a station of some importance for trading purposes, owing to its proximity to two great rivers of West Africa, a British garrison remained there during the course of the war. Though deemed less unhealthy than the coast, its climate was deadly. Not a mile in length, and scarcely more than a quarter in breadth, the men had little scope for exercise. All ranks detested the place. The regiment was composed of the riff-raff of the army; the officers were those who could get no other appointment.
Joseph Wall was worthy of better things. Nature had made him one of those soldiers of fortune whom his native land has sent forth unceasingly year by year into the armies of every country in the world. About the time of George III.’s accession he had flung aside the religion of his fathers to obtain a commission, and two years later, at the age of twenty-five, the young Irishman saw his first fight in the West Indies. His fiery valour during the storming of Fort Moro gained him promotion, and he returned home from Havannah in 1762 with the rank of captain. Fate, however, robbed him of his birthright, for twelve years of weary peace laid their rust upon his restless soul. Soon an appointment under Company John took him to Bombay, but opportunity never came to draw his sword in a war of nations. At the close of his residence in India he returned to his father’s home, Abbeyleix, in Queen’s County, a sad example of him whom fortune welcomes with a smile and then turns away her face for ever. The keen spirit that could find no outlet under arms was ill fitted for the civilian’s life. Joseph Wall, the soldier of fortune, possessed none of the grace of humour which might have softened his red, untamable temper. Broils innumerable led to many a bloody duel, and on one occasion—so tradition relates—he crossed swords with ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’ Rumour credits him also with the death of a faithful friend, and, ’tis said, dux femina facti. Indeed, several affairs of gallantry stain his record, and once he was called upon to answer an insult to a lady in a court of justice.
At last he sought active service once more. The British colony that borders the river Gambia in North-West Africa offered him employment, and Fort James, a station on the estuary, became his home. Unfortunately, Colonel Macnamara, the Lieutenant-Governor, was a man of similar disposition to his young officer, and during August 1776 the inevitable encounter took place. Wall, on the plea of ill-health, happening to disregard one of the orders of his superior, was cast into prison without trial, and was immured for nine months. An action at law, which appears to have been heard during the year 1779, was the result, and the jury, who, guided by Lord Mansfield, held the opinion that Colonel Macnamara had acted with unnecessary severity, ordered him to pay the sum of a thousand pounds to the victim of his tyranny.
Previously, having returned to England, the Irishman had become fortune-hunter, and cut a dash at Bath or Harrogate, searching in vain for his rich heiress. Such a precarious existence could not endure, and during the year 1780, Joseph Wall, whose finances were at a low ebb, again was compelled to seek employment. The command of the recently captured island of Goree was going a-begging—two Governors having succumbed to the climate in a space of eighteen months—and he accepted the post. Its perquisites were considerable; for as the control of the vast trade along the coast of Senegambia was in his hands, there were endless chances of lucrative commissions and levying extortion upon the native chiefs. Huge inflammable Wall was just the man to tame and cow the rebellious gaol-birds who formed his garrison, and he ruled them with a hand of steel. Neither men nor officers loved his methods. As ships touched but seldom at this far-distant port, the soldiers were called upon often to submit to short commons. A glance from the fiery Governor quelled the murmurs, for a merciless flogging was the fate of the unlucky one upon whom his eye rested for a second time. Even the iron frame of Joseph Wall was soon conquered by the deadly climate. In less than two years he was compelled to send in his resignation. On the 11th of July 1782 he quitted the arid rock, and, his ship being lucky enough to avoid the cruisers of France and Spain, he landed safely at Portsmouth before the end of August. Thus it came about that this soured and disappointed man sent his report to Mr Townshend.
Joseph Wall was only in his forty-sixth year. Although his health had broken down temporarily, he was capable still of a long period of active service. But the unkind fate that had offered his only chance at the close of the Seven Years’ War, and had kept him styed in Senegambia during the struggle with the American colonies, was smoothing the way for the younger Pitt and his ten years’ peace. Thus fortune sports with nations, giving to one Frederick, to another Daun, working miracles with Chatham, or assisting Choiseul to open the flood-gates of a deluge. Lucky, indeed, for humanity that every man has not his opportunity. Valour was not lacking in the British officers who fought at Lexington, at Bunker’s Hill or Saratoga, but theirs was no mate to the courage of those who did battle against them beneath the shadow of the rope. During the early years of the American War a hundred Joseph Wall might have erected a forest of gibbets and have made the colony a second Poland, but the United States never would have survived its birth. It is far better as it is. Truly, there were giants in those days—cruel, untamable giants, but capable of superhuman achievements; and though from time to time we cast off their chains, bidding them stalk through a world of slaughter, yet, to the credit of our race, the spirit even of that robust age kept them mostly in their dungeons of obscurity.
For only ten months did the Irish soldier of fortune enjoy his retirement undisturbed. Dark rumours had been whispered of his bloody régime in West Africa, and one Captain Roberts made grave accusations, of which, however, a court-martial at the Horse Guards took little heed—merely censuring the giant tenderly in minor matters, as the beating of a sentry, with a humorous rider that the man got what he deserved. They are tedious complaints, such as rise to the lips of the slack and spiteful when a strenuous commander insists upon a rattle of bones. It was not until the troopship Willington brought home the remainder of the garrison of Goree—now ceded to the French—that a more substantial charge was laid against the ex-Governor. In a few days the newspapers announced that the surgeon and a couple of officers, who had been examined before the Privy Council, had presented a terrible indictment of cruelty against their late commander. Towards the end of February 1784, two men set out for Bath to take Joseph Wall into custody. Although distressed by the warrant, he submitted quietly, merely asking that a lady friend should be allowed to accompany him to London. The ‘Castle Inn,’ Marlborough, was the first halting-place on the journey along the most famous of coach-roads, and on the 1st of March, the next evening, they rested at the old ‘Brown Bear’ in Reading. Here Captain Wall protested that his custodians should not occupy the same bedroom as himself; and to humour him, as ordinary mortals are in the habit of humouring a restive giant, they agreed to remain in an adjoining chamber. A drop to the ground from a first-floor window was not the obstacle to deter the untamable soldier, and the next morning the police-officers found that their captive had vanished. A reward of £200 was offered for his apprehension on the 8th of March, the day on which he is believed to have set foot on French soil. It is understood that he wrote to a friend, stating he should surrender for trial as soon as the popular clamour against him had died away, and it is certain that he sent a letter containing a similar promise to Secretary Townshend, now Lord Sydney, on the 15th of October of the same year. This intention, however, was not fulfilled, and gradually the case of Governor Wall, whose cruelty had excited so much indignation, faded from public memory.
The cause of his arrest was an incident that occurred on the eve of his departure from Goree in 1782. For some time the felon soldiers under his command had been muttering low growls of discontent. Short allowance had been their lot for a long period, and the fear arose that the usual compensation would not be paid unless they received it before the Governor left the island. On the 10th of July preparations were hastened for Wall’s departure. All was bustle at the storekeeper’s office, where a servant was packing the commander’s luggage. No doubt it was whispered among the men that the home-bound vessel would carry a wealth of merchandise, which by right should be left for the garrison. Early in the morning the Governor observed a body of soldiers, twenty or more, marching across the hot sand towards his residence, where they had no right to intrude. Though enraged at this evidence of insubordination, he merely gave an order that they should retire. Two hours later, a still larger number was seen approaching Government House. Wall went out into the blazing tropical sunlight to meet them. So determined were they to vent their grievances that they did not pause to consider that this act was flagrant mutiny. Since their commanding officer had forbidden a similar gathering, the right course was to send a deputation to the Governor, explaining their demands through the proper channels.
That Wall considered the situation was serious, is proved by the fact that he temporised with the men, dismissing them without any threat of serious punishment. In later days he protested—which version was endorsed by several eye-witnesses—that the conduct of the soldiers who spoke to him was insolent and menacing, and that he induced them to disperse by a promise to consider their claims. At all events, he came to no decision until he had taken counsel with his officers, whom he met, as usual, at the two o’clock dinner. The methods adopted show that elaborate precautions were deemed necessary in order to avoid a grave disturbance. Roll-call was sounded about an hour before the proper time, and as the pink flush of evening was stealing over the burning rock the soldiers assembled on parade. Unaware that reprisals were contemplated, the corps was drawn up in a half-circle within the ramparts, in the centre of which stood the Governor and his four available officers. As the men were falling in, or perhaps a little while before, another case of insubordination arose. Word was brought that there was a mutiny in the main guard. Away hurried the intrepid commander to the scene of the disturbance. Snatching a bayonet from the hands of a drunken sentry, the angry giant belaboured the man lustily, and thrust back an excited soldier named George Paterson, one of the ringleaders of the morning, who was about to break from the guard-room.
Having thus smothered this miniature rebellion, the Governor, whose inflammable temper had burst its bonds, hastened back to the parade ground. In those robust times a commanding officer had rude methods of dealing with disobedient soldiers, and Wall had no tender scruples against straining to the utmost all the power that martial law had given him. Yet in spite of his bloody tyranny, it is impossible not to admire the courage of the stout-hearted Irishman. The whole regiment, two-thirds of which was composed of civil or military convicts who had exchanged prison life for servitude on the deadly island, loathed his authority. A few miles off on the coast lay the French settlements, where English rebels would be sure of an eager welcome. There were but seven officers to support the Governor, and one of these, who sympathised with the claims of the soldiers, was under arrest. Except half a dozen artillery-men and some blacks, the remainder of the garrison belonged to the ill-conditioned African corps—a hundred and fifty strong. One bold leader might have raised a swift mutiny. There was a ship in the harbour, and in a few hours the rebels would have been safe within Gallic territory in Senegal.
But the courage of Joseph Wall, which had borne him across the rocky slopes of Moro amidst the hail of Spanish bullets, did not quail before the scowling faces of his own men. Calling two of them from the ranks of the circle—Benjamin Armstrong, sergeant, and George Robinson, private—he charged them with disorderly conduct during the morning, and commanded his officers to try them by drumhead court-martial. As the penalty had been decided previously, the proceedings were brief. After a few moments’ discussion the little tribunal announced the sentence—eight hundred lashes apiece for the two mutineers. A gun-carriage having been dragged forward, the men in turn were ordered to strip. The mode of punishment struck terror into every heart. No cat-o’-nine-tails could be found; nor was it thought safe to trust a white man with the flogging. When the victim was bound to the cannon, one of the blacks was called up, a rope put into his hand, and he was ordered in military formula to “do his duty.” After twenty-five lashes a new operator took his turn in the usual way. During the whole time the garrison surgeon looked on, but made no comment. A thousand strokes of the ‘cat’ was a common punishment in those Draconic days, and it seemed immaterial whether the flagellation was inflicted with a bunch of knotted leathern thongs or with a rope’s-end. When at last the long agony was over, the two poor soldiers were taken to nurse their bruised and swollen backs in the hospital.
On the following morning, the 11th of July, the bloody work was continued. Drastic Wall thought fit to leave an imperishable record of his mode of government. Beneath the flaming blue sky the soldiers were marshalled upon the parade ground once more, and four of their number were selected for punishment in the same informal manner. George Paterson, the guard-room rebel, was sentenced to eight hundred lashes; Corporal Thomas Upton, a ringleader of the deputation, and Private William Evans, were condemned to receive three hundred and fifty and eight hundred strokes respectively; while Henry Fawcett, the drunken sentry, was let off with forty-seven. Having thus vindicated his authority, the terrible Governor proceeded to his ship, which, to the great joy of the awestruck garrison, weighed anchor the same day.
Soon after his departure the drama became a tragedy. A poisonous climate and scanty rations had undermined the physique of the soldiers; besides which, the sickly season was at hand. The ignorance of the medical attendants was supplemented by an immoderate use of brandy. Since the first occupation of the island, men had dropped like flies, while to the sick and wounded a visit to the hospital was almost equivalent to a sentence of death. Corporal Thomas Upton died two days after his punishment; Sergeant Armstrong succumbed on the 15th of the month; George Paterson only survived until the 19th of July. Meanwhile, Joseph Wall, on the high seas, knew none of these things.
Cruel, wanton, reckless as was the deed of the Governor of Goree, such things were of everyday occurrence in the army of his time. Sir Charles Napier has left record of the merciless floggings of which he was an eye-witness a decade later. Forty years after the Peace of Versailles a court-martial had no hesitation in passing a sentence of a thousand lashes. Although the rope’s-end employed in the punishment of Armstrong and his fellows was probably a more formidable instrument than the regimental ‘cat’ it was no more dangerous than the bunch of knotted cords used in the navy. A social system that permitted women and children to be hanged for petty larceny had a Spartan code for its soldiers on active service.
Moreover, any lack of firmness on the part of Joseph Wall might have brought him face to face with a serious mutiny. Riot was the sole means of expression of the inarticulate mob, both civil and military. A few months after the disturbance at Goree, General Conway, Governor of Jersey, was called upon to quell a fierce rebellion among his troops. About the same time wild insubordination was rife in the regiments quartered at Wakefield and Rotherham. The danger of a similar outbreak in a far-off island, garrisoned for the most part by gaol-birds, and close to the French possessions, was multiplied a hundredfold. Severe as were the methods of Wall, had such a man been in command at the Nore the nation would have been spared the terror and ignominy of ‘Admiral’ Parker. Unfortunately for himself, the discipline of the Irish giant was exerted to punish a personal affront. Had his soldiers refused to cheer the birthday of some German princeling, he might have flogged to death a whole company with impunity. Yet, relatively, the ways and means of inflammable Wall were tame. On the 4th of August 1782, Captain Kenneth Mackenzie, who ruled over a similar regiment of convicts at Fort Morea on the coast of Africa, blew to atoms a mutinous fellow-Scot, a private under his command, from the mouth of a cannon. For this deed, being brought to trial two years later, he was condemned to death, but subsequently granted a free pardon. At the time of his escape from the ‘Brown Bear’ at Reading, there were rumours (so Wall alleges) that the Governor of Goree had put to death soldiers in Mackenzie fashion. In which case he bore the stigma of another’s sin.
For twenty years after his flight from England Joseph Wall remained a fugitive from justice, being an exile for the greater proportion of the time. Paris was his principal abode, where he was able to meet many compatriots, who held commissions in the French army. Yet, although poor and in disgrace, he was never tempted to swerve from his allegiance to his king. To have joined the colours of France would have raised him from comparative poverty to affluence, but he kept loyal, treasuring the hope that some day he would be able to return to his country a free man. There is evidence of his presence in Paris at the time of the flight to Varennes in 1792; but previously he paid a visit to Scotland, and had married the fifth daughter of Baron Fortrose, Frances Mackenzie, who gave birth to a son in 1791. At one time he resided in Italy, where he wandered as far as Naples. All these years his crime lay heavy upon his conscience, and it is said that several times he meditated surrender. There is a legend that once he went as far as Calais with this intention, but, his resolution failing at the last moment, he remained on shore. By a strange chance, the boat in which he should have reached the packet was swamped in the harbour before his eyes—a noteworthy fact, like the drowning-escape of immortal Catherine Hayes, for all who credit the old adage.
About the year 1797—so the European Magazine tells us, although the date seems premature by three years—he came over to London incognito, where he lived with his wife in Upper Thornhaugh Street, Bedford Square, under the name of Thompson. One day, while some workmen were painting the house, he happened to express a few words of sympathy for a sickly apprentice lad, who he had been told was in a decline. “Yes, poor little fellow,” observed the foreman; “his father was flogged to death by that inhuman scoundrel, Governor Wall.” Sometimes in real life poetic justice will assert its power.
For a long while the outlaw was undecided whether to run the risk of surrender. Under the shield of oblivion he might have continued to live in the metropolis without danger, for his crime was almost forgotten. Yet there were urgent reasons why he should vindicate his character, as his wife was entitled to property which she could not receive unless her husband appeared in person in a court of law. Before such a step could be taken it was necessary for him to stand his trial. In his dilemma he consulted Mr Alley, the famous counsel, who, in the face of his flight from justice, could give him only cold comfort. However, Joseph Wall was not the man to shirk risk in pursuit of a definite object. On the 5th of October 1801 he sent a letter to Lord Pelham, Secretary of State, announcing his presence in England; while on the 2nd of November he appeared before the Privy Council, and was committed to Newgate.
The Special Commission appointed to judge the case of Governor Wall met on the 20th of January 1802. At nine o’clock in the morning the Court assembled in all the majesty of a State trial. Its president was Sir Archibald Macdonald, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, a political Scot who, like many of his betters, owed his position to a wife. Sir Giles Rooke of Common Pleas, and Sir Soulden Lawrence of King’s Bench, two merciful and kind-hearted judges, sat on either side to give assistance. Never was there a more formidable array of counsel for the Crown. Grim and spiteful Attorney-General Edward Law; the urbane and much-underrated Spencer Perceval, Solicitor-General; Thomas Plumer, George Wood, and Charles Abbott, all three destined to hold distinguished positions on the Bench; and lastly, William Fielding, who, like his more famous father, became a London magistrate. Nor were the three barristers for the defence less illustrious: Newman Knowlys was appointed Recorder of London; John Gurney, one of the greatest of criminal advocates, rose to be a judge; and Alley, defender number three, was as astute a lawyer as any of the rest.
No shudder of sympathy sweeps through the crowded court as the figure of the crimson giant passes into the dock. Outside swell the low growls of a gutter-wallowing mob; within, every heart cries aloud for vengeance upon the grim tyrant. Joseph Wall faces his accusers, as he faced all enemies, with fearless eyes and undaunted soul. From the firm, martial tread and high, unbent brow, none would judge that this is an old man, who has lived for sixty-five years. At the close of the indictment the voice of the prisoner rings through the court, to the surprise of all.
“My lord,” he exclaims, “I cannot hear in this place. I hope your lordship will permit me to sit near my counsel.”
“It is perfectly impossible,” stammers the scandalised scion of the Lords of the Isles. “There is a regular place appointed by law. I can make no invidious distinction.”
Jaundice-souled Law opens the attack in most persuasive cut-throat manner, compelled to be fair in spite of his opportunity by reason of instinctive tolerance for all savouring of bloodthirsty tyranny. Pinning the jury down to the first indictment, he bids them think only of the fustigation of Armstrong. “Can the prisoner prove a mutiny?” is Law’s reiterated demand. “You cannot flay soldiers alive, unless they deserve it!”
Law-logic is a marvellous thing. “Wall left island day after flogging,” it persists; “ergo, no mutiny.” The jury suck in this eloquence open-mouthed—visions of neatly-plaited halters hover before their retinas. “Governors never turn their backs directly mutiny is quelled,” argues Law, and the myriad black-and-white sprites, who, invisible and in silence, weave their gossamer threads of passion into the webs of poor human nature, hear and tremble. Yet their handicraft still sparkles with the hues of Iris, for not even British law-giver can paint the spirits of the soul in the dull self-colour of his own dreary brain. “Generals never desert their beaten army,” we can hear Law thunder at Judges’ dinner ten years later; “Napoleon is still with his troops on the Beresina!” Wonderful logic, wonderful Law! Pity, for the sake of cocksuredom, that hearts do not beat as he bade them.
“Prisoner did not report this rope’s-end business to Secretary Townshend,” cries the logician. “Why not? Because mutiny plea was an after-thought to cloak his crime.” One wonders of what fashion were the accounts of his stewardship, if any, that this stalwart pillar of Church and State made in daily confession to his God. Did he omit naught? Or did he report all cruel lashes for which he had given sentence, and did he speak of his savage opposition to a change of the bloody code? Kind forgetfulness given by Providence to those who need it most! “Prisoner did not report flogging, because he did not know the man was dead.” Jury mouths open wider upon this marvellous Law, for reason whispers in their ears, “Then prisoner did not intend that the man should die.” But reason is dinned out of their tradesmen pates. “After-thought—after-thought!” clangs ding-dong Law, and echo comes to the true and bewildered twelve: “Away with him to the gallows!”
First witness appears—Evan Lewis—Cambrian bred; a race of man for the most part having no mean, superlative, or unspeakable. Lewis was, or says he was, orderly sergeant on the day of the Goree flagellation; now he is Bow Street runner, brave in scarlet waistcoat. “No mutiny!” declares this Lewis. “Men were as good as gold. They couldn’t have been bad if they’d tried.” Perceval gently leads the witness along, and much is communicated. “Flogged to death without trial”—such is the meaning of Taffy’s testimony. In due course, other soldiers of the precious garrison follow—one, two, three, four, five—and the parrot cry, “No mutiny,” smites the ears of the tradesmen in the jury-box. The Scotch lip of the Lord-of-Isles grows more attenuated, and he sees the man in the dock crowned with halo of crimson. His busy pencil scribbles notes for the edification—at the proper time—of the luckless twelve men, good and true. “Witnesses each say different things,” writes Caledonian pencil. “But what else can you expect? The thing happened twenty years ago!” And this Caledonian tongue repeats—at the great and proper time.
A gentleman and officer—for things are not what they seem—is produced by Law in due course, one Thomas Poplett, a lieutenant under untamable Wall. This estimable Poplett confesses the Governor had him safely under lock and key—for disobedience—on the day of flagellation, which shows that the red Irishman was not a bad judge of some men’s deserts. From his prison Poplett witnessed the thrashing of Armstrong, and he produces rope with which it was done, or rather someone told him, who had it from one of its nigger wielders, that this was the very same. The Caledonian pencil scribbles industriously. Hearsay evidence? not a bit of it. Nor proof of malice neither, for the nice Poplett may be a collector of curios. But the nice Poplett had done some odd things in his time; had been sacked from Lord George Germaine’s office for telling tales out of school—a dabbling-in-Funds speculation—such things as disgrace men still. The name of Poplett, too, had been posted in the Stock Exchange, with a footnote, ‘Lame-duck’ or some equivalent compliment. A most estimable witness, indeed, this nice Poplett. Splendid material for Caledonian pencil.
There was yet another of similar breed—Peter Ferrick, surgeon of Goree. The rope’s-end business was well in hand when he arrived. Peter takes much credit for this unpunctuality, and the Lord of Isles jots it down a black mark against the prisoner—the why is not clear. “The Armstrong back-slashing did not seem more severe than usual to Doctor Ferrick, but the man is dead.” Doctor Ferrick was amazed at the time, but he knows now that the rope’s-end killed him—a marvellous pair of eyes in the skull of this Ferrick! “Brandy-drinking in the tropics after such fustigation would not be wholesome, and would be done contrary to leech-Ferrick’s orders.” Corollary, note by Scotch pencil—if there was brandy-drinking, the treatment was unskilful, and prisoner must answer for the leech-folly. Query—“Why didn’t Ferrick stop the flogging?” Great wrangling among counsel on account of this same query. “Improper question—the twelve honest tradesmen must not be prejudiced against the man in the dock.” Still, innuendo remains: i.e. leech-Ferrick did not interfere, because he was afraid of Wall! The Scotch lip lengthens, and its owner pats the timid leech on the back approvingly. What a grim, bloodthirsty tyrant, this Governor Wall! think the honest twelve. Leech-Ferrick steps down, proud and satisfied that Caledonian pencil has wrote him down an ass. To hang Wall is all he cares. Better a live donkey than a dead giant. Going home, he comes to the bad end of many fools—he writes a letter, which is printed by The Times.
Then the tyrant is called upon for his defence. It is simple and straightforward, for he knows nothing of Law-logic. “The soldiers were turbulent; Armstrong was disobedient; every cat-o’-nine-tails was destroyed, so he did the thrashing with a rope; he had no intention of killing the man, who might not have died but for brandy-soaking in hospital; he ran away from Reading twenty years ago, because the mob was howling for his blood, believing that he, like Kenneth Mackenzie, had blown men from cannons.” N.B.—The red soldier must have remembered how successfully the ’57 mob had howled for the death of kid-gloved Byng.
Witnesses for the crimson tyrant follow—a poor lot. Number one, mincing Mrs Lacy, wife of late second in command at Goree. This lady gets angry with magnificent Law, to the great scandalisation of the Lord of Isles, and tries to put everyone right, for they are all wrong. Contradictions annoy the Court. When there has been plain sailing—though close to the wind, no matter—it is annoying to think out new and perplexing tracks. “Welshman Lewis was not orderly-sergeant,” persists Mrs Lacy. “The deputation to the Governor was eighty strong. Her husband’s brain was turned by the sun in 1784, so he would have been no use as witness to the arrested Governor.” All this borders on the superfluous, shocking the Chief Baron, upon whom the honest twelve glue their round and honest eyes. “The soldiers threatened the Governor—upon my oath, they did,” vociferates Mrs Lacy, while the Lord-of-Isles, no doubt, thinks sadly of another such shrill voice that assails his ears at home. Then magnificent Law—a naughty Attorney-General now—plies witness with searching questions about solitary visits to imprisoned giant, here in Old Bailey; and though the military widow makes wrathful repudiation, this thin-ice skating exhibition sinks deep into the pious souls of the virtuous twelve. A wicked profligate also, think they, is this cruel red Irishman!
Mary Faulkner, gunner’s wife, comes next, and says similar things, and more; she even heard the men discuss the killing of Governor Wall. Her husband, gunner Faulkner, corroborates. Agrees with the two last that Armstrong was mutinous and threatening. Admits, however, he had little trial. Great excitement among Crown counsel, and learned Plumer presses the point. “Very little trial” is the conclusion sought, and Caledonian pencil records it. No matter that consistent Law has laid it down that if there was a mutiny he will not press for proof of elaborate court-martial. A prisoners witness has scored a point for the other side, and they record it—“Scarcely any trial at all.”
What matters the rest, while the prim Scotsman, in full-bottomed wig, brandishes his pencil! Peter Williams, soldier, endorses all said by women Lacy and Faulkner, but clever Plumer shows him up, on the word of an officer, as “a lying, shuffling fellow.” Private Charles Timbs swears that ‘cats’ were all destroyed by the men, but no one heeds him. Deputy-Advocate Oldham instructs the tribunal that drum-head court-martials are never reported to Government Department. Thus, why should Wall report his small explosion to Secretary Townshend, why——? But what does this signify in face of what Law had laid down—“Never mind trial! Can prisoner prove the mutiny?” No need to press Deputy Oldham, for there is no chance of scoring another point at the expense of prisoner’s witness.
Then arrives the great and proper time. The pencil has done its work, and Caledonian tongue now speaks, and Caledonian lip, having arrived at full tension, trembles. Important comments are delivered—a general ripping-up of the Wall witnesses. Chief Baron reads the report to Secretary Townshend, and adds footnote: “No mention of mutiny”—suspicious. Again: “Two officers returned from Goree at same time as the Governor. This,” he echoes Law-logic, “does not indicate existence of mutiny.” Further: “Prisoner made his escape when all witnesses who could prove his innocence were alive”—still more suspicious. Twelve good and honest brows grow still darker and more vengeful. The rope-ending is contrasted with the birching of children; marvellous parallel—as though the maternal heart bore resemblance to the provisions of Mutiny Acts! Back-slapping of leech-Ferrick is long and loud. “Be careful not to hurt a toss-pot,” declares the Lord-of-Isles, “for if he drinks himself to death, you are his murderer!” Wonderful Caledonian pencil that is able to out-logic wonderful Law.
It is ten o’clock at night. For thirteen hours the unfortunate twelve have been box-fast. Within twelve honest waistcoats lies a dull and aching vacuum. The Laws, Plumers, and Lords-of-Isles have similar sensations, in spite of the adjournment-gorge in an upper chamber. Yet, when they retire, the good tradesmen debate this military cause sedulously for the space of sixty minutes. They have sons and brothers in the army, and doubtless much suppressed eloquence to explode. At last, an hour before midnight, they return into Court, faces stern and dark. The deaf giant receives the verdict with a start of surprise, but without tremor of limb. To him the proceedings have been a long, dreary mumble, and he longs for repose. In good set terms, for the benefit of reporters and the junior bar, the Recorder passes sentence, and, as the curtain falls, the gaol-bird mob outside growls forth its plaudits.
Till Friday morning, only thirty-two hours, has been allowed the prisoner to prepare for death. Before trial, Keeper Kirby had given him a spacious and comfortable room, but a cell in the Press Yard wing must now be his portion. With a cry of impotent rage the weary giant flings himself upon his bed, and declares he will not rise till the fatal hour. During the black winter night the felons in other cells hear his voice, for the poor crushed giant is singing hymns to his Maker. Next day there is much wear and tear of good cloth in the seats of the mighty. Government officials sit long over case, and a respite till the Monday following is the result of their labours. The love of the noble and devoted wife, given long ago to him whom she knew as one of the world’s pariahs, shines brighter and more beautiful amidst the dreadful darkness, and she toils without ceasing for a reprieve. All the influence of Clan Mackenzie—such as it be—is summoned to the aid of the condemned soldier, for the second daughter of the house had married Henry Howard, and their kinsman, his scapegrace of Norfolk, is induced to take up the cudgels on behalf of the chained giant. Unfortunately, the senior peer is not a favourite at headquarters. Still, Secretary Pelham gives heed so far as to send down another respite to Newgate on Sunday eve. Wall’s hanging-day is now settled for Thursday, the 28th of January, and the Monday morning mob of gallows-birds howls fiercely when discovery is made that it has been baulked of its prey for a few dozen of hours; which same howls, penetrating in ministerial mind’s-ear to the purlieus of Whitehall, set ministerial hearts palpitating with apprehension. For the Pilot who weathered the Storm no longer has a home in Downing Street, and the hearts of ministerial successors lack tissue.
Not all the wealth of woman’s tears can move authority to greater mercy on behalf of the red giant. The smug and closet-petted doctor, who cares naught for military matters, is bent on his French peace in spite of all that patron Pitt may say, and it seems a small matter to hang a mob-detested officer. “Soldiers a drug in the market—we are going to be friends with the good Buonaparte,” think Farmer George and his Council when they confabulate on Wednesday afternoon. The Caledonian pencil-notes are consulted, and cobwebs gather fast around the bewildered royal brain. Kingly thoughts dwell lovingly upon the royal prerogative of the gallows—a truly English pastime, worthy of a British prince whose blood has run itself clear of all Hanoverian coagulations. Chancellor Eldon, being interrogated, finds his load of learned lumber ill-digested for the moment, and doubts, and doubts, and doubts. Then some brave and discreet statesman—oblivion shrouds his illustrious name—mentions the mutineers of the ‘Fighting Téméraire’ a dozen or so of whom a few days before had ornamented the yard-arms at Spithead, and King and Council ponder deeply. Newgate howls have been ominous, Newgate cries have been eloquent, and the time-honoured platitude, “One law for rich, another law for poor,” has often ended in window—sometimes royal window—smashing. Mercy seems a great risk, far greater because of the ‘Téméraire’ yard-arm business than the unpopular pardon of Kenneth Mackenzie. On the other side there is the alluring picture of the great triumph of British equity—the balance of justice—‘Téméraire’ rebels hanging on one side of the scale, and mob-hated Joseph Wall on the other. “Foreign nations please observe and copy!” A notable triumph for an English-born German prince. Like the peace that was to be, it seemed an experiment worth the while. Farmer George and Doctor Henry prove to have most forcible willpower in the Council, and when his Gracious Majesty posts off to Windsor at five o’clock, to drink tea with his Princesses, the Governor of Goree has been left for execution.
In the condemned cell that same evening the devoted wife and husband hope still for the reprieve that never comes. Keeper Kirby has promised the grief-stricken woman that she shall remain in the gaol till the last possible moment, and while the clock slowly beats its march to the hour of eleven the heart-rending tragedy unfolds its agonies.
“God bless you, my dear,” cries the giant in their last embrace. “Take care of the children. Let them think as well of me as you can.”
Then, while the Governor of the prison escorts the poor lady along the cold, dark corridors, she sobs forth her one piteous question for the hundredth time:
“Is there no hope?”
“Madam, I trust your wishes may be fulfilled,” replies Kirby. “But it is now a late hour, and I have received no orders.”
Sister Howard, who also has borne this terrible vigil, supports the fainting woman from the portals of the charnel-house, and their carriage rumbles away over the stones of Old Bailey. Even these loving friends have failed him, and the red giant must bear his last dismal journey alone. Two turnkeys watch over him, lest he may do himself injury, for he wears no fetters.
“It is a long night,” he exclaims about two o’clock, as he tosses wearily upon his couch.
Still, his voice is strong and resonant with its military ring, though his mighty form has sunk beneath a weight of torture into a mere gaunt framework of bones. Bread-and-water has been his diet since the sentence, and Sheriff Cox, although assiduous in his visits to the unhappy man, will not relax his stern rules. In a little while, as if he looked for sleep, he asks whether the scaffold will make a noise when it is dragged out into the street. With compassionate lie, they answer that it will not, but his thoughts dwell morbidly upon his destiny.
“I most earnestly request,” he tells his attendants, “that I may not be pulled by the heels when I am suffering.”
They attempt to appease him by the promise that it shall be done as he wishes, but he has seen hangings in plenty, and he knows what may happen.
“I hope that the fatal cord may be placed properly,” he persists, “and that I may be allowed to depart as fairly and easily as my sentence will allow.”
At last he falls asleep, and when the huge wooden machine lumbers between the prison doors with a sound that reverberates through the whole building, he is unconscious of what has happened. Also, it is not recorded that he heard the dread chaunt of the bellman outside in the Old Bailey:
“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 a shower 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 of his 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—unmistakable to 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 stretched forth 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 telescope to 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 this jeu 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 million miles 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 be reinstated 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 Wall with 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 the malice 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.