The Life of JEPTHAH BIGG, an Incendiary, and Writer of Threatening Letters
I have already taken notice in the life of Bryan Smith[[85]] of the Act of Parliament on which the proceedings against these letter-writers are grounded. One would be surprised that after more examples than one of that kind, people should yet be found so foolish as well as wicked as to carry on so desperate an enterprise, in which there is scarce any probability of meeting with success; yet this unfortunate person of whom we are now to speak, who was descended of mean parents, careful however of giving him a very good education, fell upon this project, put into his head by being a little out of business, and so in one moment cancelled all his former honesty and industry, and hazarded a life which soon after became forfeited.
His friends had put him out apprentice to a gunstock maker, to which he served out his time honestly and with a good character. Afterwards he continued to work at his business with several masters and tolerable reputation, until about a year before the time of his death, when he was out of work, by reason he had disobliged two or three persons for whom he had wrought, and had also been guilty of some extravagancies which had brought him into narrow circumstances. These straits it is to be supposed put him upon the fatal project of writing a letter to Mr. Nathaniel Newman, senior, a man of a very good fortune, threatening him that unless he sent the sum of eighty-five guineas to such a place, he would murder him and his wife, with other bloody and barbarous expressions. This not having its effect, he wrote him a second letter by the penny post, demanding one hundred guineas, with grievous threatenings in case they were not sent. This soon made a very great noise about town, and put Mr. Newman upon all methods possible for detecting the author of these villainous epistles, and as everybody almost looked upon it as a common case, to which any gentleman who is supposed to be rich might be liable, such indefatigable pains were taken that in a short time the whole mystery of iniquity was discovered and Bigg apprehended.
At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted capitally for this offence, and after the counsel for the prosecutor had fully opened the heinous nature of the crime, Peter Salter was the first witness called to prove it upon the prisoner. He deposed that Jepthah Bigg came to him where he was at work in the Minories, and desired him to go with him, having something to say to him of consequence; whereupon the witness would have gone to the sign of the Ship where he used, but the prisoner would needs go to the Sieve in the Little Minories. There he communicated to him his design, and then prevailed on Salter to go to the Shoulder of Mutton alehouse at Billingsgate, where Bigg directed him to call for drink, and to wait until a porter came to him with a parcel directed to John Harrison, when if he suspected anything, he should come to the prisoner at the King's Head alehouse, on Fish Street Hill. This the evidence performed punctually, whereupon Bigg sent him a second time to the Blackboy, in Goodman's Fields, where a second parcel was left, though of no value. Whereupon Bigg would have had the evidence Salter concerned in a third letter to the same purpose, but Salter declined it and dissuaded him as much as lay in his power, from continuing to venture on such hazardous things. Upon which the prisoner replied, You need not fear. Nothing can hurt you; my life is in your hands; but if ever you reveal the matter, you shall share the same fate.
John Long, servant to Mr. Newman, deposed that he delivered two penny post letters to his master on the 20th and 27th of March. Other witnesses swore as to the sending of the parcels, and the jury on the whole, seeing the fact to be well proved against the prisoner, found him guilty.
Under sentence of death at first the poor man behaved himself like one stupid. He pretended that he did not know the offence that he had committed was capital, and afterwards exclaimed against the hardness of the Law which made it so; but some little pains being taken with him in those points, he was soon brought over to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, and the reasonableness of that Statute which enacted it into a capital offence.
As the day of his death drew nigh he was still more and more drowned in stupidity and lost to all thought or concern for this world or that to come, at least as to outward appearance. Some said he was a Roman Catholic, but while the poor wretch retained his senses, he said nothing that could give any ground for a suspicion of that sort. He heard the discourses which the Ordinary made to him, with as much patience as the rest did, and when he visited him in the cell, did not express any uneasiness thereat. Indeed, in the passage to execution, there were two fellows in the cart who would fain have had the minister desist from his duty, urging the same reason, that the criminal was in communion with another Church. The man, himself, seemed stupid and speechless all the way, yet when he was turned off, the reverend Ordinary tells us, he went off the stage crying out aloud, O Lord! etc. This seems to me a very indecent way of concluding a dying speech, but as it is that which is generally used, I shall not stay to bestow any further reflections upon it. He died on the 19th of May, 1729, being about twenty-five years of age.
See page [221].
The Life of THOMAS JAMES GRUNDY, a Housebreaker
When we meet with accounts of persons doubly remarkable for the multitude of their offences and the tenderness of their age, it is almost impossible for us to determine whether we should most pity or detest a mind so preternaturally abandoned to wickedness as to transcend its usual course, and make itself remarkable as a sinner, before taken notice of as a man.
This was exactly the case with the unfortunate criminal whom we are now to mention. He was the son of parents in the lowest circumstances, who yet had strained those circumstances to give him a tolerable education, which he, instead of improving, forgot as fast as it was possible, and seemed solicitous about nothing but out-doing in villainy all his contemporaries of the same unhappy cast. During his junior years he addicted himself continually to picking and stealing whatever he could lay his hands on, and although his father had been exceedingly careful in causing him to be taught his own trade of a weaver, yet he seldom or never worked at it, but went on at this rate, from one crime to another, until he at last arrived at those which brought him to the ignominious end, and thereby rendered him a subject for our memoirs.
At twelve years old, he took up the trade of housebreaking, to which he applied himself very closely, for the last six years of his life. Hampstead, Highgate, Hackney, and other villages round the town were the places which he generally made choice of to play his tricks in, and as people are much more ingenious in wickedness than ever they are in the pursuit of honest employments, so by degrees he became (even while a boy) the most dexterous housebreaker of his time; insomuch that as is usual amongst those unhappy people, the gang commended him so much, that believing himself some great person, he went on with an air of confidence, in the commission of a multitude of burglaries, in and about the streets of this metropolis.
Young as he was at that time, he plunged himself, as it were with industry, into all manner of lusts, wickedness and illegal pleasures, which, as it wasted all he acquired by the thefts he committed, so it injured his health and damaged his understanding to such a degree that when he came to die, he could scarce be looked on as a rational creature.
The offence which proved fatal to him was the breaking into the house of Mr. Samuel Smith, in the night-time, on the 31st of May, 1729, with an intent to steal. At his trial the prosecutor swore that between the hours of eleven and one of the dock of the night laid in the indictment he was called up by his neighbours, and found that his window was broken open; whereupon, searching about very narrowly, he at last found the prisoner got up the chimney, and landing on the pole whereon the pothooks hung. In his defence the prisoner told the Court that meeting with a person who said he lodged in the prosecutor's house, and it being late, he accepted the man's proposition to lie with him; thereupon his new acquaintance carried him to Mr. Smith's, let him in, and then ran away, so that he had never seen or heard of him since. This relation being every way improbable and ridiculous, the jury very readily found him guilty of the fact, and he with the rest, on the last day of the sessions received sentence of death accordingly.
While he lay in the cells, his behaviour was as stupid in all outward appearance as ever had appeared in any who came to that miserable place. However, he persuaded his companions, of whom we shall speak hereafter, to attempt breaking out and to encourage them told them that there was no brick or free stone wall in the world could keep him in, if he had but a few tools proper for loosening the stones. These were quickly procured, and Grundy put his companions into so proper a method of working, that if a discovery had not been made on the Sunday morning in a very few hours space they would have broken their way into Phoenix Court, and so have undoubtedly got off. But as soon as the keepers came to the knowledge of their design, they removed the three persons concerned in it, into the old condemned hold, and there stapled them down to the ground.
Then this lad began to repent. He wept bitterly, but said it was not so much for the fear of death as the apprehension of his soul being thrown into the pit of destruction and eternal misery. However, by degrees, he recovered a little spirit, confessed all the enormities of his past life, and begged pardon of God, and of the persons whom he had injured. If we were to attempt an account of them, it would not only seem improbable but incredible; and therefore, as there was nothing in them otherwise extraordinary than as they were committed by a lad of his age, we shall not dwell any longer upon them than to inform our readers that with much sorrow, and grievous agonies, he expired at Tyburn, on the 22nd of August, 1729, being about eighteen years old.
The Life of JOSEPH KEMP, a Housebreaker
We have often, in the course of these lives, observed to our readers that loose women are generally the causes of those misfortunes which first bring men to the commission of felonious crimes, and, as a just consequence thereof, to an ignominious death. It may yet seem strange, how, after so many instances, there are still to be found people so weak as for the sake of the caresses of these strumpets to lavish away their lives, at the same time that they are putting their souls into the greatest hazard. If I may be allowed to offer my conjecture in this case, I should be apt to account for it thus: that in the present age, the depravity of men's morals being greater than ever, they addict themselves so entirely to their lusts and sensual pleasures that having no relish left for more innocent entertainments, they think no price too great to purchase those lewd enjoyments, to which, by a continued series of such actions, they have habituated themselves beyond their own power to retire.
This unfortunate person, Joseph Kemp, was son to people in very mean circumstances, in Holborn, who yet procured him a very good education in a public charity-school. When of age to be put out to employment, his friends made him apply himself to the heads of the parish, who put him out to a glazier, with whom he served out his time with the character of a very honest young man. By that time his parents had thriven pretty well in the world through their own industry, and so, on his setting up a shop, they gave him sixty pounds to begin with. But unfortunately for him, he had ere now seen a woman of the town, on whom he had irretrievably fixed his affections, and was absolutely resolved on living with her, though ever so great ruin should prove the consequence of the purchase.
In pursuance of this unfortunate resolution, he no sooner had received the aforesaid sum, but proposals of marriage were immediately offered to this object of his affections, notwithstanding that he well knew she at that time conversed with two men, styling each of them her husband. However, as Kemp was the most likely to maintain her in idleness and plenty, she, without much trouble, suffered herself to be prevailed on to let him, by a legal matrimony, increase the number of her husbands. This, as it was but probable, was speedily followed by his breaking in his business, and being totally undone, which, though it was a great misfortune, and an evil new to poor Kemp, only reduced the lady to her former manner of living, which was by thieving whatever she could come at. A little while after, she was ruined even in this business, for being detected, she was committed to Newgate, and was in great danger of lying there for life. Poor Kemp was still as fond of her as ever. He carried her all the money he could get, and lamenting to her that it was not in his power to raise more, she immediately flew into a passion, stormed and swore at him, bid him go and break houses, rob people in the streets, or do anything which would get money, for money she wanted and money she would have. He foolishly complied with her request and having provided himself with the necessary implements for housebreaking, he soon put her in possession of a large quantity of plate, which being converted into money, easily procured her liberty, the consequence of which was that she lavished whatever he brought her upon other men.
Yet even her perfidy could not cure him; he was still as much her slave as ever, and failed not venturing body and soul to procure whatever might give her pleasure. In this unhappy state a considerable space of time was spent, until, for some other thievish exploits of her own, Kemp's wife was apprehended, convicted and transported. One would have thought this might have put an end to his crimes of the same sort, but it seems he was too far plunged into the mire of rapine and debauchery ever to struggle out, so that no sooner was she safely on board the transport vessel but he found out a new mistress to supply her place; as if he had been industrious in destroying his fortune and careful about nothing but arriving as soon as possible at the gallows.
By the time he made his second marriage, which in itself was illegal while the first wife was living, his credit was totally exhausted, his character totally ruined, and no manner of subsistence left but what was purchased at the hazard of his soul and the price of his life; and as housebreaking was now become his sole business, so he pursued it with great eagerness, and for a while with as great success. But it was not long before he was apprehended, and committed close to Newgate for a multitude of charges of this kind against him.
At the following sessions at the Old Bailey, he was indicted for burglariously breaking open the house of Sarah Pickard, and feloniously taking thence thirty-six gold rings and stone rings, three silver watches, several pieces of silver plate, and divers other goods of considerable value. The prosecutrix, Mrs. Pickard, deposed that her house was fast shut between then and eleven o'clock at night, and found broken open at five of the clock the next morning, and that one Kemp, a person related to the prisoner, found a short strong knife left in the yard, together with an auger, which he knew to belong to the prisoner.
In confirmation of this Mr. Kemp deposed that the prisoner had shown him the knife; Joanna Kemp and Jonathan Auskins deposed likewise to the same thing, and Samuel Gerrard, the constable, swore that when with the two preceding witnesses he went to search the house of the aforesaid prisoner, and found therein several things belonging to Mrs. Pickard, the prisoner then confessed that he committed burglary alone and not by the persuasion or with the assistance of any other person whatsoever.
The prisoner said very little in his own defence, and the jury thereupon, without hesitation, found him guilty; as they did also upon two other indictments, the one for breaking the house of James Wood, and the other for breaking the house of Mrs. Mary Paget, and stealing thence plate to a considerable value; the facts being dearly proved by John Knap, who had been an accomplice, and turned evidence to save himself. His last wife was indicted and tried with him, but acquitted.
Under sentence of death he was seized with a disease which held him for the greater part of the time permitted by Law for him to repent, and by reason of that distemper he was so deaf that he was scarce capable of instruction. However, he appeared to be fully sensible of the great danger he was in, of suffering much more from the just anger of God than that sentence of the Law which his crimes had drawn upon him. He bewailed with much passion and concern that wicked course of life which for many years past he had led, seemed exceedingly grieved at the horror of those reflections, and to mourn with unfeigned penitence his forgetfulness of the duties he owed towards God, and to his neighbours. As the hour of death approached, he resumed somewhat of courage, and at the place of execution died with all outward marks of a repenting sinner.
His wife came up into the cart and took her last adieu of him, in the most tender manner that can be imagined. He died on the 24th of August, 1729, being then in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and left behind him the following paper, which seems to have been what he intended to have said to the people at the time of his death, and therefore we, according to custom, thought it not proper to be omitted in this account.
THE PAPER
Good People,
My father and mother brought me up tenderly and honestly, and always gave me good advice, whilst I was under their care. They put me apprentice to a glazier. My master not being so careful of me as he ought to have been, I took to ill courses, and before my time was expired, married a woman that brought me to this untimely end; for she could not live upon what I got at my trade, and out of my over-fondess for her, I did whatever she required, or requested of me. At length she was taken up for some fact, and transported. Then I married a second wife, and she was as good as the other was bad. She would do anything to help to support me that I might not commit any wickedness, but I could not take her advice, but still ran on in my wicked course of life, till I was overtaken by my folly. For if we think ourselves safe in committing sin, God will certainly find such out, because He is just, and will punish accordingly. This my miserable end, I would have all take warning by, and that they follow not the devices of the world, the snares whereof are apt to lead men into evil courses, unless they endeavour to shun them, and seek the grace of God to assist and enable them for the good of all men, and ask pardon of God for my evil doings, and forgiveness of all whom I have wronged, and particularly the forgiveness of God to those who have sworn away my life. I beg reflections pass not upon my wife, for I declare, whatever wrongs she may have committed, was through my persuasion, of herself being inclinable to good. I would lastly request that the follies and vices which have brought me to this untimely end may not by any means be a cause to afflict my grievous parents, both father and mother, but would have all to consider when ever they are persuaded to any manner of ways, tending to their ruin, they would likewise remember to call upon God to help and assist them, in shunning such, and all other wicked courses. Good people, pray for me, that God may receive me through his mercies, which I trust he will.
Newgate, August 22nd, 1729.
Joseph Kemp