The Life of JOSEPH MIDDLETON, Housebreaker and Thief
Amongst the numbers of unhappy wretches who perish at the gallows, most pity seems due to those who, pressed by want and necessity, commit in the bitter exigence of starving, some illegal act purely to support life. But this is a very scarce case, and such a one as I cannot in strictness presume to say that I have hitherto met with in all the loads of papers I have turned over to this purpose, though as the best motive to excite compassion, and consequently to obtain mercy, it is made very often a pretence.
Joseph Middleton was the son of a very poor, though honest, labouring man in the county of Kent, near Deptford, who did all that was in his power to bring up his children. This unfortunate son was taken off his hand by an uncle, a gardener, who brought up the boy to his own business, and consequently to labour hard enough, which would, to an understanding person, appear no such very great hardship where a man had continually been inured to it even from his cradle, and had neither capacity nor the least probability of attaining anything better. Yet such an intolerable thing did it seem to Middleton that he resolved at any cost to be rid of it, and to purchase an easier way of spending his days.
In order to this, he very wisely chose to go aboard a man-of-war then bound for the Baltic. He was in himself a stupid, clumsy fellow, and the officers and seamen in the ship treated him so harshly, the fatigue he went through was so great, and the coldness of the climate so pinching to him, that he who so impatiently wished to be rid of the country work, now wished as earnestly to return thereto. Therefore, when on the return of Sir John Norris, the ship he was in was paid off and discharged, he was in an ecstacy of joy thereat, and immediately went down again to settle hard to labour as he had done before, experience having convinced him that there were many more hardships sustained in one short ramble than in a staid though laborious life.
In order, as is the common phrase, to settle in the world, he married a poor woman, by whom he had two children, and thereby made her as unhappy as himself; what he was able to earn by his hands falling much short of what was necessary to keep house in the way he lived, this reduced him to such narrowness of circumstances that he was obliged (as he would have it believed) to take illegal methods for support.
His own blockish and dastardly temper, as it had prevented his ever doing good in any honest way, so it as effectually put it out of his power to acquire anything considerable by the rapine he committed; for as he wanted spirit to go into a place where there was immediate danger, so his companions, who did the act while he scouted about to see if anybody was coming, and to give them notice, when they divided the booty gave him just what they thought fit, and keep the rest to themselves. He had gone on in this miserable way for a considerable space, and yet was able to acquire very little, his wants being very near as great while he robbed every night, as they were when he laboured every day, so that in the exchange he got nothing but danger into the bargain.
At last, he was apprehended for breaking into the house of John de Pais and Joseph Gomeroon, and taking there jewels and other things to a great value, though his innocence in not entering the place would sufficiently excuse him, for he pleaded at his trial that he was so far from breaking the house that he was not so much as on the ground of the prosecutor when it was broke, but on the contrary, as appeared by their own evidence, on the other side of the way. But it being very fully proved by the evidence that Joseph Middleton belonged to the gang, that he waited there only to give them an intelligence, and shared in the money they took, the jury found him guilty.
While he lay under conviction, he did his utmost to understand what was necessary for him to do in order to salvation. He applied himself with the utmost diligence to praying God to instruct him and enlighten his understanding, that he might be able to improve by his sufferings and reap a benefit from the chastisements of his Maker. In this frame of mind he continued with great steadiness and calmness till the time of his execution, at which he showed some fear and confusion, as the sight of such a death is apt to create even in the stoutest and best prepared breast. This Joseph Middleton, at the time of his exit, was in about the fortieth year of his age.
The Life of JOHN PRICE,[[56]] a Housebreaker
A profligate life naturally terminates in misery, and according unto the vices which it has most pursued, so are its punishments suited unto it. Drunkenness besots the understanding, ruins the constitution, and leaves those addicted to it in the last stages of life, in want and misery, equally destitute of all necessaries, and incapable to procure them. Lewdness and lust after loose women enervate both the vigour of the brain and strength of the body, induce weaknesses that anticipate old age, and afflict the declining sinner with so many evils, as makes him a burden to himself and a spectacle to others. But if, for the support of all these, men fall into rapacious and wicked courses, plundering others who have frugally provided for the supply of life, in order to indulge their own wicked inclinations, then indeed the Law of society interposes generally before the Law of Nature, and cuts off with a sudden and ignominious death those who would otherwise probably have fallen by the fruits of their own sins.
This malefactor, John Price, was one of these wretched people who act as if they thought life was given them only to commit wickedness and satiate their several appetites with gross impurities, without considering how far they offend either against the institutions of God or the laws of the land. It does not appear that this fellow ever followed any employment that looked like honesty, except when he was at sea. The terrors of a sick-bed alarmed even a conscience so hardened as Price's, and the effects of an ill-spent life appeared so plainly in the weak condition he found himself in, that he made, as he afterwards owned, the most solemn vows of amendment, if through the favour of Providence he recovered his former health. To this he was by the goodness of God restored, but the resolutions he made on that condition were totally forgotten. As soon as he returned home, he sought afresh the company of those loose women and those abandoned wretches who by the inconveniences into which they had formerly led him, had obliged him to seek for shelter by a long voyage at sea.
What little money he had received when the ship was paid off, was quickly lavished away, so that on the 11th of August, 1725, he with two others named Cliffe and Sparks, undertook, after having well weighed the attempt, to enter the house of the Duke of Leeds by moving the sash, and so plunder it of what was to be got. By their assistance Cliffe got in at the window, and afterwards handed out a cloak, hat, and other things to his companions Sparks and Price, but they were all immediately apprehended. Cliffe made an information by which he discovered the whole fact, and it was fully proved by Mr. Bealin that Price, when first apprehended, owned that he had been with Cliffe and Sparks. Upon the whole the jury found him guilty, upon which he freely acknowledged the justice of their verdict at the bar.
All the time he lay under conviction he behaved himself as a person convinced of his own unworthiness of life, and therefore repined not at the justice of that sentence which condemned him to death, though in his behaviour before his trial there had appeared much of that rough and boisterous disposition usual in fellows of no education, who have long practised such ways of living. Yet long before his death he laid aside all that ferocity of mind, appearing calm and easy under the weight of his sufferings, and so much dissatisfied with the trouble he had met with in the world that he appeared scarce desirous of remaining in it. He was not able himself to give any account of his age, but as far as could be guessed from his looks, he might be about thirty when executed, which was at the same time with the malefactor last mentioned; Cliffe, whose information had hanged him, being reprieved.
A fuller account of this rogue will be found on page [276].