The next day, however, I was taken out of the castle and sent forward under an escort, to join my co-rebels who were being marched by easy stages to London. I caught them up at St. Albans, and coming to Barnet we had our hands tied, and halters thrown about our horses' necks, and so were carried through the streets of London to Newgate gaol. Such a concourse of people came to view us as I have never seen the like of. The town was dressed for a holiday; and what with the banging of drums, the hurrahing for King George, and the damning of the "Pretender," the air so rang with noise, that it was as much as you could to hear your neighbour speak. One sturdy Whig, I remember, planted himself in our way, and with many jeers and imprecations lifted up a jackdaw tricked out with white roses, which he carried on a warming-pan, and so paced backwards and in front of us, until a soldier cracked him on the chest with the butt of his firelock, and toppled the fellow into the gutter.
In Newgate, there I remained a weary while, though this period was made as light for us as well could be. We had the liberty of the Press yard, and were allowed to receive visitors and to visit one another—no inconsiderable privilege, one may think, if one counts up the number imprisoned there. There it came about that I saw much of Charles Ratcliffe, Lord Derwentwater's brother; and though he was not of his brother's amiable and endearing disposition, grew to some intimacy with him. He thought me, indeed, a great fool for running my head into the noose at Carlisle for a beggarly painter, and never scrupled to tell me so; but I think it was just that action which inclined his friendship my way. There were other consolations came to me, and one of them was lighted with a glimmering of hope; for one day came Sir William Wyndham to see me, and informed me that Lord Bolingbroke was very active in my behalf, urging upon his friends in England to make representations for my release, or, if that failed, to concert measures for my evasion. I set no great reliance upon either alternative, but Sir William Wyndham came again in March of the year 1716, after the rebellion had closed in Scotland, and Lord Bolingbroke had been dismissed from the service of King James.
"Mr. Secretary Stanhope encourages your kinsman," said he, "in the hope that he may be pardoned. In which event something might be done for you. Meanwhile, I have a message to deliver to you from him. 'Tell Lawrence,' he says, 'that here in Paris I am much plagued and pestered by a young friend of his, who tells me that unless I unlock Newgate, I do not deserve to be related to him. I am greatly humiliated by so much scolding, but will do what I can.'"
It was not very much, however, that he could do; and on the 8th of May I was arraigned with Charles Ratcliffe at the Exchequer Bar at Westminster, and tried there on the 18th, and taken back again a few days later to receive sentence.
"But we shall not be hanged," said Ratcliffe. "You will see."
Indeed, he ever had the greatest confidence that he would escape. I recollect that on the occasion when we were being carried from Newgate to receive sentence at Westminster, our coach was stopped in Fleet Street to make way for King George, who was setting out upon his first visit to Herrenhausen since he had come to the English throne. We stopped opposite a distiller's, and Ratcliffe, leaning from the window, very coolly called for half a pint of aniseed, and drank it off.
"There is some merit in the Dutchman, after all," he said with a laugh, "for I was in great need of that."
The events, however, justified his confidence. Never shall I forget the weeks which followed our condemnation—the intrigues with our friends outside, the timorous bribing of the gaolers within. One day the plan would be settled, the moment for its execution appointed, and the next thing maybe we saw was the countenance of a new gaoler, and so the attempt must needs be deferred and the trouble begin again. Or at another time news would be brought to us that we should receive the clemency of the Crown and only suffer transportation to the colonies; or, again, that we were to be granted a free pardon; or, again, that the sentence was to be carried out within a week. So that now we kicked our heels upon the pinnacles of hope, now we sank into a bog of despair, and either way we shivered with fever—all of us except Charles Ratcliffe.
It was with his usual serenity that when at last all arrangements had been made, he invited those of us who were in the plot to a grand entertainment in a room called the Castle, in the upper part of the prison.
"There are thirteen of us besides myself," said he, as soon as the supper was served and we were left alone. "The rest must shift for themselves. Mr. Clavering, do you help me with this file, and do you, gentlemen, be sufficiently ill-mannered to make as much clatter with the dishes and your talk as will drown the sound of it."