History does not tell us more. Did the husband return from fighting the battles of his country—or rather of its politicians—to find that his true wife had perished on the gallows? Better far that he should have met his death in some glorious victory or inglorious defeat, reddening with his blood some distant sea. And the little ones, robbed by the cruel State of father and mother—what became of them? These are things it behoves us to know, for they are one side of glory, of imperialism. How many Mary Joneses, how many broken hearts and ruined lives are behind the naval victories celebrated by painting, by song, by sculptured tombs in temples dedicated to the Prince of Peace? Or are we to dry our tears, comforting ourselves with the reflection that “the suffering is irrelevant”?
Mary Jones did not die wholly in vain. Six years later, after “John the Painter” had been hanged on a gallows sixty feet high, for setting fire to the rope-house in Portsmouth Dockyard, ingenuity discovered a chance of adding one more capital offence to the two hundred or so already on the Statute-book. A Bill was promoted for making it a hanging matter to set fire to private dockyards. Sir William Meredith, a “faddist” of his day, inveighed against the Bill and the atrocious cruelty of the laws. He cited the case of Mary Jones. “I do not believe,” he said, “that a fouler murder was ever committed against law, than the murder of this woman by law.”[214] A girl of fourteen had lately been sentenced to be burnt for hiding, at her master’s bidding, some white-washed farthings. The faggots had been laid, the cart was setting out, when a reprieve, granted at the instance of the Lord Mayor, saved this poor child from the flames. “Good God, Sir,” he cried, “are we taught to execrate the fires of Smithfield, and are we lighting them now to burn a poor harmless child, for hiding a white-washed farthing?” This speech, delivered in Parliament, was printed by the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge upon the Punishment of Death, founded by Basil Montague in 1808, and was also printed separately in several editions down to 1833.
1771. January 1. John Clark and John Joseph Defoe executed at Tyburn, for robbery of a gold watch and money. Defoe was said to be a grandson of the immortal author of “Robinson Crusoe.”
1773. September 13. Mrs. Herring was thus executed for murdering her husband:—
She was placed on a stool something more than two feet high, and, a chain being placed under her arms, the rope round her neck was made fast to two spikes, which, being driven through a post against which she stood, when her devotions were ended, the stool was taken from under her, and she was soon strangled. When she had hung about fifteen minutes, the rope was burnt, and she sunk till the chain supported her, forcing her hands up to a level with her face, and the flame being furious, she was soon consumed. The crowd was so immensely great that it was a long time before the faggots could be placed for the execution.
1773. October 27. The two sheriffs and under-sheriff attended the execution of five malefactors on horseback, and two persons clothed in black walked all the way before the prisoners to the place of execution, where they were allowed an hour and a half in their devotions, a circumstance not remembered for a great many years past.
A vivid picture of the manners of the times is given in these two extracts from the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1774.
The first passage shows the extraordinary prevalence of highway robbery, which at this time seems to have become a recognised form of out-door sport among young men:—
“As lord Berkeley was passing over Hounslow Heath in the dusk of the evening [of November 11] in his post-chaise, the driver was called to stop by a young fellow, genteelly dressed and mounted, but the driver not readily obeying the summons, the fellow discharged his pistol at the chaise, which lord Berkeley returned, and, in one instant, a servant came up, and shot the fellow dead. By means of the horse, which he had that morning hired, he was traced, and his lodgings in Mercer-street, Long-Acre, discovered; where Sir John Fielding’s men were scarce entered, when a youth, booted and spurred, came to enquire for the deceased by the name of Evan Jones. This youth, upon examination, proved to be an accomplice, and impeached two other young men belonging to the same gang, one of whom was clerk to a laceman in Bury-street, St. James’s, after whom an immediate search being made, he was traced along the road to Portsmouth, and, at three in the morning, was surprised in bed at Farnham, and brought back to London, by Mr. Bond and other assistants. The other accomplice was also apprehended, and all three were carried before Sir John Fielding, when it appeared, that these youths, all of good families, had lately committed a number of robberies in the neighbourhood of London: that their names were Peter Holtum, John Richard Sauer, and William Sampson: that Sampson in particular, had 50 guineas due to him for wages when he was apprehended, and that he had frequently been intrusted with effects to the amount of 10,000l. An evening paper says, that there are no less than seven of these youths in custody, from 18 to 20 years of age, some of whose parents are in easy, some in affluent circumstances, all of them overwhelmed with sorrow by the vices of their unhappy sons.”