Here is a batch of executions:—
1774. November 30. The six following malefactors, were executed at Tyburn, pursuant to their sentence, viz., John Coleby and Charles Jones, for breaking into the dwelling-house of Lancelot Keat, and stealing goods: William Lewis, for publishing a forged draught upon Mess. Drummond and Co. for 48l. 18s.: John Rann, alias Sixteen-string Jack, for robbing the rev. Dr. Bell, near Gunnerbury-lane: and William Lane and Samuel Trotman, for robbing the Knightsbridge stage-coach.
Lewis, the unhappy sufferer for forgery, was a most ingenious copyist, and could counterfeit copper-plate writing to astonishing exactness. He was far from an abandoned character, and died an example of penitence, which, in some measure, atoned for the injury he had done the public. He composed a prayer in the cells, which does credit to his understanding.
The friends of Coleby and Jones, in passing the house of Mr. Keat, their prosecutor, in order to the interment of their bodies, committed the most outrageous acts of violence that have been known in any civilised country, by breaking the windows, attempting to set the house on fire, and threatening the life of Mr. Keat.
1776. January 17. Robert and Daniel Perreau executed at Tyburn.
They were twin brothers, natives of St. Kitts. Robert was an apothecary “in high practice” in Golden Square, then a fashionable quarter. Daniel lived “a genteel life” with his mistress, Mrs. Rudd. Robert Perreau sought a loan of Drummonds, the bankers, on bonds, afterwards found to be forged. The evidence made it probable that the actual forgery was by Mrs. Rudd, but that all three were acting in concert. The brothers were both found guilty on their trials, but a strong feeling existed that the sentence on Robert was harsh. A petition to commute the sentence to one of transportation was presented on behalf of seventy-eight “capital Bankers and Merchants” of the City. The king was, however, obdurate, and after the acquittal of Mrs. Rudd let the law take its course. The execution was witnessed by 30,000 persons. The brothers, born together, were not divided in death. They fell from the cart with their four hands clasped together.
Mr. Bleackley has told the story at length in “Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold,” 1905.
1777. June 27. Execution of Dr. Dodd.
William Dodd, born in 1729, was the popular preacher of his day. He came, a young man of 21, from Cambridge to London in 1750. He hesitated between adopting literature as a profession and the Church, but took orders in 1751. He still dabbled in literature, and is said to have been the author of a work, “The Sisters,” which gave no very favourable idea of the purity of his mind. In 1758 he became chaplain of the Magdalen Hospital, and fine ladies came to hear his sermons “in the French style.” In 1763 he was made one of the king’s chaplains, an appointment he lost when, in 1774, Mrs. Dodd wrote to the wife of the Lord Chancellor, offering a bribe for the living of St. George, Hanover Square. Dodd got into debt: he had to sell a proprietary chapel in which he had sunk money: it is said that he even “descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper.” He fell still lower: in his need he forged the signature of his patron, Lord Chesterfield, to a bond for £4,200. The forgery was discovered, and warrants were issued against Dodd and his broker. Dodd made partial restitution, offered security for the remainder, and the affair might have been settled had not the Lord Mayor, who had issued the warrants, refused to let the case be hushed up. Dodd was tried on February 22, 1766. The evidence was irresistible. Only a legal point stood in the way of sentence. This point was decided adversely to Dodd, and on May 26 sentence of death was passed. “They will never hang me,” said Dodd, and indeed everything possible was done to save him. “The exertions made to save him were perhaps beyond example in any country. The newspapers were filled with letters and paragraphs in his favour. Individuals of all ranks and degrees exerted themselves in his behalf: parish officers went from house to house to procure subscriptions to a petition to the king, and this petition, which, with the names, filled twenty-three sheets of parchment, was actually presented. The Lord Mayor and Common Council went in a body to St. James’s, to solicit mercy for him, but all this availed nothing; government were resolved to make an example of him.” Foremost among those who pleaded for Dodd was Dr. Johnson. There was nothing in common between the shallow flippancy of Dodd, and the great, rough, earnest nature of Johnson; being once asked whether Dodd’s sermons were not addressed to the passions, “They were nothing, Sir,” growled the lexicographer, “be they addressed to what they may.” But to misery Johnson’s heart was more tender than a woman’s; he was agitated when application was made to him on behalf of Dodd; he paced up and down the room, and promised to do what he could. He wrote the speech delivered by Dodd before the passing of the sentence and more than one petition in his behalf.
All was in vain: “If I pardon Dodd, I shall have murdered the Perreaus.” So the king is reported to have said—and, indeed, although Dodd’s partisans fell foul of court and jury, it is not easy to see how, if Dodd had been pardoned, the punishment of death for forgery could ever after have been inflicted. There is a pathetic touch in the fact that, many years before his fall, Dodd preached a sermon, afterwards printed, deprecating the frequency of capital punishment. In “Prison Thoughts” he foretold the abolition of the procession to Tyburn, or perhaps of public executions:—