THE condition of debtors as shown by Howard was deplorable all through the country. The prisons were often the property of great personages. Cheyney Court at Winchester was owned by the bishop of the diocese, so was that at Durham, and here the debtors were in such evil case that those on the Common Side had no subsistence for a whole twelve month more than a diet of boiled bread and water. His Majesty the King kept a prison for debtors in Windsor Castle in which Howard found two prisoners. The place was governed by the Duke of Montague as constable, and under him a janitor and deputy-janitor were appointed, the latter receiving free house-rent as his salary. The prison of Chester Castle was also the property of the King, who leased it to his constable or patentee, who in his turn received rent from the gaoler, forty pounds a year. The debtors were lodged in the so-called “Pope’s kitchen,” an imaginary free ward. This “Pope’s kitchen” was underground, dark and ill-ventilated, so that Howard when inside with the door shut felt that his situation brought to mind what he had heard of the Black Hole of Calcutta. In striking contrast to this, Howard speaks in commendation of the noble prison for debtors in the spacious area within York Castle, and of the admirable arrangements for the weighing and issuing of bread for the supply of which many charities existed. Elsewhere they were cruelly neglected; the keeper of Bodmin prison bore witness that in twenty years only four prisoners had received the “groats” or allowance from their creditors. At Exeter, during twelve years, only four or five had received it besides the inmates of the Common Side ward known as the “Shoe” because those inside were in the habit of lowering a shoe through the window, to collect alms in the street. At this time the total number of debtors in custody in England and Wales averaged about two thousand.
We may contrast the culpable neglect and ill-treatment of debtors in Great Britain with the milder and more humane customs generally prevailing at that time on the Continent of Europe. In Prussia a money payment of two groschen (threepence farthing) was made by the creditors, and if omitted for one whole week, the prisoner was set free. In Holland creditors were bound to support their debtors with an allowance varying from sixpence to two and three shillings a day. In Flanders the creditor was obliged to pay for a month’s support in advance. At Cologne no debtors who were quite penniless might be confined. In Paris a new prison, La Force, had been constructed and occupied from January, 1782. It was a spacious building with the means of separation of the sexes and classes; the charge for a bed was from five to thirty sous a night, but there were also free beds, and poor prisoners were supplied with rations, soup and a pound and a half of bread daily. The rule obtained in France that the bailiff who arrested a debtor must pay the gaoler on committal a month’s allowance in advance for food. Moreover, the French law obliged creditors to give bail for small sums even where the debtor was insolvent. There was a general rule in Germany that the wives and children of debtors were not allowed to reside within the prison.
Foreigners sometimes came within the grip of the English law and became liable to imprisonment for debt. They did not all fare so well as that eccentric character, the Chevalier Desseasau, who was well known to Londoners at the latter end of the eighteenth century. He was a native of Prussia, of French extraction, who had borne a commission in the Prussian army, but having been involved in a quarrel with a brother officer and fought a duel, in which his antagonist had been dangerously wounded, he fled to England, where he eked out a precarious living in literary pursuits. His line was poetry and his production very mediocre. One verse inspired by his excessive vanity was often quoted against him,—
“Il n’y a au monde que deux héros,
Le roi de Prusse et Chevalier Desseasau.”
He was to be met with in the best literary circles, was well known to Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Foote, Murphy and to every publisher in the trade. His appearance was so remarkable that he attracted amused attention in the streets. Short of stature and of slender figure, he always wore a black suit, cut in an ancient fashion, and carried in his hands a gold headed cane, a roll of his poetry and a sword or two, so as to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. He did not greatly prosper as time went on and found himself committed to the Fleet prison, where he took advantage of the “Rules” and was suffered to go about as much as he pleased. His chief places of resort were Anderton’s Coffee House in Fleet Street, “the Barn” in St. Martin’s Lane and various taverns and places of public resort in and about Covent Garden. Being a man of originality and good-nature, his company was much courted. He was buried in St. Bride’s Churchyard.
A rather remarkable character was an inmate of the Fleet and of other London prisons at the end of the eighteenth century. This was Captain Johnson, a sea-faring man, noted for his daring exploits and more or less criminal pursuits throughout his long and diversified career. He was a man of middle stature, with intelligent features and of striking personal appearance, a native of Ireland and in religion a Catholic, according to contemporary accounts. He was before all else a smuggler in a very large way of business, constantly engaged in running profitable cargoes, well known all along the southern sea-coast, full of guile in evading capture, but desperately bold in defending his ill-gotten spoil. He made London his headquarters and lived in Fitzroy Square “keeping up an establishment fit for a nobleman,” with a stable full of horses and a large staff of servants. On one occasion, when about to run a large cargo into London, he was invited to assist four persons charged with forgery out of the kingdom. After secreting them in the empty carts, he got them on board ship near Folkestone and despatched them safely to Flushing; returning with his smuggled goods, he fell in with a riding revenue officer with a cavalry escort and was made prisoner. He was lodged in the new prison in the Borough, no doubt the Queen’s Bench, but when brought up for trial boldly made his escape in the open court.
A series of hairbreadth adventures followed. Johnson was hunted from place to place but by moving constantly to and fro and assuming many disguises he continued to keep at large, until his services being urgently needed to pilot an expedition to Ostend, he was granted a pardon. No one knew the Dutch coast better, and although the earliest operations were unsuccessful, he was again employed to assist in landing troops at the Helder. He was of immense service and gained a rich reward; his pardon was confirmed, he was granted the rank and pay of post-captain in the British Navy and was much esteemed as “a bold intrepid, high-couraged Englishman” on the testimony of such officers as Sir Home Popham and Sir Ralph Abercromby.
Johnson had become concerned with contracts for the provisions of the troops and his money matters were so much mixed that he was arrested for a large sum said to be owing to the crown, and lodged in the Fleet prison. He brought counter charges and was in due course bailed out, cleared of the debt. He had a further claim on the government, an income promised him by Mr. Pitt of a thousand pounds a year if he would give up smuggling. He could not substantiate the claim and was once more thrown into the Fleet where he lived well and entertained largely, although £13,000 was the amount of his liabilities. Very little restraint was put upon him as he had given a bond to the warden against making an escape. Soon he was identified by certain revenue officers as the ringleader of a gang of smugglers who had attacked them, and from being merely a debtor, he was constituted a prisoner awaiting trial on a capital charge. An order was therefore issued for his removal to Newgate, and to make sure of his person until transferred, he was lodged in the strong room of the Fleet.
Matters now began to look serious and he secretly turned over in his mind the possibility of escape. He withdrew therefore from his bond by making it appear that he had quarrelled with his attorney, who would no longer be responsible for him. After this Johnson commenced active operations. The strong room was at the opposite end of the coffee-house gallery; he could not file the window bars, the noise of which would have betrayed him, but he bored through the panels of his double doors with strong gimlets and after much patient labour broke them out. The panels yielded to a tremendous blow delivered by one of the iron pulleys of his window sash and the noise was deadened by the loud shouting and bellowing of a neighbouring prisoner who was believed to be mad, and who readily consented to give this assistance. When once through the panel, he stole along the gallery and upstairs to an attic with a window opening on the outside. From this he reached the boundary wall headed with its chevaux de frise and creeping along till he found a foothold made fast a rope he had brought with him to one of the spikes just over Fleet market. Here he lowered the rope, and slid down in safety only to find the exterior watchman on his beat below, whom he would have shot dead on the spot had he been observed, which fortunately for him was not the case.
Johnson had taken the preliminary precaution to put on the uniform of a lieutenant of the Hussars, before he climbed through the panel, the clothes having been introduced into the prison for this purpose. The Hussar regiment was stationed at Brighton and the supposed lieutenant, with the help of a friend, secured a post chaise for the journey. Arrived at Brighton, Johnson changed his clothes and went on board one of his own cutters awaiting him at Hove. He must have gone to sea forthwith and remained abroad, or in some secure hiding place, for he was not heard of again until 1809 when he was again employed by the government as pilot and guide upon the ill-starred Walcheren. His active spirit prompted him to proffer advice to the dilatory commanders and he strongly urged them to capture Flushing and proceed up the Scheldt and lay siege to Antwerp. They would not listen to him and turned a deaf ear also to his proposal but they approved of an attempt to blow in the walls of Flushing by a submarine torpedo, his own invention and presumably the first idea of that esteemed weapon of modern warfare. Johnson himself took charge of the enterprise and approaching the walls in a small boat, he swam up to them and fastened a block with rope attached to a part of the piles on which the town was built. The other end of this rope was fastened to the torpedo which was run out and the match ignited, but there was no explosion. The engine was imperfect, as Johnson afterward discovered, because the water had entered and wet the powder through a hole drilled in the gunlock. Johnson always attributed this to the jealousy of the inventor of the Congreve rocket, Sir William Congreve, who was present at the siege, but his charge it is difficult to believe. The torpedo which had failed at Flushing was afterward successfully tried upon a barge in the Thames, moored in midstream.