To return to the events on the island. It is pretty certain that Governor Wall’s mind must have been thrown off its balance after he had dismissed the party headed by Armstrong. He was either actually apprehensive for the safety of his command, or was momentarily blinded by passion at the seeming defiance of discipline, and he felt that he must make an example if his authority was to be maintained. Although many old comrades of high rank bore witness at his trial to his great humanity and good temper, there is reason to fear that to those under his command he was so severe and unaccommodating as to be generally unpopular, and this no doubt told against him at his trial. He was not a strong, self-reliant commander. It is nearly certain that he gave trifles exaggerated importance, and was only too ready to put in practice the severest methods of repression he had at hand. In this instance, however, he did not act without deliberation. It was not until six in the evening that he had resolved to punish Armstrong as the ringleader of the mutiny. By that time he had fully laid his plans. The “long roll” was beat upon the drums, the troops were assembled hurriedly as in the case of alarm, and a gun-carriage was dragged into the centre of the parade. The Governor then constituted a drum-head court-martial, which proceeded to try Armstrong for mutiny, convict, and sentence him without calling upon him to plead to any charge, or hearing him in his defence; so that he was practically punished without a trial. He was ordered eight hundred lashes, which were forthwith inflicted, not as in ordinary cases by the regimental drummers, whom the Governor thought were tinged with insubordination, but by the black interpreter and his assistants; nor was the regulation cat-of-nine-tails used, as the Governor declared they had all been destroyed by the mutineers, but with a thick rope’s end, which, according to the surgeon’s testimony, did more mischief than the cat. Armstrong’s punishment was exemplary. It was proved that the Governor stood by, threatening to flog the blacks themselves unless they “laid on” with a will, and crying again and again, “Cut him to the heart! cut him to the liver!” Armstrong begged for mercy, but he received the whole eight hundred lashes, twenty-five at a time; and when he was cast loose, he said that the sick season was coming on, which with the punishment would certainly do for him. A surgeon was present at the infliction, but was not called upon to certify as to Armstrong’s fitness or otherwise for corporal punishment, nor did he enter any protest. Armstrong was taken at once to hospital, and his back was found “as black as a new hat.” From the moment of his reception the doctors had no hope of his recovery: he gradually grew worse and worse, and presently died.

The day after the punishment Governor Wall left Goree and came to England, where he arrived in August, 1782. The news of Armstrong’s death followed him, and various reports as to the Governor’s conduct, which were inquired into and dismissed. But in 1784 a more detailed and circumstantial account came to hand, and two messengers were despatched to Bath by Lord Sidney, then Secretary of State, to arrest Wall. They apprehended him and brought him as far as Reading in a chaise and four, where they alighted at an inn. While the officers were at supper he gave them the slip and got over to France, whence he wrote promising to surrender in the course of a few months. His excuse for absconding was that many of those who would be the principal witnesses were his personal enemies. He continued abroad, however, for some years, residing sometimes in Italy, more constantly in France, “where he lived respectably and was admitted into good company.” He affected the society of countrymen serving in the French army, and was well-known to the Scotch and Irish Colleges in Paris. In 1797 he returned to England and remained in hiding, occupying lodgings in Lambeth Court, where his wife, who was a lady of good family, regularly visited him. He is described as being unsettled in mind at this time, and even then contemplating surrender. His means of subsistence were rather precarious, but he lived at the time of delivering himself up in Upper Thornhaugh St., Bedford Square. In October, 1801, he wrote twice to Lord Pelham, stating that he had returned to England for the purpose of meeting the charge against him. It was generally supposed that, had he not thus come forward voluntarily, the matter had nearly passed out of people’s memory, and he would hardly have been molested. He was, however, arrested on his own letter, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of Benjamin Armstrong at Goree in 1782. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. After several respites and strenuous exertions to save his life, he was executed in front of Newgate on the 28th January, 1802. The whole of one day was occupied by the judges and law officers in reviewing his case, but their opinion was against him. For an account of the prisoner’s demeanour after sentence and execution the reader is referred to the chapter on Executions in vol. ii.

Three persons of note and superior station found themselves in Newgate about this time upon a charge of murder. The first was James Quin, the celebrated actor, the popular diner-out and bon vivant, who went to the west coast of England to eat John Dory in perfection, and who preferred eating turtle in Bristol to London. He made his first hit as Falstaff in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ He had understudied the part, but Rich, manager of the Theatre Royal, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, substituted him for it on an emergency with great reluctance. His next hit was as Cato, in which, with many other parts, he succeeded Booth. Quin was modest enough on his first appearance as Cato to announce that the part would be “attempted by Mr. Quin.” The audience were, however, fully satisfied with his performance, and after one critical passage was applauded with shouts of “Booth outdone!” It was through this his great part of Cato that he was led into the quarrel which laid him open to the charge of murder. One night an inferior actor named Williams, taking the part of messenger, said, “Cæsar sends health to Cato,” but pronounced Cato “Keeto.” Quin, much annoyed, replied instantly with a “gag”—“Would that he had sent a better messenger.”[164] Williams was now greatly incensed, and in the Green Room later in the evening complained bitterly to Quin that he had been made ridiculous, that his professional prospects were blighted, and that he insisted upon satisfaction or an apology. Quin only laughed at his rage. Williams, goaded to madness, went out into the piazza at Covent Garden to watch for Quin. When the latter left the theatre Williams attacked him with his sword. Quin drew in his defence, and after a few passes ran Williams through the body. The ill-fated actor died on the spot. Quin surrendered himself, was committed, tried, found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to be burnt in the hand.

Another well-known actor, Charles Macklin, was no less unfortunate in incurring the stain of blood. He was a hot-headed, intemperate Irishman, who, when he had an engagement at Drury Lane Theatre, quarrelled with another actor over a wig. Going down between the pieces into the scene-room, “where the players warm themselves,” he saw a Mr. Hallam, who was to appear as Sancho in the ‘Fop’s Fortune,’ wearing a “stock wig” which he (Macklin) had on the night before. He swore at him for a rogue, and cried, “What business have you with my wig?” The other answered that he had as much right to it as Macklin, but presently went away and changed it for another. Macklin still would not leave the man alone, and taking the wig, began to comb it out, making grumbling and abusive remarks, calling Hallam a blackguard and a scrub rascal. Hallam replied that he was no more a rascal than Macklin was; upon which the latter “started from his chair, and having a stick in his hand, made a full lunge at the deceased, and thrust the stick into his left eye;” pulling it back again he looked pale, turned on his heel, and in a passion threw the stick on the fire. Hallam clapped his hand to his eye and said the stick had gone through his head. Young Mr. Cibber, the manager’s son, came in, and a doctor was sent for; the injured man was removed to a bed, where he expired the following day. Macklin was very contrite and concerned at his rash act, for which he was arrested, and in due course tried at the Old Bailey. Many of the most renowned actors of the day, Rich, Fleetwood, Quin, Ryan, and others, bore testimony to his good character and his quiet, peaceable disposition. He also was found guilty of manslaughter only, and sentenced to be burnt in the hand.

The third case of killing by misadventure was that of Joseph Baretti, the author of the well-known Italian and English dictionary. Baretti had resided in England for some years, engaged upon this work; he was a middle-aged, respectable man, of studious habits, the friend and associate of the most noted literary men and artists of the day. He was a member of the club of the Royal Academicians at that time (1769), lodged in Soho, and went there one afternoon after a long morning’s work over his proofs. Finding no one at the club, he went on to the Orange coffee-house, and returning by the Haymarket to the club, was madly assaulted by a woman at the corner of Panton Street. Very unwisely he resented her attack by giving her a blow with his hand, when the woman, finding by his accent he was a foreigner, cried for help against the cursed Frenchman, when there was at once a gathering of bullies, who jostled and beat Baretti, making him “apprehensive that he must expect no favour nor protection, but all outrage and blows.” There was, generally, a great puddle at the corner of Panton Street, even when the weather was fine, and on this particular day it had rained incessantly, and the pavement was very slippery. Baretti’s assailants tried hard to push him into the puddle, and at last in self-defence he drew his pocket-knife, a knife he kept, as he afterwards declared, to carve fruit and sweetmeats, and not to kill his fellow-creatures with.[165] Being hard pushed, “in great horror, having such bad eyes,” lest he should run against some, and his pursuers constantly at him, jostling and beating him, Baretti “made a quick blow” at one who had knocked off his hat with his fist; the mob cried “Murder, he has a knife out,” and gave way. Baretti ran up Oxenden Street, then faced about and ran into a shop for protection, being quite spent with fatigue. Three men followed him; one was a constable, who called upon Baretti to surrender. Morgan, the man whom he had stabbed, three times, as it appeared, “the third wound having hurt him more than the two former,” was fast bleeding to death. Baretti was carried before Sir John Fielding; his friends came from the club and testified to his character, among others Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, but he was committed to prison. It was urged in Baretti’s defence that he had been very severely handled; he had a swollen cheek, and was covered with bruises. Independent witnesses came forward, and swore that they had been subjected to personal outrage in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket. A number of personal friends, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Fitz-Herbert, and Mr. Edmund Burke, spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Baretti as “a man of benevolence, sobriety, modesty, and learning.” In the end he was acquitted of murder or manslaughter, and the jury gave a verdict of self-defence.

Inoffensive persons were constantly in danger, day and night, of being waylaid and maltreated in the streets. Disturbance was chronic in certain localities, and a trifling quarrel might at any moment blaze into a murderous riot. On execution days the mob was always rampant; at times too, when political passion was at fever-heat, crowds of roughs were ever ready to espouse the popular cause. Thus when the court party, headed by Lord Bute, vainly strove to crush the demagogue John Wilkes, and certain prisoners were being tried at the Old Bailey for riot and wounding, a crowd collected outside the Mansion House carrying a gibbet on which hung a boot and a petticoat.[166] The Mayor interfered and a fray began. Weapons were used, some of the Lord Mayor’s servants were wounded, and one of the prisoners was rescued by the mob. Sometimes the disturbance had its origin in trade jealousies. A clerk to a weaver’s club was arraigned with others for tying two weavers back to back, setting them on horseback, and in a riotous manner driving them through the streets; their offence being that they had worked under price. Again, a number of men riotously assembled and destroyed a saw-mill, for which they were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Newgate. At the execution of two weavers on Bethnal Green for destroying work on the looms the mob behaved outrageously as the convicts were being conveyed from Newgate to Bethnal Green—insulted the sheriffs, pulled up the gallows, broke the windows, destroyed the furniture, and committed other outrages in the house of a manufacturer in Spitalfields. The sheriffs harangued them without effect, and it was not till they were threatened with calling out the military that they dispersed.

An especially turbulent class were the footmen, chairmen, and body-servants of the aristocracy. They quarrelled and wrangled and rioted in the open streets, often in the precincts of the royal residence, as when a number of them created a disturbance outside Leicester House during a drawing-room held by the Princess of Wales. The Footmen’s Riot at Drury Lane Theatre, which occurred in 1737, was a still more serious affair. It had long been the custom to admit “the parti-coloured tribe,” as the licensed lacqueys are called in contemporary accounts, to the upper gallery of that Theatre gratis, out of compliment to their masters on whom they were in attendance. Thus established among the gods, they comported themselves with extraordinary license; they impudently insulted the rest of the audience, who, unlike themselves, had paid for admission, and “assuming the prerogative of critics, hissed or applauded with the most offensive clamour.” Finding the privilege of free entrance thus scandalously abused, Mr. Fleetwood, the manager, suspended the free list. This gave great offence to the footmen, who proceeded to take the law into their own hands. “They conceived,” as it was stated in ‘Fog’s Weekly Journal,’ “that they had an indefeasible hereditary right to the said gallery, and that this expulsion was a high infringement of their liberties.” Accordingly, one Saturday night a great number of them—quite three hundred, it was said—assembled at Drury Lane doors, armed with staves and truncheons, and “well fortified with three-threads and twopenny.”[167] The night selected was one when the performance was patronized by royalty, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, with other members of the royal family, were in the theatre. The rioters attacked the stage door and forced it open, “bearing down all the box-keepers, candle-snuffers, supernumeraries, and pippin women that stood in the way.” In this onslaught some five-and-twenty respectable people were desperately wounded. Fortunately Colonel de Veil, an active Westminster justice, happened to be in the house, and at once interposed. He ordered the Riot Act to be read, but “so great was the confusion,” says the account, “that they might as well have read Cæsar’s ‘Commentaries’.” Colonel de Veil then got the assistance of some of the guards, and with them seized several of the principal rioters, whom he committed to Newgate. These prisoners were looked upon as martyrs to the great cause, and while in gaol were liberally supplied with all luxuries by the subscription of their brethren. They were, however, brought to trial, convicted of riot, and sentenced to imprisonment.

This did not quite end the disturbance. Anonymous letters poured into the theatre, threatening Fleetwood and vowing vengeance. The following is a specimen:—

“Sir,

“We are willing to admonish you before we attempt our design; and provide you use us civil, and admit us into your gallery, which is our property according to formalities, and if you think proper to come to a composition this way you’ll hear no further; and if not, our intention is to combine in a body, incognito, and reduce the playhouse to the ground. Valueing no detection, we are