Richard Patch was born in the year 1770, at the village of Heavytree, Devonshire, within two miles of Exeter, and his family had a name somewhat respectable among the yeomen of the county. The grandfather of Patch had a freehold estate in land, of the value of fifty pounds per annum, in a neighbouring village. His father, according to the custom of many of the petty farmers who reside on the sea-coast in the distant counties, was a smuggler, and he was noted for a fierceness and an unusual degree of intrepidity; but as the life of a smuggler is variable in its scenes, so he was doomed to change his bold deeds and his unlawful proceedings for a quiet sojourn in the New Gaol at Exeter, where he was sentenced to be imprisoned for twelve months, on a conviction obtained at the instance of the officers of Excise. At the termination of the period of his imprisonment, he was engaged by the keeper of the prison as a gaoler, and he continued to occupy that post until the period of his death. He left several children, of whom our hero was the eldest. He had been bound apprentice to a butcher at Ebmere, a small village, the most notorious in the county for the immorality of its inhabitants, and it is exceedingly probable that his mind was early inured to thoughts of evil deeds. Upon his father’s decease, he quitted his service as a butcher, and taking possession of the property, to which, as the eldest son, he was entitled, he became a farmer. His efforts, however, in this line were attended with no success, and he was soon obliged to mortgage the property which he possessed for more than one-half its value.
Some years were afterwards passed at Ebmere, when an accident drove him from his home. From motives which it is unnecessary to examine, he had quarrelled with the rector of his parish, and, in order to be revenged, he removed the produce of his farm from his land, without setting out the tenths for the rector; or, in other words, he refused to pay the tithes. The consequence was a lawsuit, and an immediate action in the Exchequer. Patch, shuddering at the expense of the litigation, and the certain result which awaited him, and already somewhat embarrassed in his circumstances, quitted Devonshire, in the spring of the year 1803.
Upon his coming to London, he immediately presented himself at Mr. Blight’s, with whom his sister, at that time, lived as a menial servant; together with a brother of his who was brought up a baker, but, for some reasons which it is unnecessary to enter into, was now in the service of Mr. Blight, as a kind of overseer or superintendant in the shipping business.
Mr. Blight, it appears, had formerly been a West India merchant, and had failed; upon which he engaged in the ship-breaking business, and was at this time carrying it on with great success.
Patch had not long entered the service of Mr. Blight, when, from jealousy or some uneasiness, his brother quitted it. He had been disappointed in endeavouring to set up for himself in the business of a baker to which he was bred; and this mortification, aggravated by the conduct of his brother Richard, excited such a disgust in his mind, that he immediately went to sea, sailed to the West Indies, where he soon died a victim to the yellow fever.
The thoughts of a partnership with his employer ere long struck our hero, and he was induced to look upon the scheme with some anticipations of its realisation, hoping to be able to purchase a share of the business with the proceeds of his estate in Devonshire. He, in consequence, proceeded into that county, and having disposed of his land, he cleared off all its encumbrances, and received a sum of 350l. as the surplus, after the payment of all expenses. On his return to London at the close of the year 1804, he made his desire known to his employer, and he paid over to him a sum of 250l. as a portion of the purchase-money, and deposited the remainder in the hands of a banker.
The exact nature of the agreement made does not appear, but whatever the negotiations may have been, they were suddenly stopped by the murder of Mr. Blight, who was mortally wounded, while sitting in his own house, by a pistol discharged by an unseen hand, on the 23rd September 1805. The extraordinary nature of the murder, and the still more singular method of its perpetration attracted universal attention, and a minute investigation of all the circumstances having taken place before Mr. Graham a magistrate, suspicion fell upon Patch, and he was committed to prison.
His trial came on at the Surrey assizes, continued by adjournment to Horsemonger-lane, in the Borough, on Saturday, 5th April 1806. In the mean time the interest produced in reference to the case was of the most extraordinary nature.
By five o’clock in the morning of the trial, a vast concourse of the populace had assembled, and on the opening of the Court it was with the utmost difficulty that the law-officers and others could obtain an entrance. The Dukes of Sussex, Cumberland, and Orleans; Lords Portsmouth, Grantley, Cranley, Montford, William Russel, Deerhurst, and G. Seymour; Sir John Frederick, Sir John Shelley, Sir Thomas Turton, Sir William Clayton, Sir J. Mawby; Count Woronzow, the Russian ambassador, and his secretary, were present. The magistrates had made every accommodation that the Court would admit of: and a box was fitted up for the royal family.
The prisoner was conducted into court soon after nine o’clock, and took his station at the bar, attended by two or three friends. He was genteelly dressed in black, and perfect composure marked his countenance and manner. Precisely at ten o’clock, the Lord Chief Baron Macdonald took his seat on the bench; and to the indictment the prisoner pleaded, in an audible voice, “Not guilty.”