“As a master and a friend, I trust the following statement will show that kindness and liberality, and a desire to cultivate the friendship of my neighbours and the tranquillity of my home, have always been the object of my study, and a pleasure most dear to my heart. My apprentices and servants have always manifested much pleasure in their situations, and have always continued with me several years. My apprentices have always been the sons of respectable persons, and have generally been the means of recommending each other, through their connexions with each other’s families. I always received a good premium with each apprentice, one only excepted, who was a cast-off apprentice from the Foundling, but who became a good servant under a kind master and mistress, and staid with us many years after her apprenticeship was expired. I have had seven male apprentices since I commenced business, in 1814. Two were brothers, the sons of Mr. Falls, who was then measurer in his majesty’s dockyard, Deptford; and my last apprentice, in 1833, was the son of Mr. Green, of the Royal Oak, Sevenoaks, in Kent, whose eldest son had served his time, five years, with me, and with whom I received a large premium. I have always encouraged my servants and apprentices by very many indulgences and kind treatment, and have always found them obliging and assiduous in business. I had one who robbed me. This was the son of a highly respectable tradesman in London. I gave the boy in charge of the beadle, and, contrary to my wishes, he was remanded to Horsemonger-lane jail. I applied to the youth’s father, to consult upon his son’s escape. This gentleman’s tears and distress of mind I most acutely participated in, and had near been brought into trouble by refusing to prosecute. No servant or inmate of my house can say that I was ever intoxicated, or that I ever lifted my hand against my wife, or caused a tear by harsh treatment. Now, as a friend, I think I can give the most incontrovertible testimony; and had it not been for the infamous lying and slandering newspapers, who glory in any crime for the sale of their dangerous weapons, I might have received the visits, advice, and assistance of hundreds of friends, but all are frightened by those horrifying falsehoods. I have received anonymous letters whilst in jail, which I have shown to the governor of the prison, and have handed to my solicitor, wherein the writers express their wishes to aid me, but durst not avow their names. My counsel also have received instructions to aid me by the receipt of anonymous letters enclosing money, with the like expressions of the writers’ fear that their names may be known. Thus it is that I am compelled to give this brief outline of my life, in the hopes of defeating the power of falsehood and slander.
“I have continued in business twenty years in the parish of St. George, in the Borough. I have always lived under the same firm, or landlord, and have always experienced an increasing connexion of customers and friends. This manifestation of friendship was evinced by my numerous fellow-parishioners in their electing me to the office of overseer, on Easter Tuesday, 1832, by the largest vestry that ever assembled in the parish church of St. George. A poll was demanded, and my friends increased, and never before or since have there been so many parishioners polled. These numerous parishioners, with whom I had resided so many years, would now most willingly aid me by a subscription or other means, but that they are naturally frightened by the false and slanderous newspaper reports.
“As a debtor, when in business, no person was ever more punctual in his payments; and at the time I went to America, my debts, about 150l., were never before so trifling, and the number of my creditors were so few, I had left with my wife the invoices and the cash to pay them; but her illness and sudden death by the cholera caused the discharge of those bills to be neglected, when my creditors, who knew that I had houses, and who, misconstruing the cause of their not being called upon, proceeded by combining their small accounts to make me a bankrupt. Never before, I believe, was a person made a bankrupt whose debts were so trifling as mine. Had fraud been my object in going to America, I could have easily had ten times the debts and as many more creditors, with whom I had dealt for many years. I have one creditor only who has refused to sign my certificate, and from him I never demanded a stamp receipt, which has saved him a sum nearly equal to the debt I owed him.
“I have mentioned my abhorrence of public-houses; I trust, therefore, that the vice of drinking, the foundation of error and crime, may not be considered the cause of my unhappy accident and subsequent resolve to put away the body, which has produced my disreputable notoriety. It was the horror of my feelings, and fear only that took possession of my mind. I was actuated by no feelings of a felonious or malicious kind. The unfortunate deceased was evidently very much in liquor, when her chair went backwards; and had candidly avowed her poverty when I talked to her on the consequences of our marrying in deception, and of her having been to a tally-shop to obtain a dress upon credit in my name. Felonious intentions cannot be attributed to me, since it is well known, that if she had property it might have been mine in a few hours’ time by the legal right of marriage.”
With reference to this autobiography, there is no reason to believe that any of the main facts which are stated are incorrect, but it appears that, throughout his life Greenacre had been notorious among his acquaintance for the violence of his political opinions, and the unreserved manner in which he stated them. Rumours were afloat during the period of his imprisonment, that he had been a party to the atrocious plots of the Thistlewood gang, and that he had escaped from the room where his coadjutors were apprehended in Cato-street, at the very moment of the entrance of the officers. This was a story, the truth of which, however, he utterly denied; but he admitted his acquaintance with a person implicated in the conspiracy who was apprehended in his presence, upon an occasion when he went to pay him a visit. We shall not go into the particulars of the whole of the tales which were circulated in reference to his past life. The public mind was so much excited during the continuance of the proceedings against him, that it would be both unfair and ungenerous to prejudice his memory by the repetition of every unproved assertion which was made. The fact which he stated of his being about to start for America on the day of his apprehension with Gale, was found to be perfectly true; for it appeared that a portion of his luggage had been put on board the vessel, which, however, had sailed without its passengers on the 3d of April. The most remarkable part of his conduct after the dreadful murder of which he had been guilty, was that which referred to a new attempt on his part to enter into the bonds of matrimony, by means of an advertisement in the public newspapers. The specious nature of his disposition is well depicted in this transaction. On the 23d of January, one month after the death of Mrs. Brown, an advertisement appeared in the “Times” newspaper in the following terms:—
“Wanted, a partner, who can command 300l., to join the advertiser in a patent to bring forward a new-invented machine, of great public benefit, that is certain of realising an ample reward. Applications by letter only (post-paid), for J. G., at Mr. Bishop’s, No. 1, Tudor-place, Tottenham Court-road.”
Among the answers to that advertisement was one from a female of great respectability, whose name and address we, for obvious reasons, abstain from making public; who, having a little money at her command, indiscreetly wrote to him on the subject, and afterwards had two or three interviews with him, without, however, coming to any arrangement. Greenacre, with that tact for which throughout the proceedings he has rendered himself so remarkable, clearly saw that it would be more advantageous to him if he could form an alliance with the lady in question, and he accordingly determined, without delay, to make her an offer of his hand, which he did in a most specious letter, written on Saturday, the 4th of February, the very day on which the inquest was held on the limbs of his murdered victim, and probably at the very moment while it was sitting. The following is an authentic copy of his letter:—
“February 4, 1837.
“Dear Madam,—Having had several letters in answer to my advertisement, yours is the third to which I have applied for an interview, and is the last one I shall answer. I advertised in the ‘Times’ newspaper of the 23d of January for a partner with 300l. to join me in a patent to bring forward a new invented machine, of which I have enclosed you a printed specification from scientific gentlemen of property, each anxious to co-operate with me in it; but upon mature consideration, and by the advice of my friends, I have determined not to throw away the half of this most important discovery for the trifling sum of 300l., as it is certainly worth as many thousands.
“It is, therefore, my wish to meet with a female companion, with a small capital, one with whom a mutual and tender attachment might be formed, who would share with me in those advantageous pecuniary prospects which are now before me, and thereby secure the advantages of my own production.