With the price of £200 upon his head, and with the additional promise of a pardon for any accomplice who would betray him, Turpin's position was now more than ever desperate. He fully realised this, and took the only possible course, that of removing himself into the country, far away from his accustomed haunts. After three months at Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire, he appears to have selected Yorkshire as the safest part, and staying some time at the ferry-house. Brough, and then at Market Cave and North Cave, to have settled at Welton, ten miles from Beverley, in October 1737. There he posed as a gentleman horse-dealer, Palmer by name. Sometimes he would range southward to Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, but always where he went the farmers and others missed their horses, in the most mysterious way. No one suspected the "gentleman" horse-dealer, who mixed freely in the company of the Yorkshire yeomen and knew a thing or two about cock-fighting and proved himself a singularly good judge of stock—qualities which would render any one popular at that time, with the Yorkshire tykes. His ugly mug was a mere accident, and as for his rough manners, why the tykes themselves were rough and ready, and so they easily excused, or perhaps even did not notice, his overbearing ways.
But his evil temper got the better of him one day, when, returning from a shooting expedition, and being perhaps half-drunk, he wantonly shot one of his neighbour's fowls. When the owner resented this, Turpin, or "Palmer," threatened to serve him in the same way (i.e. "if he would only stay till he had charged his piece, he would shoot him too"), and in the result he was arrested on a charge of brawling, at the "Green Man" inn. When he came before the magistrates in Quarter Sessions at Beverley, the singular fact was discovered that this man, so well known in the neighbourhood, had many acquaintances, but no friends who would speak to his character or go bail for him. It then appeared that he had come as an entire stranger to the district less than two years earlier; and in short, in one way and another, it was all at once discovered that he was a suspicious character, whose doings had better be investigated. He was accordingly remanded, and enquiries resulted in his being charged with stealing a black mare, blind of the near eye, off Heckington Common, in Lincolnshire, near Sleaford. He had declared himself a native of Long Sutton, and said his father lived there and his sister kept house for him. He had been, he continued, in business there, but had been obliged to abscond, owing to his having contracted some debts he found himself unable to pay, in an unfortunate transaction in which he had bought some sheep that had proved to be diseased. Enquiries proved these statements to be entirely false. He had no relations at Long Sutton, but he was known there, and badly wanted, as a sheep-stealer, suspected also of horse-stealing.
It is significant of Turpin's activity in horse-stealing, that the Worcester Journal of September 29th, 1738, has the following curious item: "A few days since, the Father of the noted Turpin was committed to Chelmsford Gaol, for having in his Possession a Horse supposed to be stolen out of Lincolnshire, which, he pleads, was left with him by his Son, to pay for Diet and Lodging." Research fails to discover the result of this committal.
John Palmer, or Richard Turpin, was sent from Beverley to York Castle to stand his trial at the assizes for stealing the horse from Heckington; and from his grim dungeon cell, still in existence in the Castle, he wrote a letter to his brother, or, according to the evidence at his trial, his brother-in-law, at Hempstead, asking him to be a referee as to character:
York, Feb. 6, 1639.
"Dear Brother,"I am sorry to acquaint you that I am now under confinement in York Castle, for horse-stealing. If I could procure an evidence from London to give me a character, that would go a great way towards my being acquitted. I had not been long in this county before my being apprehended, so that it would pass off the readier. For heaven's sake, my dear brother, do not neglect me; you will know what I mean when I say,
"I am, your's,
"John Palmer."
The letter was not prepaid, and the recipient, not recognising the handwriting of the address, refused to receive it and pay the sixpence demanded. As it happened, Mr. Smith, the schoolmaster who had taught Turpin to write, saw the letter, and recognising the handwriting, carried it to the magistrates, so that it might legally be opened, and perhaps the very much wanted Turpin be arrested from the information it possibly contained. Perhaps this public-spirited person really thought he saw a chance of obtaining the £200 reward offered; but, however that may be, the letter disclosed the fact that Turpin was lying in prison at York, and Smith eventually appeared at the trial and identified him. It is not known who, if indeed any one, received the reward.
The rumour that Turpin had been taken, and was a prisoner in York Castle, was no sooner circulated than people flocked from all parts to get a sight of him, and debates ran very high whether he was the real person or not. This making a holiday show of a prisoner in his cell seems odd to us moderns; but it was then, as we see constantly in these pages, the usual thing, and a practice that greatly enriched the turnkeys; or the warders, as we should call them.
SIR RALPH ROOKWOOD AND SIMON SHARPSCENT.
(Skelt.)