All these men were, in fact, originally smugglers, and had, from being marked down as criminals for that offence, and from being “wanted” by the law, found themselves obliged to keep in hiding from their homes. In default of being able to take part in other runs of smuggled goods, and finding themselves unable to get employment, they were driven to other, and more serious, crimes.
On April 4th of the same year four other members of the terrible Hawkhurst Gang—Kingsmill, Fairall, Perrin, and Glover by name—were together brought to trial at the Old Bailey, charged with being concerned in the Poole affair, the breaking open of the custom-house, and the stealing of goods therefrom. They had been betrayed to the Government by the same two ex-smugglers who had turned King’s evidence at the Chichester trial, and their evidence again secured a conviction. Glover, recommended by the jury to the royal mercy, was eventually pardoned; but the remaining three were hanged. Fairall behaved most insolently at the trial, and even threatened one of the witnesses. Glover displayed penitence; and Kingsmill and Perrin insisted that they had not been guilty of any robbery, because the goods they had taken were their own.
Kingsmill had been leader in the ferocious attack on Goudhurst in April 1747, and was an extremely dangerous ruffian, ready for any extremity.
Fairall was proved to be a particularly desperate fellow. Two years earlier he had been apprehended, as a smuggler, in Sussex, and, being brought before Mr. Butler, a magistrate, at Lewes, was remitted by him for trial in London.
Brought under escort overnight to the New Prison in the Borough, Fairall found means to make a dash from the custody of his guards, and, leaping upon a horse that was standing in Blackman Street, rode away and escaped, within sight of numerous people.
Returning to the gang, who were reasonably surprised at his safe return from the jaws of death, he was filled with an unreasoning hatred of Mr. Butler, the justice who, in the ordinary course of his duty, had committed him. He proposed a complete and terrible revenge: firstly, by destroying all the deer in his park, and all his trees, which was readily agreed to by the gang; and then, since those measures were not extreme enough for them, the idea was discussed of setting fire to his house and burning him alive in it. Some of the conspirators, however, thought this too extreme a step, and they parted without coming to any decision. Fairall, Kingsmill, and others, however, determined not to be baulked, then each procured a brace of pistols, and waited for the magistrate, near his own park wall, to shoot him when he returned home that night from a journey to Horsham.
Fortunately for him, some accident kept him from returning, and the party of would-be assassins, tired of waiting, at last said to one another, “Damn him, he will not come home to-night! Let us be gone about our business.” They then dispersed, swearing they would watch for a month together, but they would have him; and that they would make an example of all who should dare to obstruct them.
Perrin’s body was directed to be given to his friends, instead of being hanged in chains, and he was pitying the misfortunes of his two companions, who were not only, like himself, to be hanged, but whose bodies were afterwards to be gibbeted, when Fairall said, “We shall be hanging up in the sweet air when you are rotting in your grave.”
Fairall kept a bold front to the very last. The night before the execution, he smoked continually with his friends, until ordered by the warder to go to his cell; when he exclaimed, “Why in such a hurry? Cannot you let me stay a little longer with my friends? I shall not be able to drink with them to-morrow night.”
But perhaps there was more self-pity in those apparently careless words and in that indifferent demeanour than those thought who heard them.