John Thompson, alias Godfried Thomas Leschinsky, born at Riga, 1782, was a seaman. He sailed with Nelson’s fleet to Copenhagen, 1801. Continuing at sea he endured many hardships from severe accidents and ill health, and was at length discharged as not being fit for his Majesty’s service. In 1806, while in the Infirmary at Newcastle, one of his legs—from old injuries, rapidly mortified and had to be amputated. Subsequently, in consequence of the bones and joints of his right hand decaying, his arm was taken off below the elbow. He for years made a living out of his misfortunes and assumed piety. Catnach was induced, by specious reasoning, to undertake the printing of the book, but the eleemosynary author dying just as it was all worked off but not bound, he had the whole of the stock thrown on his hands to do the best he could with. There were between fifty and sixty claims set up by persons who averred that they had in part, or whole, paid for a copy each to the author on signing his subscription list, and most of these claims were allowed on the payment of sixpence extra: the work was subscribed for at 3s. 6d., but being extended to 20 pages more than was expected, the price was advanced to 4s.
John Catnach, at Newcastle, worked attentively for awhile, but without finding his expectations realised. Alas! time and the change of scene and companions had not improved the man. He contrived to get into a great amount of debt, without the least possible chance, from his irregular mode of living, of being able to pay it off. Eventually, he made up his mind for the worst, and the downward course would seem to have been the only way open to him. From bad to worse, and from one extreme to the other, he rapidly drifted. The loose and irregular manner in which he had existed was beginning to tell upon his constitution. His business had been neglected, and his adventures were nearly at a climax. The wreck came, with a terrific blow; but it was not unlooked for. Poor Catnach was a bankrupt, and as such sent to the debtor’s gaol. But just before, he had managed to send his wife and daughters to London, together with a wooden printing press, some small quantity of type, and other articles of his trade that could be hurriedly and clandestinely got together.
During the five years’ residence of John and Mary Catnach in Newcastle, they had one child, Isabella, burned to death, and another, Julia Dalton, born to them.
Mr. Mark Smith, who had been bound apprentice to John Catnach, but by reason of whose removal from the Borough of Alnwick, the indentures had been rendered void, was then in London, serving out his time as a turnover and improver with Mr. John Walker, of Paternoster Row, and on being made acquainted with the arrival of Mrs. Catnach and her family, paid them a visit at their lodgings in a court leading off Drury-lane, and assisted in putting up the press and arranging the other few matters and utensils in connection with their tiny printing office, there to await John Catnach’s release from prison and arrival in the metropolis.
London life to John Catnach proved very disastrous, matters never went smoothly with him. It was evident to all his friends that he had made a great mistake in leaving the North of England. Mr. Mark Smith continued to visit the family as opportunities presented themselves. On one occasion he found them in extremely distressed circumstances, so much so, that he had to afford them some temporary relief from his slender earnings and then left the northern sojourners for the night, promising that he would return to see them at an early date. Anxious to learn how they were succeeding in the crowded metropolis, it was not many days before he again visited them, but this time he found them in a sorry plight; the landlady had distrained upon their all for arrears of rent. This was an awkward predicament; but the indomitable young Northumbrian, like the more burly Dr. Johnson of old, when his friend Oliver Goldsmith was similarly situated, resolved to do all he could to rescue him from the peril in which he was placed. Not being prepared for a case of such pressing emergency, the full debt and costs being demanded, he was compelled to borrow the required amount of Mr. Matthew Willoughby, a native and freeman of the Borough of Alnwick, then residing in London, and once more his old master was free.
John Catnach then removed his business to a front shop in Soho, when, in the absence of work of a higher class, he had to resort to printing quarter-sheet ballads, here is the title and imprint of one example:—
Tom Starboard and Faithful Nancy.
Tom Starboard was a lover true,
As brave a tar as ever sail’d;
The duties ablest seamen do
Tom did, and never had fail’d.
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