The next adventure of Chambers was directed against the innkeeper of the Greyhound, St. Alban’s. His wife was rather handsome, and exceedingly facetious; and Chambers being often there, was on terms of the greatest familiarity with the household. Directing his steps thither, and pretending to have been attacked by three men near the inn, he went in with his clothes all besmeared. The travellers who were in the inn condoled with him on his misfortune, and gave him a change of clothes until his own should be cleaned. To make amends to himself for this sad disaster, he invited six of his fellow-travellers, with the landlord and his wife, to supper. The glass circulated pretty freely, and the wife entertained them with several appropriate songs. Chambers was careful that her glass never remained long empty. In a short time he saw with pleasure that all his companions, with the solitary exception of the landlord, were sunk in the arms of sleep, and he proposed that they should be conveyed to bed; whereupon two or three stout fellows came to perform that office. Chambers was so obliging as to lend his assistance, but took care that their money and watches should pay him for his trouble.
Left alone with the landlord, he proposed that they should have an additional bottle. Another succeeded before the landlord was in a condition to be conveyed to rest. In aiding the servants with the corpulent innkeeper, he discovered the geography of his bedroom, and finding that the door was directly opposite to his own, he retired, not to rest, but to plot and to perfect his villany.
When he was convinced that the wine would work its full effect upon the deluded pair, he revisited the bedchamber, waited some time, and extracted what property he could most conveniently carry away; by the dawn of day dressed himself in the best suit of clothes which his bottle companions could afford, called for the horse of the person whose clothes he now wore, left two guineas with the waiter to pay his bill, gave half-a-crown to the ostler, and rode off for London.
His first enterprise after his arrival was attacking an Italian merchant upon the Exchange. He took him aside, eagerly inquired what goods he had to dispose of, and, entering into conversation, one of Chambers’ accomplices approaching, joined the conversation. Meanwhile, our adventurer found means to extract from his pocket a large purse of gold and his gold watch, which he delivered to his accomplice. Not satisfied with his first success, and observing a silk handkerchief suspended from his pocket, he walked behind him to seize it, but was detected in the act, and kept fast hold of by the merchant, who cried out lustily, “Thief! thief!” In this dilemma, Chambers’ accomplice ran to the crier, and requested him to give public proclamation, that if any body had lost a purse of gold, upon giving proper information it would be restored. With the expectation of finding his money again, the merchant let go his hold; and, in the crowd, Chambers and his friends retired with their booty.
But Chambers was now resolved to perform an action worthy of his talents. He hired the first floor of a house, and agreed with the landlord for 14s. a week. Having, in the first instance, been mistaken for a man of fortune, both from his appearance and style of living, a mutual confidence was gradually established. When his plot was matured, he one day entered with a very pensive and sorrowful look the apartment of his landlord, who anxiously inquired the cause of his great uneasiness; when Chambers, with tears in his eyes, informed him, that he had just returned from Hampstead, where he had witnessed the death of a beloved brother, who had left him sole heir, with an express injunction to convey his dear remains to Westminster Abbey. He therefore entreated the favor of being allowed to bring his brother’s remains at a certain hour to his house, that from thence they might be conveyed to the place of their destination, which very reasonable request was readily granted by his unsuspecting landlord.
Chambers went off the next morning, leaving word, that the corpse would be there at six o’clock in the evening. At the appointed hour, the hearse, with six horses, arrived at the door. An elegant coffin, with six gilded handles, was carried up stairs, and placed upon the dining-room table, and the horses were conveyed by the men to a stable in the neighborhood. They informed the landlord, that Chambers was detained on business, and would probably sleep that night in the Strand.
That artful rogue was, however, confined in the coffin, in which air-holes had been made, the screw-nails left unfixed, his clothes all on, with a winding-sheet wrapped over them, and his face blanched with flour. All the family were now gone to bed, except the maid-servants. Chambers arose from his confinement, went down stairs to the kitchen wrapped in his winding-sheet, sat down, and stared the maid in the face, who, overwhelmed with fear, cried out, “A ghost! a ghost!” and ran up stairs to her master’s room, who chid her unreasonable fears, and requested her to return to bed, and compose herself. She, however, obstinately refused, and remained in the room.
In a short time, however, in stalked the stately ghost, took his seat, and conferred a complete sweat and a mortal fright upon all three who were present. Retiring from his station when he deemed it convenient, he continued, by the moving of the doors, and the noise raised through the house, to conceal his design: in the mean time, he went down stairs, opened the doors to his accomplices, who assisted in carrying off the plate, and every thing which could be removed, not even sparing the kitchen utensils. The maid was the first to venture from her room in the morning, and to inform her master and mistress of what had happened, who, more than the night before, chid her credulity in believing that a ghost could rob a house, or carry away any article out of it. In a little time, however, the landlord was induced to rise from his bed, and to move down stairs, and found, to his astonishment and chagrin, that the whole of his plate, and almost the whole of his movables, were gone, for which he had only received in return an empty coffin.
A great many other stories of the like nature are told of Chambers; and it is well known, that for the few years he was permitted, by singular good fortune, to go at large, he committed as many artful and daring actions as were ever accomplished by one man.
At length, however, one Jack Hall, a chimney-sweeper, being apprehended, to save his own life, made himself an evidence against Chambers, who, being cast upon that information, was, with two other notorious offenders, executed at Tyburn, in 1703, in the twenty-eighth year of his age.