Having discovered King, and one of his associates whose name was Potter, they determined to set out at once for London; and coming over the forest about three hundred yards from the Green Man, Turpin found that his horse, having undergone great fatigue, began to tire. On such an occasion it was no question with Turpin how he should provide himself with another, for, overtaking a gentleman, the owner of several race-horses, he at once appropriated his steed and a handsome whip to his own peculiar use, and recommending his own broken-down jade to the kind consideration of the party, speaking highly of his points, left him to mount the sorry courser, and urge the wretched quadruped forward in the best way he could.
This robbery was committed on a Saturday night, and on the Monday following the gentleman received intelligence, that such a horse as he had lost and described was left at an inn in Whitechapel; he accordingly went there, and found it to be the same. Nobody came for it at the time appointed, but about eleven o’clock at night, King’s brother called for the horse, and was seized immediately. The whip he carried in his hand the gentleman instantly identified as that stolen from him, although the button upon which his name had been engraved was half broken off; the latter letters of his name, however, were plainly distinguishable upon the remaining part. They charged a constable with him, but he becoming frightened, and on the assurance that if he spoke the truth he should be released, confessed that there was a lusty man in a white duffel coat waiting for it in a street adjoining. One Mr. Bayes immediately went out, and finding the man as directed, perceived it was King. Coming round upon him, Mr. Bayes (the then active landlord of the Green Man, to whom the gentleman at the time had related the robbery,) attacked him. King immediately drew a pistol, which he pointed to Mr. Bayes’ breast, but it luckily flashed in the pan. A struggle then ensued, for King was a powerful man, and Turpin hearing the skirmish, came up, when King cried out, “Dick, shoot him, or we are taken, by ——!” at which instant Turpin fired his pistol, but it missed Mr. Bayes, and shot King in two places. “Dick, you have killed me, make off,” were King’s words as he fell, and Turpin, seeing what he had done, clapped spurs to his horse, and made his escape. King lived for a week afterwards, and gave Turpin the character of a coward; telling Mr. Bayes that if he pleased to take him, he was to be found at a certain house near Hackney Marsh, and that when he rode away, he had three brace of pistols about him, and a carbine slung. Upon inquiry, it was found that Turpin had actually been at the house which King mentioned, and made use of something like the following expressions to the man. “What shall I do? where shall I go? Dick Bayes, I’ll be the death of you; for I have lost the best fellowman I ever had in my life; I shot poor King in endeavoring to kill that dog.” The same resolution of revenge he retained to the last, though without the power of effecting it.
After this, he still kept about the forest, till he was harassed almost to death; for he had lost his place of safety, the cave, which was discovered upon his shooting Mr. Thompson’s groom. When they found the cave, there were in it two shirts in a bag, two pair of stockings, part of a bottle of wine, and some ham. Turpin was very nearly taken while hiding in these woods by a Mr. Ives, the king’s huntsman, who, thinking he was secreted there, took out two dry-footed hounds; but Turpin perceiving them coming, climbed up a tree, and saw them stop beneath it several times, as though they scented him, which so terrified Turpin, that as soon as they were gone, he made a resolution of retiring that instant to Yorkshire.
Soon after this, a person came out of Lincolnshire to Brough, near Market-Cave, in Yorkshire, and stayed for some time at the Ferry-house. He said his name was John Palmer; and he went from thence sometimes to live at North Cave, and sometimes at Welton, continuing in these places about fifteen or sixteen months, except such part of the time as he went to Lincolnshire to see his friends, which he frequently did, and as often brought three or four horses back with him, which he used to sell or exchange in Yorkshire. While he so lived at Brough, Cave, and Welton, he very often went out hunting and shooting with the gentlemen in the neighborhood. As he was returning one day from shooting, he saw one of his landlord’s cocks in the street, and raising his gun shot it dead. A man, his neighbor, witnessing so wanton an act, complained of such conduct, asking him by what authority he shot another man’s property. “Wait one moment,” said Mr. Palmer, “just stay till I have charged my piece, and I’ll shoot you too.” The landlord being informed of the loss he had sustained by the death of his favorite bird, and the man who saw the act being enraged at the threat Palmer had used towards him, they both obtained a warrant against him, and he was brought up at the general quarter sessions, where he was examined. Sureties for his good behavior in future were the penalty alone exacted from him, which, however, refusing to find, he was committed to the house of correction. His conduct thus excited great suspicion; for it was strange that a man who was in the habit of bringing from his friends in Lincolnshire half-a-dozen horses at a time, and plenty of money, should be so forsaken as not to be able to provide sureties; and still stranger, that on so trivial an occasion as the present, if he could find them at all, he did not produce them. A man’s pride under other circumstances might be concerned, or a consciousness of innocence that excluded the possibility, or the benefit of release, under other conditions than free acquittal; but on a charge of this nature, which might have been made up even by the purchase of the fowl, or a simple excuse, his refusal was very suspicious. Inquiries were set on foot in all quarters; and the magistrate, not contented with the accounts he gave of himself of having been a grazier in Lincolnshire, despatched officers to learn how far that statement was consistent with truth. The result was a confirmation of Palmer’s account, so far as the fact of his having lived in Lincolnshire, and having been a grazier there; that is, that there he had something to do with sheep, confined principally, however, to the expert practice of stealing them. Mr. Palmer, upon the receipt of this information, was removed from the Beverly house of correction to York castle, and accommodated on the way with the use of handcuffs, and a guard of honor. When he arrived at his new abode, two persons from Lincolnshire challenged a mare and a foal which he had sold to a gentleman, and also the horse on which he rode when he came to Beverly, to be stolen from them off the fens in Lincolnshire. We need not add that Mr. Palmer was one and the same person with Dick Turpin, the notorious highwayman.
Turpin at one time, with another fellow, laid a scheme for seizing the government money, ordered to be paid to the ships at Portsmouth. Both of them were to have attacked the guard in a narrow pass, with sword and pistol in hand; but Turpin’s courage failed him, and the enterprise dropped. Gordon, his accomplice in this design, was afterwards taken on a charge in which he alone was concerned; and while in Newgate he declared that “after that, Turpin would be guilty of any cowardly action, and die like a dog.”
Turpin was tried and convicted of stealing the horse and the foal and the mare from the fens, and was executed on Saturday, April 7th, 1739. He behaved himself with remarkable assurance, and bowed to the spectators as he passed. It was observed that as he mounted the ladder his right leg trembled, on which he stamped it down with violence, and with undaunted fortitude looked around him. After speaking to the executioner for nearly half an hour, he threw himself off the ladder, and expired in about five minutes.
His corpse was brought back from the gallows and buried in a neat coffin in St. George’s churchyard. The grave was dug deep, and the persons he appointed to follow him (mourners we hesitate to call them, for we cannot imagine anybody to mourn upon the death of such an unprecedented ruffian,)—those persons, whoever they were, however, took all possible care to secure the corpse: notwithstanding which, some men were discovered to be moving off the body, which they had taken up; and the mob having got information where it might be found, went to a garden in which it was deposited, and brought it away in a sort of triumph, and buried it in the same grave, having first filled the coffin with slacked lime.
HENRY SIMMS, alias YOUNG GENTLEMAN HARRY.
We prefer giving an abstract of the life and adventures of this notorious criminal in his own words, since it will serve to show far better than any moral reflections of our own, that when once the principles become vitiated, whether by early abuse or habitual moral recklessness, the very nature is changed, and the conscience remains in a state of abeyance. There is an easy unconcern, a “young gentleman” flippancy in the style in which our adventurer has chosen to narrate his exploits, that indicates too plainly the utter want of common or decent feeling in his nature, and leaves us to the unavoidable conclusion, that under no possible circumstances, nor in any conceivable condition, could “Young Gentleman Harry” have become or have been made a respectable member of society. He begins his narrative thus:—
“I am now thirty years of age, born in London, October 19, 1716, of honest industrious parents, in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Having the misfortune to lose both my father and my mother when very young, I was left to the care of an indulgent grandmother, who tenderly loved me, had me educated with maternal fondness, and early began to instil into me sentiments of virtue, honor and honesty, from which I too early swerved. My grandmother having been many years in the service of a nobleman, was an old servant much respected, and on that account not only indulged with having her grandson with her, but was likewise indulged with my being permitted to go to Eton school with two sons of the noble lord. I remained at Eton school some time, and even there began to show an early inclination to vice, without an opportunity of committing it. When I arrived at the age of fourteen, my grandmother put me apprentice to a breeches-maker, but a life of servitude ill suited my constitution. I stayed with him no longer than a month, in which short time I procured to myself several choice acquaintances, particularly two (since hanged,) and was easily persuaded to accompany them in many robberies, which we committed in and about Mary-le-bone fields, and the money we got we riotously spent among thieves and bullies, and when that was gone, turned out (as we called it) for more.