It was fatal to the political prisoners that the rebellion was carried on after the double defeat at Sheriff Muir and Preston. The Chevalier de St. George, otherwise James III., arrived in Scotland as inopportunely as the chief actor in a tragedy, when the curtain is falling. On December 22nd, 1715, he landed at Peterhead. All was lost before he appeared. His progress was made with the saddening conviction that nothing could be recovered. He marched with a loose array from Peterhead to Dundee. From Dundee he went and played ‘king’ for a few days in regal Scone, after having burnt a village or two. On January 9th, he entered Perth. A stand was to be made there, but, on that day three weeks, the anniversary of the execution of his grandfather Charles I., the stand was abandoned. News reached Perth that Argyle was coming down upon them. The Jacobite army dispersed in various directions, but chiefly scattered through the Highland fastnesses. A faithful few accompanied James to Dundee, a fewer still to Montrose. There was then further talk of holding out, but the unhappy prince slipped away from the talkers, went on board the little vessel waiting for him, and on February 9th, 1716, he was quietly dining at Gravelines. Altogether, he was about six weeks in Scotland. It would have been as well for him, and better for his followers, had he been at the Antipodes. London would not then have raved so cruelly as it did against the prisoners of Sheriff Muir and Preston.
On February 6th, 1716, when news of the dispersion from Perth had reached London, Lady Cowper went to the play, to see ‘The Cobler of Preston.’ It was ‘the poet’s night.’ The good news, in fact, ‘had reached town the previous day. The good effects of the news, which not only told of the withdrawal of the Jacobites, but that King George’s forces had taken possession of that important city, were manifested in the theatre; for there was not a word that was loyal but what met with the greatest acclamations.’
COST OF LIVING IN NEWGATE.
The prisoners claim more notice than the players. Those who were marched to Newgate had the worst of it; but in that worst there were degrees of difference. An Act of Parliament allowed a rent of half-a-crown a week to be levied, for indulgence that would barely save the lodger from lying on hard boards or harder stone. Instead of half-crowns, pounds were exacted. For twenty guineas a prisoner might buy the right of living in the governor’s house. When he had paid the fee, he found he had bought the right of walking all day long in the fetid press yard, and of eating in the pot-house rooms connected with it. The governor argued that his house consisted of every part of Newgate which was not really within the prison. It suited his purpose to call the press yard external; and he derived profit from it, accordingly.
As soon as a prisoner passed within the gates, it was quickly ascertained if he had money in his purse; and, if this proved to be the case, wine and brandy were called for, in his name, by a horde of ruffians, male and female, and drunk by them, till they could drink or call no longer. But there were other birds of prey. If the victim had a few guineas left, after he had paid his garnish, the turnkeys would take down various sets of fetters, handle them in his presence, affect a shudder at their fearful weight, or praise their lightness,—one pair being so many guineas lighter than the other. Should the novice be reluctant, he received a taste of the quality of the ‘Condemned Hold’ for the night. This dungeon was in the arch beneath Newgate. At noon-day it was so dark that a candle only showed its darkness,—and a candle, duly paid for, had usually only a lump of clay for its ‘stick.’ To escape from the horror, the victim was docile enough in the morning, when he negotiated with the governor, over a bottle of brandy, for a removal.
INSIDE NEWGATE.
If this removal brought him to the comparative luxury of the press yard, he was not necessarily privileged to partake of all its enjoyments. On entering there, he saw, perhaps, one or two captives studying books, a few reading newspapers, others at skittles, cards, or toss-penny; and a numerous company in the drinking boxes or at the windows of the different floors of the boozing kens looking into the yard. In an instant, these left their occupations, to surround and examine the new comer, and to exact his ‘footing,’ of a dozen of wine; with tobacco in proportion. If he could afford it, this was the company with which he might associate till he was hanged, or was otherwise disposed of. ‘Lovely women’ formed part of it, and with these, marriage might be contracted on limited liability. At ten (but later hours were to be had, for the paying for them) the ladies and gentlemen were sent to their respective rooms, but if they were docile and generous, the turnkeys left their room doors unlocked, only bolting the doors at the foot of the various staircases. In these places at night, ‘Hell let loose’ is the only phrase that can becomingly describe the scene and its incidents.
A man with a decent spirit might leave this stage of iniquity and drunken despair, if he could muster 18d. daily, to have fellowship with felons, in a stinking cellar on the master’s side. But this was only to fall into a lower depth of this Hell.
VISITORS TO NEWGATE.
When the staircase doors were unbolted in the morning (at eight o’clock!), the prisoners were called over in the press yard, and every one who had been drunk the night before was fined a groat. All pleaded guilty to the soft impeachment if they possessed a groat, and the liquor was drunk with the turnkeys, as an antepast of breakfast. One day was not altogether like the others. Amid the despairing jollity, a poor wretch might now and then be seen at a table, dictating his last dying speech and confession to a friend, and sorrowfully admiring the neatness of some of its points. Perhaps the ‘ordinary,’ as the chaplain was then called, would venture a little of his ministry with him, and utter the small standing joke of how ‘a passage of the Gospel’ meant, to such an offender, ‘in at one ear and out at the other.’ On a summer’s evening, company from outside resorted to the press yard, as some did to suburban tea-gardens, and drank and smoked, and sang and swore with the regular inmates. On winter evenings, they resorted to the rooms, and gave their orders from the windows to the tapsters below. It was on one of those evenings that the prisoners in Newgate were attracted by the sudden joyous peals ringing out from the London steeples. Political prisoners looked sullen over their liquor, for they knew that the side with which they sympathised had suffered some defeat. Governor and officials looked glad, for orders had come down to prepare for a large body of prisoners, and from Governor Pitt to Marvel, the hangman, there was joyous expectation of a golden harvest at hand.