‘It’s all up!’ was the prison comment, ‘from Lord Derwentwater to George Budden, the upholsterer: they are all netted.’ The latter was among the party who entered Newgate. The London Jacobite entered quietly; whereas, Forster, full of pride and wrath, fumed because, he, a member of parliament, and Jacobite General, for the nonce, had not been taken, like Derwentwater and the other lords, to the Tower.
SORTING THE PRISONERS.
The rebel prisoners were soon sorted. The moneyless were consigned to the ‘Lions’ Den,’ the ‘Middle Dark’ and the ‘Common Side.’ They who had guineas in their purses paid dearly for all they required.
The rebels had scarcely passed under the shadows of their respective prisons, when the police messengers narrowly searched among the crowd for traitors. A Justice of the Peace recognised a spectator in a lay habit, who was perhaps too sympathetic in his aspect, as a clergyman named Paul, who had preached seditious sermons in London and the country, and who had been with the rebels at Preston. Paul’s audacity or curiosity cost him dear. The Justice pointed him out to the rogue-takers, and the parson was speedily hurried to the Cock-pit, and thence was committed to Newgate.
It is related that when a handsome young prisoner, named Bottair, was seen among the suffering crowd of captives, as they entered Newgate, a kind-hearted ‘clerk of the prison’ cut away his tightened bonds. Young Bottair expressed his regret. ‘The cord,’ he said, would have served to hang me; or to show, if I escape the gallows, how I have been led, like a dog in a string, for twice two miles together.’ The handsome lad then dismissed the subject of himself, to think of his more destitute fellow prisoners in other prisons. ‘I must desire you,’ he said to the clerk, ‘to make enquiry after them. They have been brought so many miles from home, out of observance to my orders, that I hold myself obliged to see that they do not want.’
EXTORTION.
It was only those who had plenty of money who could procure some lightening of their prison burthen. From twenty to twenty-five guineas was now the fee for not being obliged to wear irons. Five pounds weekly was the charge for lodging and being allowed to diet in the ‘Governor’s house.’ Even the brigadiers, colonels, and captains, who had less ‘cash’ than the generals and gentlemen of wealth, had to pay dearly for places of little ease, ‘for which they advanced more money’ (say the papers) ‘than would almost have paid the rent of the best house in St. James’s Square, or Piccadilly, for several years.’ Every one who wished to avoid being thrust into the horrors of the common side, could only escape by a fee of ten guineas, and a weekly rent, for such accommodation as was then allotted them, varying from two shillings to two guineas, and for that, in some rooms, ten men lay in four beds. Thousands of pounds including costly gifts—both from outside sympathisers—fell into the hands of officials. Indeed, but for ‘outsiders’ the prisoners generally would have been miserably off.
DISSENSIONS.
While some of the Jacobite prisoners exchanged moral or philosophical reflections, others, embittered by misfortune, fell to quarrelling. Forster and Brigadier Mackintosh fought the battle of Preston over and over again, in Newgate. The cause of quarrel sprang from an incident in that unlucky town. During the contest, Forster rode up to the barrier which Mackintosh held, and commanded him to make a sally against the assailing force which was within gun-shot. The Brigadier flatly refused. Forster declared that if he outlived the day, and his king’s cause triumphed, he would have Mackintosh before a court-martial. General and Brigadier were captured and confined together. In the corridors, court-yard, and common-room of Newgate, the leader and subordinate angrily discussed this incident, while eagerly listening groups—for there was almost unlimited freedom of entrance into the prison, in those days, visitors eating and drinking with the captives—stood around and learned more from the wrangling chiefs than they could from the newspapers or from any other source.
Some of the prisoners, like the aged, refined, and witty ex-paymaster-general of the Jacobite army, found solace in writing verses, ‘which gained applause,’ says Patten,[5] ‘from good judges of poetry.’ Four Shaftoes, Northumberland men, two fathers and two sons, were in Newgate. The elder, William Shaftoe, was a rich Northumbrian squire, well-disposed to live at home at ease, but, being easily persuaded, he joined the Rebellion at the instigation of his wife. Mr. Justice Hall, his cousin, shared his captivity in Newgate. Patten tells a story of the kinsmen, which, he says, ‘has something diverting in it.’ They were walking in the press yard together when Shaftoe (who was a Church of England man, but had been formerly a Romanist) exclaimed, ‘Cousin Jack! I am thinking upon what is told us, that God will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. I am of opinion that it is so with us, for your grandfather and my grandfather got most of their estates as sequestrators, and now we must lose them again for being rebels.’