A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Among the crowd there was a lady who had recently become the wife of a curious gentleman named Lewis, who some years later wrote a grisly book entitled The Monk, bringing him such great fame as cancelled for posterity the names of Matthew Gregory, given to him by his parents, and caused him to be identified by the name of his book only. This lady made a remark to her neighbour in respect of a lovely rose which Miss Reay was wearing when she left the box exit and stood in the vestibule—a beautiful rose early in the month of April might have excited remark in those days; at any rate, Mrs. Lewis has left the record that at the very moment of her speaking, the rose fell to the floor, and Miss Reay appeared to be profoundly affected by this trifling incident, and said in a faltering voice, “I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!” So Mrs. Lewis stated.

A few moments later Lord Sandwich's carriage was announced, and Miss Reay and her companion made a move in the direction of the door. The gentlemen of the party seem to have left earlier, for on the ladies being impeded by the crush in the vestibule, a stranger, named Mr. Macnamara, of Lincoln's Inn, proffered his services to help them to get to the carriage. Miss Reay thanked him, took his arm, and the crowd opened for them in some measure. It quickly opened wider under a more acute persuasion a few seconds later, when the morose gentleman in black pushed his way among the people until he was within a few feet of the lady and her escort. Only for a second did he pause—certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else—before he pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired almost point-blank at her before any one could knock up his hand. Immediately afterwards he turned a second pistol against his own forehead and pulled the trigger, and fell to the ground.

The scene that followed can easily be imagined. Every woman present shrieked, except Miss Reay, who was supported by Mr. Macnamara. The ghastly effects of the bullet were apparent not only upon the forehead of the lady where it lodged, but upon the bespattered garments of every one about the door, and upon the columns of the hall. Above the shrieks of the terror-stricken people were heard the yells of the murderer, who lay on the ground, hammering at his head with the butt end of his weapon, and crying, “Kill me! Kill me!”

A Mr. Mahon, of Russell Street, who was said to be an apothecary, was the first to lay a hand upon the wretched man. He wrested the pistol from his grasp and prevented him from doing further mischief to himself. He was quickly handed over to the police, and, with his unfortunate victim, was removed to the Shakespeare Tavern, a surgeon named Bond being in prompt attendance. It did not take long to find that Miss Reay had never breathed after the shot had been fired at her; the bullet had smashed the skull and passed through the brain. The man remained for some time unconscious, but even before he recovered he was identified as James Hackman, a gentleman who had been an officer in the army, and on retiring had taken Orders, being admitted a priest of the Church of England scarcely a month before his crime. There were rumours respecting his infatuation for Miss Reay, and in a surprisingly short space of time, owing most likely to the exertions of Signora Galli, the Italian whom Lord Sandwich had hired to be her companion, the greater part of the romantic story of the wretched man's life, as far as it related to Miss Reay, was revealed.

It formed a nine days' wonder during the spring of the same year (1779). The grief displayed by Lord Sandwich on being made acquainted with the circumstances of the murder was freely commented on, and the sympathy which was felt for him may have diminished in some measure from his unpopularity. The story told by Croker of the reception of the news by Lord Sandwich is certainly not deficient in detail. “He stood as it were petrified,” we are told, “till suddenly, seizing a candle, he ran upstairs and threw himself on the bed, and in agony exclaimed, 'Leave me for a while to myself, I could have borne anything but this!' The attendants remained for a considerable time at the top of the staircase, till his lordship rang the bell and ordered that they should all go to bed.”

Before his lordship left the scene of his grief in the morning Sir John Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had arrived at the Shakespeare Tavern from his house at Brompton, and, after a brief inquiry, ordered Hackman to be taken to Tothill Fields Prison. In due course he was committed to Newgate, and on April 16th his trial took place before Blackstone, the Recorder. The facts of the tragedy were deposed to by several witnesses, and the cause of the lady's death was certified by Mr. Bond, the surgeon. The prisoner was then called on for his defence. He made a brief speech, explaining that he would have pleaded guilty at once had he not felt that doing so “would give an indication of contemning death, not suitable to my present condition, and would in some measure make me accessory to a second peril of my life. And I likewise thought,” he added, “that the justice of my country ought to be satisfied by suffering my offence to be proved, and the fact to be established by evidence.”

This curious affectation of a finer perception of the balance of justice than is possessed by most men was quite characteristic of this man, as was also his subsequent expression of his willingness to submit to the sentence of the court. His counsel endeavoured to show that he had been insane from the moment of his purchasing his pistols until he had committed the deed for which he was being tried—he did not say anything about “a wave of insanity,” however, though that picturesque phrase would have aptly described the nature of his plea. He argued that a letter which was found in the prisoner's pocket, and in which suicide only was threatened, should be accepted as proof that he had no intention of killing Miss Reay when he went to the theatre.

The Recorder, of course, made short work of such a plea. He explained to the jury that “for a plea of insanity to be successful it must be shown not merely that it was a matter of fits and starts, but that it was a definite thing—a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.” Referring to the letter, he said that it seemed to him to argue a coolness and premeditation incompatible with such insanity as he described.

The result was, as might have been anticipated, the jury, without leaving the box, found Hackman guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged.

Mr. Boswell, who was nearly as fond of hearing death-sentences pronounced as he was of seeing them carried out, was present in the court during the trial, and to him Mr. Booth, the brother-in-law of the prisoner, applied—he himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court—for information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able to assure him that he had behaved “as well, sir, as you or any of his friends could wish; with decency, propriety, and in such a manner as to interest every one present. He might have pleaded that he shot Miss Reay by accident, but he fairly told the truth that in a moment of frenzy he did intend it.”