“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll....
“Lord have mercy upon you,
Christ have mercy upon you.”
Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob, clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers. Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the mob—forty thousand strong—shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs, maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.
It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed, the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.
At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary Villette offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers embraced tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited more nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their lives. As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath them, their hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute their fingers remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell apart as they passed into oblivion beside their five dying companions. Four days later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they were buried together in a vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate Hill.
No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling, laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold. With great difficulty an army of constables—three hundred in number—kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A woman was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed by a fall from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed during the execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.
In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the gallows before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the merciless code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy king, when he was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’ Henceforth, it was as safe to blow out a man’s brains as to counterfeit his handwriting. At last, when the first humane monarch for more than a hundred years set his face against such butchery the lawgivers were unable to preserve the bloody statutes that had slaughtered thousands during the half century which separated the deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy. By the side of Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is entitled to an honourable place.
Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used, old as human sin—it was the woman!—and even this apology involved the most absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been prearranged between the conspirators. Treachery brought its own reward, and Robert Perreau, forgetting that there should be honour among thieves, was ruined because he did not trust his fair accomplice to the full extent. No doubt she would have soothed sea-dog Frankland just as she pacified the bankers Drummond.
In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene in old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might well have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons, the Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the shambles. Since she must have known the men who were her associates, she must have realised also her own risk. Yet still she kept her faith, while perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a noble act of heroism, though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when we bear in mind how the two brothers repaid her trust, and reflect upon the breach of law-honour sanctioned by James Mansfield, there comes the obvious suspicion that, whatever her iniquity, the woman was more than repaid in her own coin.
Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s chariot. During the following spring she was honoured by the polite attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same time as his fidus Achates were it not that they had a trick of putting everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references occur in ‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar chroniques scandaleuses, now treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had begun to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial, for a life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and dim the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may conjecture that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much longer than a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous bad dreams on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in very distressed circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the famous Mrs Dawson.