Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter

by Israel Potter

There was no one engaged in the cause of America, that did more to establish her fame in England, and to satisfy the high boasting Britains of the bravery and unconquerable resolutions of the Yankees, than that bold adventurer capt. Paul Jones; who, for ten or eleven months kept all the western coast of the island in alarm—he boldly landed at Whitehaven, where he burnt a ship in the harbour, and even attempted to burn the town;—nor was this to my knowledge the only instance in which the Britains were threatened with a very serious conflagration, by the instigation of their enemies abroad—a daring attempt was made by one James Aitkin, commonly known in London by the name of John the Painter, to set fire to the royal dock and shipping at Portsmouth, and would probably have succeeded, had he not imprudently communicated his intentions to one, who, for the sake of a few guineas, shamefully betrayed him—poor Aitkin was immediately seized, tried, condemned, executed and hung in chains—every means was used to extort from him a confession by whom he had been employed, but without any success—it was however strongly suspected that he had been employed by the French, as it was about the time that they openly declared themselves in favour of the Americans.

With regard to Mr. Laurens, I ought to have mentioned that as soon as I heard of his capture on his passage to Holland, and of his confinement in the Tower, I applied for and obtained permission to visit him in his apartment, and (with some distant hopes that he might point out some way in which I might be enabled to return to America) I stated to him every particular as regarded my situation. He seemed not only to lament very much my hard fortune, but (to use his own words) “that America should be deprived of the services of such men, at the important period too when she most required them.”—He informed me that he was himself held a prisoner, and knew not when or on what conditions he would be liberated, but should he thereafter be in a situation to assist me in obtaining a passage to America, he should consider it a duty which he owed his country to do it.

Although I succeeded in obtaining by my industry a tolerable living for myself and family, yet, so far from becoming reconciled to my situation, I was impatient for the return of Peace, when (as I then flattered myself) I should once more have an opportunity to return to my native country. I became every day less attached to a country where I could not meet with any thing (with the exception of my little family) that could compensate me for the loss of the pleasing society of my kindred and friends in America—born among a moral and humane people, and having in my early days contracted their habits, and a considerable number of their prejudices, it would be unnatural to suppose that I should not prefer their society, to either that of rogues, thieves, pimps and vagabonds, or of a more honest but an exceedingly oppressed and forlorn people.

I found London as it had been represented to me, a large and magnificent city, filled with inhabitants of almost every description and occupation—and such an one indeed as might be pleasing to an Englishman, delighting in tumult and confusion, and accustomed to witness scenes of riot and dissipation, as well as those of human infliction; and for the sake of variety, would be willing to imprison himself within the walls of a Bedlam, where continual noise would deafen him, where the unwholesomeness of the air would effect his lungs, and where the closeness of the surrounding buildings would not permit him to enjoy the enlivening influence of the sun! There is not perhaps another city of its size in the whole world, the streets of which display a greater contrast in the wealth and misery, the honesty and knavery, of its inhabitants, than the city of London. The eyes of the passing stranger (unaccustomed to witness such scenes) is at one moment dazzled by the appearance of pompous wealth, with its splendid equippage—at the next he is solicited by one apparently of the most wretched of human beings, to impart a single penny for the relief of his starving family! Among the latter class, there are many; however, who so far from being the real objects of charity that they represent themselves to be, actually possess more wealth than those who sometimes benevolently bestow it—these vile imposters, by every species of deception that was ever devised or practiced by man, aim to excite the pity and compassion, and to extort charity from those unacquainted with their easy circumstances—they possess the faculty of assuming any character that may best suit their purpose—sometimes hobbling with a crutch and exhibiting a wooden leg—at other times “an honourable scar of a wound, received in Egypt, at Waterloo or at Trafalgar, fighting for their most gracious sovereign and master King George!”

Independent of these there is another species of beggars (the gypsies) who form a distinct clan, and will associate with none but those of their own tribe—they are notorious thieves as well as beggars, and constantly infest the streets of London to the great annoyance of strangers and those who have the appearance of being wealthy—they have no particular home or abiding place, but encamp about in open fields or under hedges, as occasion requires—they are generally of a yellow complexion, and converse in a dialect peculiar only to themselves—their thieving propensities do not unfrequently lead them to kidnap little children, whenever an opportunity presents; having first by a dye changed their complexion to one that corresponds with their own, they represent them as their own offspring, and carry them about half naked on their backs to excite the pity and compassion of those of whom they beg charity. An instance of this species of theft by a party of these unprincipled vagabonds, occurred once in my neighbourhood while an inhabitant of London—the little girl kidnapped was the daughter of a Capt. Kellem of Coventry Street—being sent abroad on some business for her parents, she was met by a gang of Gypsies, consisting of five men and six women, who seized her, and forcibly carried her away to their camp, in the country, at a considerable distance, having first stripped her of her own cloathes, and in exchange dressed her in some of their rags—thus garbed she travelled about the country with them for nearly 7 months, and was treated as the most abject slave, and her life threatened if she should endeavour to escape or divulged her story;—she stated that during the time she was with them they entrapped a little boy about her own age, whom they also stripped and carried with them, but took particular care he should never converse with her, treating him in the like savage manner; she said that they generally travelled by cross roads and private ways, ever keeping a watchful eye that she might not escape, and that no opportunity offered until when, by some accident, they were obliged to send her from their camp to a neighbouring farm house, in order to procure a light, which she took advantage of; and scrambling over hedges and ditches, as she supposed for the distance of 8 or 9 miles, reached London worn out with fatigue and hunger, her support with them being always scanty, and of the worst sort; to which was added the misery of sleeping under hedges, and exposure to the inclemency of the weather—it was the intention of the gypsies she said to have coloured her and the boy when the walnut season approached.

The streets of London and its suburbs are also infested with another and a still more dreadful species of rogues, denominated Footpads, and who often murder in the most inhuman manner, for the sake of only a few shillings, any unfortunate people who happen to fall in their way—of this I was made acquainted with enumerable instances, while an inhabitant of London; I shall however mention but two that I have now recollection of:—

A Mr. Wylde while passing through Marlborough Street, in a chaise, was stopped by a footpad, who, on demanding his money, received a few shillings, but being dissatisfied with the little booty he obtained, still kept a pistol at Mr. Wylde’s head, and on the latter’s attempting gently to turn it aside, the villain fired, and lodged seven slugs in his head and breast, which caused instant death—Mr. W. expired in the arms of his son and grandson without a groan. A few days after as a Mr. Greenhill was passing through York-Street in a single horse chaise, he was met and stopped by three footpads, armed with pistols, one of them seized and held the horse’s head, while the other two most inhumanely dragged Mr. G. over the back of his chaise, and after robbing him of his notes, watch and hat gave him two severe cuts on his head and left him in that deplorable state in the road.—The above are but two instances of hundreds of a similar nature, which yearly occur in the most public streets of the city of London. The city is infested with a still higher order of rogues, denominated pick-pockets or cutpurses, who to carry on their nefarious practices, garb themselves like gentlemen, and introduce themselves into the most fashionable circles; many of them indeed are persons who once sustained respectable characters, but who, by extravagance and excesses, have reduced themselves to want and find themselves obliged at last to have recourse to pilfering and thieving.

Thus have I endeavoured to furnish the reader with the particulars of a few of the vices peculiar to a large portion of the inhabitants of the city of London—to these might be added a thousand other misdemeanors of a less criminal nature, daily practiced by striplings from the age of six, to the hoary headed of ninety!—this I assure my readers is a picture correctly delineated and not too highly wrought of a city famous for its magnificence, and where I was doomed to spend more than 40 years of my life, and in which time pen, ink, and paper would fail, were I to attempt to record the various instances of misery and want that attended me and my poor devoted family.

In September 1783, the glorious news of a definitive treaty of Peace having been signed between the United States and Great-Britain, was publicly announced in London—while on the minds of those who had been made rich by the war, the unwelcomed news operated apparently like a paralytic stroke, a host of those whose views had been inimical to the cause of America, and had sought refuge in England, attempted to disguise their disappointment and dejection under a veil of assumed cheerfulness. As regarded myself, I can only say, that had an event so long and ardently wished for by me taken place but a few months before, I should have hailed it as the epoch of my deliverance from a state of oppression and privation that I had already too long endured.

An opportunity indeed now presented for me to return once more to my native country, after so long an absence, had I possessed the means; but much was the high price demanded for a passage, and such had been my low wages, and the expenses attending the support of even a small family in London, that I found myself at this time in possession of funds hardly sufficient to defray the expense of my own passage, and much less that of my wife and child—hence the only choice left me was either to desert them, and thereby subject them (far separated from one) to the frowns of an uncharitable people, or to content myself to remain with them and partake of a portion of that wretchedness which even my presence could not avert. When the affairs of the American Government had become so far regulated as to support a Consul at the British court, I might indeed have availed myself individually, of the opportunity which presented of procuring a passage home at the Government’s expence; but as this was a privilege that could not be extended to my wife and child, my regard for them prevented my embracing the only means provided by my country for the return of her captured soldiers and seamen.