About a week afterwards, a decently-dressed elderly woman, named Bond, made her appearance. She had just arrived outside the coach from the environs of Carmarthen. Her story was that about fifty years previously (1771), her sister left her and proceeded to London to seek her fortune. They had never corresponded, but from the name and description of the deceased, she had no doubt she was her sister, and the money accordingly belonged to her. It had cost her nearly all the money she could raise to come from Wales, fully satisfied of being amply repaid for her trouble, but she met with the same fate as the preceding applicant.
The next claimant was a sailor, who had just returned from the West Indies, where he had been moored, he said, thirty-five years. He had left in England two sisters named Bond: one was of very eccentric manners, particularly for her love of money; the sailor declared that he had frequently seen her make a meal off cat's meat. The above he considered sufficient proof of his relationship. He insisted upon entering a caveat against the claim of his Majesty, but acknowledging that the King appeared to be the legal claimant, he swore he would go and see his royal master, and ask him if he had any objection to share the money with him!
It would be tedious to enumerate the persons who put in their claims from various parts of the world; but the King's proctor stood first in the Prerogative Court, and nothing had transpired to affect his right in behalf of his Majesty.
The hut on Cambridge Heath wherein Mrs. Bond died was closed for some time; at length it was announced to be let; but such was the anxiety to get possession of it that the notice was removed. The number of applications were, doubtless, made under the impression that hoards of money were yet undiscovered in the hut.
The claimant most likely entitled to the property was a Mr. Bond, a butcher, in Shoreditch, who traced out that he was second cousin to the wealthy spinster, his grandfather having been the only brother of the father of Mrs. Bond; and the only bar to his administering was that he had not been able to ascertain the church where Mrs. Bond's father and mother were married, a most essential point to prove the legitimacy of Mrs. Sarah Bond. There were no fewer than eight caveats against the administrator.
[John Ward, the Hackney Miser.]
In Church Street, Hackney, one of the most interesting of our suburban parishes for its antiquarian history, stands a mansion, which, though plain in itself, has long been traditionally conspicuous, from the infamous character of its founder. This was John Ward, a man who was so notorious for his readiness to take advantage of the foibles, the wants, and vices of his fellow-men, that it attracted the satirical acrimony of Pope, who, in his epistle to Allen, Lord Bathurst, On the Use of Riches, has placed him in a niche in the Temple of Obloquy, in company with a trio, who seem fit to descend with him to posterity, or rather to accompany him in the descent alluded to in the following lines:—
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has pass'd,
We find our tenets just the same at last;
Both fairly owning riches, in effect,
No grace of Heaven or token of the elect:
Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil.
Of Ward's private history little is known. He is said to have been early in life employed in a floorcloth manufactory. The exact period when he built the house at Hackney is uncertain. He resided in it in the year 1727, at which time he sat in Parliament for Melcombe Regis. But having made a mistake with respect to a name in a deed in which the interest of the Duchess of Buckingham was implicated, he was prosecuted by her and convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House of Commons, and then stood in the pillory, on the 17th of March, 1727. As misfortune seldom comes alone, about this time Ward was suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blunt to secrete 50,000l. of that director's estate forfeited to the South Sea Company by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the 50,000l. against Ward, and by execution swept away the whole of the furniture and other effects in the mansion at Hackney. These being insufficient to cover even the costs, Ward sought to protect his other property, set up prior conveyances of his real estate to his brother and son, and concealing all his personal, which was computed to be 150,000l. Against these paper fortifications, a bill in Chancery, ten times as voluminous, and twenty times more zig-zag, was erected; a countermine of immense depth was sprung, and however ably his works were defended, they were at length carried. The conveyances were set aside, Ward was imprisoned, and hazarded the forfeiture of his life by not giving in his effects till the last day, which was that of his examination. During his confinement his amusement was to give poison to dogs and cats, and see them expire by slower or quicker torments!
In the Post-boy newspaper of the period we find these records of Ward's career:—In June, 1719, he recovered 300l. damages from one Thomas Dyche, a schoolmaster of Bow, for printing and publishing a libel upon Ward, reflecting upon the discharge of his trust about repairing Dagenham Breach. In May, 1726, he fled to France or Flanders. In June, 1731, he was indicted, with certain others, for wounding several officers of the Commissioners of Bankruptcy; and in September, 1732, he surrendered to the Commissioners, and was kept under examination at Guildhall from three o'clock that afternoon till three the next morning, when he was committed to the Fleet for further examination.