Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

On Sunday, July 2nd, according to the constable, the mob again assembled in front of Stanhope's house and demolished its contents. Mr. Wilson, a woollen draper, and Mr. Actor, of the same trade, applied for protection, as their shops adjoined the house of Stanhope, and again soldiers were sent for, who dispersed the mob.

James Cecil, Constable of St. George's parish, deposed that on Monday, July 3rd, he was attending prisoners in a coach to Newgate, and he had difficulty in making his way through the mob; and he saw the rioters engaged in smashing the windows of a house near the Old Bailey.

Saunders Welsh, gent., High Constable of Holborn, deposed that on Sunday, July 2nd, he had received information from Stanhope, as to the wrecking of Owen's house on the previous night, and of his fears for his own. On returning that same evening through Fleet Street, he perceived a great fire in the Strand, upon which he proceeded to the house of Peter Wood, who informed him that the rioters had demolished the house of Stanhope, burning his furniture and goods, and that they threatened to deal in the same manner with his house. Whereupon, he, Mr. Saunders Welsh, applied at the Tilt-yard for a military force, which he could only obtain with much difficulty, as he could produce no order from a Justice of the Peace. At length he procured such order, and then an officer and forty men were sent to the scene of the riot. On reaching Cecil Street, he ordered that the drum should be beaten. When he came up to Peter Wood's house, he found that the mob had already in part demolished it, and had thrown a great part of its contents into the street, and were debating about burning them. Had they done so, the deponent said, it would infallibly have set fire to the houses on both sides of the street, which at that point was very narrow, and opposite Wood's house was the bank of Messrs. Snow and Denne. Hearing, however, the rattle of the drum, and the tramp of the advancing soldiers, the mob retreated, and it was whilst so retreating that Bosavern Penlez was arrested, carrying off with him some of the goods of Peter Wood.

Penlez and others were brought before Henry Fielding, J. P. for Middlesex, and were committed to Newgate. This was on Monday. But the same evening there was a recrudescence of the riots, and four thousand sailors assembled on Tower Hill with the resolution to march to Temple Bar. To obviate all future danger, a larger party of soldiers was called out, and these, along with the peace officers, patrolled the Strand all night.

Samuel Marsh, watchman of St. Dunstan's, had apprehended Bosavern Penlez, as he was making off with a bundle of linen, which he pretended belonged to his wife. Before he was arrested, the watchman saw him thrusting divers lace objects into his bosom and pockets, but he let fall a lace cap. When apprehended, he protested that he was conveying his wife's property, who had pawned all his clothes, and that he was retaliating by taking her articles to pawn.

There were other witnesses against Penlez, and although the evidence of Peter Wood was worthless, that of the beadles and watchmen sufficed to show that he had been collecting and making into a bundle various articles from Wood's house, with the object of purloining them. The question of Penlez having been in Wood's house was not gone into. Bosavern in vain called for witnesses to his character. His master, the peruke maker, declined to put in an appearance and give favourable testimony; for, in fact, Penlez had been leading a dissipated and disorderly life. Henry Fielding, in conclusion, says: "The first and second day of the riot, no magistrate, nor any other higher peace-officer than a petty constable (save only Mr. Welsh) interfered in it. On the third day only one magistrate took on him to act. When the prisoners were committed to Newgate, no public prosecution was for some time ordered against them; and when it was ordered, it was carried on so mildly, that one of the prisoners (Wilson) being not in prison, was, though contrary to the laws, at the desire of a noble person in great power, bailed out, when a capital indictment was then found against him. At the trial, neither an Attorney nor Solicitor-General, nor even one of the King's Council, appeared against the prisoners. Lastly, when two were convicted, one only was executed; and I doubt very much whether even he would have suffered, had it not appeared that a capital indictment for burglary was likewise found by the Grand Jury against him, and upon such evidence as I think every impartial man must allow would have convicted him (had he been tried) for felony at least."

There had been found on Penlez ten lace caps, four laced handkerchiefs, three pairs of laced ruffles, two laced clouts, five plain handkerchiefs, five plain aprons, one laced apron, all the property of the wife of Peter Wood. It was altogether false that Penlez was married. Fielding says: "I hope I have said enough to prove that the man who was made an example of deserved his fate. Which, if he did, I think it will follow that more hath been said and done in his favour than ought to have been; and that the clamour of severity against the Government hath been in the highest degree unjustifiable. To say the truth, it would be more difficult to justify the lenity used on this occasion."

The case of Bosavern Penlez was the more hard and open to criticism, in that, in the very same year, there was a serious riot in the Haymarket Theatre, when the Duke of Cumberland, a prince of the blood, had drawn his sword, and leaping upon the stage, had called on everybody to follow him. The people, ripe for mischief, were too loyal to decline a prince's invitation. The seats were smashed, the scenery torn down, and the wreckage carried into the street, where a bonfire was made of it; and but for the timely appearance of the authorities the building itself would have been added to the fuel. For this, no one was hanged. What was sauce for the goose was not sauce for the gander.

Reference is made to the case of Bosavern Penlez in Walpole's Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II, I, p. 11, and in the Private Journal of John Byrom, published by the Chetham Society, as also in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1749.