On another occasion he robbed Lord Delamere in an ingenious fashion. That nobleman was driving over Dumoor Heath in his coach well attended by armed servants. Simpson rode up to the carriage and told his lordship that he had been waylaid and robbed by some rogues, two in number, at a little distance. Lord Delamere at once despatched his armed and mounted escort in pursuit, and Simpson took the opportunity of their absence to rob the nobleman of forty pounds. After that experience Lord Delamere vowed he would never again show kindness to a stranger.
At last Simpson was taken near Acton by means of two captains of the Foot Guards, where he attempted to rob both together. There ensued an obstinate fight between them, and Simpson behaved with so much bravery that in all probability he would have escaped, had not one of the officers shot the horse on which he rode, which, falling, carried Jonathan down with it. He had already been wounded in his arms and one of his legs, but both his opponents were also wounded and bleeding. Whilst on the ground he continued to resist with desperation whilst extricating himself from his fallen horse; but the sound of the fray had called up other passengers, and he was overmastered and sent to Newgate, where he found the keeper so much of a friend that on this occasion he was ready to receive him. Tyburn also was sufficiently hospitable not to reject him, and he was hanged on Wednesday, 8th September, 1686, in his thirty-third year.
DAVIES GILBERT
The simple and quiet life of a country gentleman who does not hunt, but spends his days in the library among books, or at his desk making calculations, presents little of interest to the general reader. But Davies Gilbert is not a man to be passed over in a collection of minor worthies of Cornwall.
Mr. Gilbert's original name was Giddy, and he was the grandson of a Mr. John Giddy, of Truro, who had two sons, Edward and Thomas; the former took Holy Orders, and became curate of S. Erth, and never obtained any better preferment. Here he married Catherine, daughter of John Davis, of Tredrea, the representative of several ancient families, and inheriting what fragments were left of the property of William Noye, Attorney-General in the reign of Charles I.
At S. Erth was born, 6 March, 1767, Davies Giddy, the subject of this sketch. After having been
The whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school,
at Penzance, he passed to Oxford, and entered Pembroke College, his father going up to Oxford to reside with him. Dr. Johnson, who was also of Pembroke, once said, in allusion to the poetical characters brought up there, that it was a veritable nest of singing-birds. Davies Giddy was not a singer or a poet himself, but taught others to sing, for he collected and published the traditional Cornish carols with their melodies, now taken into every book of Christmas carols and sung at the feast of Noël from John o' Groats House to the Land's End, in America, India, and Australia. Probably this little gathering was one of the works Davies Giddy, or Gilbert, least valued of his many productions, but it has been the most enduring, and will be deathless so long as English voices carol.