If I survive
I will have five.[47]
Another disappearance and supposed imprisonment which created considerable sensation in the last century was that of Elizabeth Canning. On New Year's Day, 1753, she visited an uncle and aunt who lived at Saltpetre Bank, near Well Close Square, who saw her part of the way home as far as Houndsditch. But as no tidings were afterwards heard of her, she was advertised for, rumours having gone abroad, that she had been heard to shriek out of a hackney coach in Bishopsgate-street. Prayers, too, were offered up for her in churches and meeting-houses, but all inquiries were in vain, and it was not until the 29th of the month that the missing girl returned in a wretched condition, ill, half-starved, and half-clad. Her story was that after leaving her uncle and aunt on the 1st of January, she had been attacked by two men in great coats, who robbed, partially stripped her, and dragged her away to a house in the Hertfordshire road, where an old woman cut off her stays, and shut her up in a room in which she had been imprisoned ever since, subsisting on bread and water, and a mince pie that her assailants had overlooked in her pocket, and ultimately, she said, she had escaped through the window, tearing her ear in doing so.
Her story created much sympathy for her, and steps were immediately taken to punish those who had abducted her in this outrageous manner. The girl, who was in a very weak condition, was taken to the house she had specified, one "Mother" Wells, who kept an establishment of doubtful reputation at Enfield Wash, and on being asked to identify the woman who had cut off her stays, and locked her up in the room referred to, pointed out one Mary Squires, an old gipsy of surpassing ugliness. Accordingly, Squires and Wells were committed for trial for assault and felony; the result of the trial being that Squires was condemned to death, and Wells to be burned in the hand, a sentence which was executed forthwith, much to the delight of the excited crowd in the Old Bailey Sessions-house.
But the Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, who had presided at the trial ex-officio, was not satisfied with the verdict, and caused further and searching inquiries to be made. The verdict, on the weight of fresh evidence obtained, was upset, and Squires was granted a free pardon. On 29th April, 1754, Elizabeth Canning was summoned again to the Old Bailey, but this time to take her trial for wilful and corrupt perjury. The trial lasted eight days, and, being found guilty, she was transported in August, "at the request of her friends, to New England." According to the "Annual Register," she returned to this country at the expiration of her sentence to receive a legacy of £500, left to her three years before by an old lady of Newington Green; whereas, later accounts affirm that she never came back, but died 22nd July, 1773, at Weathersfield, in Connecticut, it being further stated that she married abroad a Quaker of the name of Treat, "and for some time followed the occupation of a schoolmistress."
The mystery of her life—her disappearance from Jan. 1st to the 29th of that month, and what transpired in that interval—is a secret that has never been to this day divulged. Indeed, as it has been observed, "notwithstanding the many strange circumstances of her story, none is so strange as that it should not be discovered in so many years where she had concealed herself during the time she had invariably declared she was at the house of Mother Wells."[48]
Another curious disappearance is recorded by Sir John Coleridge, forming a strange story of romance. It seems there lived in Cornwall, a highly respectable family, named Robinson, consisting of two sons—William and Nicholas—and two daughters. The property was settled on the two sons and their male issue, and in case of death on the two daughters. Nicholas was placed with an eminent attorney of St. Austen as his clerk, with a prospect of being one day admitted into partnership. But his legal studies were somewhat interrupted by his falling in love with a milliner's apprentice; the result being that he was sent to London to qualify himself as an attorney. But he had no sooner been admitted an attorney of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas than he disappeared, and thenceforward he was never seen by any member of his family or former friends, all search for him proving fruitless.
In course of time the father died, and William, the elder son, succeeded to the property, dying unmarried in May, 1802. As nothing was heard of Nicholas, the two sisters became entitled to the property, of which they held possession for twenty years, no claim being made to disturb their possession of it.
But in the year 1783, a young man, whose looks and manners were above his means and situation, had made his appearance as a stranger at Liverpool, going by the name of Nathaniel Richardson—the same initials as Nicholas Robinson. He bought a cab and horse, and plied for hire in the streets of Liverpool—and being "a civil, sober, and prudent man," he soon became prosperous, and drove a coach between London and Liverpool. He married, had children, and gradually acquired considerable wealth. Having gone to Wales, however, in the year 1802, to purchase some horses, he was accidentally drowned in the Mersey. Many years after his death, it was rumoured in 1821 that this Nathaniel Richardson was no other than Nicholas Robinson, and his eldest son claimed the property, which was then inherited by the two daughters. An action was accordingly tried in Cornwall to recover the property. The strange part of the proceedings was that nearly forty years had elapsed since anyone had seen Nicholas Robinson; but, says Sir John Coleridge, "It was made out conclusively, in a most remarkable way, and by a variety of small circumstances, all pointing to one conclusion, that Nathaniel Richardson was the identical Nicholas Robinson". The Cornish and Liverpool witnesses agreed in the description of his person, his height, the colour of his hair, his general appearance, and, more particularly, it was mentioned that he had a peculiar habit of biting his nails, and that he had a great fondness for horses.
In addition to other circumstances, there was this remarkable one—that Nathaniel's widow married again and that the furniture and effects were taken to the second husband's house. Among the articles, was an old trunk, which she had never seen opened; but, on its contents being examined one day, among other letters and papers, were found the two certificates of Nicholas Robinson's admission as Attorney to the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas—and, on the trial, the old master of Nicholas Robinson, alias Nathaniel Richardson, swore to his handwriting, and so the property was discovered.
It has been often remarked that London is about the only place in all Europe where a man, if so desirous, can disappear and live for years unknown in some secure retreat. About the year 1706, a certain Mr. Howe, after he had been married some seven or eight years, rose early one morning, and informed his wife that he was obliged to go to the Tower on special business, and at about noon the same day he sent a note to his wife informing her that business summoned him to Holland, where he would probably have to remain three weeks or a month. But from that day he was absent from his home for seventeen years, during which time his wife neither heard from him, nor of him.