“Nearly all of them had their ears bored, and wore two silver rings in each, which they said were esteemed ornaments in their country. The men were black; their hair curled; the women, remarkably black; their only clothes a large old duffle garment, tied over their shoulders with a cloth or cord, and under it a miserable rocket. In fact, they were the most poor, miserable creatures that ever had been seen in France; and, notwithstanding their poverty, there were amongst them women who, by looking into people’s hands, told their fortunes, and what was worse, they picked people’s pockets of their money, and got it into their own, by telling these things through art magic, etc.”
The subtlety of these modern Gibeonites cannot be sufficiently admired. They did not venture to alarm the country by coming at once in full strength into it, but sent a detachment, mounted on horseback as princes, to pave the way by their tale of sufferings; then came a larger troop, in true Gibeonitish condition, to excite the popular commiseration; and that being done, their numbers gradually increased; and under these and similar pretences, they rambled over France for a whole century, when their real character being sufficiently obvious, and their numbers daily increasing, they were banished by proclamation. The same policy was pursued towards them in all the countries of Europe, if we except Hungary and Wallachia. In Spain, sentence of banishment being found ineffectual, in 1492 an edict of extermination was published; but they only slunk into the mountains and woods, and reappeared in a while as numerously as before. The order of banishment not succeeding in France, in 1561 all governors of cities were commanded to drive them away with fire and sword; and in 1612 a new order for their extermination came out. In 1572, they were expelled from the territories of Milan and Parma, as they had before been driven from the Venetian boundaries. In Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, repeated enactments were made for their expulsion. In Germany, from 1500 to 1577, various similar decrees were promulgated against them. Under these laws they suffered incredible miseries. They were imprisoned; chased about like wild beasts, and put to death without mercy: but, as the European states did not act in concert, when they were driven from one they found an asylum in another; and whenever the storm blew over, they again gradually reappeared in their old haunts. The Empress Theresa, and afterwards the Emperor Joseph II., seem to have been the only sovereigns who set themselves in earnest to reclaim and civilize this singular people; and we have seen that in Hungary some of them are gradually submitting to the regulations made by these wise monarchs.
Their introduction to this kingdom, and their after-treatment were similar. At first they were received as princes and kings, and excited commiseration by the tale of their injuries. They had royal and parliamentary passes granted them, to go through the country seeking relief, as many of the parish records yet bear testimony. So late as 1647 there appears an entry in the constable’s accounts at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, of four shillings being given to forty-six Egyptians, travelling with a pass from parliament, to seek relief by the space of six months. But when this delusion was past, and it was seen that they had no intention of quitting the country, they became persecuted by justices of the peace and parish constables, as thieves and vagrants; and the rapid enclosures of waste lands during the war, tended greatly to break up their haunts, and put them into great straits.
About twenty years ago John Hoyland, a minister of the Society of Friends, being struck with commiseration for their condition, began to inquire into their real character; and the researches of Grellman being made known to him, he visited their encampments in various places in Northamptonshire, Hainault Forest, and Norwood, near London. He also sought them out in their winter quarters in London; and the result of his inquiries satisfied him that the English gipsies were a genuine portion of the great tribe described by Grellman; that they possessed the same oriental language, specimens of which he has given in his history. Mr. Hoyland could not ascertain what were the actual numbers of these people in England. They had been stated in parliament to be not less than 30,000, but on what authority did not appear; but it was very evident that enclosures, and the severity of the magistrates, had reduced their numbers. Probably many of them had emigrated. Norwood used to be their great resort, but its enclosure had broken up that rendezvous, yet it nevertheless appeared, that considerable numbers wintered in London, and at the earliest approach of spring set out on their summer progress through various parts of the country, especially in the counties of Surrey, Bedford, Buckingham, Hereford, Monmouth, Somerset, Wilts, Southampton, Cambridge, and Huntingdon.
Subsequent inquiries have shewn that these people retire into other large towns in winter besides London, particularly Bristol. That in town their chief haunts are in Tottenham-court-road, Banbridge-street, Bolton-street, Church-lane, Battle-bridge, Tunbridge-street, Tothill-fields, and White-street. In Bristol, they are chiefly found in St. Philips, Newfoundland-street, Bedminster, and at the March and September fairs. About London, in April, May, and June, they get work in the market-gardens. In July and August they move into Sussex and Kent for harvest-work, where they continue. Through September, great numbers of them find employment in the hop districts of those counties, and of Surrey. They constantly encamp on the commons near London. On Wimbledon Common, at Christmas 1831, there were no less than seventy of them. In the parks of Richmond, Greenwich, Windsor, and all the resorts of summer visitants from town, the gipsy women are to be found exercising their vocation of fortune-tellers. On this account many of them encamp about Blackheath, Woolwich-heath, Lordship-lane, near Deptford, and Plum-street, near Woolwich. The Archbishop’s Wall, near Canterbury; Staple and Wingham Well, near the same city, and Buckland, near Dover, and the New Forest, Hampshire, are great haunts; they also flock in great numbers to Ascot, Epsom, and other races.
Mr. Hoyland extended his researches to Scotland, and the most prompt assistance was offered him in his inquiries in that country. A circular was dispatched to the sheriff of every county, soliciting, through the medium of an official organ, all the intelligence which could be obtained on the subject. It was found that there were very few gipsies in Scotland at all. From thirteen counties the reports were—“No gipsies resident in them.” From most others the answer was, that they appeared there only as occasional passengers. The Border appeared to be their chief resort, and respecting those Sir Walter Scott, then plain Walter Scott, addressed a very characteristic letter to the author. His account of them tallies exactly with that he has given in his celebrated novels. He and Mr. Smith, the Baillie of Kelso, agree in describing them as a single colony at Yetholm, and one family removed thence to Kelso. This colony appears to have acquired a character more daring and impetuous than the gipsies of England; in fact, to have exhibited the true old Border spirit: probably partly from example and partly from intercourse with some of the Border families. Mr. Baillie Smith gives the following instance of this spirit:—“Between Yetholm and the Border farms in Northumberland, there were formerly, as in most border situations, some uncultivated lands, called the Plea Lands, or Debateable Lands, the pasturage of which was generally eaten up by the sorners and vagabonds on both sides of the marches. Many years ago, Lord Tankerville and some other of the English borderers, made their request to Sir David Bennet and the late Mr. Wauchope, of Niddry, that they would accompany them at a riding of the Plea Lands, who readily complied with their request. They were induced to this, as they understood that the gipsies had taken offence, on the supposition that they might be circumscribed in their pasture for their shelties, and asses, which they had held a long time, partly by stealth and partly by violence. Both threats and entreaties were employed to keep them away; and at last Sir David obtained a promise from some of the heads of the gang, that none of them would shew their faces on the occasion.
“They, however, got upon the hills in the neighbourhood, whence they could see every thing that passed. At first they were very quiet, but when they saw the English Court-Book spread out on a cushion before the clerk, and apparently taken in a line of direction interfering with that which they considered to be their privileged ground, it was with great difficulty that the most moderate of them could restrain the rest from running down and taking vengeance even in sight of their own lord of the manor. They only abstained for a short time, and no sooner had Sir David and the other gentlemen taken leave of each other in the most polite and friendly manner, as border chiefs are wont to do, since border feuds ceased, and had departed to a sufficient distance, than the clan, armed with bludgeons and pitchforks, and such other hostile weapons as they could find, rushed down in a body, and before the chiefs on either side had reached their homes, there was neither English tenant, horse, cow, or sheep, left upon the premises.”
This account of their descent on the Plea Lands is like one of Sir Walter Scott’s own vivid sketches of border life; and the following anecdote, also related by Mr. Baillie Smith, shews how truly they had imbibed the border spirit of clanship. “When I first knew any thing about the colony, old Will Faa was their king, or leader, and had held the sovereignty for many years. Meeting at Kelso with Mr. Walter Scott, whose discriminating habits and just observations I had occasion to know from his youth, and at the same time seeing one of my Yetholm friends in the horse-market, I merely said to Mr. Scott, ‘Try to get before that man with the long drab coat; look at him on your return, and tell me whether you ever saw him, and what you think of him.’ He was so good as to indulge me; and rejoining me said without hesitation, ‘I never saw the man that I know of, but he is one of the gipsies of Yetholm that you told me of several years ago.’ I need scarcely say that he was perfectly right.
“The descendants of Faa, now take the name of Fall, from the Messrs. Fall of Dunbar, who, they pride themselves in saying, are of the same stock and lineage. When old Will Faa was upwards of eighty years of age, he called on me at Kelso, in his way to Edinburgh, telling me that he was going to see the laird, the late Mr. Nisbett of Dirleton, as he understood that he was very unwell, and himself now being old, and not so stout as he had been, he wished to see him once more before he died. The old man set out by the nearest road, which was by no means his common practice. Next market-day some of the farmers informed me that they had been in Edinburgh, and seen Will Faa upon the bridge (the south bridge was not built then), that he was tossing about his old brown hat, and huzzaing with great vociferation, that he had seen the laird before he died. Indeed Will himself had no time to lose, for having set his face homewards, by the way of the sea-coast, to vary his route, as is the general custom with the gang, he only got the length of Coldingham when he was taken ill and died.”
No one can fail to recognise in these border gipsies the Faas and Gordons of Guy Mannering, the desperate clan of Meg Merrilies and Derncleugh. Scott, indeed, informs us that his prototype of Meg Merrilies was Jean Gordon, an inhabitant of Kirk-Yetholm in the Cheviot hills, adjoining to the English border. The Faas, of which family her mother was, were the lineal descendants of John Faa, who styled himself Lord and King of Little Egypt, and with a numerous retinue entered Scotland, in the reign of Queen Mary.