Place.* The lord mayor, on examining the prisoners, admitted the younger brother an evidence against the elder. At the next sessions at the Old Bailey it was an affecting scene to behold the one brother giving evidence against the other, who was capitally convicted, and received sentence of death. That such a transgressor should be brought to condign punishment was doubtless just; but who can avoid feeling disgust at the means through which that end was effected? After conviction Ramsey seemed to entertain a proper idea of the enormity of the offences of which he had been guilty; and in several letters to persons whom he had robbed he confessed his crimes, and entreated their prayers. He did not flatter himself with the least hope of pardon, sensible that his numerous offences must necessarily preclude him from such favour. A letter which he wrote to a friend at Bristol contains the following pathetic expressions: O '0 blame me not! I am now, by the just judgment of God and man, under sentence of death. Whatever injuries I have committed, with tears in my poor eyes I ask forgiveness! Oh! my friend, could you but guess or think what agonies I feel, I am sure you would pity me: may my Father which is in heaven pity me likewise! Ramsey was executed at Tyburn on the 13th of January, 1742, after having made an affecting address to the surrounding multitude, entreating the younger part of the audience to avoid gaming, as what would infallibly lead to destruction. After the customary devotions on such melancholy occasions he was turned off, and the body, having hung the usual time, was conveyed in a hearse to Giltspur Street, whence it was taken, and decently interred by his friends, at * One of a class of cheats, of the society of Jews, who are to be found in every street, lane, and alley, in and near the metropolis, under the pretence of purchasing old clothes and metals of different sorts Their chief business, really, is to prowl about the houses and stables of men of rank and fortune, for the purpose of holding out temptations to the servants to pilfer and steal small articles, not likely to be missed, which these Jews purchase at about one-third of the real value. It is supposed that upwards of fifteen hundred of these depraved people are employed in diurnal journeys of this kind; by which, through the medium of bad money and other fraudulent dealings, many of them acquire property, and then set up shops, and become receivers of stolen goods. It is estimated that there are from fifteen to twenty thousand Jews in the city of Lon. don, besides, perhaps, about five or six thousand more in the great provincial and seaport towns, where there are at least twenty synagogues, besides six in the metropolis. Most of the lower classes of those distinguished by the name of German or Dutch Jews live chiefly by their wits, and establish a system of mischievous intercourse all over the country, the better to carry on their fraudulent designs in the circulation of base money, the sale of stolen goods, and in the purchase of metals of various kinds; as well as other articles, pilfered from the dock-yards, and stolen in the provincial towns, which they bring to the metropolis to elude detection-and vice versa. Educated in idleness from their earliest infancy, these men acquire every debauched and vicious habit which can fit them for the most complicated arts of fraud and deception; to which they seldom fail to add the crime of perjury, whenever it can be of use in shielding themselves or their associates from the punishment of the law. From the orange boy, and the retailer of seals, razors, glass, and other wares, in the public streets, to the shopkeeper, dealer in wearing apparel, or in silver and gold, the same principles of conduct too generally prevail. The itinerants utter base money, to enable them, by selling cheap, to dispose of their goods; while those that are stationary, with very few exceptions, receive and purchase, at an under price, whatever is brought them, without asking questions. the expiration of two days from the der himself only as a beast of prey, time of his execution. In the case of the above mentioned malefactor we learn that superior skill in tricks and contrivances is but a readier way to death and destruction. Gaming ought to be avoided by young people as steadily as they would avoid walking blindfold to the edge of a precipice. Nothing leads so certainly to ruin. The gamester must, at the best, live a life of perpetual anxiety; and, if he thinks at all, can consi who is to be supported by the destruction of his fellow-creatures. On the same gallows with Ramsey were also executed James Boquois and Joseph Allen, for highway robberies; Mary Page, for stealing goods; William Quaite, a drummer in the Guards, for a robbery committed in St. James's Park; and John Glew Guilliford, for returning before the expiration of his sentence from transportation. THOMAS LYELL AND LAWRENCE SYDNEY, PILLORIED FOR FRAUD. In April, 1740, these pests to society were committed to Newgate, charged, on the oaths of several gentlemen of distinction, with cheating and defrauding them, by the use of false and loaded dice, at a masquerade, on Thursday morning, about three o'clock, to the amount of four hundred pounds. It also appeared on their examination, which lasted from six o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, that they had cheated a number of other gentlemen of upwards of four thousand pounds Nine pair of dice were more. found upon the sharpers, and, on They were brought to the bar of A cause was tried before Lord Chief-Justice Kenyon, in 1796, on the statute against gaming, in which it was stated that every person who was three times successful paid the defendant a silver medal, which he purchased from him, on entering the house, at eight for a guinea, and he received seven or eight of these in the course of an hour for the box hands, as it was called. Sometimes 201. or 301. depended on a single throw of the dice. One morning a gentleman came in very much in liquor, who seemed to have a great deal of money about him. The defendant said he had not intended to play, but now he would set to with this fellow. He then scraped a little wax with his finger off one of the candles, and put the dice together, so that they came seven every way. After doing this, he dropped them into the box and threw them out, and afterwards drew all the money away, saying he had won it. A person has been seen to pawn his watch and ring in several instances; and once a man pawned his coat, and went away without it. After the gaming-table was broken by the Bow Street officers, the defendant said it was too good a thing to be given up, and instantly got another table, large enough for twenty or thirty people. The frequenters of this house used to play till daylight; and on one or two occasions they played all the next day. This is what the defendant called 'sticking to it rarely!' The guests were furnished with wine and suppers gratis. The witness has seen more than forty people there on a Sunday. The table not being sufficient for the whole, half-a-crown used on such occasions to be given for a seat, and those behind looked over the backs of the others and betted. prisoned one year, and during that time to be pilloried. Notwithstanding the law has provided against these illicit practices, and many convictions have taken place, yet, even in the present day, this pernicious practice is carried to a dreadful length. On the 12th of June, 1742, above two years after the offence, Thomas Lyell and Lawrence Syducy, the principals of the gang, were brought out of Newgate, and carried to the Haymarket, where a pillory had been erected to receive them, facing the Opera House, the scene of their depredations, amid the scoffs and taunts of an enraged populace. Bradford, going to murder his Guest, finds the Deed already accomplished. JONATHAN BRADFORD, EXECUTED FOR A SUPPOSED MURDER. JONATHAN BRADFORD kept an inn at the city of Oxford. A gen. tleman, (Mr. Hayes,) attended by a man-servant, put up one evening at Bradford's house; and in the night, the former being found murdered in his bed, the landlord was apprehended on suspicion of having committed the barbarous and inhospitable crime. VOL. I. The evidence given against him was to the following effect:-Two gentlemen who had supped with Mr. Hayes, and who retired at the same time to their respective chambers, being alarmed in the night with a noise in his room, and soon hearing groans, as of a wounded man, got up in order to discover the cause, and found their landlord, with a 29 dark lantern, and a knife in his hand, standing, in a state of astonishment and horror, over his dying guest, who almost instantly expired. On this evidence, apparently conclusive, the jury convicted Bradford, and he was executed; but the fate of this man may serve as an additional lesson to jurymen to be extremely guarded in receiving cir cumstantial evidence. On a trial at Nisi Prius, and between personal right and wrong, the jury are often directed by the judge to take into consideration presumptive evidence where positive proof is wanting; but, in criminal charges, it seldom should, unsupported by some oral testimony, or ocular demonstration, be sufficient to find a verdict against the accused. The facts attending the above dreadful tragedy were not fully brought to light until the death-bed confession of the real murderer, a time when we must all endeavour to make our peace with God. Mr. Hayes was a man of considerable property, and greatly respected. He had about him, when his sad destiny led him under the roof of Bradford, a considerable sum of money; and the landlord, knowing this, determined to murder and rob him. For this horrid purpose, he proceeded with a dark lantern and a carving-knife, intending to cut the throat of his guest while yet sleeping; but what must have been his astonishment and confusion to find his intended victim already murdered, and weltering in his blood? The wicked and unworthy servant had also determined on the murder of his master; and had just committed the bloody deed, and secured his treasure, a moment before the landlord entered for the same purpose!!! MARTIN NOWLAND, EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON. THIS traitor was a native of Ireland, and, while a youth, was decoyed from his parents, conveyed to Dunkirk, and entered into the regiment of Dillon. In this station he continued fourteen years, at the end of which time he was sent to London, to enlist men into the French service; and was promised a promotion on his return, as a reward for the diligence he might exert. On his arrival in London he endeavored to connect himself with people of the lower ranks, whom he thought most likely to be se. duced by his artifices; and one day going on the quays near London Bridge, he met with two brothers, named Meredith, both of them in the army, but who occasionally worked on the quays, to make an addition to their military pay. Having invited these men to a house in the Borough, he treated them with liquor; represented the emoluments that would arise from their entering into the French service; and, among other things, said that, exclusive of their pay, they would receive four loaves of bread weekly. When they were thus refreshed Nowland prevailed on them to go to his lodgings in Kent Street, where he farther regaled them, and then said he hoped they would enter into the service. They expressed their readiness to do so; and said they could aid him in enlisting several other men, if he would spend the evening with them at a public house in the Strand. This proposal being assented to, they took him to a famous alehouse near the Savoy, called the Coalhole, where Nowland was terrified at the sight of several soldiers of the Guards; but the Merediths saying they were their intimate ac. quaintance, the parties adjourned to a room by themselves. Here the brothers asked Nowland how much they were to receive for enlisting, which he told them would be four guineas; and that he was commissioned to pay their expenses till they should join the regiment. The intention of the brothers seems to have been to obtain some money of Nowland; but, finding it was not in his power to advance any while they remained in England, one of them went to the sergeant at the Savoy, informed him of what had passed, and asked him how he must dispose of Nowland. The sergeant said he must be detained for the night, and taken be. fore a magistrate on the following day. On the soldier's return to the public house Nowland produced a certificate, signed by the lieutenantcolonel of the regiment, as a proof that he was actually in the service of France. He likewise said that the soldiers must dispose of their clothes, and purchase others, to prevent their being detected at Dover; and he repeated his promise of the bounty-money, and other accommodations proper for a soldier, on their reaching the regiment. When the Merediths, and the other men, had drank at Nowland's expense till they they were satisfied, they conveyed him to the roundhouse, and on the following day took him before a magistrate, to whom, after some hesitation, he acknowledged that he had been employed to enlist men for the Irish brigades in the service of France. Inquiry being made respecting his accomplices, he acknowledged that a captain belonging to his regi. He was committed to Newgate in consequence of this confession, and, being brought to his trial, was convicted at the following sessions at the Old Bailey, and received sentence of death. Nowland being of the Roman Catholic persuasion, it is not pos sible to give a particular account of his behaviour after conviction, as he declined holding any correspondence with the Ordinary of Newgate. When he came to the fatal Tyburn tree, on the 24th of February, 1742, he performed his devotions in his own way, and, being executed, his body was carried to St. Giles's, and soon afterwards buried in St. Pancras churchyard by some of his Roman Catholic friends. The folly of a man's attempting to recruit the French army in London is more to be wondered at than the commission of the crime. This man, before he attempted to corrupt the allegiance of an Englishman, must surely have been apprized of the conviction and execu tion of Thomas Hennings, for en listing a man for the King of Prussia, which took place just before he ac cepted a French commission to commit a similar crime. Little more can be said of Nowland's case than that it is treasonable in the highest degree, aiming a mortal blow at the constitution of our country, by enticing us to join our enemy. Yet we cannot, however, pass over the particulars, without expressing admiration at the loyalty of the soldiers whom he endeavored to cor. rupt. |