Part 9
The American War was in 1776 at its height, and though some successes were for the moment cheering the spirits of the British Government, it already required but little foresight to see how the contest would end. The revolted colonies, with their declaration of independence, their President and Congress, had virtually become a new empire among the dominions of the world, and France was evidently about to give its aid to their complete establishment. It was just at this period that occurred the following extraordinary and execrable act of felony, the work of a single villain, guided by a kind of morbid enthusiasm and desire of notoriety. That Dr. Franklin, or Silas Deane, or the French Court, had aught to do with the crime is not in the least credible. It was, in a moment of war, the natural though questionable policy of the British Crown and its officers to tinge as much as possible the cause of the enemy. Hence the prisoner’s lying accounts of interviews with Mr. Deane, and of other transactions abroad, were skilfully relied upon and allowed to go forth as casting suspicion on the American and French Governments. The incendiary, however, did not support his averments with one tittle of evidence to inculpate any accomplice high or low, and so, on maturer consideration, thought the British Government and the public; for after the execution of the culprit, no political notice whatsoever was taken of the charges he brought against either America or France. It would, indeed, be an insult to the transcendent fame of Franklin, or the high character of Deane, to for an instant suppose them sharers in such atrocity. The burnings perpetrated by Jack the Painter are to be ascribed to the wretch’s malignant nature alone.
To come to the shameful affair itself. A fire had happened in the rope-house at Portsmouth on the 7th December, 1776, and had passed for an accident; and as no suspicion had fallen on any one, no inquiry was made about it, till, on the 15th of January, 1777, Mr. Russell, one of the under-clerks of the dockyard, having occasion to use some hemp in the hemp-house, discovered a tin machine, constructed for holding matches, and in the cavity at bottom spirits of wine. The matches had been lighted, and were nearly burnt out; but the fire had not reached the spirits, the want of air, as it is supposed, having extinguished it before it had its full effect. This left no room to doubt but that the late fire was wilfully and maliciously contrived.
If it had burnt as low as the cross-lines, it would have caught the matches placed on the sides, and would have burnt in four channels down to the spirits, which would have set the whole place in a blaze. The machine was made of tin, except the bottom, which was of wood. It was about the size of a half-pound tea-canister.
The stores in the store-house, which would have been burnt if it had caught fire, were sufficient to have rigged out fifty sail of ships.
It was then that the whole dockyard was alarmed. Some hundreds of workmen were instantly drawn together, and every one looked at his neighbour, convinced that whoever was the contriver of that machine, and had placed it there, was the incendiary.
This called to mind every minute circumstance that had happened previous to the breaking out of the fire on the day mentioned, and it occurred to one that a fellow had been locked into the rope-house the night before; to another, that a man, whose name was unknown, had been seen loitering about the yard on the very day; and to others, that he was a painter and had worked in the neighbourhood, and as he had never been seen there after the fire, a strong suspicion arose that he must be some way or other concerned in the mischief that had already been done, and also in the diabolical design which providentially had been defeated. A singular advertisement was issued, describing the person of the man, and under the name of John the Painter, offering him a reward of £50 to surrender himself to examination, and the same reward to any one who should apprehend him. In the meantime other fires broke out, particularly at Bristol, which could not otherwise be accounted for than by supposing American agents employed to spread fire and devastation throughout the kingdom, wherever their malignant purposes could be executed with effect—an idea that favoured the prejudices of the vulgar, and therefore was the more easily credited. It was not long, however, before Sir John Fielding, the able police-magistrate (half-brother, by the way, of the author of “Tom Jones”), found means to trace this John the Painter out, and some time about the beginning of February he was apprehended at Odiham, in Hants, for a burglary, and brought to town for examination.
The news of his commitment was soon spread; and it having been reported that he had been in America, and had worked there as a painter, Richard Earl Temple, K.G., P.C., desired one Baldwin, a painter, who had likewise been in America, and had done business there, to attend his examination before Sir John Fielding, to see if he could recollect him. But Baldwin, upon looking at the man, and being asked the question, frankly declared that he had never before seen him in his life. This open declaration, after others, as he said, had borne false witness against him, moved the prisoner in favour of Baldwin, and he expressed a strong desire to cultivate an acquaintance with him, which Baldwin did not decline, being encouraged to visit him as often as opportunity offered, in order, if possible, to bring him to confession. This had the desired effect, and brought the whole scene of iniquity to light. After a regular attendance on him for fifteen days, sometimes once a day and sometimes twice, the prisoner at length began to trust him, and to speak openly. He told him that he had been in France; that he had there seen Silas Deane, the American ambassador at the Court of Versailles; that Silas Deane had given him some money and had encouraged him to set fire to the dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Woolwich, &c., as the best means of distressing Great Britain, and that he had promised to reward him according to the service he should do to the American cause; and that, as an earnest of what should follow, he had given him a recommendation to, and bills upon, a merchant in London to the amount of £300, which, however, he had found necessary to burn to prevent a discovery; that, in consequence of this encouragement, he procured a passport from the French king, which passport he lamented that he had left at Portsmouth, with other things, in a bundle; that from France he came to Canterbury, where he devised the machine which had been found in the hemp-house, and had it there constructed; that before he left Canterbury he had a quarrel with a dragoon; and that when he removed from thence he directed his course to Portsmouth, where he prepared the combustibles with which he afterwards set the place on fire. He disclosed to Baldwin the secret of making the composition and the manner of his applying it, and told him the circumstance of his being locked in the rope-house; of his quarrelling with his landlady, on account of the interruption she gave him in his operations; of her forcibly turning him out of her house; of his taking another lodging; of the difficulty he had in lighting his matches; of his purchasing other matches; of his flight from Portsmouth in a woman’s cart; with many other particulars.
The prisoner was committed, and his trial came on at the assizes for Hampshire, on the 6th March, 1777, at Winchester, before Sir William Henry Ashurst, Knt., a judge of the Court of King’s Bench, and Sir Beaumont Hotham, Knt., a baron of the Exchequer.
The grand jury which had found the bill against the prisoner had for foreman Henry, second Viscount Palmerston, father of the late illustrious premier.
The counsel who appeared for the Crown were William Davy, serjeant-at-law; Mr. Mansfield (afterwards Sir James Mansfield, Solicitor-General, and subsequently Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas); Mr. Missing; Mr. Buller (afterwards Sir Francis Buller, Bart., a judge of the Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas); and Mr. Fielding.
The prisoner appears to have had no counsel, but to have acted for himself throughout the whole trial.
The indictment was thus opened by Mr. Fielding:—
“May it please your lordships and you gentlemen of the jury, this is an indictment against the prisoner at the bar for a crime of so atrocious and uncommon a nature, as to render it impossible to affix any epithet to the crime descriptive of its enormity. This is, gentlemen, the first instance of its existence, and I hope in God it will be the last. The indictment, you have perceived already, turns upon three counts: the prisoner at the bar is first charged for setting fire to a quantity of hemp and ropes particularly specified; the second count is for setting fire to a certain building erected in the dockyard, called the rope-house: the third count is for firing His Majesty’s naval stores. Gentlemen, the matter will be more fully opened to you by the learned and experienced gentleman who leads this business, and I doubt not but your verdict will be satisfactory to your country.”
Mr. Serjeant Davy then stated the case, commencing thus:—
“May it please your lordships and you gentlemen of the jury, I am of counsel in this case for the king in the prosecution of the prisoner at the bar, who is described by the name of James Hill, otherwise James Hinde, otherwise James Actzen, for setting fire to the rope-house at Portsmouth dock, belonging to the Crown, the place where the cordage is made to supply the king’s navy, and which crime is constituted a capital felony by an Act of Parliament made in the twelfth year of his present Majesty (12 Geo. III., c. 24), till when it had not entered the imagination of man that such a crime could be committed at all. It will be unnecessary for me to expatiate upon the nature of the offence; that has nothing to do with the prisoner at the bar, any more than as he was an agent in the commission of it; and it will be necessary for me, therefore, to mention to you only those particulars that we have to lay before you in evidence, by which to affix the crime upon the prisoner, and to submit to you, upon the consideration of those facts, whether he is or is not guilty of the charge in the indictment.”
The learned serjeant then went through the whole of the evidence he was about to produce, and concluded thus:—
“The tenth part of these circumstances, which I have opened, would serve, I should think to decide the fate of any man standing in the prisoner’s situation; but it is the wish of the public, it is the wish of the Government, that all the world should know the infamy of this transaction, and that they should know to whom they are indebted for the sorrows they have felt, and how much they owe to the Providence of God, that America has not been able totally to destroy this country, and to make it bow its neck, not only to the yoke of America, but to the most petty sovereign in Europe; for let the English navy be destroyed—and here was a hand ready to effect it;—let but the English navy be destroyed, and there is an end of all we hold dear and valuable. The importance of the subject, the magnitude, the extraordinary nature of the thing calls for a more particular investigation than any other subject, of what kind soever, could demand; and therefore I need, I hope, make no apology for having descended so particularly into these minute, if any of them can be called minute, particulars of this story; we shall prove all these circumstances to the full, and surely there can be no doubt what shall be done with the man. I shall be glad to hear what he has to say for himself; and I shall be glad if he is able to lay this guilt at any body’s door besides those to whom he has laid it. I wish Mr. Silas Deane were here; a time may come, perhaps, when he and Dr. Franklin may be here.”
_Prisoner_: He is the honestest man in the world.
The testimony adduced was overwhelming, but as the prisoner’s subsequent confession fully relates every incident, it is needless to go here into the details. Suffice it to state that the lad who made the canister, the dragoon with whom the prisoner quarrelled at Canterbury, the woman at whose house he lodged at Portsmouth, the man who let him out of the rope-house, the persons who saw him in the dockyard, the woman who sold him the matches, the woman who took him up in her cart in his flight from Portsmouth, and last of all the bundle in which was his passport from France, with the identical articles in it, which he had specially mentioned to Baldwin; all these were produced in addition to and confirmation of Baldwin, who proved what he had heard from the prisoner himself.
One incident which occurred, while Baldwin was giving his evidence, is curious as showing how such statesmen as Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin were at that time thought and spoken of in England; it was this:—
_Baldwin_: I mentioned to him about my family, that I had my son with me now in London; he was desirous to see him. I told him my wife was very much indisposed, which he said he was sorry for. I waited upon him from day to day, till the 15th February; on that day he told me all the particulars; he asked me if I knew one Mr. Deane. I told him “No;” he said, “Not Mr. Deane who is employed by the Congress at Paris?”
_Prisoner_: I remark to the witness that there is a righteous Judge, who also giveth righteous judgment; beware of what you say concerning that Mr. Deane. Perjure not yourself; you are in the sight of God, and all this company is.
_Baldwin_: The prisoner said, “What, not Silas Deane?” I told him “No;” he said “He is a fine clever fellow, and I believe Benjamin Franklin is employed in the same errand.” He said he had taken a view of most of the dockyards and fortifications throughout England, and particularly the number of guns that each ship in the navy had, and likewise the guns in the fortifications, the weight of their metal, and the number of men; and he had been at Paris two or three times, to inform Mr. Silas Deane of the particulars of what he found in examining the dockyards.
_Prisoner_: Consider, in the sight of God, what you say concerning Silas Deane.
_Counsel for the Crown_: You need not be afraid. Silas Deane is not here; he will be hanged in due time.
_Prisoner_: I hope not; he is a very honest man.
The only piece of evidence (beyond the prisoner’s own statements) by which the Crown could throw out an inference that he was tampered with by a foreign power, was the French passport produced; but as at its date England was not at war with France, such a document might have been procured as a matter of course.
The translation of the passport, which was read in court, was as follows:—
“Exhibited at the Office of Marine, at Calais. By the king. To all governors and our lieutenant-generals of our provinces and armies, governors particular, and commanders of our towns, places, and troops; and to all others our officers justiciary, and subjects to whom it shall belong—Health. We will and command you very expressly to let pass safely and freely, Mr. James Actzen, going to England; without giving him or suffering him to have any hindrance; but on the contrary, every aid and assistance that he shall want or have occasion for. This present passport to be valid for one month only, for such is our pleasure. Given at Fontainbleau, the 13th of November, 1776.
“LOUIS. By the king, DE VERGENNES. Gratis.”
After the accused had made a very rambling defence, impugning Baldwin’s veracity, the judge summed up clearly and minutely, and the jury almost immediately found the prisoner _Guilty_.
The prisoner was then asked in the usual form what he had to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, to which he replied, “I have nothing to say.”
Mr. Baron Hotham pronounced judgment as follows:—
“Prisoner, you have been indicted, tried, and convicted of a crime which the law of this country has thought fit to make capital, and now the most painful moment that I have undergone in the course of this trial is arrived, for it is my duty to pass upon you that dreadful sentence. I shall not interrupt those feelings which I trust you have by talking to you of the enormity of the offence which you have committed, because it is impossible for me, or any man who hears me, to add a word by way of aggravation to it, and it has this in particular about it, that it cannot have been committed from any motives of private malice, revenge, or lucre. It can have proceeded only from a general malignity of mind, which has broke out in a desire and a design, not only to ruin one devoted individual, but to involve every one of this audience, nay, the whole English nation perhaps, in immediate ruin. You cannot, therefore, be surprised that the law has thought fit to punish such a crime with death. You can as little be surprised if, after you have been convicted upon the clearest evidence of this offence, I can give you no hope of pardon.[11] It is impossible for me to say a word on your behalf, and therefore I must entreat and conjure you, in the most solemn manner, to prepare yourself during the few days you have to live, to meet the great God in another world, and to ask him there for that pardon which you could not receive in this; there it will be worth receiving; and atrocious as your crime has been, short as the time is that you have to live, a sincere repentance now on your part may, and I hope in God will, procure you mercy at His hands. I say all this not to taunt or distress you in your present unhappy situation, but merely from motives of humanity and religion. For you cannot be suffered to live in this world; you must die, and that within a very few days. And therefore, before you go into eternity, for your soul’s sake do what you can, that that eternity may be an eternity of bliss instead of misery. I have only now to pronounce the painful[12] sentence of the law which I am bound to do, and I accordingly adjudge and order you to be hanged by the neck until you shall be dead; and the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”
The Prisoner: “My lord, I am exceedingly well satisfied.”
On the morning after his condemnation, he informed the turnkey of his own spontaneous accord that he felt an earnest desire of confessing his crime, and laying the history of his life before the public; and that, by discovering the whole of his unaccountable plots and treasonable practices, he might make some atonement to his most injured country for the wrongs he had done, of which he was now truly sensible, and a repentant sinner.
This request being made known to John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, that nobleman directed Sir John Fielding to send down proper persons to take and attest his confession. The culprit confessed accordingly, and the statement signed by him, and dated 7th March, 1777, was attested by George Durnford and N. P. Smith, Esqs., Justices of the Peace for the city of Winchester. It tallies with the more lengthy account of his hideous career which the prisoner also drew out, signed, and left for publication.
The prisoner was carried from Winchester Gaol on the 10th March, 1777, to Portsmouth, where it was appointed he should be executed at the dock gate.
Having been carried in an open cart by the hemp-house, and round the ruins of the rope-house, when he came opposite the commissioner’s house he desired to speak with the commissioner, who thereupon went up close to him. He said:—
“Sir, I acknowledge my crime, and hope for forgiveness from God, through the merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ. I ask pardon of you, sir, and hope your forgiveness.”
Upon the cart’s moving, he said, “he had one thing more to observe as a caution to all the commissioners of the dockyards throughout England, to be more vigilant and strictly careful of them for the future, because it is in the power of a determined and resolute man to do a great deal of mischief.” As the cart stopped at the end of the rope-house, he looked attentively at the scene of his offence, and said, “I acknowledge my crime, and am sorry for it.” On returning out of the dockyard, upon being asked if he had anything more to say to the commissioner, he said, “No; only I recommend great care and strict vigilance at the dockyards at Chatham, Woolwich, Deptford, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and particularly at the rope-house at the latter.” Just before he was turned off he said:—
“I acknowledge the justness of my sentence, and hope for forgiveness, as I forgive all the world. I wish success to His Majesty King George and his family, and all his loyal subjects, and I hope for forgiveness of all the transactions that I have been guilty of from the year 1772, since my apprenticeship, and the world will be satisfied about me, as my life will be very soon in print.”
The convict then giving the signal, was drawn up by the pulleys to the top of the gibbet, which was made of the mizen mast of the _Arethusa_ frigate, and was sixty-four feet and a half high. He hung one hour, and was taken down and suspended in chains on Blockhouse Port, at the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour, where his body remained gibbetted for several years.
The prisoner’s full confession was published after his death, and it forms so extraordinary a narrative, that the major portion of it may not be inappropriately inserted here. It runs as follows:—