Part 20
The story was so clumsy and unconvincing, and the story told by the prosecution so complete in every detail, that both prisoners were speedily found guilty. They were condemned to death, and were hanged on Saturday, April 7th, 1802, at Horsham, before a crowd of three thousand people. The elder Beatson was seventy years of age and the younger but twenty-seven.
ROBERT SNOOKS
The careers of the highwaymen were, in the vast majority of cases, remarkably short, and they were, for the most part, cut off in the full vigour of their manly strength and beauty. The accursed shears of Fate—or, to be more exact, a rope dangling from a beam—ended them before experience had come to revise their methods and fit them out with the artistry of the expert.
But few were so summarily ended as the unfortunate Robert Snooks. This person, a native of Hungerford, was in the year 1800 living at Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, in the immediate neighbourhood of Boxmoor. He had often observed the postboy carrying the well-filled mail-bags across the lonely flat of Boxmoor, and (he is described as having been of remarkably fine physical proportions) thought how easy a thing it would be to frighten him into giving them up. Accordingly, on one sufficiently dark night, he waited upon the moor for the postboy, stopped him, and, adopting a threatening demeanour, instructed him to carry the bags to a solitary spot and then go about his business. The frightened official immediately hurried off to the postmaster of the district: one Mr. Page, of the "King's Arms," Berkhamstead, and told his tale; leaving Snooks to ransack the bags and take what he thought valuable.
The bags, turned inside out, were found, the next morning, with a heap of letters, torn open and fluttering in all directions across the fields. It subsequently appeared that the highwayman had secured a very considerable booty, one letter alone having contained £5 in notes. The postboy did not know the man who had terrorised him: only that he was a "big man"; but the simultaneous disappearance of Snooks left no reasonable doubt as to who it was.
This was Snooks's first essay in the dangerous art, and it proved also his last. Hurrying to London, he took up his abode in Southwark, and presently had the dubious satisfaction of reading the reward-bills issued, offering £300 for his capture. After a while he thought himself comparatively safe, and was emboldened to make an effort at negotiating one of the notes he still held. Afraid to do this in person, he thought he might see what would happen if he tried to pass one of the notes through the intermediary of the servant of the house where he was lodging, and accordingly sent her to purchase a piece of cloth for a coat, handing her a five-pound note. The tradesman evidently found something suspicious about the note thus tendered, and returned it, with the message that "there must be some mistake." Whether the tradesman would have followed this up by communicating any suspicions he may have had to the authorities does not appear; but "the wicked flee when no man pursueth," and Snooks hurried off to what was undoubtedly the most dangerous place for him. He fled to Hungerford, his birthplace; yet, strange to say, he long evaded capture, and it was not until 1802 that he was arrested, on the information of a postboy who had been to school with him. He was in due course brought to trial at Hertford Assizes, found guilty, and sentenced to death. It was judged expedient, as a warning to others, that he should be executed on the scene of his crime, the selection of the spot falling to Mr. Page, who, besides being postmaster of Berkhamstead, was High Constable of the Hundred of Dacorum. As a further warning, and one likely to be of some permanence, it was originally proposed to gibbet the body of the defunct Snooks on the same spot; so that, swinging there in chains on the moor, it might hint to others the folly of doing likewise. But the time was growing full late for such exhibitions; the inhabitants of the district protested, and this further project was abandoned.
Journeying from Hertford gaol on the morning of the fatal March 11th, 1802, Snooks, according to a surviving tradition, was given a final glass of ale at the "Swan" inn, at the corner of Box Lane, and is said to have remarked to the rustics hastening to the scene of execution: "Don't hurry; there'll be no fun till I get there."
The usual large and unruly crowd, that could always be reckoned upon on such melancholy occasions, was present, and seemed to regard the event as no more serious than a fair. To those thus assembled, Robert Snooks, standing in the cart under the gallows, held forth in a moral address:
"Good people, I beg your particular attention to my fate. I hope this lesson will be of more service to you than the gratification of the curiosity which brought you here. I beg to caution you against evil doing, and most earnestly entreat you to avoid two evils, namely, 'Disobedience to parents'—to you youths I particularly give this caution—and 'The breaking of the Sabbath.' These misdeeds lead to the worst of crimes: robbery, plunder, bad women, and every evil course. It may by some be thought a happy state to be in possession of fine clothes and plenty of money, but I assure you no one can be happy with ill-gotten treasure. I have often been riding on my horse and passed a cottager's door, whom I have seen dressing his greens, and perhaps had hardly a morsel to eat with them. He has very likely envied me in my station, who, though at that time in possession of abundance, was miserable and unhappy. I envied him, and with most reason, for his happiness and contentment. I can assure you there is no happiness but in doing good. I justly suffer for my offences, and hope it will be a warning to others. I die in peace with God and all the world."
[Illustration: SNOOKS ADDRESSING THE CROWD AT HIS EXECUTION.]
The horse was then whipped up, the cart drawn away from beneath the gallows-tree, and Robert Snooks had presently paid the harsh penalty of his crime. He had behaved with remarkable courage, and, espying an acquaintance in the crowd, offered him his watch if he would promise to see that his body received Christian burial. But the man, unwilling to be recognised as a friend of the criminal, made no response, and Snooks's body was buried at the foot of the gallows. A hole was dug there, and a truss of straw divided. Half was flung in first; the body upon that, and the second half on top. The hangman had half-stripped the body, declaring the clothes to be his perquisite, and would have entirely stripped it, had not the High Constable interfered, insisting that some regard should be had to decency.
A slow-moving feeling of compassion for the unhappy wretch took possession of some of the people of Hemel Hempstead, who on the following day procured a coffin, reopened the grave, and, placing the body in the coffin, thus gave it some semblance of civilised interment; but, those being the times of the body-snatchers, doubts have been expressed of the body being really there. It is thought that the body-snatchers may afterwards have visited the lonely spot and again resurrected it.
Two rough pieces of the local "plum-pudding stone" were afterwards placed on the grave, and remained until recent years.
Boxmoor is not now the lonely place it was. The traveller who seeks Snooks's grave may find it by continuing northward from Apsley End, passing under the railway bridges, and coming to a little roadside inn called the "Friend at Hand." Opposite this, on the right-hand side of the road, and between this road and the railway embankment runs a long narrow strip of what looks like meadow land, enclosed by an iron fence, This is really a portion of Boxmoor. At a point, a hundred and fifty yards past the inn, look out sharply for a clump of five young horse-chestnut trees growing on the moor. Close by them is a barren space of reddish earth, with a grassy mound, a piece of conglomerate, or "pudding-stone," and a newer stone inscribed "Robert Snooks, 11 March, 1802." This has been added since 1905, and duly keeps the spot in mind.
[Illustration: SNOOKS'S GRAVE.]
HUFFUM WHITE
The decay of the highwayman's trade and its replacement by that of the burglar and the bank-robber is well illustrated by the career of Huffum, or Huffy, White, who was first sentenced for burglary in 1809. Transportation for life was then awarded him, and we might have heard no more of his activities, had not his own cleverness and the stupidity of the authorities enabled him to escape from the hulks at Woolwich. Thus narrowly missing the long voyage to Botany Bay, he made direct for London, then as now the best hiding-place in the world. He soon struck up an acquaintance with one James Mackcoull, and they proposed together to enter upon a course of burglary; but at the very outset of their agreement they were arrested. Mackcoull, as a rogue and vagabond, was sent to prison for six months, and White was sentenced to death as an escaped convict, the extreme penalty being afterwards reduced to penal servitude for life.
[Illustration: HUFFUM WHITE ESCAPING FROM THE HULKS.]
On January 20th, 1811, Mackcoull was released, and at once, like the faithful comrade he was, set about the task of securing White's escape from the convict ship to which he had again been consigned. Dropping overboard in the fog and darkness that enshrouded the lower reaches of the Thames on that winter's evening into the boat that Mackcoull had silently rowed under the bows of the ship, White was again free.
An astonishing enterprise now lay before White, Mackcoull, and a new ally: a man named French. This was nothing less than a plan to break into the premises of the Paisley Union Bank at Glasgow. Arrived in Glasgow, they at length, after several disappointments, succeeded in forcing an entry on a Saturday night, selecting that time for the sake of the large margin it gave them for their escape, until the re-opening of the bank on the Monday morning. Their booty consisted of £20,000 in Scotch notes: a large sum, and in that form an unmanageable one, as they were eventually to discover.
The burglary accomplished, their first care was to set off at once for London, posting thither by post-chaise, as fast as four horses could take them. At every stage they paid their score, which they took care should be a generous one, as beseemed the wealthy gentlemen they posed as, with a £20 note: thus accumulating, as they dashed southward along those four hundred miles, a heavy sum in gold.
On the Monday morning the loss of the notes was of course at once discovered. Information was easily acquired as to the movements of the men who were at once suspected, and they were followed along the road, and some days later White was arrested in London by a Bow Street runner, at the house of one Scoltock, a maker of burglars' tools. None of the stolen property was found upon White, Mackcoull having been sufficiently acute to place all the remaining notes in the keeping of a certain Bill Gibbons, who combined the trade of bruiser with that of burglars' banker.
Mackcoull himself went into hiding, both from the law and from his associates, he having had the counting and custody of the notes, and told White and French the amount was but £16,000.
It now became quite evident to French, at least, that, so far as he and his friends were concerned, the remaining notes were merely so much waste-paper. Their numbers were bound to be known, and they could not safely be negotiated. So he suggested to Mrs. Mackcoull that they should propose to return the paper-money to the Bank, and save further trouble, on the understanding that they should not be prosecuted.
Mrs. Mackcoull appears to have had an influential friend named Sayer, employed in close attendance upon the King, and by his good offices secured a pardon for all concerned, on the conditions already named. Unfortunately, she could not fully carry out the bargain agreed upon, for, on the notes being counted, it was discovered that only £11,941 remained.
White, already in custody, was once more condemned to transportation for life. The procedure must by this time have become quite staled by familiarity, and we picture him going again to the hulks with an air of intense boredom.
He, of course, again escaped, and was soon again on his burglarious career: this time at Kettering among other places. But the exploit which concluded his course was the almost purely highwayman business of robbing the Leeds mail-coach, on October 26th, 1812, near Higham Ferrers. He had as accomplices a certain Richard Kendall and one Mary Howes. White had booked an outside seat on the coach, and had, in the momentary absence of the guard in front, cleverly forced open the lock of the box in which the mail-bags were kept, extracted the bags, and replaced the lid. At the next stage he left the coach. The accomplices, who had a trap in waiting, then all drove off to London, White immediately afterwards making for Bristol, where he was soon located, living with two notorious thieves, John Goodman and Ned Burkitt. A descent was made upon the house, and the two arrested, but White escaped over the roof of a shed, and through the adjoining houses.
He was traced in April 1813 to a house in Scotland Road, Liverpool, where, in company with a man named Hayward, he was meditating another burglary. The officers came upon them hiding in a cellar, and a desperate struggle followed; but in the end they were secured.
Richard Kendall and Mary Howes, _alias_ Taylor, were already in custody, and White was arraigned with them at the ensuing Northampton Assizes, for the robbery of the Leeds mail. Witnesses spoke at this trial to having seen the men in the gig on the evening of October 26th, on the road near Higham Ferrers, and afterwards at the house of Mary Howes, who lived close by, and the keeper of the turnpike deposed to only one gig having passed through that evening. There were no fewer than forty witnesses, and the trial occupied fourteen hours.
Mary Howes was acquitted, not from lack of evidence, but merely on a technical flaw in the indictment; her offence having been committed in another county. White and Kendall were convicted and sentenced to death.
White again came near to escaping. By some unknown means, a file had been conveyed to him, and on the night before the execution he filed through his irons, and then forced a way through several doors, being only stopped at the outer gate. The following morning, August 13th, 1813—unlucky date, with two thirteens—he met his fate with an unmoved tranquility. He declared Kendall to be innocent. When the chaplain asked him earnestly if he could administer any comfort to him at that solemn moment, he replied: "Only by getting some other man to be hanged for me."
Kendall was then brought to the gallows, declaring himself to be innocent, and a murdered man.
Mackcoull, the earlier associate of White, disappeared for years, but was arrested for a robbery in 1820, and died in prison soon after receiving sentence.
[Illustration: [++] Gibbet.]
INDEX
Abershaw, Jeremiah, i. 104; ii. 361-369
Adams, Richard, ii. 122
Allen, —, i. 123
— Robert, i. 276, 278-281
Arnott, Lieut., i. 97
Avery, —, ii. 121
Beatson, John and William, ii. 370-375
_Beggar's Opera, The_, i. 240; ii. 296
Belchier, William, i. 224
Berkeley, 5th Earl of, i. 237-240
Bird, Jack, ii. 86-97
Blake, Joseph ("Blueskin"), ii. 134-136
Boulter, Thomas, ii. 238
Bow Street Patrol, i. 123
"Bowl" Inn, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 166, 177-181
Bracy, —, i. 76
Bradshaw, Jack, ii. 101
Brown, Thomas, i. 211
Bunce, Stephen, ii. 117-120
Carrick, Valentine, i. 145
Catnack, James, i. 127-130
Caxton, Gibbet, i. 201-204
Cherhill Gang, i. 117
Clarke, Sir Simon, Bart., i. 97
Clavel, John, i. 307-316
"Clever Tom Clinch," i. 166, 177
Clewer, Revd. William, ii. 81
"Clibborn's Post," i. 119-121
Cottington, John ("MulledSack"), i. 158; ii. 26-34, 210
Cox, Tom, i. 166, 254
"Cutpurse," Moll (Mary Frith), i. 262-268; ii. 128, 129
Darkin, Isaac, ii. 264-270
Davis, William (the "Golden Farmer"), i. 317-332, 341
Denville, Sir Josselin, i. 17; ii. 55
Dickson, Christopher, i. 102
Dorbel, Tom, ii. 72
Dowe, Robert, i. 148, 153, 154
Drewett, Robert, i. 211
— William, i. 211
Dudley, Captain Richard, i. 387-397; ii. 55
Dun, Thomas, i. 17-22
Du Vall, Claude, i. 175, 214, 224, 254, 334, 342-355; ii. 173, 249, 272
Edwards, William, ii. 79
Elms, The, Smithfield, i. 157
— — St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 158, 165
— — Lane, Lancaster Gate, i. 158
— — Tyburn, i. 162
Everett and Williams, i. 254
Falstaff, i. 62, 64, 217, 221
Ferguson, Robert ("Galloping Dick"), i. 105; ii. 353-360
Finchley Common, i. 245-249, 253-255, 319; ii. 122
Frith, Mary ("Moll Cutpurse"), i. 262-268; ii. 128, 129
Gad's Hill, i. 62, 214, 217-221, 314; ii. 10
"Galloping Dick" (Robert Ferguson), i. 105; ii. 353-360
Gibbets, i. 122, 199-212, 214, 363
Gibson, John, i. 202
Giles, St., i. 157
"Golden Farmer," The (William Davis), i. 317-332, 341
Hackney Marshes, i. 91; ii. 182, 208
Haggarty, —, i. 243
Hal, Prince, i. 62, 64, 217
Hall, John, i. 154; ii. 110-116
"Hand of Glory," The, i. 49-57, 210
"Hangman's Highway," i. 156-198
Harris, James, i. 89
Hartley John, i. 101
Hawes, Nathaniel, i. 253
Hawke (or Hawkes), William, i. 147, 224
Hawkins, John, i. 229-236
— William, i. 229, 231, 232, 236
Hill, Thos., i. 66
Hillingdon Heath, i. 323, 324
Hind, Capt. James, i. 65, 214, 273-306, 334; ii. 173, 249
Holborn, i. 163-175
— Bars, i. 172
— Hill, i. 164, 170, 171
Holloway, i. 243
Hood, Robin, i. 23-48, 57
Horner, Nicholas, ii. 148-157
Hounslow Heath, i. 89, 121, 122, 123, 224-244, 267, 346, 388; ii. 29, 51, 71, 248, 252, 259
Jackson, Francis, i. 356-386
Johnson, Charles, Historian of Highwaymen, i. 14, 17, 18, 124, 235, 270, 335, 339, 392; ii. 41, 158, 166, 233
— Joe, ii. 167
Joiner, Abraham, i. 67
King, Augustine, i. 84
— Matthew, ii. 206, 208, 209
— Robert, ii. 206
— Tom, ii. 198-203, 205-210, 228
Knightsbridge, i. 222-224
Lansdowne Passage, i. 110
Lewis, Paul, ii. 316-319
Lorrain, Rev. Paul, i. 132-134
Low, Richard, ii. 115-117
Maclaine, James, ii. 249, 271-300
Maidenhead Thicket, i. 59, 295; ii. 38
Marlborough Downs, i. 118
Mary-le-Bourne, St., i. 159-161
Mellish, Mr., Murder of, by highwaymen, i. 121
Miles, Edward, i. 210
Morgan, —, i. 99-101
"Mulled Sack" (Cottington, John), i. 158; ii. 26-34, 210
Nevison, John, or William ("Swiftnicks"), ii. 1-25, 229, 231, 232, 234
Newgate, i. 145, 146, 148-154, 156, 246, 249-254, 302; ii. 62, 63, 131, 268, 296, 334-338, 352
— Ordinaries of, i. 124-126, 131-139, 142-145, 169, 187, 365; ii. 117, 143, 272
Newmarket, i. 78-82, 173-175; ii. 301
New Oxford Street, i. 163, 176
O'Brian, Patrick, ii. 81-85
Ogden, Will, ii. 98-104
"Old Mob" (Thomas Simpson), i. 254, 333-341
Ovet, Jack, ii. 105-109
Oxford Street, i. 163, 181, 192; ii. 279, 332
Page, William, ii. 249-263
Parsons, William, ii. 241-248
Peace, Charles, i. 6-11
_Peine forte et dure_, i. 249-254
Phillips, Thos., i. 249-253
Piccadilly, Highwaymen in, i. 109
Plunkett, —, ii. 280-283, 286-290
"Poor Robin," ii. 90-93
Popham, Sir John, i. 62
Porter's Block, Smithfield, i. 158; ii. 63
Poulter, John, ii. 301-315
Pressing to Death, i. 249-254
Price, James, i. 211
Pureney, Rev. Thos., i. 132, 133, 135-139, 142; ii. 117, 143, 147
Rann, John ("Sixteen-string Jack"), ii. 340-352
Ratsey, Gamaliel, i. 14-17
Reresby, Sir John, i. 82
Reynolds, Capt., i. 66
— Tom, ii. 98, 104
_Rizpah_, i. 204-206
Robin Hood, i. 23-48, 57; ii. 233
"Rowden the Pewterer," ii. 196, 198, 215
Rumbold, Thomas, ii. 35-40
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 157, 176-181
St. Mary-le-Bourne, i. 159-161
St. Sepulchre, i. 148-155, 163, 165
Salisbury Plain, i. 114, 117, 214, 318; ii. 41, 266
Shakespeare, Highwaymen in, i. 62-64, 217, 221
Sheppard, Jack, i. 137, 140, 183, 246, 247
Shooter's Hill, i. 214-217, 276; ii. 101, 189, 260
Shotover Hill, i. 255; ii. 30
Shrimpton, John, i. 256-258
Simms, Harry, i. 97
Simpson, Thomas ("Old Mob"), i. 254, 333-341
"Sixteen-string Jack" (Rann, John), ii. 340-352
Smith, Capt. Alexander, Historian of Highwaymen, i. 11-14, 75, 124, 235, 270, 335, 339, 391; ii. 41, 81-83
Smith, Rev. Samuel, i. 132, 367
Smithfield, i. 157; ii. 63, 281
— Rounds, i. 158; ii. 34
Snooks, Robert, ii. 376-383
Spiggott, Wm., i. 248-253
Stafford, Capt. Philip, i. 269-272
Steele, Mr., Murder of, i. 240-244
Stratford Place, i. 158-161
Sunday Trading Act, i. 60
"Swiftnicks" (Nevison, John, or William), ii. 1-25, 229, 231, 232, 234
Sympson, George, i. 229, 231
Taylor, Tom, ii. 123-125
Tooll, "Captain" Edmund, i. 246
Tracey, Walter, ii. 158-165
Turpin, Richard, i. 124, 129, 215, 245, 247; ii. 1, 173-240, 249
Turpin's Oak, i. 245
Twm Shon Catti, ii. 65-72
Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, i. 236
Tyburn, i. 133, 146, 153, 155, 156-198, 245, 249, 254, 281, 354, 397; ii. 46, 59, 97, 116, 122, 147, 168, 248, 257, 284, 299, 319, 339
Waltham Cross, i. 87
Watling Street, i. 159
Westons, The, ii. 320-339
Weymouth, Charles, i. 102
White, Huffum, ii. 384-391
Whitney, Capt. James, i. 86, 158; ii. 41-64, 173
"Who goes Home?" i. 92-95
Wickes, Edward, i. 254; ii. 166-172
Wild, Jonathan, i. 137, 187, 265; ii. 126-147
Wild, Robert, i. 70-74
Wilson, Ralph, i. 231, 232, 235, 236
Witherington, Thos., i. 171
Withers, John, ii. 75-80
Wright, —, i. 231
_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Transcriber's Note: │ │ │ │ Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. │ │ │ │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. │ │ │ │ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant │ │ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. │ │ │ │ Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs │ │ and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that │ │ references them. The List of Illustrations was changed │ │ accordingly. │ │ │ │ [++] indicates a caption added by the transcriber. │ │ │ │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like │ │ this_. Words in bold characters are surrounded by equal signs, │ │ =like this=. │ │ │ │ Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one │ │ continuous sequence. │ │ │ │ In the index the numbers i. and ii. refer to volumes i. and ii. │ │ │ │ Other notes: │ │ Page 191: "... three several times;" changed to "... several │ │ times;" │ │ In this text Edgware is spelled Edgeware. │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘