Part 101

Benjamin Shooltz examined: In 1839, I shipped on board the Dryad at Liverpool for Santa Cruz. I have recently come from the coast of Africa. I came to England seventeen days ago. Captain Loose engaged me. We had very little provisions on board, and we were poorly furnished with spare spars, &c. The captain frequently told me to keep the long-boat always in good order and ready for sea at once. We hove in sight of Anagada on a Thursday. I saw the breakers and called Maxwell the mate. We were about four or five miles from them. I received orders from the mate to put the ship round, and he then went to the captain. When I brought the ship round, she was going from the breakers. When the captain came on deck, he cursed me, and asked me who gave me orders to put the ship about. He took the helm and brought the ship round towards the reef again. I said to the captain, "I took the orders myself, and I did not wish to put the ship on a reef in broad daylight." When the captain put her up again, the crew all came aft to him, and asked him what he intended to do. He did not keep the helm long, and I went to it when he went below, and put it down, and the ship went away and cleared the rocks. If she had gone on two minutes longer, she would have been on the rocks. Two days afterwards we were on the Silver Keys. We saw breakers a-head, and a lump of rock a little on the larboard side. I had the helm at this time. When I saw the Silver Keys, I hailed the mate, and he went down and informed the captain. When the captain came up, he said he did not see the rock. He had his glass then. I saw the rock with my naked eye. A man on the fore-yard, about five minutes afterwards, shouted out that there was about four feet water under the keel, and he saw rocks. The captain was on deck, but he did nothing. Shortly afterwards the vessel struck. The captain was very frightened at the time, and cried out "What shall we do, lads?--we are lost!" The long-boat was lying on the gripes off the ship, and the jolly-boat lay upon her. This is the usual way they are stowed away. When the ship struck, the rudder unshipped. This was about seven o'clock in the morning. The captain went to the helm shortly after the Dryad struck. The day before we made St. Domingo, the strap came off the jury rudder. At that time the captain's life-preserver was on deck. The crew told him if he put that on, they would cut it all to pieces. We were then five miles from Cape Hayti. There was no reason for keeping so close to the shore as we did. I remember the night before the gun was fired; that night we kept out to sea. We were about five miles from the breakers when the gun was fired, and we were then steering direct upon them. The ship's course was not altered when the gun was fired. The previous night the captain asked me and Davis, the second mate, what we should do, as we had got no rudder. We said that the best way would be to keep out to sea, and stand in for Hayti in the morning. We had not signalled for a pilot on board the Dryad. When the pilot came on board, he easily put the ship round and took us into the harbour, where we remained nine or twelve days. Many complaints were then made by the crew to the captain. We made an effort to be permitted to leave the ship at St. Domingo, but we were not allowed by the captain. The mate left the Dryad on the 2d of November. On the 5th we sailed from Hayti, and on the 10th the Dryad struck on the reef at Cape Cruz. About ten minutes before, we struck on a small lump of rock. We saw the reef all the day before, but the ship's course was not altered to avoid it. I was acting under the orders of the captain when the ship struck. He was on deck all the night. She struck about half-past two o'clock in the morning. The captain never was on deck all night before. A man named Simpson was at the helm, and the captain told him to run away, or he would get hurt. The crew came on deck and spoke to the captain. The ship did not make a drop of water that night. I sounded one of the pumps frequently. No orders were given to the crew to get the ship off the reef, and he went below. In my judgment, the ship might have been got off, as the vessel was making no water. The captain left all the sails up. The crew were willing to work if they had been directed. If an anchor had been put out and her sails dowsed, she might have got off. A canoe came off to us. There were Spaniards in it, and the captain asked if there was a town near, and he was told there was one about thirty miles over the mountains. The Spaniards also said there was a consul ashore. The captain went ashore in the boat. He came back and said he had been to the Spaniard's house. The crew, with the exception of Simpson and myself, went ashore. The ship made no water at this time. When the captain was ashore, we made sail with the other boat and went round the ship. At her stern we found a cigar-box and a bolt attached to it. The water was clear, and we took it up. We found several letters and some leaves of the log-book in it. Loose came back from the shore that night, and the next day he had a conversation with me and the crew. He took the long-boat with him and we all went to Jamaica, where the protest was noted. We kept the letters, and at one time produced them to the captain, and he snatched them away from Simpson, and gave him four pound-notes for them. This was two days after we got to Jamaica. After we went to Jamaica, none of us went back to the vessel. Before I left the ship I found a hole under her stern. No rock could make such a hole. It was big enough to admit my shoulders. The previous day she made no water, and I told the captain so. It was on the evening of the next day I discovered the hole. The weather was not at all boisterous then. The position in which the ship was could not account for the hole. I sounded her after finding the hole, and found five feet of water in the hold. The next day we left for Jamaica. The vessel could then have been got off. I saw the hole from the inside. It was in the state-room, which was locked. The captain saw it plainly, being in the cabin where it was. From the time we struck upon the Silver Keys the crew kept their clothes in bags in readiness to leave the vessel, expecting she would get upon a reef. It is my opinion that the ship was wilfully cast away by the captain.

The witness, in cross-examination, admitted that he had sworn to the protest which had been drawn up at Jamaica, and had stated in it that he believed the vessel to have been accidentally lost. He stated that the effect of the contents of the papers which he had picked up when the vessel was on the rocks was an intimation from the captain that he had cast away the ship intentionally; but he also said that the cigar-box in which they were contained lay at a depth of six fathoms, and that he had fished it up with an oar. He imagined that Loose had himself cut the hole which was found in the stern of the ship.

Other evidence was given, from which it appeared probable that Captain Loose was dead, and by which the various sums of money received on account of the policies of insurance were traced to the possession of the two prisoners.

Mr. C. Phillips, on behalf of Patrick Wallace, addressed the jury in a powerful speech, urging that the evidence of Shooltz was not worthy of credit, and that without that evidence the case was incomplete; and also contending that the policies of insurance which had been effected were by no means so excessive in their amount as to lead to the positive conclusion that they had been effected with a view to the destruction of the vessel. He alluded with great force to the death of Loose, and his consequent inability to put such questions on the cross-examination of the witnesses as might lead to the development of the truth; and he urged that the jury having found that a protest was made at Jamaica, describing the loss of the vessel to have been accidental, which was signed not only by Shooltz, but by four other persons besides him, and the captain, they would take that to be the truth, and would on that ground acquit the prisoner.

Lord Chief Justice Tindal summed up the case to the jury, and after some consideration they returned a verdict of "Guilty."

On the next morning Michael Wallace was put upon his trial; but, as we have already stated, the facts proved against him were so precisely similar to those which were adduced in evidence in the case of his brother, that they need not be detailed. At the end of the second day's trial, after a speech to the jury from Mr. Jervis, who appeared for the defence of this prisoner, in which he again urged the same topics which formed the grounds of defence in the former case, a verdict of Guilty was returned.

The two brothers were then placed at the bar to receive sentence.

The Lord Chief Justice in delivering judgment said that it would of course depend upon the decision upon the point of law whether the punishment which he should direct them to undergo would be carried out. The prisoners had been found guilty, after fair and impartial trials before intelligent juries, of the offence of having feloniously incited one Edmond Loose, the captain of the ship Dryad, wilfully to cast away that ship for the purpose of defrauding the underwriters. He felt bound to say that he was perfectly satisfied with the verdicts which the two juries had found in the respective cases of the two prisoners. It was an offence of very grave importance, tending to check the spirit of mercantile adventure, and the commerce of this country, because it was aimed at defrauding those persons upon whose responsibility much of that adventure and commerce depended. It was to be observed that the loss in this case had fallen upon the underwriters, and the checking of their business might produce serious results. The effect of a policy of insurance was to cast upon a company a loss which, if it fell upon one individual only, might be ruinous in its consequences; and it could not but be observed that the numerous insurance companies of this city could no longer exist unless their proceedings were protected by the law, and offences directed against their fair and honest gains were punished with its just severity. In this case there were circumstances of great aggravation, because the result of the foul crime which had been committed might have been not only the loss of property, but of life. The penalty applied by the law to this offence was no longer capital. He rejoiced at that, but at the same time he felt that it was his duty to visit the offence of the prisoners with a severe punishment. The sentence of the court was, "That the prisoners should be transported beyond the seas for the respective terms of their natural lives."

The prisoners were then removed from the bar.

DAVID SAMS.

TRANSPORTED FOR BURGLARY.

The name of this hardened offender has been already before our readers, and his case will show how unavailing are the most solemn warnings to the mind naturally addicted to crime.

The first offence alleged against Sams was that of the robbery and murder of an old pensioner named Bennett, at Tewen, near Hertford. For that crime he was tried with two other young men named Roach and Fletcher at the Herts Assizes, when, although there appeared to be very little moral doubt that he had been the original concoctor of the scheme, and had actively assisted in the perpetration of the horrible crime imputed to him, owing to a failure of the necessary legal evidence as to his identity, he was acquitted, but his two unhappy companions were convicted and subsequently executed. Almost immediately after this, Sams committed another robbery, and was tried and convicted, and sentenced to six months imprisonment. Shortly after this period of imprisonment had expired, a young man named Thomas Taylor, who had also been charged with being concerned in the robbery and murder of the old man, was taken into custody, and upon his trial Sams was admitted as witness for the Crown, and he then detailed all the circumstances of the murder, and stated that it was committed by the two men who were executed, Taylor, and himself, and that they divided the money between them. Upon this evidence, and other corroborating testimony, Taylor was convicted and executed.

It might have been thought that such circumstances as these would have induced Sams to change his wicked courses, the more especially as some of the gentry in the neighbourhood of Hertford interested themselves in his behalf, and obtained him employment, whereby he might have earned a reputable subsistence, but he speedily resumed his old habits, and his employers could keep him no longer.

He now quitted the vicinity of the scene of his crimes and his disgrace, but, led on either by want or some worse inducement, he was again guilty on two separate occasions of acts of felony, for which he was apprehended and imprisoned.

On his discharge he was again thrown upon the world, and he once more ventured to the scene of his early life. Old recollections seem but to have reproduced new acts of crime, and at length he was secured while in the very act of breaking into a farmhouse at Ware. For this offence he was tried at the Spring Quarter Sessions for the county of Hertford, held in March 1841, the Marquis of Salisbury sitting as Chairman. The evidence was too clear to admit of a doubt being entertained, and a verdict of Guilty was returned.

The Marquis of Salisbury, in passing sentence, observed that he never knew an instance of so hardened a criminal as he appeared to be. He thought he should be neglecting his duty to the public if he did not pass upon him the severest sentence of the law; which was, that he be transported for the term of his natural life. The convict heard the sentence with the greatest coolness, and at its conclusion nodded to one or two of his old companions in the body of the court, and walked away laughing from the bar.

WILLIAM STEVENSON.

TRANSPORTED FOR LARCENY.

The charge preferred against this person, and of which he was found guilty, was that of stealing from his employers, Messrs. Mercer and Co., of the Maidstone Bank, a bag containing 500_l._ in gold. For this offence he was tried at the Maidstone spring assizes, on the 17th of March 1841, before Lord Denman, when the following remarkable facts were proved in evidence:--

It seemed that in the month of October, 1839, Mr. Mercer wrote to his London agents, Messrs. Masterman, the bankers, to remit to him fifteen hundred pounds in gold, and five hundred pounds in silver, and that sum was accordingly placed in seven bags, one containing a thousand pounds in gold, another five hundred in gold, and five bags, each containing one hundred pounds in silver, and the whole were placed in a box, of which Messrs. Masterman and Mercer had each a duplicate key, and the box was then committed to the care of Wallis, one of the Maidstone coachmen, to be conveyed to that place. The box was duly carried to Maidstone, and the prisoner, who acted as porter at Mr. Mercer's bank, was sent to fetch it, and he brought the box to the bank about seven o'clock in the evening, and it was taken from him by Mr. Mercer, jun., who unlocked it and took out the bags of coin, and, without examining them, placed them in the strong chest; but he observed that at this time there were only six bags, namely, one large one, which he supposed contained the fifteen hundred pounds in gold, and the five bags of silver. The next morning, upon the money being examined, it was found to be five hundred pounds short of the proper quantity of gold, and on a communication being made to Messrs. Masterman, the loss of the second bag of gold was discovered.

No clue whatever at this time could be obtained as to the perpetrator of the robbery, but no suspicion was entertained of the prisoner, and he was retained in the prosecutors' service until the following month of January, when, for some act of misconduct, he was dismissed. Shortly after this, the prisoner set up in business in the town as a grocer, and some other circumstances coming to the knowledge of the prosecutors, induced a suspicion that he was the thief, and a search warrant was obtained and placed in the hands of Faucett, the superintendant of the Maidstone police, who proceeded to the prisoner's house, and, upon searching it, he found a number of watches and time-pieces. When the prisoner was told by the officer what was the nature of the charge against him, he denied all knowledge of the robbery, and told him he might search where he pleased. The officer then asked what money they had in the house, and about seven pounds in gold and silver were produced by the prisoner's wife. He asked whether they had not got any more money, and the prisoner's wife went up to the bed-room with him, and she produced from between the bed and the mattress a bag, containing forty-five pounds in sovereigns and half-sovereigns. He also found an I O U for 10_l._, signed by a person named Merston, who proved that the prisoner lent him ten sovereigns upon it, and that he was paying him interest.

It was also proved that before the robbery the prisoner had only been in the receipt of a pound a week, and that he was in very poor circumstances; and it appeared that after he was discharged he had purchased two houses in Maidstone, for which he paid 350_l._, and the payment was wholly in sovereigns and half-sovereigns. Further it was shown, that the prisoner had taken the grocer's shop and had paid a considerable sum for good-will and stock in trade, without having any means to do so, except, as was suggested, by that of having committed the robbery.

Mr. Sergeant Shea made a powerful address to the jury on behalf of the prisoner, and said that the sole evidence by which it was sought to convict him of the crime imputed to him was his being in possession of an amount of money which the prosecutors chose to consider he could not have been possessed of by his own means. The learned counsel said, however, that he hoped to be able to satisfy the jury that the money the prisoner had spent was his own property.

Some witnesses were then called for the purpose of showing that at the various elections in the borough sums of money had been given to the prisoner, and it was elicited that a vote was always worth something, and one witness went so far as to say that he considered his vote worth 15_l._

Several other witnesses were examined, but although it was admitted that money had been given to the prisoner in sums of 8_l._ and 10_l._ at different times, the witnesses said the money was only given out of charity, and the evidence did not in the slightest degree show a probability of the prisoner being lawfully in the possession of the money he had expended.

Lord Denman then summed up the evidence, and went through the whole of it in the most careful and impartial manner, and concluded by leaving the case in the hands of the jury, who, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict of "Guilty."

The learned judge, addressing the prisoner, said that no person who had heard the evidence adduced could doubt, for a moment, that he was guilty of the offence imputed to him. It was a very serious one, and he felt himself called upon to pass a severe sentence. His lordship then ordered him to be transported for fourteen years.

JAMES INGLETT.

CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER.

The case of this unfortunate person excited considerable interest in the vicinity of the place where it occurred, as well on account of the peculiar circumstances by which it was surrounded, as of the great age and high respectability of character of the accused. Inglett at the time of his trial had attained the age of ninety-four years; he was indicted at the Huntingdon assizes on the 19th of March 1841, for feloniously killing and slaying one Elizabeth Harlett, by administering to her a quantity of arsenic.