Part 3

"Preparations were now made for the second meeting, fixed for the 2nd of December, and young Watson and I were sent out to collect subscriptions for defraying the expenses, and also for the purpose of inspecting gunsmiths' shops, and to see where the arms and ammunition were situated about the Tower, and amongst the various wharfs and gun wharfs, and the establishments of those gentlemen who served the ships, such as ship chandlers, and ship brokers, to ascertain where balls, canister, and grapeshot might be found, and what quantity there was. We also examined the oil-shops where there were any combustibles, such as oil, turpentine, and such things, and regularly reported to the committee every night what was done.

"Among other things, it was proposed at one of the meetings of the committee, that we should get a couple of hundred young women together, and dress them in white, who were to walk first, in order to take off the attention of the soldiers. We were all actively employed in distributing bills announcing the meeting for the 2nd December, and in going from one public-house to another to secure the co-operation of the soldiers and labourers; and I hired a waggon to be taken to Spafields to be used as a stage for the speakers: young Watson and I were also employed in purchasing fire-arms for our own party. Flags and cockades were then prepared and delivered into my custody. On the morning of the day of meeting, we assembled at the Black Dog in Drury-lane, and it was agreed that the colours should be affixed to the staff, and that in the event of any of the civil authorities interfering they were to be shot, or run through. Some bullets and slugs were put into an old stocking, and tied in an old dirty white handkerchief, in order to be carried to the waggon. I afterwards found Keens preparing the banner, bearing the inscription "The brave Soldiers are our Friends, treat them kindly," and I then went to the place whither I was ordered, namely London Bridge, to meet the smiths, but I found everything quite quiet, and saw no one I knew. I next proceeded to Tower Hill, and I found the gates shut, and an extra sentry on duty, and on inquiring I found that the gates were closed on account of the meeting. I afterwards went to the Bank, which was also closed, and then to Little Britain, and there I met a great mob headed by Dr. Watson, with his dirk-stick drawn, and Thistlewood. I inquired where young Watson was, and his father answered 'To the Tower, first to the Tower! or we shall be too late.' They passed on, and I lost sight of them, and afterwards on my seeing Keens, he told me what had occurred at Spafields, that he had been in the waggon, that he was afraid that he had left the balls and bullets behind him.

"We afterwards overtook Mr. Hunt going towards Spafields; he was in a landau; and I stopped him and asked him why he was so late; he inquired what was the matter; I answered, that Dr. Watson had gone to attack the Tower. Keens and I then went towards the Tower, and stepped into a gunsmith's shop, and stopped some time. After that, I saw young Watson close by the Bank, at the back of the Exchange; he had in his hand a drawn sword, and was encouraging the mob to follow him. A great many were firing in the air: there were about two hundred men and boys.

"I then left young Watson, and went to Tower Hill, where I saw old Watson and Thistlewood; they went up close to the Tower rails, and seemed to be addressing themselves to the soldiers across the walls of the Tower, but I was not near enough to hear what was said. They turned up the Minories to go to Spafields, to get a greater force, as the soldiers did not seem to take any notice of them; but when near the top, thirty or forty soldiers met them, and the mob threw down their arms and ran away. I walked forward with the soldiers as if I had nothing to do with it, till the soldiers had passed me, and then turned back again, and went down towards Tower Hill. At the corner of Mark-lane, I went into a little public-house, and stopped until nearly dark, when I went to No. 1, Dean-street, where I arrived about six or half-past six o'clock. I found there the two Watsons, Preston, and Thistlewood. The elder Watson and Thistlewood began to pack up their linen, as if going away. I inquired where they were going to, and Thistlewood said, they were going a little way in the country, and we should hear from him in the course of a day or two. I inquired what had become of Hooper, and he said, Hooper was taken with the colours, and some of us must expect to be taken. I inquired if young Watson had shot anybody, and he said he did not know, but that he was perfectly well satisfied that the people were not ripe enough to act. We parted a little after; he and the two Watsons went away together about seven o'clock, but I stopped at the public-house until near dark."

On his cross-examination it appeared that this witness was a government spy, and that his morals admirably fitted him for such an employment. There were few crimes, short of murder, with which he was not made to charge himself.

On the close of the case for the prosecution Mr. Wetherell proceeded to comment on the evidence which had been given, in a strain of argumentative eloquence which evinced at once the deep lawyer and brilliant advocate.

On the 6th day of the trial Mr. Hunt and several other witnesses were called whose testimony went to impeach the credit of Castles and others for the prosecution, after which counsel was heard for the prisoner, and the attorney-general spoke in reply.

Watson having declined to make any defence after the ability displayed by his counsel, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to charge the jury, who returned a verdict of acquittal, founded apparently upon the incredibility of the testimony of the witness Castles.

The subsequent proceedings against Thistlewood and his companions, which terminated more unfavourably for the safety of the former, will be given hereafter.

PATRICK DEVANN.

EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF THE LYNCH FAMILY.

In the county of Louth in Ireland, and at the distance of about nine miles from the town of Dundalk, stood some years ago a house called Wild-Goose Lodge--a name conferred upon it from its whimsically chosen situation on a small peninsula jutting into a marsh meadow, which was occasionally transformed into a lake by the winter floods of the Louth. In summer, the residence was reached from the meadow without difficulty; but during winter, the case was very different, it being then approachable only by a narrow neck of land hemmed in by the surrounding waters. At a period to which we refer, Wild-Goose Lodge was tenanted by an industrious man, name Lynch, and his family. Lynch had been successful in improving a few fields attached to his dwelling, and somewhat elevated above the yearly inundations; he was in the habit also of raising a considerable quantity of flax, which he manufactured into cloth, and carried to the adjoining markets of Dundalk or Newry, where it was readily sold to advantage. By these means he rose in respectability among his neighbours, and comfort and contentment smiled around his dwelling. But an evil hour came, and he himself was unhappily in some measure instrumental in bringing it on.

An illegal association, bound by secret oaths, sprung up among the Roman Catholics living around Wild-Goose Lodge. Lynch, though a moderate man, believed that such a combination, on the part of those who held the same opinions with himself, was necessary to counteract similar demonstrations on the opposite or Protestant side, and he therefore joined the association. A very short time sufficed to show him the imprudence of his conduct. Wild-Goose Lodge was a central point in a remote and secluded district; and the members of the association, not without the countenance at first of the occupier, began to make the house their usual point of assemblage. Their numbers, however, speedily increased so much as to submit the family to great inconvenience; and their views, besides, so far exceeded Lynch's own in violence, as to place him under just apprehensions lest he should be held as the leading promoter of all that might be said or done by those who made his dwelling their nightly haunt. Forced to act, in this dilemma, for the sake of himself and his family, he came to the resolution of desiring his neighbours to assemble no more under his roof. This interdict excited a strong feeling of ill-will against him among the leaders of the combination, and they afterwards habitually gave him every annoyance they could think of, with the view of ejecting him from the place.

Once liberated, in some degree, from the consequences of his imprudence, Lynch persisted in the line of conduct he had entered upon. The result was, that one night a party of men, disguised, entered his house, stripped him in presence of his family, and after flogging him, destroyed his furniture, insulted his wife, and cut the web in the loom from the one selvage thread to the other down to the beam on which it rested. These wanton injuries to an honest, industrious, and (leaving aside his junction of an illegal union) well-conducted man, were galling and hard to bear. Lynch was the husband of an amiable, affectionate wife, and the father of a young family, depending on him for subsistence. If he did bear it in silence, further injuries might follow, and himself, with the wife of his bosom and his helpless babes, be deprived of their all, and thrown upon the world to beg for subsistence. Again, to denounce those with whom he had joined in an oath, was a proceeding not only full of danger, but to which Lynch could with difficulty bring his mind. Anxious and irresolute, he appealed to the minister of his religion for protection, but it was of no avail. His midnight persecutors continued to harass him; and at last, seeing the ruin of his family inevitable, unless he bestirred himself, and being able to point out and identify those who had injured him, Lynch determined to brave the anger of his assailants, and appeal to the laws of his country. Having formed this resolution, he held to it, in spite of the most awful and ominous endeavours to intimidate him; and two of the party, who had attacked his house, were prosecuted, convicted, and suffered death.

Terrible was the wrath of the secret associates, among whom it chanced there were some men of such characters as are happily rarely to be met with in the world. One of the oaths taken by this body was, that no one member should bring another before the bar of justice. Certainly this oath, bad as it was in every sense, never contemplated that one member was not to resent the gross injuries done to him by another. But, as might have been anticipated from the previous exhibition of feeling, Lynch was held, in the strongest sense of the word, to have violated the oaths he had taken.

Not far from Wild-Goose Lodge stood a chapel, where the association met after the ejection of its members from the house of Lynch. The leading man of the body, Patrick or Paddy Devann, was clerk to the priest of the district, and had the charge of the chapel. Within this building, consecrated for widely different purposes, the midnight band assembled on a night destined by the leaders of the party for the destruction of the unfortunate Lynch. Devann, the principal agent in the scene, in order to make a deeper impression on the minds of the crowds present in the chapel, assembled them around the altar, and after administering an oath of secrecy to them, descanted on the falling off of Lynch, and the necessity of suppressing all defections among themselves. He then darkly hinted the object of the meeting to be Lynch's punishment, and hoped that it would serve as a warning to them all to be firm to the obligations on which they had entered, and true to the interest of the body. Having finished his address, Devann then lifted from before the altar a potsherd containing a piece of burning turf, and, moving from the chapel, desired them to follow him.

Some scores of the band were on horseback, having come from distant places at the imperative summons sent to them. Many more were on foot; and all these moved stealthily onwards, Devann preceding them, towards the devoted victim. To the credit of human nature it must be stated, that few of this numerous party had the slightest idea of what was intended by the originators of the movement. As the men went along, they were inquiring among themselves in whispers, what was to be done; even those who had heard Devann's threats did not believe that they would be enforced, or that any further injury would be done than had been inflicted before.

Silence reigned along the party's route, as they approached the abode of the unoffending, unsuspecting, and sleeping family.

While the majority of the persons present still remained ignorant of what was to be accomplished, but obeyed their leaders passively, an extensive circle of men was formed by Devann's directions around the devoted dwelling. Then those few who were aware of all the enormity of the project, crept forward along the ground towards the house, the pike in one hand and the lighted turf in the other. Well did the wretches know that there was no chance of escape for those within, for the house was filled with the flax by which poor Lynch made his bread; and as soon as it was caught by the flame, extinction was a thing next to impossible. The turfs were applied, and in a few minutes the house was on fire--with a family of thirteen souls beneath its blazing roof! The flames rose towards the sky, and illuminated the adjacent scene. Speedily were heard from within the supplicating cries of the miserable victims, "Mercy! for God's sake, mercy!" But the cry was vain. So far from evincing any feelings of compunction while the work of destruction was going on, the wretches who had caused it stood ready with their pikes to thrust back those who might attempt to escape. One attempt was made to move their pity; and had the men hearts, they must have been moved. The wife of Lynch, while her own body was already enveloped in flames, had endeavoured to preserve the infant at her breast, and she appeared at the windows, content to die herself, but holding out her child for mercy and protection. Frantically she threw it from her. And how was it received? On the points of pikes, and instantly tossed back into the burning ruins, into which at the same time sunk its hapless mother. One other only of those within, and this was a man, one of Lynch's assistants, appeared on the walls, beseeching for mercy; but he likewise received none. The veins of his face were visible, swollen like cords, and horror was painted on his whole aspect. He, and all who were within, perished. Lynch himself, either cut off early, or resigned to his fate, never appeared, either to denounce the act of his persecutors, or to supplicate their pity.

It is impossible to say with what feelings the main party encircling the house at a little distance beheld the consummation of the purposes of the night. The majority of them certainly felt horror, while others, in whose mind a blind hatred of Lynch was predominant, felt mingled sensations of horror and exultation; and the conjoined feelings expended themselves in cries, that were re-echoed by the groans of the victims. The terrified peasantry of the neighbourhood who had not joined the associated throng, started from their pillows, and gazed towards the ascending flames of Wild-Goose Lodge with fear and shrinking; for they too well

[Illustration: _Burglars attempting to roast Mr. Porter._

_P. 17._]

knew the feelings of the district to regard it as a common accident, which it would have been their duty and their pleasure to have aided in suppressing and relieving. Until all sounds of life, therefore, were extinct within the burning house, the authors of the deed looked on undisturbed. When all was over, they skulked away, each to his own home.

The winds of autumn and the storms of winter had swept the ashes of Wild-Goose Lodge over the fields which Lynch had cultivated, ere any one of the actors in this atrocious crime was brought to justice. But the presence of some of the less guilty of them having been discovered, and brought home beyond a doubt, these, in order to save themselves, made a revelation of all they knew and had seen. Anticipating this, the ringleaders fled to various parts of the country; but the arm of the offended law overtook them. Devann was found in the situation of a labourer in the dockyards of Dublin, and others were taken at different times and places. Eleven were executed; and to mark the atrocity of their crime, their bodies were hung in chains at Louth and other spots in the neighbourhood of Wild-Goose Lodge. Devann was executed within the roofless walls of the house in which his victims were immolated, and his body was afterwards suspended beside those of his associates.

The date of his trial was the 19th of July 1817, and he was executed immediately afterwards.

JEREMIAH BRANDRETH, WILLIAM TURNER, AND ISAAC LUDLAM.

EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON.

IN an introductory paragraph to our account of the Spafields' riot we took occasion to mention the most prominent causes of public discontent; and though these had partially disappeared in 1817, still the impulse given to disaffection continued to operate for a considerable time, being protracted by the injudicious resort of Government to the system of spies and informers, who no doubt fanned that flame of disloyalty which had nearly caused a traitorous explosion in the county of Derby, more formidable and appalling than that for which Brandreth and his ill-fated companions suffered.

The agent for Government in the northern districts was a wretch named Oliver, and it is imagined by some that the miserable individuals whose names head this article were his victims.

The scene of this outbreak was Pentridge, Southwingfield, and Wingfield Park, in Derbyshire, a neighbourhood hitherto peaceable, and in which few would have looked for an insurrection of this kind.

Jeremiah Brandreth, better known by the name of the "Nottingham Captain," was one of those original characters for which nature had done much, and education nothing. Of his parents or early habits we know nothing; for on these subjects he maintained a studied silence, and all that was ascertained in reference to his life previously to his execution was that he had been in the army, and that he had a wife and three children, for whose support he was occasionally compelled to apply to the parish-officers for relief. His age was about twenty-six, and he is described as having presented a most striking appearance, from the exceedingly bold and resolute expression of his face.

Turner and Ludlam were both men of good character up to the time of their becoming parties to the transactions which cost them their lives. The latter had a wife and twelve children, and, being a regular attendant at a Methodist meeting-house, in the absence of the preacher conducted the prayers of the people.

These unfortunate men acted under a complete illusion. Formal statements of the number of the disaffected were given them, as well as the quantity of arms and ammunition collected, &c., accompanied with flattering pictures of the liberty, happiness, and wealth which were to wait upon success.

On the 5th of June, Brandreth came from Nottingham to the neighbourhood of Pentridge, to take command of the rebel forces; and on the 9th, they proceeded on their march for Nottingham, where it was reported, several thousands anxiously waited their coming, that they might unite in forwarding a revolution. Their numbers were truly contemptible, not exceeding forty or fifty; yet, small as they were, they committed several excesses, and Brandreth shot one harmless man. It was during the night that they commenced operations; and next morning, on the approach of a score of cavalry, they precipitately fled, leaving their arms scattered behind them. Several were then apprehended, and many more on the two or three ensuing days, and Brandreth was among their number.

To try these rebels, a special commission was issued, which was opened at Derby on the 15th of October 1817. Brandreth was the first put on his trial; and as the evidence against him was conclusive, he was found guilty. Turner and Ludlam were also convicted, as well as a young man named Weightman, whose sentence was afterwards commuted to transportation. Justice being now satisfied, twelve men pleaded guilty, and the remainder were discharged. Those who pleaded guilty received sentence of death, but were afterwards respited.

The unfortunate Brandreth, on being removed to prison, after his conviction, although he exhibited a manly firmness, was nevertheless much affected. The other prisoners thronged around him in anxious suspense to hear his fate; he uttered the single and appalling word--Guilty; and, in a moment, a perfect change was visible in the countenances of those whose lot was undecided.

Brandreth throughout his confinement seemed to have entertained a confident expectation of acquittal; and this hope appears to have rested solely on the supposed impossibility of identifying him, as he was a total stranger in that part of the country where the outbreak had occurred, and had, from the time of his committal, allowed his beard to grow, which completely shaded his whole face. The singular cast of his features, however, aided by the peculiar and determined expression of his eye, rendered his identity unquestionable; and almost every one of the witnesses swore to the person of the "Nottingham Captain." This wretched man, both before and after his conviction, evinced the utmost propriety of conduct. He appeared calm and happy, and exhibited great firmness in the contemplation of his unhappy fate.

His companions in misfortune, however, evinced much less fortitude for each appeared the very picture of despair. They attributed their melancholy fate to Brandreth and a fellow named Bacon, who, however, evaded the punishment due to his crime.

The execution of the convicts was fixed to take place on the 7th of November 1817, and at a quarter past twelve o'clock at mid-day they were carried to the scaffold on a hurdle.

The demeanour of Brandreth was calm in the extreme, and just before the drop fell he cried out to the people assembled, "God bless you all, and Lord Castlereagh." He died without a struggle; and when he had hung the usual half-hour, his head was removed and exhibited at the four corners of the scaffold, the executioner exclaiming, "Behold the head of a traitor!" From the manner of this functionary the mob were apprehensive that the head was to be flung in the midst of them, and they rushed back in great precipitation. They were, however, soon undeceived, and upon the same course being pursued with regard to Turner and Ludlam, they had regained their confidence.

ABRAHAM THORNTON.

TRIED FOR MURDER.