Part 59

On the night of the 2d of November, the elder of Mr. Hancox's sons was in the homestead or farm-yard attached to his father's house, when he observed three men approaching whose appearance was strange to him, and whose intentions he was disposed to believe were not honest, as the farm was considerably out of the main road, and nearly two miles from any other house. He determined, therefore, to retire to the cover of the dwelling to procure the assistance of his father and brother, in case of any intention to commit violence being shown, in order by their united efforts to repel any attack which might be made. To reach the house in a direct line he sprang over the garden fence, but in taking the leap his foot caught something, and he fell to the ground. The approaching strangers by this accident were enabled to come up with him at the moment he entered the kitchen-door; and the young man, now convinced of their evil designs, called to them to know what they wanted, at the same time advancing to the fire-place to reach down a gun which was suspended over the mantel-piece, in accordance with the custom of most farm-houses of the district. An observation was made by one of the party, the precise nature of which was not heard; and young Hancox turning round to ascertain what was said, suddenly received in his face and eyes the greater portion of the contents of a pistol discharged by one of his assailants, consisting of small shot and sand. The unfortunate young man blinded, and for a moment deprived of his senses, fell to the ground; but his father entering the kitchen at the moment of the discharge of the pistol, was also wounded by some of the shot. The disturbance created by this sudden attack instantly attracted to the spot the other inmates of the house; and Mrs. Hancox and her younger son directly afterwards entered the kitchen. They were, however, felled to the ground by the same ruffian who had fired the pistol; and then a second fellow armed with a sword advanced to them, and swore he would murder them if they made any outcry, or attempted any resistance.

Thus overpowered, Mr. Hancox at once perceived the uselessness of making any effort to prevent the object which he conceived his assailants to have in view--that of robbery; and the foremost villain, with the man who had hitherto taken no active part in the affair, instantly proceeded to ransack the house for valuables. Demanding that Mr. Hancox should first give him what money he had in his possession, they received from him a sum of 65_l._ in bank-notes and gold, and then they proceeded to the upper rooms to secure whatever portable articles they could find which might be worth being carried away. The daughters of Mr. Hancox had been dreadfully alarmed at the proceedings of the robbers in the kitchen, of which they had been partial witnesses, and terrified lest violence should be offered to them also, they had run in different directions from the house to the garden and out-houses, in order to conceal themselves. The two thieves on whom the task of searching the premises had devolved, had made their examination of several rooms, when they reached the apartment occupied as the sleeping-room of the eldest Miss Hancox. They had a light with them which reflected through the window, and the youngest Miss Hancox supposing that it was her sister going to bed, yet afraid to re-enter the house, which she knew the thieves had not yet quitted, threw a handful of gravel at the window. The boldest burglars, it is well known, may be easily alarmed, and so it proved in this case; the villains, whose consciences doubtless pictured to their minds the approach of powerful assistance to repel their attack, made a precipitate retreat from the house, carrying with them some articles of silver plate; and running in a direction contrary to that by which they had approached it, were soon lost to view in the darkness of the night.

Instant medical aid was now procured for Mr. Hancox and his son, who were suffering severely from the wounds which they had received; and the youngest son was despatched to Disley with intelligence of the outrage, and a request that assistance might be immediately afforded in searching for its perpetrators. The village soon sent forth all its male inhabitants to assist in the inquiry, but in vain; and after many hours' watching they were compelled to return home without having learned anything tending to convey any suspicion in their minds as to who were the guilty parties. Young Hancox, it was found, had been severely wounded both in the face and eyes, and to the grief of all it was ascertained that his eyesight had been destroyed entirely, and for ever.

On the following day information of the event was conveyed to London, together with such a description of the persons of the robbers as Mr. Hancox and his family were able to give. Their features had been

## partially concealed by red comforters which covered the lower part of

their faces, and by black crape: but Mr. Hancox and his family had a strong impression upon their minds of the general appearance of the men, whom they declared they should be able to recognise if they were again to see them.

Upon the facts of the case being stated to the magistrates at Bow-street, Ellis, an active and shrewd officer of that establishment, was instructed to exert himself in securing the offenders. A few inquiries on the spot were sufficient to put him upon a scent, which in the sequel proved the correctness of his judgment. Three brothers of the name of Berryman, natives of Gloucestershire, but now resident in London, were the persons to whom his suspicions attached the guilt of the transaction; but he found that he had wily game to follow. The apprehension of one without the others would have been to destroy his chance of complete success; for to let it be known that they were suspected, would be only to cause their instant flight. To secure his object, therefore, he had to act with extreme caution. He found that James Berryman, one of the brothers, was engaged as a journeyman hatter in the service of Mr. Straight, in Charlotte-street, Blackfriars-road, while his brother William, the youngest of the three, was occupied in the uncertain calling of selling pies and sweetmeats in the streets, his usual haunt being the neighbourhood of Goswell-street. The third brother, Thomas, was to be seen occasionally with each of his relations, but appeared to have no fixed occupation or employment. Ellis, with an assistant, a lad named Goodison, was for several weeks intent upon watching his prey without being able to find the favourable moment to pounce upon them, and disguised in almost every variety of costume he continued his observations of them. At length, on Wednesday morning, the 5th of December, he succeeded in finding them all together in Goswell-street, and closing upon them he secured them and carried them to Bow-street. James and Thomas Berryman were then instantly recognised by the younger son of Mr. Hancox, who had been awaiting their apprehension in London, as having been parties to the robbery, and Ellis declaring his impression that he should be able also to procure evidence against the third brother in Gloucestershire, they were all three ordered to be conveyed to Disley.

Upon their arrival there they were examined by a local magistrate, by whom they were remanded until a subsequent day. On that day James Berryman was distinctly sworn to as the man who had discharged the pistol, and his brother Thomas was recognised as having been one of his associates; but the third brother, William, against whom there was no proof whatever, was discharged out of custody. The testimony of the family of Mr. Hancox as to the identity of the prisoners was not left wholly unsupported, but by the indefatigable exertions of the officer other corroborative evidence was procured. This consisted of proof of the absence of the prisoners from London on the day before and the day after the robbery; of their arrival at Cirencester from London on the afternoon of the 2d of November in a van, and of their almost instant departure from that place in the direction of Disley; and finally, of their presence at the Bird-in-Hand public-house, about twenty-five miles on the London road, apparently foot-sore and fatigued, at mid-day on the 3d of November; and of their departure from that place in the evening in the waggon for London, and their subsequent arrival in the metropolis.

Upon this evidence the prisoners were committed for trial at the ensuing assizes; but Ellis was still convinced of the practicability of securing the third man, who had been engaged in this atrocious outrage. He had reason to believe that he was a relation of the Berrymans, named Desmond, _alias_ Hunt; and after considerable difficulty he at length succeeded in securing him by a stratagem, while he was working at his trade of a shoemaker in the Goswell-street-road.

This new prisoner, however, expressed his anxiety to disclose all he knew upon the subject; and although it was known that he was implicated in the transaction, the uncertainty of procuring his conviction operated in his favour, and he was admitted to give evidence for the prosecution.

On Saturday, the 6th of April 1833, the trial of James and Thomas Berryman took place. The testimony of all the witnesses tended at once to attach the guilt of firing the pistol to the former prisoner; and the latter was also positively identified as having been a party to the robbery. The statement of the approver confirmed the declarations of the other witnesses, and both prisoners were found guilty.

The superior atrocity of the conduct of the prisoner James Berryman, marked him as a fit object for the infliction of a punishment of a serious nature, and he was sentenced to death, while his brother received sentence of transportation for life.

The sentence of death was executed upon James Berryman at Gloucester, on Saturday the 20th of April.

RICHARD COSTER.

TRANSPORTED FOR FORGERY.

The name of Richard Coster will long be remembered in the city of London. A most accomplished and successful swindler, he for years succeeded in evading that punishment which was the just reward of his offences against society; but at length, like all other of his class, he over-reached his owning enuity, and met the fit return for his numerous frauds in a sentence of transportation.

We are not able to supply our readers either with the date or the name of the place of the birth of our hero, neither are we in possession of the mean of informing them who were his parents, or what was the sphere of life in which they moved. From the extent of the education of their son, however, it is pretty evident that their rank was considerably below that which may be denominated as the "genteel;" and the same conclusion may also be drawn from the very early period of life at which this most daring public depredator was placed "upon his own bottom," and sent forth to gain a living for himself. At an early age we find him at Oxford, and his first employment of any note was that of driving an errand-cart, between that city and London. In this humble occupation he continued for some years, and such were his industrious and penurious habits, that he at length realised sufficient money to start on his own account, in the "costermongering line," with a horse and cart of his own. In this business he soon found the importance of a connexion with the metropolitan trade, and ere long he located himself in London, a scene admirably adapted for the display of those peculiar talents which he possessed. He was not long there in forming acquaintances, and connexions with persons, whose advice and instruction were highly important to him, in the scenes in which he was destined to move. Horse chaunters, or copers, swindlers of all sorts, utterers of base coin, thieves, "et hoc omne genus," were his constant companions, and Coster now became the competent associate of all. He felt, however, that he had a genius above the situation in which he was placed, and that his present calling was beneath the position which he ought to fill, and he soon quitted dealing in apples, and, by the various gradations of a small horse-dealer, an occasional purchaser of the proceeds of the produce of his associates' plunder, and the other occupations commonly followed by such "men upon town," he at length started in the year 1810, in Queen-street, Bristol, as a general agent and bill discounter.

Here, however, he was unfortunate; for in the course of the year he became an inmate of Newgate, in that city, on a charge of obtaining goods by false pretences; but on this occasion he seems to have slipped pretty quickly through the hands of justice, for in the following year we find him at the head of the firm of Coster and Co., in Bread-street, St. Philip's, Bristol.

His retirement to Bristol appears to have taken place in consequence of the notoriety which he had gained in London; but in 1814 we find him again shifting his quarters back to the seclusion of the crowded metropolis, for a reason, apparently, no other than that which had before induced his migration from it; conjoined, however, with a desire to avail himself of the wider sphere of action which was presented to him in that city. At this period he located himself at No. 8, Eltham-place, Kent-road; but a short residence there satisfied him, and he removed to No. 204, High Holborn, from whence, in 1815, he again changed his quarters to No. 7, Bazing-lane. In the following year, as if to be as close to the good things of this life as possible, he carried on the business of an eating-house keeper, at No. 19, Noble-street, Falcon-square; but in the year 1818, he again appeared in the world of money, as a job-broker, at No. 5, Oat-lane, Wood-street, and at No. 22, Lower Smith-street, Northampton-square, while at the same time he acted as clerk to a Mr. Thomas Gray, provision merchant, No. 4, Berry-court, Love-lane, Wood-street.

In 1819, Coster removed to No. 3, Bridge-water square, Barbican, at which time he is still represented as acting clerk to the above Thomas Gray, at No. 1, King-street-terrace, Lower Islington, and No. 4, Cross-street, Finsbury. The following year (1820), he established himself (still retaining his locality in Bridgewater-square) at No. 4, Staining-lane, under the firm of Coates and Smith, and afterwards under that of Smith and Martin, of both of which he was the ostensible partner. In Staining-lane, he carried on business for a number of years; and only gave up this concern in 1829, to conduct, on a larger scale, his operations, under the firm of Young and Co., Little Winchester-street; and Casey and Coster, Great Elbow-lane, Dowgate-hill, Upper Thames-street.

In the course of these repeated changes of residence, and of avocation, however, Coster did not pass unnoticed, or unknown. In September 1825, he was indicted at the Old Bailey, together with a man named Frederick Wilson, described as of No. 35, Union-street, Moorfields, for a conspiracy to defraud; and at the same sessions, Wilson was convicted upon a charge of obtaining bills of exchange under false pretences, and sentenced to seven years' transportation. At the following sessions, too, Coster was also indicted for an offence precisely similar to that upon which his companion, Wilson, had been convicted. The prosecutor, in this case, it appears was a person named Marquet; and Coster, having first tried every means, and spent a large sum of money in endeavouring to escape from justice, at length succeeded in compromising the indictment with him, and in destroying all the evidence of his guilt which was in existence, namely, the bills which he was charged to have illegally obtained.

In February 1826, Coster was announced, by the report of the Society for the Suppression of Swindling, to have a warehouse in Little Britain; and in the May following his name was gazetted in the list of bankrupts. He had at the same time a counting-house at No. 5, New Union-street, Little Moorfields, under the firm of William Stoppe and Co., and was drawing bills on Messrs. John Heslop and Co., corn merchants and flour factors, South Town, Yarmouth, Norfolk; which were accepted, payable at Messrs. Esdaile and Co.'s, in connexion with Lacon and Co., Yarmouth Bank, indorsed "Major J. H. Montgomery."

In June 1827, Coster is proclaimed as circulating bills to a large amount in Bristol, and elsewhere; and in the report of the Society of the following September, we find it stated, that "Richard Coster, so often mentioned, has procured his admission, under the feigned name of De Coste, into the Honourable Society of Freemasons, at the Burlington Lodge, No. 152."

The Swindling Report for the 23rd of January 1828, localises our worthy at No. 111, Hatton Garden; and in the March following we trace him to the Queen's Arms-yard, Newgate-street, where he kept an office, while at the same time he had another place of business at No. 9, Parliament-street, Westminster, under the name of Davis and Co., together with a feather-bed manufactory, at No. 19, Macclesfield-street, City-road, under the name of Smith and Bruce; and a Wharf, at No. 11, City-road Basin, in the name of Smith. In the course of the same year, this most determined swindler is announced as having a house at No. 14, Dorset Crescent, New North-road; as having procured gloves and silk manufactured goods in the name of Wright and Co., Little Winchester-street; and as having premises at No. 2, York Wharf, Jew's Harp Basin, in the name of J. Smith; "And I am also directed to inform you (says the secretary to the Society for the Protection of Trade), that Young, Richards, and Co., No. 5, Upper Thames-street; Young and Co., No. 6, Little Winchester-street, Broad-street; Brown and Co., No. 3, Cushion-court, Broad-street; and Yates, Smith, and Co., No. 3, Cushion-court, Broad-street, are firms belonging to Richard Coster, so often noticed."

In the following July, Coster is again alluded to in this report, as having a residence at No. 1, James-street, Kent-road, and another at Myrtle Cottage, Goswell-terrace, Goswell-street-road; and in the following October there appeared in the Gazette a formal notice of the dissolution of partnership between Richard Coster and William Cunningham, of No. 4 Staining-lane, merchants, warehousemen, and general dealers.

It would be useless to go through the vast variety of places of residence and of business which Coster occupied, as well as of the denominations of trades which he carried on up to the year 1833, when he was taken into custody. A bullion dealer, in Little Winchester-street; he was driven thence to Great St. Helens, and to Primrose-street, Bishopsgate. A coral dealer at the latter place he was again discovered and proclaimed; and at length he pitched his stall in New-street, Bishopsgate, the most fortunate of all his speculations, so far as the extent of business which he transacted went, but the most unfortunate considering the result of his proceedings here, namely, his conviction and transportation.

While, however, we have thus described the wanderings of Mr. Coster from house to house, and from business to business, we have not as yet acquainted our readers with the measures by which he was so successful in his cheating schemes. The following copy of a circular issued by him, headed "Accommodation," in large black letters, supported by the emblems of masonry, gives a fair sample of his mode of raising the supplies.

He commenced his leading documents thus--with all the pomp and parade of a recruiting-sergeant at a country fair to catch his flats:--

"Merchants, manufacturers, farmers, graziers, tradesmen, and persons of respectability in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, or in any foreign part, may have good London accepted bills of exchange procured for them, regularly drawn, accepted, and indorsed, and, if necessary, specially indorsed to them, at any dates and for any amount their circumstances may require; or they may be allowed to draw themselves on respectable and responsible houses in the city of London, and which will be regularly accepted when presented for that purpose, provided, the drawers advise of such bills being drawn, and enclose the commission of eight-pence in the pound (otherwise they will be disowned). These bills they get easily discounted at their country bankers, or amongst their private monied friends; and in some cases pay them for merchandise, even on their own respectability, and, when they become due, they remit to us, or any friend in London, the money to pay the same; and in case they are incapable of taking them up, they again apply to us in sufficient time to procure them fresh bills, say upon B, which they instantly get discounted, and with the proceeds thereof pay the first they negotiated upon A; and so they go on until such time as their own produce or property turns into advantage, so as to enable them to do without this accommodation or temporary aid. By this mode money to any amount may be raised, according to the circumstances and situation of the borrower, at about seven per cent., the object of which is trifling, when compared to the advantage a man of business may receive from being furnished with plenty of money to speculate and trade with."

The eightpence in the pound spoken of as being required to be transmitted, and not unfrequently bills to which the poor dupes were induced to put their signatures, were invariably disposed of by the London negotiator, who failed not to reap the profit himself, which he professed generously to give to his country agents.

The conclusion of this document is equally well worth perusal with its commencement, and serves at once to stamp our hero as the very prince and leader of all swindlers.

"He must be a bad merchant, tradesman, or agriculturist," says Coster, "who cannot always make from fifteen to twenty per cent. of money. Some persons, for want of knowing this system of raising money, are obliged to sacrifice their property by locking it up in mortgages for one half its value, and spend the other half in paying solicitors' enormous bills, and expenses of mortgage deeds, &c. We have particularly to observe, that the parties pay all expenses of postage, to and from, also bill stamps, and our net commission of eightpence in the pound, which commission, with money for stamps, &c. must be remitted before we send the bills. We also have respectable references from the parties, before we accommodate them, to some of their friends in London (if any), otherwise in the country (the strictest secrecy and delicacy being observed in the inquiry), to know if they are really respectable, and an acknowledgement or undertaking when they receive such bills of accommodation, stating that they received them for the express purpose, and will pay them when due. When any bills become due, if the money is remitted to us, or goods equivalent thereto, a day or two beforehand, we will at all times pay them here, without any extra charge whatever; and for any money which may be entrusted to our care, if the parties have not friends here, for taking up the bills when due, or any goods that may be consigned to us for sale, on commission, we can give security and references on our part of the highest respectability."

An instance of his success under this circular may not be uninteresting.