Volume 2

The Newgate calendar; comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the laws of England since the commencement of the eighteenth century; with occasional anecdotes and observations, speeches, confessions, and last exclamations of sufferers / By Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin.

  • Knapp, Andrew.
Date:
1824-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Newgate calendar; comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the laws of England since the commencement of the eighteenth century; with occasional anecdotes and observations, speeches, confessions, and last exclamations of sufferers / By Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    April 30, at Fontenoy ; the third was at Luckland, by siege; besides several skirmishes, and other great dangers. I had rather it had been my fate to have died in the field of battle, where I have seen many thousands wallowing in their blood, than to come to such disgrace ; but, alas ! I have escaped all these dan- gers to come to this unhappy fate, to suffer at Tyburn, and afterwards to hang in chains on a gibbet, which last is the nearest concern to me; and I cannot help thinking that it would be more beneficial to the public to employ blacksmiths to make breast-plates for the sol- diers, than irons to enclose their bodies, to be exposed to the fowls of the air. ‘ I have been a true subject and faithful servant, as is well known to the officers of the regiment to which 1 belonged. If I had been a pick- pocket or a thief, I should have suffered much more deservedly, in my own opinion than I now do ; for what 1 did was in my own de- fence. I was upon the king’s duty, and was assaulted by the men in sailors’ habits, who gave me so many hard blows, as well as so much bad language, that I could no longer bear it, and was obliged to draw my sword in my own defence ; and being in too great a passion, as well as too much in liquor, I own I struck without mercy ; as think- ing my life in danger, surrounded by four men, who I thought de- signed to murder me ; who or what they were the Lord knows ; it is plain they had a false pass, as was proved ; and that they had travelled but seven miles in nine days; but 1 forgive them, as I hope forgive- ness ; and the Lord have mercy on my soul, and the poor man’s whom I killed. 4 W. Whuruier.’ Whurrier was executed at Ty- burn on the 7th of March, 1748, and his body afterwards hung in chains on Finchley Common. The crime of this man seems to have arisen from a sense of injury, inflamed by intoxication ; and af- fords a strong lesson against the vice of drunkenness ; a vice which, depriving a man of his reason, does but at the best level him with the brufes, and frequently reduces him many degrees below the rest of the animal creation. Sobriety, in itself a virtue, is na- turally productive of a thousand others. The mind that is calm and composed is fitted for the practice of all its duties; while, on the con- trary, the devotees of debauchery are as useless to the public as they are unhappy in themselves. GEORGE COCK, EXECUTED FOR 1’RlVATET.Y STEALING. This artful rogue was born in the neighborhood of Aldgate, and at a proper age apprenticed to a peruke-maker in Spitalfields; but he absconded before the time ex- pressed in his indenture was ex- pired, and his master, judging him to be strongly disposed to disorderly and profligate courses, took no measures to induce his return. Cock lived seven or eight years as errand-boy and porter to several tradesmen, none of whom had rea- son to suspect that he purloined their property: but he was held by them in no esteem, on account of his being frequently intoxicated, and associating with people of dis- solute principles. It is natural to suppose that the abandoned com- pany he kept increased his inclina- tion to a life of idleness, and proved