Volume 1

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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    The priest, it seems, still did not abandon himself to his fate ; for in a few days it was discovered that he and six more condemned rebels had sawed olV their irons, and were about to attempt an escape. The instrument with which they ctfccted this was prepared for the purpose by a new and curious method, and has been thus described :—‘ They laid a silk handkerchief singly over the mouth of a drinking-glass, and tied it hard at the bottom ; then struck the edge of a case-knife on the brim of the glass, (thus covered, to prevent noise,) till it became a saw\ With such knives they cut their irons, and, when the teeth were blunt, they had recourse to the glass to renew them. A knife will not cut a handkerchief when struck upon it in this manner.’ Cappock, with nine other con- victed rebels, was hanged at Car- lisle, on the 18th of October, 1746. In consequence of these convic- tions many estates were forfeited to the crown ; but King George II. ordered them to be sold, and the whole produce, above twenty years’ purchase, to be given to the orphans of those who had forfeited them. The rest was employed in establish- ing schools in the Highlands, and instructing the natives in useful arts. To enumerate the different trials of the rebels convicted and exe- cuted would nearly fill one of our volumes; and, having given the out- lines of the treason in which they were all implicated, a recapitulation of the evidence, to the same tenor, is unnecessaay. Let it therefore suffice to say, that numbers were executed in different parts of Eng- land, and many of their heads placed on prublic buildings; and others transported to America. Vet we think our readers would be gratified by a knowledge of the escape of the leading man in this desperate insurrection—the young Pretender; and to this end we have selected the following interest- ing and genuine account : ‘ The decisive engagement of Culloden was fought on the 16th of April, 1746, in which the Pretender had his horse shot under him by one of the troopers in the king’s service, as he was endeavoring to rally his people. After his forces were entirely defeated, he retired to the house of a factor of Lord Lovat, about ten miles from Inver- ness, where, meeting with that lord, he stayed supper. After supper was over he set out for Fort Au- gustus, and pursued his journey- next day to Invergarry, where he proposed to have dined ; but, finding no victuals, he set a boy to fishing, who caught two salmon, on which he made a dinner, and continued waiting there for some of his troops, who had promised to rendezvous at that place; but, being disappointed, he resolved to proceed to Lochhar- ciage. ‘ lie arrived there on the 18th, at two in the morning, and went to sleep, which he had not done before for live days and nights. He re- mained there till five o’clock in the afternoon, in hopes of obtaining some intelligence ; but gaining none, he set out from thence on foot, and travelled to the Glen of Morar, where he arrived the 19th, at four in the morning, lie set out about noon the same day for Arrashag, where he arrived about four in the afternoon. lie remained here un- til joined by Captain O’Neil on the 27th, who informed him that there were no hopes of drawing his troops together again in a body, upon which he resolved to go to Storn- way, in order to hire a ship to sail for France. ‘ The person employed for this purpose was one Donald M‘Leod,