The pathetic history of George Barnwell, the London apprentice; : who, by keeping company, and following the advice of a woman of the town, named Milwood, was reduced to the lowest pitch of infamy; detailing every particular of his guilty career, from the robbing of his master to the dreadful murder of his uncle! With the history of Maria, his sweetheart.

Date:
[1822?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathetic history of George Barnwell, the London apprentice; : who, by keeping company, and following the advice of a woman of the town, named Milwood, was reduced to the lowest pitch of infamy; detailing every particular of his guilty career, from the robbing of his master to the dreadful murder of his uncle! With the history of Maria, his sweetheart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wounded soul, His worse ten thousand times than death, with torture !” “ I care not what you call it,” said Milwood: “ I am willing to live, and live se¬ cure, which nothing but your death can warrant.” At this moment the servant had returned with two officers, and having entered the room, “ Here, Sir,” said she to one of the officers, “ take this youth into your custody ; I accuse him of murder, and will ap¬ pear to make good my chargewhereupon poor Barn¬ well was seized, and hurried off to prison. In the meanwhile his master had become acquainted, by Milwood's female servant, of the whole of her mis¬ tress's diabolical proceedings. Barnwell's master instantly repaired to the lodgings of the monster Mil- wood, and upbraided her for the villany of her beha¬ viour. Milwood tried to extenuate her guilt. “ Well may I,” says she, addressing herself to Barnwell's master, “ curse your barbarous sex, who robbed me of reputation ere I knew its worth; then left me, too late, to count its value by its loss. Another, and another spoiler came, and all my gain was poverty and reproach. My soul disdained, and yet disdains, dependence and contempt. Riches, no matter by what means obtained, I saw secured the worst of men from both; I found it therefore necessary to be rich, and to that end I summoned all my arts. You call 'em wicked; be it so; they were such as my conversation with your sex had furnished me withal. Men of all degrees and all professions X have known, yet found no difference, but in their several capacities; all were alike wicked to the utmost of their power. What are your laws, of which you make your boast, but the fool’s wisdom, and the coward’s valour, the instrument and screen of all your villanies ? By them you punish in others what you act yourselves, or would have acted, had you been in their circumstances. The judge who condemns the poor man for being a thi^f, had been a thief himself, had he been poor.