•*«?»• >A^i^ ,>^x^ '/,/7 !*' ' ( 1 OF THE U N IVLR5ITY or ILLINOIS V. \ ' ! Return this book on or before th( Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Lib rary UPR 2 <5^ NOU -8 IB 1EC231)77 '"M /5:5 JAN 2 3 1S78 JAN 2 it MAR 30 978 L161— H41 SCENES AND STORIES CLERGYMAN IN DEBT. WRITTEN DURING HIS CONFINEMENT DEBTORS' PRISONS. IX THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. " After seeing them properly accommodated for the night, I next attoided the sheriff's officers to the prison. « ♦ I expected, upon my entrance, to find nothing but lamentation and various sounds of misery, but it was very different * * I found the prisoners very mer^^-, and each prepared with some good trick to play upon ihe Doctor. * * In my opinion the heart that is buried in a dungeon is as precious as that seated upon a throne. * • And it were highly to be wished that legislative power would thus direct the law rather to reformation than severity."— Vicar of Wakefield. • LONDON: A. H. BAILY AND CO., CORNHILL. MDCCCXXXV. G. WOODFALL, angei, coikt, skinner street, London. V. 1 ?^ :5- SCENES AND STORIES CLERGYiMAN IN DEBT. VOL. I. DEDICATIOX, TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF AVELLIXGTON, My Lord Duke, I TAKE the liberty of dedicating these volumes to your Grace. Tlie reason why 1 have nut previously asked permission so to do, is, be- cause I do not consider that any Subject of this realm has a right to request the sanction of a Minister for a work which contains an}- one po- litical opinion, inasmuch as such sanction would be something in the nature of a pledge ; and a> DEDICATION. the question broached m these vohimes iiivoh-es many interests, and some rights, I would not, as an elector, demand a pledge from my repre- sentative on the hustings, still less insinuate one from a Minister of the Crown, Believe me, therefore, that in inscribing my work to yoiu: Grace, without pemiission, I do so from a feeling of strong respect. The book itself recommends a liberal measure, — the abolition of Imprisonment for Debt : — the recommendation comes from a conservative and a clergyman ; one, who in the latter capacity may be forgiven for having opposed your Grace in the measure of CathoHc Emancipation, and who in the former, claims no forgiveness for principles of which he cannot be too proud. In my unfortunate experience as a Prisoner for debt, I had laid it down as a maxim, that in a question so little affecting the mightier interests of the nation, and yet so intimately connected with the social ties of mankind, whatever was morally requisite must be politically right, and having come to the conclusion that " the abolition oflm- DEDICATION. prisonment for Deht^'' and at the same time, '* ihe increa^se of punishment for fraud,'' were both morally requisite — 1 was anxious to leave it to the opinion of society; but more especially to submit it to the consideration of a Minister, whe- ther or not they were politically right. My belief that they are., arises in the chiefest measure from my ot^ti experience, but I easily fancy that it acquires a consequence where backed by the opinion of the venerable Lord Eldon, so stroiigly expressed in a debate upon Slave Eman- cipation, when that respected nobleman was Lord Chancellor of the land : — His Lordship said " That the law of AiTest for Debt was a permission to commit acts of greater oppression and inhumanity than are to be met VTith in slavery itself — a permission to tear the father from his weeping children, the husband from the distracted wife, and to huny him to a dungeon to linger out a life cf pain and misery; and redressing these grievances would not he at- tended with any fatal consequences to the country.'''' DEDICATION. I say, my Lord Duke, that I believe this opi- nion gives a consequence to my argument; but when I add to it a part of the splendid refutation of Lord Lyndhui-st, the jnesent Lord Chancellor, to a bill brought forward by Lord Brougham, entitled * The Local Courts' Bill,' connected with the same subject — and yet even more oppressive to the debtor than the present law — I do think that your Grace will give that at- tention to the subject of my book, which I as an individual have no right personally to claim. Of that unhappy, and thank Heaven unpassed measure. Lord Lyndhurst said : — " It is a bill to enable a man of property to obtain judgement, to sue out execution, and to seize the property of the poor man, and to assign it to the Sheriff to sell it : to turn him and his family INTO THE STREETS IN SIX WEEKS. It is a Bill em- phatically to oppress the poor. It is a Bill to satisfy the creditor, by compelling the poor debtor to render him more speedy payment than could be obtained from the wealthy debtor. It is a Bill to DEDICATION. give the wealthy every possible facility of oppress- ing the man in the humble walks of life." And, my Lord Duke, exactly what such a bill would have been, in a less severe ratio the present law is. To impress this fact upon the conviction of those who, once being convinced could remedy the e^'il, is my earnest and religious object; and therefore I venture to dedicate to yoiu: Grace three volumes, full of examples of the iniquity of the law of Arrest. I am too humble an individual to point your Grace's attention to any legislative measure on my own account ; but I am ready to believe, that you have never left unconsidered an appeal from the many; and when I name the many in this case, I mean those whose intelligence has borne them quietly through their oppression,— and not a mob. In the name of such men, and with the high admi- ration and strong fidelity which I bear to the prin- ciples of honest Conservatism — always believing such principles to have been advocated by your DEDICATION. Grace — I take the liberty, my Lord Duke, of de- dicating to you these volumes. Upon their pages may be written many strange things — but nothing that is untrue — and, in pursuing the opinions which they contain, I would pray your Grace to forget the faults of the Writer in the earnest honesty of the man — and to believe, that while I would not re- cognise the smallest innovation upon the consti- tution, I should yet feel a pride in removing a law that was incompatible with its veneration and its fame ; and in increasing the liberty of the Subject — upon the only one point in which it seems to me to be incomplete — without infringing upon my loyalty for my Sovereign, the regard which I feel towards his present ministers, and the ad- miration I preserve towards England's holy Church. I have the honour to be. Your Grace's most obedient, humble servant, THE AUTHOR. January 5th, 1835. SCENES AND STORIES A CLERGYMAN IN DEBT. INTRODUCTION. THE PURPOSE OF OUR BOOK. " But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital ? " SHAKSPEARE. " To lighten a strange load." " The million rose to learn, and one to teach." SHELLEY. In several of the least advanced countries of Eu- rope the person of the Subject is held sacred by the constitution and the law. In France and England, the two most civilized kingdoms — most enriched with learning— most enlightened by phi- 4 INTRODUCTION. losophy — most warmed with the love of liberty — the case is the reverse ; thus presenting us with an anomaly in the history of civilization, totally irreconcileable with the new j)rinciples of the French, and the ancient and venerated glories of the English constitution. Imprisonment of the person for debt, no matter how contracted — no matter how unjust — has been, however, more se- vere in this country than in France, acting so as to make bad men rich out of the spoils of poverty — rich men poor out of the spoils of law. It has, we are prepared to prove, worked well but in a very few instances — alas! in how many has it cramped the exertions of industry— perverted the honesty of poverty— blighted the hopes of the struggling tradesman — crushed the noblest ener- gies of the professional aspirant— entailed ruin upon peaceful families — and finally, broken warm, generous, and affectionate hearts ! How often has it been the means of leaving children portion- less, and grey hairs without a shelter to the grave. A bitter experience has taught those who have known it, that the law which sanctions the THE PURPOSE OF OUR BOOK. 5 incarceration of the person, is a law witliout com- fort, without justice, without hope. It has fos- tered more crime, than our criminal code itself — because it has built the receptacles, and laid out the area in which hundreds and thousands have imbibed those principles, and leamt the elements of that demorahzation which has so effectually prepared them for the course that has its begin- ning in fraud — its progress in felony — and its final doom in transportation, or the leafless tree I Of these receptacles, these sad homes of wealthy dishonesty that will not — honest poverty that lenty of rooms in which spirits are procurable, although strictly forbidden in the prison, and these are of course smuggled in, in hats, bladders, petticoats, coal-sacks, or whatever else the smug- gler's ingenuity may devise. When we mention the hospital and nm'se's room, we believe we com- plete the description of the interior of the Fleet. Outside there is a strong room for refractory prisoners, and a good kitchen and bakehouse for THE FLEET PRISON. 123 refectory ones, so that a man on his bad be- haviour, with plenty of money, can never be at a loss for a good dinner or a black hole. Think of putting a man in a black hole for debt ! Having taken their turn round the interior of the prison, it became a point with Charles Mont- ford and his learned escort, to be solved in their own minds somewhat after the fashion of an enig- ma, how they were to spend the evening ! The Doctor commenced probing the difficulty, by ask- ing Montford to his room, whither they, at once repaired as a preliminary proceeding in their pur- pose of passing time. The Doctor's room was fairly furnished for a gaol. There was his French bed and his carpet, and his four chairs and his table, and his cup- board of eating and drinking utensils, and his gridiron to broil a chop on, and his looking-glass big enough to shave by, and the arched ceiling, and the bare white-washed walls, and we believe nothing else. But these were sufficient for a bachelor's uses, and for these, and the room itself. 1-24 THE FLEET PRISON. he paid the sum of two-and-thh'ty shillings a week, besides a chum. " Besides a chum," said Charles, when the fact was communicated, " and may I ask what a chum is ; I know what it is to be a chum in college, but a chum in gaol is beyond my imagination." " Nay," replied the doctor, " but it is a chum in college I mean : — this is a college — so called, and so allowed by all moralists to be. It is a col- lege of vice, in which we have many eloquent professors, and some apt scholars. The degrees run under different heads, the first being P. D. prisoner for debt, and very easy to obtain." " Easy indeed — here then am I, P. D. by in- stallation." "The next is, F.M.F. — Fellow of his Ma- jesty's Fleet, and requires some apprenticeship, — for instance, you must have attended for six months the lectiu-es of our professor of immorality. " And the highest degree ? " asked Charles. " Is an abreviation of that which I had the ho- honour to obtain from Oxford, L.D. — Doctor of THE FLEET PRISON. 125 haw — to be acquainted with which implies in this place, as in many others, a knowledge of every kind of roguery." ^' And your professors ? " '* Are skilful, particularly the Greek ! " " The tuition I suppose is reasonable ? " ^' Heavens, no ! far from it. — For instance, when you come in, you have to pay a fee of one pound six and eight-pence, entrance." " Is it possible ? I paid no such fee." " Even so, but you will have to pay it before you go out — it being one of the especial beauties of the English law of arrest, to send a man to prison as a punishment, and then to make him pay for the glorious privilege of going in." '•' And it would appear that this is not all, since you say that you have so large a sum to pay for your room.^ — One would have thought that having put you in gaol, they would at least give you a lodging gratis." " And so they do, but only mark how ; the prison unfortunately is always kept full, and every man waits his turn, so that by the time a man VOL, I. G 126 THE FLEET PRISON. has been in about a twelvemonth, he runs a chance of getting a room awarded him. — Thus it happens that the rooms are principally in the hands of those who come in on purpose to stay, because they can make a better livelihood in the prison than out of it — while prisoners for whom the accommodation is intended, who do not re- main longer than they are actually obliged — usually go out before their turn comes for a room — and therefore have, like me, the pleasure of paying thirty shillings a week during the whole term of their incarceration." " But cannot the warden put an end to so ne- farious a system ? " " Either he cannot, or if he can, does not. Perhaps it does not come within his province, for certainly in this particular respect he seems to look upon the prison as if it were a Cerberus barking out ' Noli me tangere^ and frightening him into leaving it alone." " Of which carelessness, we poor prisoners are the victims." " Exactly. With regard to what T have said THE FLEET PRISON. 127 about the rooms, you will find that they are little more than marts of traffic for the old birds. The whole Fleet, indeed, is inhabited by persons of the most plebeian cast: men— I speak of the re- gular dwellers — little above the calling of day- labourers, who have got in by a ruse, and who live by fleecing the new prisoners." " As how ? " " Nous verrons. Why they have remained long enough to obtain rooms, which they either convert into so many unlicensed spirit shops, or so many lodging-houses. A man w^ho could ne\ er have made more than a guinea a week at his own trade, puts half a dozen beds into a room, in the manner you have seen, and lets them out at half- a-guinea a week each; or he furnishes his apart- ment after the meagre fashion of this, and hires it to a gentleman for thirty shillings. And as the best rooms are given by seniority, all the most convenient apartments in the prison are in the hands of these fellows." " To one of whom I suppose / must apply." " Yes; unless you prefer going to the warden, g2 1*28 THE FLEET TEISON. who will put your name down, and you have only to wait a twelvemonth till your turn comes." " Thank you — a most vile durance, which I do hope to go away without suffering. But after all, you have not told me what is a chum." " Oh, I had forgot. AVhen the prison is too full to allow a room to each j^erson, they put in two— sometimes three; and 1 believe there have t)ccn instances of as many as four. In these cases, the after-comers are termed chums on the original inhabitant; who, if he and they agree, can pay them out by giving them four and six- pence a week ; but if they insist on sleeping in the room, he must give them their share, — which is unusually pleasant when there is a small fire- ])lace, of which you require the half— or a dark apartment, of which the chum would like the window side !" " Ay — or when you are a person of extremelj^ retired habits, and your partner insists on giving a ^soiree' to some friends who ^like a song,' in his half of the room." " Or when it is a very cold December day, and THE FLEET PRISON. 129 your chum determines on roasting a goose, and putting a screen before it to keep off the light, on the other side of which you are to sit blowing your fingers." " There," said Charles, " you have hit the ' summum bonum,' and I shall not seek to hunt out a new simile. But do tell me, how do you contrive to amuse yourself here ? I suppose you write." " Seldom. I meditate on books which I never begin, because I cannot get out to sell the ma- nuscript : and 1 begin pOems which I never finish, because they would be stock on hand if I did." " Of which poems, I suppose, these are spe- cimens," said Montford, about to raise one fi*om a heap of papers on the table, but holding back for permission. " Nay," replied the Doctor, you may look at them if you like; the fact is, I thought of writing a poem in the Don Juan stanza, about the Fleet, which I have abandoned, after scribbling this morning as much as you see." And it was a pity that the Doctor did not go on, 130 THE FLEET PRISON. for what Montford read was spirited enough — a sort of dedication in the manner of Byron, which, however, did not extend beyond the following five verses: — Oh bills ! oh credit ! and oh Common Pleas ! Black pirate-ship— whose captains are attorneys ; Whose ropes are writs — whose sails are costs and fees, — Cursed be the trades, that waft you on your journeys Whose sailors all are duns — whose very seas Are full of sharks — and homeward whose return is With cargoes fxiU — close stowed beyond your mizen, Of executions for a Debtor's Prison. II. Oh nimium fortunati — which I render Oh you too lucky dogs who never sail In such a ship of war ; whose only tender After impressment, is a debtor's gaol ; Where 'tis most disagreeable to render — But very honest — in discharge of bail. And where you are allowed to rest at will. Go through the court, or wait for Campbell's bill. III. To you— and also to some few solicitors, Drake — Dicas — Duncombe — Columbine or Score, Hopwood and Foster — legal, learn'd inquisitors. Who have their clients' welfare at the core Of hearts, whose proof against defendant visitom, Is in the parchment skins that cloak them o'er, THE FLEET PRISON. 131 And whom no tales of sorrow melt 'tis said. Unless the tellers^ costs have first been paid ! IV. Also to sheriffs' officers a few. Hemp, Sloman, Selby, Levy, Phillips, Davis, "Who tap your shoulders when your bills are due, And after, cage you like a rara avis. Keeping you quiet, while your plaintiffs sue, In spunging house, where doubly all you have is Paid for, and where, like spunge, they soon begin, you Find, to suck out whatever you've got in you ! V. To them and more, in short, to all mankind, I dedicate these rambles of my muse. Save the select who're actually confined ! And they may read them also if they choose — They may recall some memories which the mind. In Fleet or Banco Regis else might lose Of days when lots of friends kept round them yet, Because they fancied they were out of debt ! " Which last couplet," said Charles, " is a bitter truism upou the ingratitude of the world." '' Ah, don't talk of it," cried the Doctor, *' but tell me, did you notice the batch of attorneys in the third verse. I will give you anecdotes of some of them by and by — but just now 1 must 13'2 THE FLEET PRISON. tell you a pun which I heard made about that fellow Dicas. That man has lately made himself remarkable by his prosecutions of several of the newspapers which reported some barrister's ob- servations on his ^ character,' so that when you hear of a libel, it is almost proverbial to say * be- ware of Dicas.' The other day I was putting through the press an edition of a Latin Gram- mar, and had just opened at the syntax, when a friend called in. * Doctor,' said he, ' what are you doing.? you must leave that out.' ' Leave it out — why?' enquired L * Gad,' said he, 'it's veiy dangerous.' ' Dangerous, what do you mean } ' — * Why, that if the little urchins get at the Propria quce maribus, they'll be falling foul of dicas, and you'll be prosecuted for a libel.'" " Capital," cried Montford, " but can you who edit Latin grammai'S, tell me in what rooms of this college are held those practical lectures on vice, of which we have before spoken." " In the Whistling Shops !" "The Whistling Shops — in heaven's name. THE FLEET PRISON. 133 what are they? I have seen jugglers and con- jurers, and cheek-knockers, and even MichaeJ Boai play upon his chin, but a theatre for whist- ling I have never visited." The Doctor laughed. " Ah," said he, " it is no theatre, nor will you have to pay for the ex- hibition beyond the price of a glass of grog. — The rooms in which they sell spirits are called * Whistling Shops', and their landlords whist- lers, — but as you are a novice here, and as every thing new is worth seeing once, if any moral can be drawn from it, — suppose we visit one of these places to-night, and take a glass of brandy and water in defiance of our easy warden. — Come." " With all my heart," said Charles, rising and taking his hat; and forthwith they sallied out in quest of a Whistling Shop ! G 3 THE FLEET PRISON. CHAPTER I. THE WHISTLING SHOP. Who would seek or prize Delights that end in aching. MOORE. I step me in like an unbidden guest Sit down in silent caution, and take care To give no trouble to the friend that's near me. BLACKWOOD FROM ATHEX.tUS. When our friends reached the door of one ot the receptacles from which this chapter takes its name, they knocked cautiously, and after the lapse of a minute were still more cautiously asked from within—" Who's there ?" " It's aU right," said the Doctor — and forthwith they were admitted into the room. " Seven's the main," cried somebody who stood at the table with a dice-box in his hand. . THE WHISTLING SHOP. 135 " And eleven's the nick," answered his com- panion ; " and deuce ace " are crabs — so you are out- —Well then, I cry five the main — five to eight — five to eight — five to eight, and eight it is ! " " I've lost it, by Jove " — said the first speaker, — " what shall it be? ' — and then turning to Charles and his companion, — " Gentlemen, what will you have?" Both parties decided on brandy and water — the winner on the five to eight called for a '* short " (Slanglice, a three-penny glass) of gin. Out at once came a bladder of gin, and a stone bottle of ^^ eau de vie,^"* which the short, thickset, jolly, dissipated looking host measured as was due. The act proved that by his removal from his former calling into the Fleet, " Othello's occupa- tion'* was not '* gone." This man, Rowbottom by name, had once kept that very noted establishment to which young roues and abandoned women were wont to repair at five o'clock in the morning, after every other house of debauchery was shut — so 136 THE FLEET PRISON. long celebrated under the appropriate title of '* The Finish"— in James Street, Covent Garden — until in one retributive week of magisterial ju- risdiction — the powers that be — caused that, and one or two more houses of a similar nature, to be closed — a duty which they ought to have per- formed long before — and which transfen'ed the accommodating Mr. Rowbottom from " The Fi- nish " to the Fleet — where he pursued the gentle- manly profession of " Whistler. " Having described "mine host," we will take a glance at the company by whom he was sur- rounded. In one corner of the room sat a stout, little man, whose body bore the semblance of a firkin of but- ter balanced on two small stumps, and whose head wvn^, further, like a Dutch cheese balanced on the firkin ot bi/iter. When he stood up, his sto- mach protruded so far as to render it perfectly impossible for him to see his toes; and over his countenance, which consisted of small cunning eyes and a double chin — with the nose and mouth between, as is customary, — he contrived to throw THE WHISTLING SHOP. 137 a mock gravity, which was only rendered the more ludicrous when he displayed it in his speech. His words were earnest, energetic, slow, measured, and mouthed. In this man, Montford beheld that famous Jew Daniel— celebrated by the satirist, and renowned in the courts of discount, as a notable bill — not exactly broker — but — something else ! He had, we believe, been mixed up with some of those transactions which flung the shadow of their ce- lebrity over Minter, Hart, and others; and which had taken many a man besides himself to a ga©]. He had now chosen the Fleet as the turnpike through which to pass on his way to the Insol- vent Court. He had been at one time a clothes- salesman at Portsmouth; and had, dnriijg his hfe, passed through a good many vicissitudes, — so that his conversation was not without a fair admixture of common sense and drollery. Opposite to this character, Charles was some- what surprised to see the author whom he had met at Selby's, in Chancery-lane; and who greeted him as if he had known him twenty years. A 138 THE FLEET PRISON. very pale emaciated young man sat half mop- ing and half drunk, by the fire : the doctor whis- pered Montford that he was a clergyman ! John Pitman, the celebrated racquet-player — perhaps the best in England — was taking his jo- rum of rum and water, a species of grog which Lieutenant Glanning was also patronizing on the sofa. We have only to mention Bowles, the wild Irish attorney, (who, when he approached but one fur- long upon the road to inebriety, had the happy knack of picking a quarrel in spite of peace, he labouring under the delusion that whatever any body else said, was intended as an insult to him- self,) —and we believe we have mentioned " All the gallant companie, Who tippled in that hostelrie.'* " I have always observed," said the Jew Daniel, as gravely as if he were talking of the constitution — " that great hazard players gene- rally call the main of seven." " Main of seven, — pshaw, — main of cocks," said the attorney, already muzzy — " Five's the main all over the world." THE WHISTLING SHOP. 130 " You consider five the best main, do you," slowly asked Daniel. " Hav'n't I tould you I do," answered the Irish- man. " It is a game which I have never yet seen played fairly," continued the Jew. " The divil ye hav'n't. Sir," shouted Bowles, who had just been playing himself — ^" do ye mane that for a personality ? " " By no means," said the Israelite, attempting a pun — *' I have no desire to play at hoicles ! " " Blood and 'ounds, but you 're right. Sir," and the attorney, smiling w^ith self satisfaction, took a swallow from his grog. " Pitman, have you been playing much ?" asked the Doctor. " I can't help thinking of that poor fellow's cutting his throat to-day," rejoined the racquet player, with peculiar relevancy. ** Suppose we have a song — has any gentleman an objection to a song," said Mr. Rowbottom, more relevant still. " Suppose we do," drawled out the pallid young 140 THE FLEET PRISON. clergyman by the fire, in whom the mention of his brother prisoner's fate had created a visible ^ uneasiness — " and Rowe, give me another glass of gin and water." Montford was at once asked to sing, as the new comer, but immediately "transferred his call" to the author, who, although before him in the room, had arrived later in the prison. With the same alacrity with which he had read his story of Robert Slaney in the spunging house, this good-natured and light-hearted person at once gave them a song of his own, entitled THE LITERARY MAN. Oh ! however fast to pockets bhie The £. s. d. do flow ; '" lur times a year, it is made clear, I'licy only come to go ! And then you may hunt London o'er, From Beersheba to Dan, But, Devil take me, if you catch A literary man ! He gets in love— he gets in debt — With Colburn or with Murray — He gets an octavo volume out, • All written in a hurry. THE WHISTLING SHOP. 141 He gets some credit for the work, The only kind he can — So little now will people trust A literary man ! He also gets some odd ideas, And keeps them in his head, But what he finds most difficult To get, Sir, is his bread ! 'Tis true, he writes, his pen will nin As Gilpin's horse once ran ; But writing now will hardly keep A literary man ! Of this important fact I give Of instances a few, The matters happened, once or twice, To people that I knew. There's B— m now, a clever rogue, Whom still I seldom meet. But what he tells me, " Come, my boy, And see me in the Fleet !" And if T then should say, " yo, no. You surely can't be there." " Why not ?" says he, " a prison has A liter; ry air. I can assure you, gaols are not The paradise of fools ! For, toute au conlmire, they're all wits Who live within the rules. " And stay, my boy, I b'Heve you know Bob Cniickshank and Moncrief, Well, sometimes they come here to eat A bit of prison beef. 142 THE FLEET PRISON. No gravy, mind you, that is left To gild the dripping pan ; For London cooks will not respect A Literary Man !" The applause simultaneously bestowed upon this song was interrupted by three or four sturdy knocks at the door, which Mr. Rowbottom opened not, until he had closed after him the inner door of baize, and so stood between the two, by which he might give the inmates time to empty their glasses in case of a surprise, it being a custom with the warden to order an occasional search among tht; rooms, with the view of discovering spirits ; in which case the party offending loses his apart- ment as a punishment. In this instance the knocks merely aur nounced the presence of the watchman, who came to say that the gentlemen must not be sing- ing so late— or in other words, " I should like a glass of wine," — and of covirse, if some other liquor were given very nearly the colour of wine — it made small difference, and the watchman might depart in peace. ^A ceremony of this sort was, therefore, gone through, and he of the lanthom THE WHISTLING SHOP. 143 having sallied along the gallery to quell some other riot in a similar manner, Mr. Rowbottom again closed his door in its original safety. The host and Mr. Pitman then sat down to cribbage, and the conversation was every now and then varied with episodes of fifteen two — fifteen four — fifteen six, and a pair's eight. Daniel, the Jew, proposed to Lieutenant Glan- ning a game of whist — but got repulsed — "Cards, cards — no, damn me — I hate cards — I'd rather make the cove o' Cork in a hurricane, or go to " " May I ask ye. Sir, what fault it is you'd be after finding wid the cove of Cork ? " asked Mr. Bowles in a passion. ^ What fault, man ! — Why, bad place in bad weather — crooked sailing — sharp" "Crooked sailing, Sir? — D'ye mane by that to insinuate that my conduct has ever been other- wise than straight — seeing that I'm from Cork myself.? '*' " A cove of Cork — I suppose," said Mr. Daniel. " D'ye mane that for an insult .? " 144 THE FLEET PRISON. " No, bottle up your anger, Mr. Bowles, I mean it for a joke." " There," drawled the clergyman, " now you've got the satisfaction of a gentleman." "Would ye wish to hint that it's any other satisfaction I'd be taking.?" " No," answered the other peevishly. " By my soul, I'm glad of it," — said the Irisli- man, and again his glass was lifted to his mouth. But his contentedness did not last long, some new topic soon awakened his tenacity, and as he continued to drink deep, he became so uproarious, as to maliC it a matter of policy to break up the party — lest the extreme riot should cost Row- bottom his room. — Besides it was quite late enough to disperse — and Doctor Tell and Montford were the first to give the signal for departure, and leading the way out, were fol- lowed by some of the others, who separated as they arrived at the doors of their several " homes." The Doctor having seen Charles to his lodging, THE WHISTLING SHOP. 145 and promised the next day to tell him the eventful history of the young clergyman whom he had seen in the whistling shop, bade him good night, and retired. Montford was soon in his bed reflecting over the strange occurrences of the day, and most of all on the gloomy suicide by which it had been darkened, when his musings were suddenly inter- rupted by the bursting in of the author, who had taken the remaining vacant bed ; and who, having lingered for another glass or two of tgddy, had got first drunk, and next into a row with the up- roarious Irishman, who had given him a black eye. On entering the room, not all the entreaties of its other inmates could prevent his singing one of his own parodies on Moore's ballad of " When in death I shall calm recline," which he said he had written to his wife, just before he came from the spunging house. When to gaol I shall once be sent, Oh bear my books to my landlord dear, Tell him to sell them and pay his rent, For divil a sixpence will he find here ; 1-16 THE FLEET PRISON. Bid him not shed one tear of sorrow A page of my bright MS. to wet, Tell him I did my best to borrow, But the Jews wouldn't bite, and no blunt could I get. Keep this bill, which is now protested. Say that I cannot take it up ; l\Iention how suddenly I'm arrested, And ask him to-morrow to come and sup ; Then if I manage to make him tipsy When the fellow's good-nature is past a doubt — Look up in his face with a smile, you gipsy, And bid him renew it— to get me out. By the time he had roared out the burthen of the last verse, he had succeeded in untying his neck-cloth and taking off his hat and coat, and then disdaining in his drunkenness to strip off more of his apparel, he threw himself bump upon another bed which he had mistaken for his own ; and when the awful groan which the con- cussion elicited from the portly body of his land- lord, convinced him of his error, he swore by Gog and Magog, that he was too tired to move for any tody, thereby driving the man out of his own warm bed into that which had been intended for himself, muttering and cursing the hour in which, his lodger had been tempted to enter a Whist- ling Shop ! THE FLEET PRISON. CHAPTER ir. THE RENCONTRE. " We met — 'twas in a crowd." H. BAYLY. " Long — fair— but spread in utter lifelessness." BYRON." When Montford awoke in the morning, a throng of those wild, warm memories which rush so passionately upon young hearts, came elo- quently, reminding him of his mother and sister in a far land. Happily, how unconscious must they be of his fate ! How would they have startled had any of those visions, in which affection so often bodies forth in sleep the forms of the absent loved, presented to them the fond brother and the fostered son, an actor in any one scene of the drama which we have lately seen performed. Bad 148 THE FLEET PRISON. enough, indeed, would they have deemed it to have been in difficulty or in debt ; to have seen him in a spunging house would liavc pained them with most intense affliction ; but to have known him an incarcerated prisoner within the walls of a debtor's gaol, would have laid prostrate the fer- vent mind of his mother, and liave destroyed her senses, if it had nol broken her heart. IMontford began to think of this in a spirit of sadness which soon led his mind into a mood of reason — and as the actual ex])erience of sorrows, will be found to engender reflection more than all the acquired habits of philosojdiy or thought, he foil into that sort of powerful self-scrutiny by whose means our present woes summon to the bar of conscience our j)ast actions ; and which at once ])laced before him in panoramic routine all the \\ ild waste — the thoughtless hours — the mistaken generosity — the loose habits — the hasty extrava- gance—the mad recklessness, which had con- spired to place him in his present degrading sphere of society and harassing personal difficulty and distress. . THE RENCONTRE. 149 A picture of this sort— painted as it were by an indignant present, at once a satire and a re- proach upon the past — Hogarthian in its outline — and powerful in its own vivid truth and depth of colour — laid bare before the bright perceptions of the human sense — the warm feelings of the heart brightening the noble eye of the mind, — affords the best, because the most striking and the most touching moral that man can gather from experience to ui*ge him in a pursuit of virtue — to aid him in a defiance of vice. It tells him what crimes he has committed — and what will be their retribution — what lessons he has learnt, and what price he has paid for the knowledge — what time he has lost — and also how great was its va- lue. And, oh ! — of what mighty worth to him is this information, gathered not from the lore of learning nor the wisdom of books, but from the sensible promptings of his own soul. Truth — pure brilliant undying truth — filtered through the beautiful dripstone of the human mind — That casket of bright gems which shine When virtue lifts the lid I — VOL. I. H 150 THE FLEET PRISON. The reflections which produce it are rapid in their evolutions, but they are also powerful in their effects^-the parents of abandonment, or reso- lution, according to the frame in which they work. For — come at what period of his life it may, (whenever that life exhibits the vicissitude from j)rosperity to its reverse,) it is usually this sudden bursting of the past upon a man's reason, which decides his after career. Afraid to meet it — and he is lost ; — to sec and take his lesson from it — he is redeemed ; and, oh ! how great is the glory of that redemption ! It bears upon its brawny shoulders the whole weight of experience, of soitow, of young impru- dence, of reason, and of time. It chastens the spirit, it reins the impulses, it purifies the pas- sions, it points the heart to God. Great in the victory which it has acquired over the human mind, it never sufiers that victory to be regained by crime, except where the lessons we have learnt with it are forgotten, and the moral it has taught us is abused. The man who wilfully plunges again into the sins or errors for which he has suf- THE RENCONTRE. 151 fered bitterly before, may be too wicked for a mad- man, but he is also weak enough for a fool ; and whether it be in great matters of crime and soitow, or the more trivial events and misfortunes of every day hfe, having faced their recollection in the day of trouble, and looked back to actions of which we then repent, we are morally bound to make of that retrospection a mirror to set up before our future life, so that we cannot err without the knowledge of our own hearts ; nor, therefore, without deserv- ing a just retribution ; for which no one is to be blamed but ourselves. We believe we have akeady said, that a retro- spection of this sort was originated in the heart of Charles Montford, by the awakening of dear do- mestic associations, an effect similar in its charac- ter to that often produced by the singing of a remembered song. We shall shew, as we follow up our narrative, that the result operated power- fully upon his after life ; and we point the moral earnestly to all who have brought their hopes and fortunes to so severe a crisis in early youth ; that H 2 15*2 THE FLEET PRISON. in the memory of the causes which produced them, they may learn to avoid their repetition. Montford had awakened early, and in the first stillness of the morning, — (that pecuhar stillness so favourable to reflection, when the dissipated have at length gathered to their beds, and the in- dustrious have not yet begim to rise,) — had thought upon his past career — thought wholesomely and well; but as the dav\Ti brightened into day, his musings were disturbed by the movements of the several lodgers in the room. The old landlord first gave the signal by dress- ing, and afterwards making as much noise as he could, in order to wake his tenants, as he put up his OTVTi bed — lit the fire — and opened the win- dows a little; in short, made every provoking fidgeting, disturbfal bustle that he thought likely to rouse the inmates of the several beds " In -which his fortune lay." And he was not altogether unsuccessful. Every body in the room, Montford included, in the The rencontre. 153 course of one hour, were up and dressed; but as to be literary is to be lazy, so did our author sleep. He would not budge for man, woman, or child, till he had had his morning's nap — no, not even, albeit, he had bumped the landlord, for which he was very sorry, the overnight ! Montford at once repaired to the coffee-room, where, with two or three more, he breakfasted on a ver}^ decent cup of tea or coffee, with the ac- companiments of toast, eggs, and a rasher of bacon, or cold meat. For this he paid the reasonable charge of nine-pence, in which was included the pleasure of sitting in the presence of the youngest Miss Joddrey — a pretty, dark-eyed, and nan'owly watched young lady, close under the shadow of her mamma. Breakfast over, he sallied out to take a tem- porary stroll in the front gravelled area — remind- ing a man of the play-grounds of his school days — already described. Here he was soon joined by Doctor Tell, who gave him all sorts of rambling information upon persons who, like himself, were taking their 154 THE FLEET PRISON, morning walk in the same space; which the prison- ers seemed, by common consent, to have chosen for their prometiade — possibly, because being ex- actly before the lobby, it gave them a view of strangers passing in and out; and thus varied the dull monotony of the prison scene. For nearly an hour did Montford perambulate to and fro on this quarter deck of the gaol ; but before the last minutes of that hour had gone to eternity, what a scene had he beheld ! — More than one of those who witnessed it, have declared that it shook their senses like an earthquake — and that since, even amid gayer scenes and brighter fortunes, its memory has dwelt upon their spirits, and deepened among the shadows of their hearts \ In Montford the recollection can never die — asso- ciated as it is with all that is most terrible in sorrow — most faithful and beautiful in love ! It was a thing to haunt the mind in sadness, to come before the soul in sleep ! Owing to the delays which the tunikeys some- times make in opening the door for the admission of visitors, a number of persons frequently gi'oup THE RENCONTRE. 155 together on the outside, and there is, when the gate is unlocked, a momentary obstacle in the passage through. Thus it happened^ that simul- taneously as Montford and the Doctor walked up to the door it opened, and a bevy of some dozen persons were seen waiting in the lobby eager for ingress to their fiiends. Amongst them were two ladies of luiequal age — one might hare numbered fifty years, the other possibly not more than nine- teen — one wearing the traces of past, the other, rich in the possession of present beauty. Montford was startled — not amid the virtuous circle of his sister's friends, nor ever after, among the wild haunts of his own dissipation, had such a being fallen upon his path. The worshippers of the statue of Pygmalion, the admirers of the chi- selled charms of the Phidian Venus, might have thrown a question upon her loveUness — but they who find the most of beauty in the cheek that hides its own glowing colour under a modest blush — the eye in whose light there is no warmth without purity — the lips that seem ready to part in the sweetness of a smile, rather than to be panting for 156 THE FLEET PRISON. the honey of a kiss — the form that without hauteur, is dignified — is delicate, and yet not weak — in short, the mild bright picture of a native " English flower," blossoming in its own exuberant youth, would have confessed that the young girl, who stood before the admiring Charles, was indeed paramount in the excellence of her beauty — with- out blemish, and beyond complaint ! Along with the rest of the little crowd, this young creature, and her protector, were foremost to move towards the door, but their ingress was again impeded by another obstacle and one which naturally enough caused them somewhat suddenly to recede. A coroner's inquest had been held to enquire into the death of the unhappy young clergyman who had the previous moniing put so melancholy a period to his existence, and the jury having given their verdict, the body had been placed in a shell, and was now being conveyed up the steps, into the lobby. An'ived here, the iT^ien who bore it passed through the somewhat startled and in- quisitive group, which it had been the means of THE RENCONTRE. 157 delaying, and getting into the outer passage, de- posited their burthen, to take a moment's rest. At this juncture, the two ladies who had with a feeling near akin to horror, hurried through the door into the prison, as if something had escaped their memory, suddenly stepped back, and en- quired of the turnkey for the room of the Rev. Mr. T . " He has no room now, ma'am," said the man, to the elder female, " but may I ask what is your business with him ?" " We have brought his discharge," said the young lady, earnestly, " and are anxious to iind him directly." " My God, how dreadful," whispered a pri- soner, who had heard the conversation, to his companion. " Brought his discharge, have you. Well, well, it's a sad business — but it's of no use now." " No use ?" — asked the fair girl, trembling. ^' No use ! What can you mean ?" "Why, Miss, I'm sorry to tell you — it's a shocking thing — ^but the fact is, he is out already. — He h3 158 THE FLEET I'RISON. died ODly yesterday and they are now taking him away in that coffin." " Died ! — is he dead then ?" shrieked the elder female; " oh, my poor Agatha !" But Agatha only trembled like an aspen — or a hunted fawn— and looked pale and was speech- less as a spirit, — until the men once more lifted the shell, when the echo of the turnkey's words dropped from her lips as if it had sounded in her heart, and had no time to rise. " In that coffin ! — Oh, stop them, stop ! " — and for a moment the men paused with their precious load. Then did this sorrow-struck being walk calmly to the step on which the coffin pailly reposed, and gathering up her form in silent energy, gazed on that rough casket of all her earthly hopes with a deep— deep — deep emotion of thrilling, agonizing, tenderness — tenderness such as that which stole the lion from the heart of Achilles — when with a parity of grief and situation, he stood as gentle as a woman above the body of his dead friend. THE RENCONTRE. 159 Keirat Trap vrjccrcri vckvs aKkava-ros aBanros UarpoKkos' rov S' ovk (7n\r}(ro[xai ocfjpaveycoye Zcoolaiv p€T€CO, Koi poL (fiiXa yovvar opooprj' El Se 6av6pT(i>v Trap KaraXrjOovT^ eiv atdao AvTop eya> KaKcWt ffee. and the Doctor begsm : — '^ Tlie man of idboB I hire this room — and tou THE HOTEL KEEPEB. 189 know the term of imprisonment which it requires to obtain one — ^has told me a stoiy, the troth of which I hare since ascertained by personal en- quiry, and which proves him to be a trolv unfor- tunate Uliistration of that fine regret of the author of the • Man of the World,' the eloquent Mackenzie, tb at • mischief is seldom so weak but that worth may be stung by it' ; and perhaps the most appropriate motto for his narrative is to be found in the words of the same writer — ^'but behold! the enemy came in tbe nigbt and sowed tares.' '• It is a curious fact, Mr. Montford,but not the less tni?. :h-t sirire I have been in this priscm I bave rj : n^ersation with any one of its inhabit .:;i- ::.:-i : ■ ^ :: t at its conclusion left upon my mind most forcibly, the conviction that there was either inutility or injustice in the individual's fate. — Eitber I have found him a fraudulent or uu: : :e man : — if fraudulent, his incarceration bere is but a very i::? ■ :ite punishment — and if unfortunate, it is mi: : : : _:.- u. My honest land- lord happens t ^ / T^mate — in- jured first by S.V.1 :v. > ^y the law 190 THE FLEET PRISON. — and his adventure is another powerful reproach upon the severity of that system, whose harsh enactments unhappily fall in retribution less heavily upon the wdcked than the poor. Hence it happens that the rooms of our debtors' prisons are divided between rogues w^ho live, and honest men who are ruined, by the dw^ellings into w^iich they are cast. " George Williams, the antipode to your German landlord, w^as formerly head waiter in a flourishing hotel, somewhere betw^een the Strand and the West end of the metropolis ; he had been in his situation nearly twenty years, and during the whole of the time had borne a high character for honesty, industry, and civility. He was, and is, an intelligent man, and was a good deal patron- ized by the old customers of the house, who would frequently enter into a familiar conversa- tion with him as he laid the cloth for their dinner, or brought them their claret or brandy and water previous to their retiring to bed. " Among these patrons, there was one who stood pre-eminent, and who lived entirely at the hotel. THE HOTEL KEEPER. 191 — He was a well-looking middle-aged man, who had the credit of being a Croesus in wealth, and a Scipio in virtue. His name was Mullins, and he had been a frequenter of the hotel for the last ten years. During the whole of this time he had known George, and taken an apparent interest in his welfare ; probably increased by the cir- cumstance of his knowing that Williams had a wife and family dependent upon him for sup- port. " One eventful evening Mr. MulUns had returned at an early hour from the theatre, and George was busied in putting before him his supper of oysters and bottled stout. There was not another person in the Coffee-room. " ' Well, George,' said Mullins, as the former broke the wire on the bottle of porter; ' hov/ are you getting on; there is nobody here to-night.' "' Pretty well, Sir, as times go,' replied George. * 1 have no reason to complain.' " ' No. I suppose you are making your for- tune,' said Mullins, ' When do you mean to commence hotel-keeper on your own account ? ' 192 THE FLEET PRISON. " * No knowing, Sir,' said Williams. * I should like it very well, but I haven't got money enough for that yet.' *^ ' Not far from it though, eh ! ' " ' Why, Sir, I don't know but I might be able perhaps, in a couple of years, to manage some- thing, if things go on well, and I can only turn up trumps.' " ' Come, now, Williams, tell me honestly, how much do you want? ' " ^ Oh, I dare say another hundred pounds would do for me, or thereabouts.' " * Are you sure of that ? ' " * Yes, Sir. I'm sure enough if I could but get it; but that's not likely just now.' " * Well, George, I tell you what. Make your enquiries at once. Look about you, and when you think you've got a place that '11 suit, come to me, and I'll lend you a hundred pounds.' "* Ah, Sir, you're joking,' said George. * No, no ; I must wait patiently, and bide my time.' " ' Upon my honour, I never was more in earn- est in my life,' declared Mullins emphatically. TFTE HOTEL KEEPER. 193 ' Once more I repeat it. Upon the word of a gentleman ; — you find an hotel that you think will suit you, and I will lend you a hundred pounds.' '' George was delighted: he could hardly thank his friend, before some new comers into the cof- fee-room required his presence; but when he served them, he did not know whether he was standing upon his head or his heels. He gave one a lobster for a welsh rabbit, and another a glass of port wine negus, instead of a bottle of ale. By a party up stairs, he was sent for a Pope- joan board, and he took them a bowl of punch ; and to one man who asked him for change, he would have given two half sovereigns for a shil- ling, if the honest customer had not told him that ' the turning of his head had made him forget the colour of his money.' In short, he was, as Tom Cooke once said of a very stout man, (I think it was Ellis, the attorney for Drury-lane Theatre,) like one beside himself; and it is a question whe- ther, when he went to bed, he did not put on his night-cap with the tassel inside, and astonish his 194 THE FLEET PRISON. afFrightcd spouse by laying with his feet upon the pillows, and his head to the posts. "An act of generosity like that which had been just promised to my bewildered landlord, leads us to doubt, for a moment, whether we have really degenerated from the noble qualities of our forefathers : whether Pope was not wrong in say- ing that ' Time sensibly all things impairs ;' or Horace right when he asserted that ' /Etas parentura pejor avis tulit Nos nequiares, mox daturos Progenieai vitiosiorem.' " However, the Latin and the English author — j)oets and satirists, as they both were — might have had their opinions rolled through tlie world in thunder — before George, the waiter, would have believed either, to the disparagement of his friend and patron, Mr. Mullins. " He av\'oke in the morning, not as if he had been, but in order that he might begin dreaming — that he might fancy himself the whole and sole master of a grand hotel — his custom large? THE HOTEL KEEPER. 195 his wine celebrated, his fortune making, and his purse full — finally, himself in his old age, retired and comfortable — his son carrying on the business — his own life a perfect summer of happiness — his wife in a Cashmere shawl — his daughter in a carnage — and his little ones at a crack boarding- school, learning music, Italian, and French. " So he set about getting tvro or three holidays — and employed them in ferreting out a place of convenience and situation. At last he found an old established hotel in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, whose master was dead, and whose mistress meant to retire upon her widow- hood, to lure a new husband with the fortune which her old one had made — and this hotel Williams at once took — paid his deposit— got possession — and surprised his wife and family by walking them into it, and telling them it vras theirs. "Mr. Mullins had kept his word to the letter — he had lent the sum of a hundred pounds upon the simple security of George's warrant of at- torney to pay it in a year — and this, added to the 196 THE FLEET PRISON. savings of twenty years — furnished all the amount required for the completion of the purchase, and the immediate an-angements which followed. Of course at the onset, the business w^ould be a little cramped for want of invested capital, but a couple of years' run of activity would supply all that was wanted on that score. *' Here, then, was my industrious landlord with a good hotel, a good connexion, and a good trade, to say nothing of his good friend, Mr. Mullins, who often dropped in, asked after his custom, took a bottle of wine, insisted upon paying fur it, drank it in the bar with his wife and daughter, and never w-ent away without wishing him all sorts of prosperity and success. "Towards the end of the year these visits became longer and more frequent, and deeper and deeper grew the interest which Mr. 'Mulhns took in the welfare of the ci-devant waiter. At length the warrant of attorney became due, and Williams had the money ; but as it would do him a great injury to take it out of the business just now, his patron waved the payment for the present, saying that he THE HOTEL KEEPER. 197 did not want the money himself, and that George's convenience would suit his. " 'Do you not think/ said he to Mrs. Williams, as he sat one evening in the bar taking tea, while her hushand was out on business, ' do you not think that if WilHams were to brew his own beer, he would, with the connexion of this house, make a great deal of money ?' " ' Oh, certainly, George means to do that as soon as he can ; he has been thinking of it a long whUe.' " ' And why doesn't he do it at once ?' asked MuUins. " ' He hasn't the means just now ; you see, this is Christmas time, and there are bills to pay, and large credits to give, and the balance of the pur- chase-money to be found, with several little things, but I know he means to do it soon.' " ' How much would he require ?' said the friend. " ' Oh a good deal. I dare say that by the time he had bought the utensils and prepared the pre- mises, and laid in casks and so on, it would cost VOL. I. K 198 THE FLEfeT PRISON. him near upon thirty pounds, and I'm sure he hasn't got it to spare.' " * Humph,' said Mullins, ' thirty pounds,' and after that he was pretty silent. He, however, soon swallowed his tea, said he couldn't wait for Williams — wished Mrs. Williams good night — paid some compliment to her daughter, and de- parted. " ' Mother, do you think Mr. Mullins is offend- ed ? ' asked the girl. ** ^ I hope not, I'm sure,' said the mother, and at this juncture George came home. He drew an ill omen from what he heard of the conversation, and went to bed a little out of sorts and anxious. The next moniing he received a twopenny post letter from Mullins, containing as a loan, a check for thirty pounds, and a desire that he would at once begin to brew his own beer. Noble genero- sity, the motives to which are yet to be developed and judged ! " George's daughter is a very pretty girl, she often comes in here to see him with her mother, tHE HOTEL KEEPER. 199 and I can vouch that she is a modest, blue-eyed, unassuming young beauty, whose appearance is very much above her rank in Hfe. George, as fathers often will, loved this girl more than all his sons put together ; he had given her a good education, and had set his hopes upon her mar- rying well, — not only for herself, but for her family. And although I earnestly deprecate the right of parents to speculate with any selfish views upon a child's happiness, yet, if ever such a feeling be excusable, it is in .the humble walks of life, where a man has spent the earnings of his industry in giving his daughter an education to fit her for the sphere in which he is ambitious to see her move ; although that very education is to his child in some measure a curse, inasmuch as it must naturally deprive her heart of the enjoyment of her owTi family circle, where the manners of those whom she most loves, seem rude — the tastes uncongenial — the mind less sensitive and delicate than her own. So that with her dearest relatives she can never cordially associate, and when placed K 2 200 THE FLEET PRISON. above them must always be ashamed of their de- ficiencies, however great her love. " But when a man like Williams, incapable of thinking philosophically, has fallen into the error I have mentioned, how great is his pride in the abilities of his child, and how quickly sensitive and justly powerful, are the feeling of an honest person upon all points connected with her supe- riority, her virtue, her abilities, and her good name ! Thus how mighty is the indignation of an uneducated man, whenever a syllable is uttered in disparagement of the genius or supe- riority of his educated child, to whom he cannot help referring continually in the most common conversation ; as, if you ask him a question, he will say, * I don't know myself, but my daughter would tell you in a minute.' — Or to ' are you musical .f^' — * No, but my daughter plays beauti- fully.' — Or to ' do you understand French V — ' No, but my daughter speaks it like a native,' and so on for ever. " But in the breast of George Williams, the _ THE HOTEL KEEPER. 201 principle of pure paternal fondness was so inti- mately connected with pride, that I am sure a word put insultingly to — or to him about — his child, would have won from him a blow for the man who spoke it. He cared for her as the orna- ment of his house, but in his honest heart he also loved her as the child of his bosom, and though his sphere was humble, he looked upon her as a being above it, so that while his affection was proportionably great, his protection of her was also the more watchful and severe; and how jealous is ever the watchfulness of a father. ^ 4j& ^ ^ " ' Do you know, George,' said Mrs. Williams one morning to her husband, in the absence of their daughter, ' I begin to think that Mr. Mullins is not quite so disinterested a friend as he appears, and that we must take care he does not do us more harm than good after all.' " ' My dear ! ' cried George, ' do you know what you're saying ? You must be mad I'm thinking — why, what do you mean ?' " * No, George, I am not mad, I do know what 202 THE FLEET PRISON. I am saying, and I repeat that we had better take care of Mr. Mullins.' " ' What has he done to make you say that ?' " ' Why, he has done what we must mind he does not do again — he has been making love to our Fanny, and from what she has told me, I'm afraid he means no good. It was very kind of him to lend you the money, but if he did it for the sake of finding an opportunity to ruin our child, I am sure that God's curse will be upon all we do with it, and we shall never pros- per upon what we have to pay for with our own shame. Besides, if any harm were to come to our Fanny, T know it would break my heart — so that's the whole of it.' And she spoke these last words with the tears swimming in her eyes. " ' God forbid, Jane ! God forbid ! But you are frightening yourself for nothing — there, dry your eyes, woman, dry your eyes, there is no danger ; and I don't think so bad of Mullins as to believe that he meant any thing more than joking, though, if I thought but no matter, Fanny is a good THE HOTEL KEEPER. 203 girl and modest, and I can trust her. Besides, if any one were to insult her she'd tell me, and then ' " He closed his teeth and shut his fist ; but a bell summoned him to the coffee-room before he had time to finish his sentence, and as he went off, his wife sighed to herself, " ' Ah ! he's too good natured and unsuspicious by half.' " And so the matter ended. " But Mrs. Williams was right in her sugges- tions: there was more danger than her good natured husband had an idea of, and but for the awakening of her suspicions, the treasure might have been stolen while the guards slept. The fact was, that Mullins was a selfish and a crafty man, who, having plenty of money to pay for his own gratification, cared little what other princi- ples or feehngs were sacrificed to obtain it. When George had been a waiter at his hotel he had often seen his daughter Fanny, and had noticed her as a very pretty and promising child. Of later years, however, he had watched the budding of 204 THE FLEET PRISON, new beauties, the ripening change from the fresh rosy girl to the young, beautifril, blushing woman — that glorious unfolding of the brightest leaf in the whole book of nature. He looked upon her now with a different eye and an altered thought ; his passing notice was changed into a passionate gaze, and he felt that he loved Fanny Williams as well as such a man could love ; that is, with a love without purity, without light — a love that in its selfishness sought the i*uin and not the happiness of its object. " And so he elected himself to be the father's patron and friend — he lent him money — he set him up in business for himself — he put him into a house where his visits might be more frequent, and his commune with the sweet girl, his daugh- ter, closer and unobserved. And there, with such guile as he knew how to practise, he had proved her heart, and nobly had its young innocence passed the ordeal. The earnest look — the whis- pered protestation — the dehcate pressure of the hand at parting — the gentle, tender speech — and now and then, the trifling present of a bird, a THE HOTEL KEEPEE. 205 nosegay, or a book, had been all tried — and tried in vain: — a cold, civil, modest manner, with some- times a smiling expression of thankfulness, were all his utmost attentions could elicit from Fanny, — and even these seemed often to arise out of a grateful consideration that Mr. Mullins had been her father's good friend. " Unsuccessful in the usual arts of courtship, this designing blackguard approached gradually to a bolder and more open expression of his un- holy love — and it was in consequence of what had fallen from his libertine lips the last time he had happened to be left with her alone, that Fanny had communicated to her mother her dis- like of his society, and begged her for the future to remain whenever he might be present in the room. Out of this communication arose the dia- logue I have mentioned between Mrs. Williams and her husband. " It was about a fortnight after this conver,sation, that Mullins dropped in to dine with Williams and his family : — they dined early in the little par- lour at the back of the bar, as George had a party k3 206 THE FLEET PRISON. to attend up stairs in the afternoon. After dinner, therefore, he left Mulhns with his wife and daugh- ter, and \^ent into the cellar to fetch up the ^\4nes for the repast. It was a feast given on some pub- lic occasion ; and George was busy and anxious for the * honour of the house.* He had not been long at his occupation, before a neighboiu* whose wife had been in a delicate state, and was taken suddenly ill, came in to request Mrs. Williams, as an act of kindness, to call in and see her. "'Well then,' said Mrs. WiUiams, 'I'll just run over for five minutes, and if I'm wanted be- fore that, Fanny, you'll send for me ; but I dare say I shall be back as soon.' " ' Very well, mother — you must not be longer, because you know the woman is coming about your dress ; ' — an excusable invention, when we remember the motive which dictated it. " Mullins was now left alone with Fanny Wil- liams, the father was out of the way in the cellar, the waiters were up stairs laying the cloth for the feast, her mother was paying a visit, and there was nobody but herself left in care of the bar. It THE HOTEL KEEPER. 207 would be very rude to leave lier father's friend alone in the little parlour, and so she remained with him, heartily wishing, at the same time, that some-body would claim her attention at the bar. " But no one came, and Mullins was delighted. He gazed on her, and found her more beautiful than ever ; her very modesty channed him, al- though it was what he most wished to overcome — the passion mounted in his blood, and ran through his frame like lightning over quicksilver, — his eye trembled under its lid in the light with which it sparkled— his heart beat quick with the fierce im- pulses of the libertine, — and with a wild, but coarse ardour, he declared at once, to the half-frightened girl beside him, the mighty madness of his love ! " When Fanny raised her mild quiet eyes and met those of the crafty villain before her, she shrunk into herself with a feeling of instinctive disgust, and was for a moment silent — but that silence had well nigh proved her ruin. " Mistaking it for consent, Mullins saw in it the happy crowning of all his schemes and hopes. Drunk with passion and delirious with joy, he 208 THE FLEET PRISON. flung his arms round her waist — he raised her from her seat — he folded her to his bosom with a fierceness that nearly took away her breath — >he pressed her cheek with boiling, burning kisses — he stopped to gaze again upon her beauty — when a loud thrilling scream rung from her lips — and as he left his hold, she fell from his anns upon the sofa, pale and insensible from fright. — And while Mullins too stood over her for a moment bewil- dered with his own terror ; — in burst the father, summoned by his daughter's shriek, in time to gather from the quailing eye and guilty counte- nance of the seducer, a truth-telling evidence of what had passed; and no sooner did the convic- tion flash upon his mind, than Mullins, with a blow that might have felled a Hercules, was levelled with the floor. Again on his legs, and the hand of Williams had already grasped his collar — " * Villain — coward — scoundrel ' — said he, as he took his walking stick from its place over the mantel-piece ; ' it was for this then that you lent me your cursed money — it was for this that you wanted me to hrew my own heer I and have my THE HOTEL KEEPER. -209 own hotel; it was for this was it? and so you would have made a convenience of my house and a victim of my child ? — but it is well I have found you out, that you may not go away unrewarded. Now, Sir, take this, — and this, — and this — foryour damnable friendship and yom- cursed coin,' (and with every word the indignant Williams inflicted a blow upon the shoulders of Mullins, dragging him at the same time through the bar towards the door ;) ^ and beware for the future,' continued he, quivering with rage, * how you again dare to speak to my daughter or enter my house, lest you be punished so, — and so, — and so ' ; — and again he laid on the walking-stick. Then having reached the door, with the hand on the back of his neck, and accompanying the movement with a passionate kick, he hurled his quondam patron more than half way across the street on his road home : — ***** " The next morning, George Williams was ar- rested at the suit of Mullins, for the sum of thirty pounds; and judgement having been entered up upon the overdue warrant of attorney, for a hundred 210 THE FLEET PRISON. pounds, an execution for that amount, was put into his house, and under the plea that his rent day was approaching, as many things as they cal- culated would satisfy the execution, were removed elsewhere to be sold. WilUams, having had his person taken in the morning, was, of course, not aware of, still less present at, the execution on his goods; and therefore the officers had no oppo- sition in their seizure. Even Mrs. Williams, and Fanny — the innocent cause of the catastrophe — were gone to see George at * AVhitecross-street,' whither he had been taken in preference to a spunging-house; so that there was no one per- sonally interested in the property present, when it was taken away. They, therefore, seized the op- portunity to display the most revengeful spirit, and spiteful malice in their choice of goods to beai' off. They did not go at once to the plate- basket or the wine cellar, or take the most va- luable effects that would, \\dthout much incon- venience, have satisfied the debt; but they laid hold of every little thing of small value, imme- diately wanted for the present use of the hotel, THE HOTEL KEEPER. 211 and without which its custom could not be supplied ; — so that by the time they had removed as much as in the valuation of the unconscionable broker, came to £100, — they had left the lower rooms of the house without furniture, and stript of the utensils and apparatus by which the bu- siness was carried on. " Mark the result. Believing that Williams was a ruined swindler, and that all his representations to them had been false, his other creditors no sooner saw his goods removing, and learnt that he was himself in prison, than they sent down detainers one after another, for the amount of their several demands, so that he soon foimd him- self in gaol for the whole sum of his responsibilities. Many of them he got settled at once by giving cognovits; but his more hard hearted enemies, prejudiced by the statements of Mullins, would take no terms, and he was consequently kept in prison until the cognovits became due, and fresh executions being issued the rest of his pro- perty was sacrificed and sold off. The man and his family are, therefore, totally ruined. In 212 THE FLEET PRISON. the early stage of his imprisonment, he removed by habeas, from Whitecross- street to the Fleet ; and here he has remained for the last year and more ; his wife and children being obliged to sup- port themselves, and himself subsisting prin- cipally, as far as I can learn, upon the rent which he derives from this room. When he goes out, if he ever do, he will have to begin his life over again, without either the strength, the buoyancy, the prospects, or the energies of youth ; and with the damping remembrance perpetually haunting him, of having lost the fruits of thirty years' hard industry through misplaced confidence, a brutal treachery, and the oppressive injustice of the law of aiTcst." The doctor concluded his narrative, and Charles retired from the breakfast table, perfectly con- vinced that all the landlords in the Fleet were not like the " German." . GARSIDE AND MOSELY. CHAPTER V. GARSIDE AND MOSELY. AN EPISODE OF CRIME. " Where be these bloody thieves ? '* SHAKSPEARE. " In Banco Regis." — Dance. We break iu for a short time upon the straight- forward thread of our Narrative, to relate one of those exceptions to the rule by which the Debtors' prisons are appropriated to debtors alone ; the history of which has so lately formed a topic of intense interest to the public. And let us begin by infonning our readers that we write these pages — ourself a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench, although at present enjoying 216 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. the convenience of the Rules — and that we con- sequently partake in the excitement caused by any very unusual event among the prisoners, more particularly if it involve an outrage upon the feelings of those whose misfortunes have deprived them of the power of enjoying — however deeply they may feel — " The spirit of divinest liberty." And that such an outrage is involved in the cir- cumstances which we are going to relate, will scarcely be denied by those who do us the honour to read them. While men's minds, it will be remembered, were yet fresh in their hoiTor of the two murderers convicted of the assassination of Mr. Ashton — Garside and Mosely — there arose between the sheriffs of the town and county where they were tried, a contention and a doubt, upon whom legally devolved the duty of executing the unfortunate men. The question — eventually resolved into one of importance and precedent — procured for the guilty felons a respite of suspense till the next term, and was finally AN EPISODE OF CRIME. 217 tried in the Court of King's Bench — which in its supreme power ordered the culprits for execu- tion by the Marshal of the Marshalsea, assisted by the Sheriflf of Siurey, on Tuesday, the 2ot\i of November, 1834. In pursuance of this order, they were on the Thursday preceding, removed into the debtors' prison — and confined in the strong room of the King's Bench ; — where theii* presence originated one universal feeling of indignation among the inmates, arising out of the repulsive conscious- ness that they — for mere misfortune only, beyond the power of many to avert — were now the fellow prisoners of men who had committed the highest moral crime — whose hands were deepened with the stain of blood — whose limbs were manacled \\dth the fetters of the felon — whose souls were accountable to their God for a life which he had given — and which they, without even the impulse of vengeance, had dared to take away. The debtors deemed that a new degradation had befallen them — that in trivial quarrels, the 218 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. common brawls of life — men might point at them the finger of provocation and say, " That fellow was in gaol with Garside the murderer,"— or " Garside and Mosely were with that man in prison," — thus leaving the inference that they too had committed some heinous crime against the laws of society, and never for a moment sup- posing that to the British constitution there was appended an act by which the man who was simply poor and embarrassed could be incarce- rated in the same gaol with one who had been guilty of murder, and who only waited in chains for death. Were it only to point out the gross moral injustice of such an act as this, we have an apology for introducing the story into these pages — but when we remember that the whole public were deeply interested, almost to excitement, in the tragical event of the murder, we have a further inducement for relating particulars, which cannot be elsewhere gathered, of the last days of Garside and Mosely, when left for execution in a debtor's gaol. AN EPISODE OF CRIME. 219 These unhappy men arrived at this last step but one up the awful ladder of their destiny, to- wards the dusk of the evening of Thursday, the 20th of November. They were immediately separated, and committed to the two strong rooms in which debtors are occasionally confined when they break through the regulations of the prison. Par ex- ample, a man who had committed a slight assault a few .days before, had been placed to recover his temper in the same apartment which was now converted into a murderer's cell; and the same room which but the last week had been awarded to a man convicted of selling spirits, was now, with most equal justice, given to another con- victed of taking life ! While we write too, it is just probable that some uproarious debtor may be even now, by an unthinking misconduct, pre- paring himself to turn in to one of the very rooms from which a murderer was but yesterday turned out — to be hanged ! While the felons were in their confinement, there were persons employed to sit with them, to prevent, we imagine, any attempts which these un- 220 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. fortunate culprits might make to destroy them- selves. It is from one of these individuals that we gather the ingenious story devised by Garside, to clear himself and his companion of the guilt of the murder, in these, the last hours of their hopes and life — for with life hope still lingered — ay, even to the last! Garside must have been b}^ his own account a ruffian of the most outrageous cast, and although a pitiably ignorant person, appears to have been capable of devising plots which, for cunning and contrivance, might rank with those of John Thurtell or Eugene Aram himself. — His story, in protesting his innocence, was as follows. He declared that for stealing a spindle or some tool or tools connected with a manufactory, he had been sentenced to spend eighteen months at the tread-mill. Whilst engaged at this rotundary occupation, " I saw," said he, " an advertisemept in the paper, of the king's proclamation, offering a reward of five hundred pounds and the king's tree pardon to any person implicated, but not actually having committed the murder, who would turn A>' EPISODE OF CRIME. 221 king's evidence against the real murderer. — At this time," continued Garside, " I knew no more of the murder than the babe unborn, but I thought it would be a good way of getting five hundred pounds and my liberty from the cursed treadmill to say that / had helped to do it myself^ and fix on somebody else as the person tvho did the act.'''* It will at once occur to our readers, that the man who could harbour such a thought as this was no longer fit to live among his species : — wiih- out conscience, without hearty ban-en of every feeling of charity — every warm and generous im- pulse of human love ! " At first," continued he, " I did not know on whom to fix as the murderer ; but as I had always a spite against Mosely, because I thought it was him who informed against me when I stole the spindle, 1 at last resolved to revenge myself by swearing it was him." " And did Mosely inlbrm against you ? " " No, I have found out since that it was my wife's sister, and not Mosely ; but I didn't knovN it then. Well, I ^vas three weeks making up my VOL. I. L 222 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. mind about this, and arranging my plans so as not to be taken aback, and when I thought I had my story pretty plain and well by heart, I deter- mined to out with it at once." Garside next went on to say that he was taken before a magistrate, and made a statement upon oath, that Mosely was the man who committed the murder, and that he was accessary to the act. But here he cunningly describes, and gets out of, a dilemma which, he would make it appear, had well nigh proved fatal to his diabolical scheme. It turned out that there were three parties to the murder, and "this" said Garside, "I did not know;" so that when he was asked who besides himself was concerned with Mosely, he feigns to have been at a nonplus. " At first," he said, '^ I wouldn't tell, for 1 was downright puzzled, and thought I was done, — but the magistrate helped me out of the scrape." " This Mosely, I see," says he, " has got a bro- ther, a most notorious rascal ; I shouldn't be sur- prised to hear that he has had something to do with the murder." AN EPISODE OF CRIME. 223 " Well, I couldn't think of any body else, and so I said it was him ! and that settled it at once." Nothing can be more revolting than this tale. The very crimes which this hardened fellow would have made us believe he had committed, in order to save himself from the gallows, or, as he states, for the mere sake of the reward, are in them- selves almost more horrid than the horrid murder itself. Supposing him really not guilty, what a load of guilt is he yet ready to acknowledge 1 For five hundred pounds he is prepared to take upon his own head the odium of having participated in an atrocious assassination — of being himself called a murderer through life ; — he would, too, from a motive of petty malice, swear away the life of another man, his companion and friend ; and lastly, to get rid of a point of embar- rassment, he would involve that man's brother in the common death which would have awaited them all, if he had not exonerated himself by the false story, which he would fain have im- pressed upon our minds he had the ferocious hardihood to invent. " For," said he, when near his last moments, to the person who remained L 2 '224 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. with him in the strong-room of the Bench, " up to tliis time I do not know who com- mitted the murder, and I am as innocent as you are of the whole matter." There cannot, we believe, looking at the forcible and convincing evidence, be a doubt of Garside's guilt, but we are far from l.^eing so sure of that of his companion. When both prisoners took the sacrament on the Sunday previous to their exe- cution, Mosely, either before or during the cere- mony, remarked, " I can take the sacrament with a clear conscience, and that is more, Garside, than you can say." And Garside himself, after the solemn rite was concluded, addressed the clergyman and said, " Now, Sir, I have taken the sacrament, and if all that I told before against Mosely is not false, I wish I may go to hell." Garside repeated this before he mounted the scaffold, and Mosely protested his innocence ta the last. On Tuesday morning, the day of their execu- tion, they were removed in a mourning coach, like men going to their o^vn funeral, and were taken to Horsemonger-lane, where the gallows was erected. From the top windows of one of the staircases of AN EPISODE OF CRIME. 225 the King's Bench, the whole of the sad scene was visible, and the imprisoned debtors rose at an early hour to see their " fellow prisoners" die ! Several of the principal officers and turnkeys of the King's Bench were distinguished upon the scaf- fold ; the felons were seen to mount it with a firm step, the rope was adjusted, the drop fell— and in a few minutes their spirits were on their long journey, to answer for their innocence or their guilt. The story of their execution, and with what firmness they died, has been tojd in all the news- papers, but the organs of the press did not perhaps know, and hence could not inform the public, that when these unfortunate criminals were cut down, their bodies were not given for dissection, but were brought back again to the " debtor's prison " and buried within the walls of the King's Bench! Think of converting the place of confinement for men whose crime consists in this, that " they owe other men money," into a " Pere la Chaise " for murderers after they are hanged ! These cases are, however, — Heaven be praised, — of seldom occuiTcnce. The only parallel instance which we have found recorded, is when in the 226 GARSIDE AND MOSELY. year 1791, a murderer was brought from Ely, im- prisoned in the King^s Bench, and afterwards executed on Kennington Common. But that they do not happen frequently is no groimd of argument against the outrage on the debtors when they do. For although it is perfectly true, that the debtor is not brought into com- panionship with the felon, while the two are incarcerated in the same prison, yet it is equally true, that the mere fact of their having been in the gaol at the same time, is, as the world is constituted, a degi'adation implying some higher degree of guilt to the debtor, and which can always be made the groundwork of a taunt in the mouth of a malicious enemy, or even a common retailer of the slanders of society. We add no further observations, therefore, to the above narrative — we leave it to carry its own conviction to the mind of the reader*. ♦ It was a curious coincidence that, although the contention as to who should hang Garside and Mosely, was between the county of Cheshire and the town of Chester, — they were eventually executed by a hangman of the name of Cheshire, and in pre- sence of a Deputy Marshal of the name of Chester. THE FLEET PHISON. CHAPTER V. CHARACTERS ! " His facts are facts, and his characters are those of living men." Review in the Athenaeum. In all small communities, where the frequent meeting with persons differing from their fellows in some point of eccentricity, attracts an observa- tion, which in a more crowded sphere the same in- dividuals would escape, we are apt to pass them at last with an inquisitive feeling of curiosity, and then to turn to our companion and say " there goes a character." Those whose appearance have ex- cited the remark, are usually fit subjects for the pencil of Cruickshank or H. B. — and the observation 2*28 THE FLEET PRISON, itself will often- elicit some incident or anecdote in their history not unentertaining to those whose notice their oddities have attracted. Such per- sons are usually to be found in country villages, close boroughs, small colonies, and indeed, in all confined circles of society ; but in a prison they are, perhaps, more numerous and more marked than in any other sphere we could have named. Their habits are peculiar and regular: daily they do the same things, and are to be seen in the same places; and the prisoners first acquire an interest in, and then information about them, which they are af- terwards pleased to communicate to any one who will appear to take a pleasure in listening. In this manner was Charles Montford soon made acquainted with the names, persons, and histories of all that numerous class of unfortunates who have for some time past gone by the illus- trious distinction of " Characters of the Fleet." We beg, in the name of our hero, permission to inti'oduce a few of these characters to our readers, and we begin with a tall, lean, old man, whose limbs were so extremely spare, as to appear flesh- CHARACTERS. 229 less as well as bloodless, and whose dress was such as at once bespoke untenanted pockets, and seemed to afford the shabby covering to an empty stomach. — His hat, growTi old in his service, stood sadly in need of a nap ; his rusty brown coat had borne the brunt of many a " rent day," and as his dirty white trowsers fell nearly to his feet, his lank bony ancles seemed to be standing in sacks. — Still upright in his walk, his imprisonment was the result of having forgotten to remain so in his dealings ! At this distance of time, and in the strangely altered being before them, few would have re- cognized the trim, neat, well-dressed, precise, and respectable-looking Mr. Burt, joint-mana- ger with Earl Dundonnald, then Lord Cochrane, of that notorious transaction of the Stock Ex- change which caused all the bargains of that day to be afterwards annulled, but which, had it succeeded, would doubtless have made his Lord- ship and Mr. Burt two of the richest subjects of his Majesty the King. The plot, however, cle- verly as it was conceived, failed, and the result l3 230 THE FLEET PRISON. was to Lord Cochrane, the loss of his liberty —his title (now restored), his honours, and his naval rank ; while it placed Mr. Burt in that durance in which he still remains, and saddled him with a line of, we beheve, i?20,000 to the crown. Both parties to the transaction appear to have recrimi- nated, and each attempted to throw the onus of the ignominy upon the other's shoulders. Mean- while Mr. Burt remains in prison till the fine is paid, which, unless the King forgive it, will, we suppose, be for the rest of his life, though this, by the way, considering that Lord Cochrane is liberated, and has had his title restored, seems rather unfair towards his accomplice — or for aught we know, his mere tool, in the memorable stratagem. Meanwhile this unhappy old man has al- ready, one would think, suffered a sufficient punish- ment to satisfy the ends of justice. He has been- a prisoner through all the worst hardships of the system for twenty years or more : his constitution, if not his heart, is broken ; his health gone ; his body wasted to a skeleton; his hair whitened CHARACTER ^31 more with anxiety than with age. — Upon what is allowed him, he barely subsists ; he is poor, shabby — but still proud ; fragile as a reed, and not far from being as slender. — His has been a hard penance : changed by the alchemy of years and misery, his appearance excites in the beholder feelings similar to those with which we read the " Pauvre femme'*'' of Berenger, where, after telling us of her former prosperity, and contrasting with it the touching picture of her present faded beauty and hopeless destitution, he exclaims, in the pure benevolence of a poet's heart — "Ah! let our charity be dealt to her." A resemblance to another of the pictures of the ^^ Chansonnier'''' of the French people, will also apply admirably to another character in the " Fleet," who may be mentioned by the title of the Little Doctor. He has been we cannot tell how many years in prison, for not j^aying the damages in a case of crim. con., where the wife whom he seduced lives with him, and has several children, of whom he is the father. 232 THE FLEET PRISON. The hero, of whom he would make so admirable a prototype, is ' Le Petit homme Gris,'''' — so di- minutive is he, so merry, and so frequently dressed in brown. And does an evil befal him, he treats it with the same kind of philosophy. D'ye see, says lie, my plan ? D'ye see, says he, my plan ? — My plan, d'ye see's, to laugh at that. — Sing merrily, sing merrily, the little brown man. Or, as we have elsewhere seen it more correctly translated, " Oh, what a merry fellow is the little man in brown." The greatest misfortmie that could have befallen him, would have been the loss of his room ; but we believe, that even under this calamity, the old Greek adage would have served him for com- fort, " A^^Jipa xaAyj Tyji'co uTromia. " — " there are other places open : and if you will not let me live in the coffee-gallery, why, I must manage to move into the hall." Of this room of his the little fellow made a sort of chemist's shop, the only place in the Fleet CHARACTERS. 233 where a man could buy physic without sending out ; and here too he followed the occupation of apothecary to the prisoners. He sold them their medicines — he found them in their early draughts of Seidlitz or soda — he gave them lotions for their black eyes, and plasters for their broken heads. He had, besides, two other trades — those of news- vender and broker ; that is, he supplied the papers and he furnished rooms. He was a shrill-voiced, quick-speaking, lame, gossiping, bald-headed, and everlasting-tongued little gentleman, to whom every body gave the cognomen of the Little Doctor. His fair companion was, on the other hand, rather the reverse of small ; but while every one allowed her to be a fine comely woman, there was also a general puzzling of imaginations among the curious to discover how any lady of moderate personal attraction could allow herself to be run away with by the Little Doctor. Floreat ! notwithstanding. Speedily may he " go out of his troubles," and long may he live, not in his present durance, but in a state of higher 234 THE FLEET PRISON. morality and happier liberty than he can ever be supposed to enjoy, while he committeth adultery and dwelleth in the Fleet. Had he ever been married, a clergyman might safely have presented him to his " bigger bride " as " Parviim non parvae amicitiae pignus ;" a little token of not a little — friendship it should be — ^but we will write it — Love ! Chambers, the late banker, and proprietor of the Italian Opera House, has been also an un- settled inmate of the prison for many years, and although it is doubtful how much property he may yet be eventually possessed of, he is we be- lieve, at present, in a great measure dependent for his support upon the praise-worthy exer- tions of his daughter. Miss Chambers, whose musical and dramatic talents have been for some time favomrably known to the public. He walked daily in the front of the building with a down- cast appearance of sharp, settled melancholy — so likely to be engendered in the mind of a man CHARACTERS. 235 already in the vale of years, and uncertain about the term of his imprisonment. Another quiet, thoughtful, silver-headed man was at that time also pretty regular in his pro- menade. This was Robinson, the once cele- brated and specidative publisher, formerly of the firm of Hurst and Robinson, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and who failed, we believe, for a sum not less than two hundred thousand pomids. It was reported, with what truth we mil not pre- tend to decide, that at one time Mr. Robinson had his name on bills of exchange to the amount of near two millions of money — a responsibility in itself enough to silver the hair without its growing " white In a single night, As men's have done from sudden fears." One of the longest residents in the prison, and certainly one of its leading characters, was an elderly gentleman of miserly, but unobtrusive habits, who seemed to look upon it as his home. His name was Giimstead ; he bore the character 236 THE FLEET PRISON. of being extremely rich, and was a man of high respectability, and a magistrate in the county in which he lived previous to his imprisonment. One of his daughters a short time back married a nobleman, and we believe had a handsome portion from her father, who, mixing in no society, and yet wanting no comfort, allows his capital to gather a giant load of interest, and clings with a wonderful pertinacit}' to a dwelling from which the majority of its other inmates would give their birthright to be free. He is a person of informa- tion, experience, and quiet gentlemanly manners ; his debts we believe are large and, his wealth, like all rich men, he denies, probably because he feels a disinclination to pay them. If this be the case, then is his wilful incarceration a gross and lament- able perv^ersion of human judgement and intellect, and a satire upon that honesty, which a magistrate is morally bound to the public to encourage and uphold. We are, however, among those who hope and believe better things of Mr. Grimstead. Among these " notices of remarkable persons," not the least conspicuous may stand Jerry Hailes, CHARACTERS. 237 the ex-candidate for the office of Cook. A very diminutive, thin-voiced, and certainly rather ugly person, who brought with him a somewhat amus- ing character from the " King's Bench." It so happens that he is twin brother to just such another being as himself, — the same height, the same features, the same black set of teeth. The two have only to study the histrionic art to make their joint fortunes as the Two Gentlemen of Verona. The only distinction by which they can be identified from each other, m by a small mole on the neck of one, which the neckcloth entirely conceals. Thus when Jerry was confined in " Banco Regis " his brother would come and see him, and after they had made an exchange of clothes, the prisoner would pass the turnkeys in the brother's attire, and walk away at his leisiu'e undiscovered. He was, however, always re-caught and brought back. On one occasion he was taken on the top of a house, and the little man would fain have made a struggle with his captor, — a man powerful enough to have taken Jerry and his •238 THE FLEET PRISON. brother under one arm, and half a dozen gentle- men of equal stature under the other. We pass from Jerry Hailes to the strange old man who keeps the skittle-ground, and who lives in the fair amongst a bevy of some half dozen great cats. This true eccentric has lately ac- quired an accession of custom and good fortune in the shed and roof, which have been erected over his skittle-ground at an expense of a hun- dred pounds to the Board of Works, and which enables him to make money in all weathers, as the skittle-ground is the only place for play and exercise when it rains. While he is alter- nately gathering in his penny per game and set- ting up the nine pins as they are bowled down by the busy players, he will every now and then amuse them with conundrums, in making which he considers himself an adept. Of these effusions of the old raan*s genius, we give one specimen, containing a reason not to be found in the my- thology, w hy Justice is painted blind. ^* Because," said he, when his hearers gave it up, " there have CHARACTERS. 239 been so many infants in the eije of the law *, that at last they have jow^ it out ! " Thus, it would ap- peal', that to the skittle-master, as to many others interested, law and justice seemed synonymous terms. A gentleman whose name we omit, the son of a baronet, was also a character, but one on the retired list. He had two rooms, for which we believe he paid the enormous sum of five guineas per week. He had richly papered them, and had had them most superbly furnished, — so hand- somely, indeed, as to make it a point of cmiosity with some of the prisoners to get a sight of them. In these apartments the gentleman might live at his ease, and enjoy the luxuries of existence, — still his imprisonment must have been a severe one, albeit softened by the visits of his lovely and very lady- like little wife. His scrupulous tenacity of being seen out, led him to keep himself the closest of prisoners, never venturing to come down stairs, nor even to take the exercise of walking along the gallery in which he lived. Alike a stranger to the fresh air and the bright sky, he must have longed • Minors. 240 THE FLEET PRISON. for them with feelings similar to those with which the unhappy Prince Polignac longed for his free- dom, when from his prison he could hear how The little birds were pouring out Their songs upon the tree, And the groves of France were echoing "With their deep melody." But the young man most to be commiserated among the characters of the Fleet was a Mr. Brewer, — we withhold his real name — the same person and a clergyman whom Montford had met in the " whistling shop", under the mordX surveillance of Mr. Rowbotham of the Finish. When he first became a prisoner, he had com- mitted the sad error in delicacy and judgement of bringing his young and beautiful wife to reside with him in the gaol. — His children he had, with more prudence, kept away ; but in the presence of their mother, he had prepared for himself all the first fruits of that misery, which, during the re- maining years of what we fear will prove a short life, he is doomed bitterly to taste ! Prepossessing in her personal charms, his partner CHARACTERS. 241 had yet no fixed principles of virtue — no inherent modesty of heart — with not enough of moral energy to restrain the impulses of passion — earnest, susceptible — the victim of flattery — and ever ex- pecting the ready and unbounded admiration of the other sex. Brewer had no counteracting qualities or powers in his own mind to act as con-ectives to such a disposition as this. Quiet, inert, and unhap- pily addicted to a stealing, enervating intemper- ance — too idle to play the lover himself — too easy to perceive, when that character was enacted by " a friend" — he passed his days in drinking his way, with his eyes shut, to his own destruc- lion — and his wife, catching the mania from her husband, or naturally the reverse of temperate herself, would too often assist him with unabated vigour, until both became either quarrelsome at the expense of their domestic peace, or tipsy at the sacrifice of their constitutions. Perhaps no man was ever less fitted for the sacred calhng which he had chosen — and certainly no woman was ever less adapted to be a clerg>Tnan's wife. 242 THE FLEET PRISON. Brewer contracted an intimacy with another gen- tleman in the prison, who, having procured his liberation through the Insolvent Court, continued daily his close and punctual visitor. In friend and wife Brewer placed implicit faith — at the same time that their intrigues had become inde- cently notorious, and even unconcealed. Brewer himself was even told of this — but either he would not or did not believe what every body else saw and knew — or else he did not choose to interfere. Certain it is that he continued to send his wife out under the protection of his friend, and to make them and himself drunk when they returned ! At length the friend left, and the intrigues of this unfortunate woman with other prisoners — now gi'own so common as to amount to positive prostitution — were at last, after some strong re- monstrances by others on the degrading effects of his wilful or unhappy blindness, noticed by her husband. A separation ensued, and she was locked out. Still, however, did the demoralized clergyman CHARACTERS. 243 feel that melancholy attachment for the fallen adulteress, which a weak man, in spite of dis- honour and desertion, will often retain for a being whom he has once fondly loved, when he remem- bers her as the mother of his children. Thus did her absence, more than her unfaithfulness, seem, in his imprisonment, to prey upon his spirits, and overshadow his heart, and in the na- tural weakness of an unnerved mind, he sought to drown in the Lethe of the bowl, his griefs for and memories of a woman, who had once reposed in the young, untainted innocence of maiden love upon his bosom, — his, from which she had stolen happiness, to leave behind the thorn with which it was now bleeding and torn ! Brewer was now daily intoxicated, and daily de- cUning in health, and wasting under the ravages of a rapidly progressing consumption, aided as it was by the pernicious influences of sorrow and of drink — when he was taken in hand by Rowhotham of the Finish, and he became an almost constant resident in his room. Bitter crisis in the life of a clergyman of the Church of England, to be •244 THE FLEET PRISON. placed under the moral and physical direction of a man whose last occupation was that of lieeper of a " Prostitute's Saloon." But the " Whistler " saved his life, and his was an alarming illness. He certainly treated him with an honest kindness of heart and chari- table consideration which does him credit, be his station what it may. With an unselfish gene- rosity he refused him the immoderate use of liquors which had already begun their work of impair- ment, and by dieting him u])on a prescribed })lan, gradually, for the time at least, delivered him out of a dying state. But while her husband remained thus danger- ously debilitated and mentally infiim, his wife was fallen yet lower in the pale of degradation ; she had, in fact, become a common woman of the town, and might daily be seen flaunting her at- tractions in Regent Street, or dashing about with a thoughtless levity at the theatres, in the mas- querades, and at the saloons. In the midst of this career her allowance was stopped, and her chil- dren taken from under her protection. These CHARACTERS. 245 steps once taken, Brewer's friends began to hope that he might be reclaimed. They were disap- pointed. On one unhappy occasion Mrs. Brewer obtained pennission to see her husband for a short time with his own consent. He did consent, and the result was, that she was taken back to the home which she had dishonoured and disgraced — re- stored to those children who have yet to live under the shadow of their mother's shame, and is now once more dwelling with her iusband in the Fleet ! The young man himself is no more no- ticed in society, or spoken to by his friends. It yet remains to be seen, whether either of this ill-assorted pair will be in any way reclaimed by their re-union— whether the husband will once more become temperate, or the wife return to virtue. We fear that from the natural deficiencies of his own mind, without the refineliient of moral philosophy, or the mild blessings of religion, he can never be fitted for the sacred profession of a clergyman, although l:e may yet become an useful member of the great society of mankind in the virtuous fulfil- VOL. I. M 246 THE FLEET PRISON. ment of the moral obligations of his station. Never, however, so long as with the memory of dishonour, the temptations to intemperance, and the bitterness of neglect, he is left by his friends to waste his youth, his health, his fortune, and his future prospects in the contaminating sphere of a prison like the Fleet ; never while he remains a victim — and so melancholy a victim too — to the system of Imprisonment for Debt. Let not those who are most dearly and deeply interested in his fate, desert him at this critical l)eriod of his life ; and, above all, if they would save him, let them pay off his embarrassments, (as they can,) and snatch him from the brink of that dark gulph of moral destitution, into which he will else be too soon cast — a broken and a lonely wreck. Of his unhappy wife we will only say, may the Almighty Father of all good direct her, in His mercy, to gather in virtue the fruits of the expe- rience which she has bought in shame. And here let us dismiss our readers from all further present acquaintance with the " Characters of the Fleet." CHAPTER VI. THE AUTHOR'S STORY. PART I.— THE EXECUTION. " 1 see that such as sit aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all." Song ascribed by Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Edward Dyer. " I lore to view these things with curious eyes And moralize." SOUTHEY. Montfoed's residence in the Fleet Prison had not yet been of long duration, when he was one day interrupted, towards the approach of dusk, by a gentle knocking at his door, and on the summons to " come in," the entree of the same young man who had accosted him in an hour of affliction at the spunging house, and whose letter home he had kindly volunteered to despatch. Montford, already interested in his fate, at once gave him a reception of cordiality, and handing him a chair, added to his courtesy a congratulation M 2 248 THE FLEET PRISON. that he had escaped the fangs of the lawyers, and a hope that his child — the child about whose early fate he had betrayed so fond and deep an emotion, — had happily survived the illness which was then dangerously threatening its life ! The stranger sat down : he was visibly affected, and Charles thought somewhat exhausted too; and it seemed to be with something like a mas- tery of his real feelings that he said — " 1 have called, Sir, to thank you for the charitable kindness vv ith which you performed for me an act of hu- manity in the spunging house in Chancery Lane, in one of the most bitter moments of a life already too deeply tried with the misfortunes of the world: I regret that I cannot confiiTn your kind hopes of a change in my fortunes, — alas, I am not free ; and the only reason why you have not seen me here before is, because 1 have unusually^ as well as unfortunately," (and his eye sparkled with a latent pride as he laid stress upon the word that bespoke his former brighter fortimes,) " been so cramped in my finances, as not to have been hitherto able to move from White Cross Street, THE EXECUTION. 249 although, thank Heaven, and the generosity of a friend, a habeas has brought me here to-day." Montford did not moralize upon this speech, or he would have observed one of the strongest and truest workings of human pride — so strong and yet so contradictory in its impulses of tenacity- first shewing its object to leave upon his hearer's mind the impression that " he had seen better days " — that birth and education had placed him in a higher sphere than that in which he then shone, — and next originating that other feeling — not less proud in its character — involving a dis- dain of falsehood and a contempt of misrepre- sentation, that he was indebted " to the genero- sity of afiiend" for the means whereby he had been removed to the more commodious prison. But Montford did not pause to think : — he remembered the harsh cruelty v^-iih which his visitor had been dismissed at a late horn' of the night from a gloomy spunging-house to a still gloomier gaol — and that, too, at a moment when the bosom of a young parent might well be 250 THE FLEET PRISON. supposed to be harassed with the worst of trou- bles, — a grief involving the life of his infant and the happiness of his bride ; and as the sad events of that evening passed over his memory, Charles Montford felt a sort of instinctive friendship for his new guest, and at once requested him to spend the remainder of the evening, apart from the disturbance of the prison, in his room. The offer was accepted with a smile. " It is kind of you, Sir," said the stranger, " to behave thus cordially to one whom you do not know, and to whom you have already rendered a service, and I am deeply sensible of the obligation you confer. I shall remain with you not less for the pleasure of your society, than because I am scarcely yet prepared to encounter the lonely desolation of a prison, where I have no other companion — still less — friend ! Nay," said he, in a tone of deeper melancholy, " with the ex- ception of two affectionate and unchanging beings, I question if I have a friend in the world!" THE EXECUTION. 251 Montford changed the conversation, and en- deavoured to lead the mind and memory of his guest away from the influence of his absorbing sorrows. In this he was not altogether unsuc- cessful. His questions about the County Prison, (White Cross Street,) from which the stranger had just been removed, were answered with the ready information of one who observes deeply the characters and manners of every circle into which he is cast. Charles, who always kept late hours, contrived to break in upon " the topics of their talk" with the ceremony of dinner, of which the stranger ate little, and in which, towards the close of the meal, he was interrupted by some person A^dshing to speak to him in the gallery below. In an- swering this summons, he left the room for a period of about ten minutes. When he returned his countenance was whiter. " It wore the snow of the fleur de lis ;" but save a slight t\\dtching of the lip when he spoke, as though some muscle in his face were 25*2 THE FLEET PRISON. slightly cramped, there was no further change in his appearance. There is a natural frankness about Montford which leads him, be he in whose society he may, to speak in a few minutes with his lips, the full purpose of his mind. Thus the cloth had not long been removed — the first bottle of Madeira scarcely broached — when Charles's grow- ing interest in the adventures of his guest, prompted him (with less, we think, of ceremony than of curiosity) to ask him the origin and na- ture of the difficulties that had brought them to- gether. " I might almost as well tell you my histor}^-," said the stranger, " but you shall nevertheless hear. I am an author." Montford opened his eyes. This was the third literary man whom he had met in prison. " Yes," continued his guest, " you look as- tonished, but I am an author, and I believe I have, somewhat undeservedly, the reputation of being a poet. At all events, I live upon what I write; for I have no other means of subsistence. THE EXECUTION. 253 And yet," said he, " it has kept me at one time or other in a bright circle. I remember a time when I was sought for among the soirees of the titled, and invited to the tables of the great. My songs were sung by their daughters; and their albums were sent to my house for contributions, as though my poor autograph were worth a diamond. The nobleman would introduce his son, and ask my opinion upon some course of foreign reading or travel. The fair and flattered peeress would smile on me for a compliment; and the young roue ' honourable', would march up to me with his ' guardsman crony ', and bear away with him the burthen of a pun ! " All this was pleasant enough for a time, but at last there was a sort of slavery in it of which I grew tired. I loved polished society, but to be patron- ised is not to be free. Upos Tov Tvpavvov o(TTis iyLTCopeverai Keivov €(TTi Bov\os mv e'Kevdepo? p.oXrj, And besides, my finances would not quite keep M 3 254 THE FLEET PRISON. pace with my society. If I danced at Almack's in the evening— I dined the next day at Williams's boiled beef house in the Old Bailey. If I went with Lord to Crockford's at night — I had to \^Tite an article for one of the Magazines in the morning — or go without my breakfast ! If I but at last I had no time for any thing but my proper occupation. — I had got upon the press ! " I was now the editor of a newspaper, and great is the power which a man acquires with that im- portant office, far greater than that which Mr. E. L. Bulwer, * late of the New Monthly,' has de^ legated to Mr. Mc Grawler, * late of the Asinseum,' in his novel of Paul ClijQTord, that burly novel — so redolent of sentiment and slang. " I now wrote leading articles against my foes, and I wrote ' orders for two' to the theatres, in favour of my friends. Neither did I drop my songs. I had got a sort of fame as a ^ popular lyrist,' and I kept it by doleing out to the public such ballads as 'She never blamed him, never' — or ^ I met her at the fancy fair ;' matters which I THE EXECUTION. 255 despised in my own mind infinitely more than the majority of the reviewers of the penny publications who chose to cut them up. " Thus, however, did I make a considerable deal of money — perhaps as much as fifteen hundred a year, and this I lived nearly up to, but never went beyond. And even this was extravagant for a bachelor ! " So it was, but I did not remain long single. I believe I had studied deeply the human character, and above all, the character of woman, and I had early determined to become a mamed member of society, as soon as I could meet with a being pos- sessing a moderate share of beauty — that wasindis^ pensable, — and an unusual gift of innocence and purity of soul ; for 1 laid it down as a fine ti-uism in my own mind, that an educated man could mould to his own fancy or philosophy, a girl too young to be worldly, who knew nothing sa'. e the principles of love and virtue, and obeyed no pas- sions except the promptings of an ingenuous and un- polluted mind. " Such a being 1 soon met. To you. Sir, I may 956 THE FLEET PRISON. not speak of her beauty, — I could not of her excel- lence, — least of all of her faithful trusting love ! She was nineteen when I married her, after having terribly tried her affection, and found it pure and bright as crystal, — like that purest gold which by analysis is uncorrupted, and by alchemy un- changed. New and happy prospects opened upon me with my union. Patronised by a noble- man of high authority and influence in his county, I was summoned at a period of high excitement, and during the bustle of a violently contested election, to take the editorship of the county paper, and to help with such speeches as 1 could make, and such articles as I could write, the cause which, by principle as well as politics, I was bound heart and hand to support. 1 ac- cordingly moved down into the borough, where the fight between Whig and Radical was then pro- gressing in a Wellington versus Buonaparte sort of style. I was, as with the blessing of God I shall always remain, on the Conservative side — strong in the maintenance of our unsullied Con- stitution — proud m the principles of Pitt. THE EXECUTION. 257 "Embarked in the new sphere of activity into which I was thus suddenly thrown, nothing could equal my success. The very first evening of my anival in the town, there was a public meeting, at which I spoke, — and the next day a public dinne:"' was given, at which my health was drunk, in consequence of the speech which I had made. Unused to any remarks in their journal, save a slip-slop account of the occurrences of the week, the sti'ong language of one accustomed to super- intend one of the most violent papers of the Tory London press, astonished the simple-minded in- habitants and corporation of a country borough, and my first week's anathemas against the Whigs procured me the title of the ^ Devil Editor.' " A Committee of the House of Commons was then sitting to try the validity of the election, and my unsparing remarks upon its proceecUngs, all but brought me before the bar of tlie House, This insured my popularity in the town. A lodge was held, at which I was initiated as a free- mason. Societies, literary and agricultural, elected me an honorary member ; the mayor and corpora- 258 THE FLEET PRISON. tion gave me dinners one after the other ; and all the Tory country gentlemen left their cards at my hotel. Even a few of the opposite party called on me, and the editor of the opposition paper thought it worth his while to give me three columns of a personal attack. "All this was of course the result of party spirit, and I never for a moment fancied that I deserved it, even in my extremest vanity — of which, to tell truth, I had some to spare — but I was younger than people thought, and all this new consequence helped my ambition. At this time I was receiving £350 per annum as editor of the county paper, with £50 for the keep of a horse, and a few other perquisites, besides what I was making by my songs, and as editor of a literary publication then carrying on in town : I might have fairly estimated my income at a thousand a year. I ought to mention, that of the literary publication to which I have just alluded, I was then half proprietor with a bookseller, who has since left oiF business, near , a person whom I really believe to have been good-hearted, and THE EXECUTION. 259 who I do not think would have proceeded against me of his own accord, but for the representations of others connected with him in relationship, who have made him, in spite of his o^ti disposition, the reverse of the good fellow which he naturally is. " WTien 1 had first embarked with this young publisher in the speculation, it was agi"eed that I should have seven guineas per week, as editor of the paper, independent of my half share, and that he was to be at all the risk — an arrangement always considered fair in the literary world, and one very similar to that which Mr. Jerdan made with the joint proprietors of his Literary Gazette. " But it so happened that on my departure for my country editorship, our publication had reached its twelfth number, and we had expeiicnccd, as all new literary speculations do at their com- mencement, a considerable loss ; out of considera- tion for which, I had not drawn one penny of my salary. — My partner, however, wanted some money to expend upon the paper, and as my name just then stood well in the market, it was agreed that I should give him my acceptances 260 THE FLEET PRISON. which he could get discounted, upon condition that he should take them up, and that he should give me his for the same amount, which as they were to be set off against my salary, which I had not drawn, he was to take up also ! This arrange- ment was effected, and I started for the arena of my electioneering career. " On my first amval in the town, and for near two months after, during whicli time a house which I had taken, was finishing— in the fresh enthusiasm of my success, and in tlie really earnest ardour with wliich I followed up the politics of my party — I entertained at my hotel without much regard to the expense. — But I was not out of funds. " When I moved into my house on its comple- tion, I found myself in debt to the hotel-keeper — a horrid brute — a sum of one hundred and thirty guineas. — This I settled by giving him a hundred guineas in cash, and a bill for the thirty, payable at the office of a solicitor, the prince of rogues, whom I was, unconsciously, employing in London. "I then moved into my new house, and was THE EXECUTION. 261 looked upon by the electors as fairly installed an inhabitant of the town. The Conservatives num- bered my dvrelling, and reckoned it as they ought — another vote in favour of the Church, the Con- stitution, and the Throne ! " By and by, came one of the blessings of mar- riage, and my wife was dehvered of a boy. It was an event expected — hoped — nay even prayed for ! I was very proud. Young fathers are ever proud of their first child; and I remember that I fancied I loved my wife the ipore for bringing me this young treasure. False fancy of a parent ! I could not love her more than when I sent her the early tribute of a passion that had just risen in my heart, and sang * to thee, to thee, My thoughts go wandering warmly still, Like hope, — borne on in infancy — Upon a sunlit rill ! ' "Another month passed over: my speeches were more and more applauded — my society more and more sought. At last I drove an obnoxious can- didate from the hustings with the powder of a 262 THE FLEET PRISON. pun! — a silly explosion, which, however, com pleted my renown. "The brother-in-law of one of our most justly va- lued statesmen— the man who first split the Con- servative party upon the Catholic question, and who had consequently got appended to his sir- name the title of Rat — came down to stand against the old Tory candidate and his colleague, who was also a post captain in the navy ; and before a heterogeneous assembly of Tories and Radicals, endeavoured to curry the favour of both ])arties, by praising the private virtues of the one, and the public principles of the other: thus explaining, as he said, the diflference between the two. " ' And what,' said I, on being called upon by the electors to answer him; ' what— since you have told us the difference between the old member and the late candidate, — is the difference between the old member and the present candidate ? ' " ' Give it up,' shouted the electors, after a pause. '* ' More, I hope, than you will ever do, \\dth your principles,' said I ; and the people threw up THE EXECUTION. 263 their hats. ' Well, then, since you give it up, the difference between your old sailor member and your present renegade candidate is this : — the one is a T— A— R— and the other an R— A— T.' " It was a simple joke, but the electors again threw up their hats. 'How d^e like that?' — 'Did ye hear that?' — ' Take the shine out of that;' and sundry other simultaneous cries, disturbed at once the equanimity of the new candidate, and soon after, his eiii^Y "^^^ carried through the town in a cradle, and the Hon. George D had retired from all hopes and pretensions of representing the ancient bo- rough ! " After this event, I got involved in a duel for the cause, and then there was a sort of respite from duty, a temporary suspension of excitement in the town. " I took advantage of this to bring my wife to town, to receive the congi'atulations and visits of her relatives and friends, on the birth of her first child. It was a sort of treat, after the dulness of a country residence, from which I had been ge- •264 THE FLEET PRISON. nerally absent, in the pursuit of politics — so little interesting to women, except in the highest sphere of society, where power and ambition in- fluence a lady's position in her exclusive coterie. So true is it that in every other class, a woman's idle thoughts are devoted to her love alone, either diminishing or increasing it according to the conduct of its object, and, as Byron rightly observed, when he placed man's numerous pursuits in contradistinction, ' Wealth, Fame, Ambition, Honor, Glory, Gold ;' having to oppose to all these resources only one, ' To live again — and be again undone.' *' For some short time I continued to remain in town, during which period I resided at my hotel in Covent Garden, and was employed in so arranging my affairs, that my presence in the metropolis might not soon be again required after my return to the scene of my election and edito- rial pursuits. " It was during this stay in London that the week arrived in which the bill that I had given THE EXECUTION. 265 for the balance of iny account to the country hotel-keej3er was to become due— a fact of which I infonned my solicitor on the Monday morning, telling him that I was not sure on what day it would fall, but desiring him to be prepared for it, and take care that it might not be on any account dishonoured. My solicitor was an old and a poor man,whom I had previously found out in one or two misappropriations and deceptions in money mat- ters, but whose powers of conversation — ingenious plausibility — and gentlemanly manners— were such as to leave upon my mind the impression that he was naturally honest — and that upon any matter of moment he was worthy of my confidence ; how- ever his poverty might give to his actions an ap- pearance of meanness in trivial and little things. In believing this, I displayed my ignorance of human nature, and of the truism, that he who is capable of deceit in small matters, has all the elements — except, perhaps, the courage— requisite for the commission of a larger fraud ; and that he is the first to seize upon an opportunity when he be- lieves it unaccompanied by danger. My expe- ^66 THE FLEET PRISON. rience of this was first gained by finding that my solicitor was a rascal. " The bill, which was payable at his office, be- came due the following Friday— he was out of the way when it was presented — dishonoured it through his clerk, without one word of observa- tion, except a ' not at home ;' and completed his infidelity without so much as sending me notice that it was unpaid, although he was aware that all my prospects depended on the keeping up of my credit in the county town in which my situa- tion was held. " Accordingly I was arrestedwithout any previous .warning, by the attorney and agent to the hotel- keeper ; a political opponent, and a notorious sharp practitioner, who had so managed it that I was, taken at a late hour on Saturday night, out of my hotel, to a spun gin g-house in Chancery- lane, when it would be of course too late to bail the action till Monday morning. " Never had I been before in a similar difficulty, and I knew not how to act. Sillily, and as though I could have controlled my fortune, I declared THE EXECUTION. 267 that I must return to my hotel, that it was impos- sible for me to leave my young wife and child without any other protectors than my servants, and under an uncertainty where I could be gone ; in short I talked at random, and the person to whom t addressed myself, advised me to send for the master of the house. " I did so. " When the spunging-housekeeper made his ap- pearance — partly by way of a bribe, and partly because I have an aversion to being alone with a suspicious character, — I ordered an accession to our society, of two glasses of brandy and water, and as many cigars. The sheriff's officer sat down and soon began to smoke and drink; he expressing his sorrow to see me in his house, after having taken all the trouble in his power to bring me there. " ' Well,' I said, ' what am I to do ?' " ' W'hy, Sir, you can't go till Monday morning, that's clear,' said he; knowing, of course, that if I did go before Monday morning, my departure would be a guinea or two out of his pocket. 268 TPIE FLEET PRISON. " * What,' asked 1, ' is there no way of getting out to-night. I don't care what I paj, but you must really get me out.' If I had cared about the price to pay, I should have been told there was none ; but as it was, the bailiff made answer, " ^ Yes, there is one — and oyie only — that is by giving the undertaking * of a respectable attorney — but here we never receive an undertaking from any but our own solicitors; and perhaps you don't know them.' " ' And who are they ? ' cried I anxiously. " ' Messrs. Harpy and False.' " ' What— of Chancery-lane .? ' "- ' Yes.' " ' Then I am a lucky fellow, and it is all right. I know them well — I have met Harpy more than once at dinner parties, and False is the brother-in-law to my own partner in the pro- prietorship of the newspaper ;' alluding * The attorney gives the officer an undertaking that you shall appear or put in bail ; and if the officer knows him to be re- spectable, he will generally release his client on payment of the THE EXECUTION. 269 to the literary speculation in which I have already iold you I was engaged. " Forthwith, then, did I send for Harpy and False; and forthwith, in answer to my summons, came False — the smooth-faced brother-in-law of my good-natured partner of ; and to him did I unfold my aifairs. '* I told him how my attorney had served me, and of my determination no longer to employ him. I explained, at the same time, the necessity of my having other professional advisers, and, re- membering the friendly position in which Mr. False might naturally stand towards me as the relative of my partner, I at once determined to submit my circumstances to the firm of which he was a principal. This course I proposed to him, and the offer was accepted. " Never in my life have I decided on any fixed plan, without at once acting upon it while its advantages remained fi-esh upon my conviction ; and plain and prompt were, therefore, my pro- ceedings with my new attorney, who began his installation by drinking some brandy and water out VOL. I. N 270 THE FLEET PRISON. oimy glass. This act alone implies something like a mutual confidence, and when men drink to- gether, they ought at least to be friends. At once, then, I sat about making him master of my affairs. " I told him the number and amount of my lia- bilities — the counter-balancing salary of my in- come as editor of the county paper — the sums due to me from others — the yearly monies which I had hitherto made — and how much I was con- tinuing to make. I unfolded to him the nature of my connexions — the names of my influential re- latives, and what I expected from them in the way of legacies, as well as what had been left me by those who had gone to the other world. I de- scribed to him the means I had of raising money under emergency, in case we should decide on carrying on our literaiy speculation, which was still a losing concern; and to all this he listened with legal attention — only increased, and, as I thought, pleasurably, w hen I dwelt upon the excel- lence of my political prospects in the town where I resided — the comfort of my house — the elegance THE EXECUTION. 271 of my furniture— the beauty of my pictures—the spirit of my horses — the variety of my library — and the choice qualities of my wines. His little legal eyes glistened with delight at my comfortable establishment; and when I mentioned that I should be happy to see him as often as he could spare time for a country trip, he thanked me, as I thought, with the smile of one who was pleased with his new client. " He took one more sip of my brandy and water, and proceeded to give me his advice. ' It so hap- pens," said he, ' that I know the attorney who has brought you here, and I will endeavom* to arrange it with him, so as to get you out, if you can manage with the sheriffs officer, to-morrow, in which case, suppose we appoint twelve o'clock on Monday, to take your papers into our hands, and receive your instructions upon your affairs.' " ' Good,' said I : * Will you then call on me ? * " * Why, perhaps it will be more convenient if yon call at our office.' " ^ Agreed.' n2 272 THE FLEET PRISON. " So, Upon the strength of the agreement, Mr. False took his departure ; and I sent a messen- ger to my wife, informing her that I should not be able to see her till the morning, et pour cause ! " Meanwhile, the landlord of my hotel in town had got a shrewd suspicion that I was arrested — the waiter having told him that I had gone away with ' two common-looking men,' — and, accord- ingly, the first thing on Sunday morning he sal- lied out in quest of the spunging-house in which I might be confined. After visiting one or two other dens of a similar nature, he discovered mine ; and learning that I was in custody, at once made his appearance in my room. " This honest fellow, who has always treated me with a most signal kindness, and whose continued fidelity it will be long ere I forget — began by up- braiding me for not letting him know that I was arrested, before the officers took me from his house. ' Damn it,* said he, in his own plain-speaking fashion, ' though you do owe me money, I wouldn't have let ye come to such a place as this neither. THE EXECUTION. 273 How can people expect ye to pay ye'r debts while ye're caged up like a blackbird ? What, haven't ye got bail ?' " ' No. I could get it, but the officer won't take bail on a Sunday.' " ' Oh, won't he '.—did ye try him ? ' "^No!' " ' Ah ! well, let me go and speak to him : I dare say I can manage it ;' and so saying, he opened the door, and coolly walked down stairs. " I saw nothing more of him for the next half hour, when I heard him calling to me in great glee from the bottom of the stairs. " ' Come away down, Sir—come away down ; it's all right.' " And so it was — he had prevailed upon the officer, with the douceur of five pounds, to accept of his responsibihty, and let me out, although it was Sunday; and no sooner was I fairly liberated, than my worthy landlord led me back to my hotel, to the infinite dehght of my wife, who saw, in the spunging-house of her fancy, a place not a wlnt less awful than Newgate or the Bastille. 274 THE FLEET PRISON. " I do not harbour the general prejudice against lawyers, — nav, I oppose all prejudices ; I could even exclaim with Voltaire, in his epistle to Boileau, Dans les rovaumes sombres S'il est des prejuges j'en guererai les ombres.' and therefore you must acquit me of such an in- firmity, when I tell you that I will open before you as dark a scene of treachery as history im- folds in its darkest annals ; — that I will paint you a picture, in whose foreground shall stand a man, embodying, in his single presence and character, all the meanness for which we despise — all the cunning for which we avoid — and all the vices for which we abominate — our fellows. " On the Monday following the Sabbath, on which I had returned to my hotel, I rose early, on account of my appointment with Messrs. Harpy and False; and, having despatched my breakfast, and made a few memorandums upon the instructions which I intended to give to my new attorneys, I left home, and proceeded on my THE EXECUTION. O75 way to Chancery Lane : — and here I ought not to say proceeded, but rather, meant to proceed — for not two steps had I passed beyond the thresh- hold of the folding doors of my hotel, when the same two persons, who had anested me on the Satui'day night, once more accosted me with a writ. *^ ' What,' said I, in astonishment, * again ! * — * Yes, Sir,' said one of the officers ; but you needn't walk with us exactly, as perhaps you mightn't like it — you had better go on a little before.' " Although I knew that this considerate civility had its price, yet I did as I was bid, and strode a few paces in advance, puzzling my brain as I went along, in wondering for what amount, and at whose suit, I was arrested. " At last I arrived at the scene of my Saturday- night's incarceration in Chancery Lane, and there having been shewn to my old room, I had not remained in it two minutes before in comes my new attorney, Mr. False, followed by one of the officers who had taken me. 276 THE FLEET PRISOxN. " * What,' said I, as I saw him, ' have you heard of my being here, ah'eady ? ' " ^ Why, yes,' replied he, colouring, — ' I was compelled to — in short, I couldn't help it.' " * Help it, my dear fellow ; why, it's the best thing that could have happened — you're come just in time to get me out of a new dilemma.' " ^ Why, yes, perhaps it is, but I assure you I was obliged — ' " ' Nay,' cried I, ' it is I that am obliged, not you' — and then turning to the man in the room, 1 desired him to bring me the warrant upon which I was arrested. " ' Oh,' said Mr. False, ' we don't want the warrant now ; we can proceed to business.' " ^ The devil you can ! what, without knowing who has arrested me ? ' " 'Why don't you know that, then ? ' asked he in astonishment. " Before I had time to reply to his question, the man came up' with the waiTant. I looked at it, and lo ! Crede qui vult — for the withholding of belief cannot alter the truth of the assertion, — THE EXECUTION. 277 I found myself, and yet was almost lost in the finding, ari'ested at the suit of my publishing partner of , by Harj^y and False, attorneys at-law, of Chancery-lane afore-told. " And there, in blushing, trembling, cowardly confusion, stood False himself before me, watch- ing my countenance as I read the warrant, to see whether I was prepared, or whether I was too proud, to annihilate — my new attorney. "I confess myself surprised, but in such matters as these I rarely lose my self-possession : I merely turned to the renegade lawyer, and asked him a question. '^ ' And pray. Sir,' said I, * in taking upon your hands the affairs of a new client, do you generally commence with arresting him ? ' *' The coward little man of law took a glance at my fists, to see whether I intended to knock him down, and then at my boots, as if calculating their weight in case I trod upon him, and began stammering his excuse. *' * Why, Mr. you see — my brother-in-law — N 3 278 THE FLEET PRISON. has decided — on discontinuing the — • Literary Chronicle.' * " ' Well, Mr. False, and what has that to do with my arrest ? ' " I spoke mildly, and the poltroon pettifogger gathered coui'age. << < Why, Sir, you see the losses have been great — ^you have not advanced any of the money.' " ^ Nor Mr. H any of the talent,' said I, in a parenthesis. " * And he has already taken up your bills for a large amount.' " ' As it was agreed he should do, and for an amount only equivalent to my salary, which I accommodated him by not drawing as it was due.' " ' You forget. Sir, that he still holds your ac- ceptances.' " ' I know he holds them, because it was set- tled that he should take them up — but I also » A name that will answer the occasion, but nevertheless not the true one. THE EXECUTION. 279 know that they were given to him when money was wanted for the paper, and that the paper owes me the amount in salary.' " ' But,' said the attorney, ' it is a common point of law, that when the drawer has taken up a bill or bills, he can always aiTcst the accept- or for their value.' " ' I know it is,' replied I, ' and that is why I am here — but I also know that there is another point of law, by which one partner cannot bring an action against another.' " The little man stared. "'And therefore,' thundered I,' Mr. H. could not bring this action against me.' " The little man shook. " ' I tell you, Sir, that I do not intend to kill you ' — rejoined I, with mild sarcasm. " The little man regained his self-possession. " ' And now,' said I, ' why have you aiTested me, and for what purpose am I here ? ' " He pulled out a paper, and submitted to me a statement, something in these tcnns : — " ' On the Literary Chronicle there has been a 280 THE FLEET PRISON. loss of £690, of which £90 have been paid to the contributors. This loss is estimated on a rough calculation, the advertisement accounts not yet having been gathered in. Mr. to be exone- rated from his acceptances as a set off against the editor's salary, on condition of his signing a cog- novit for £365, the half loss on the speculation being £345, and Mr. H agreeing to sell his shares for the remaining £20 ; all Mr. U 's anxiety being to get a security for the half loss.' " I glanced my eye over this paper, and ad- dressed the attorney. " * Between you and I, Sir, it must be first under- stood that I withdraw from you my affairs ; and that, should you dare to violate the misplaced con- fidence of which you have already robbed me, I uill strike you off the Rolls. Next, I must tell you, that as I would not continue my connexion with your brother-in-law, I shall instantly break off my partnership vAih Mr. H .' " ' Upon his own terms, Sir ?' asked the lawyer, anxiously. \ '* ' I do not know,' said I : ' this paj)er does THE EXECUTION. 281 not mention at what time the cognovit is re- quired.' " ^ Say eight and twelve months,' spoke the attorney. " ' No, Sir,' I retorted ; ' Say one and tw^o years, and it shall be done.' "The lawyer ' supposed I must not be contra- dicted,' and therefore accepted my teims. He then repaired to his office, to prepare the cogno- vit, and I, wanting a solicitor to witness it, sent for the old man whom I had so long employed, and whom I was anxious to take the opportunity of discharging. "My old attorney, Mr. False, and the cognovit, all arrived about the same time. The latter do- cument I signed, without reading it, and had put on my hat to depart, but honeyed words came from the lips of False, and I stood to listen. " ' There are' said he, 'a few pounds, about seven I believe, to pay upon the writ, the stamp of the cognovit, and so on.' "'Indeed,' asked I, 'and am I to pay them now ?' " ' Oh 7iOy I thought you might not have the 282 THE FLEET PRISON. money in your pocket, and so I inserted them in the coy?iovit, payable in a week ; but ' said Mr. False, with his best most smiling bow, * m a week, perhaps, as you are living in the country, you may not be in town, in which case it will be of no con- sequence : the next week, in fact any time when you are passing by, will do well enough for us. At all events, I beg you will suit your own conve- nience ; the sum is too trifling, now our arrange- ment is effected, to mention it for a moment? " ^ Very welV said I, and walked down stairs J*^ [We call the attention of our readers to this italic passage : we have been personally convinced of its truth. — Author.'] " I marched home ! — About ten days after this occurrence, and during which period I had re- mained in town, I had occasion to go into Buxhin- lane, to receive the discount of two bills from a well-known firm, which has since been dissolved. I carried away with me £120. " In returning to my hotel, I had occasion to call at Pm-day's the music-publisher, in Holbom, nearly opposite the top of Chancery Lane. Of course, in order to effect this, I passed up Chancery Lane THE EXECUTION. 283 itself, in doing which I saw the names of Harpy and False, on the door of their office, and I thought to myself, 'I may as well pay these people their costs.' Accordingly I went in. " False was the first person who presented to me his fair face. He might as well have been the king before the Cynic, Diogenes ; so conscientiously could 1 have said to him, ' get out of my sunshine.' " ' I think your costs are due ? ' was my first question. " ' They are,' said the attorney, * they have been these three days.' " ' Well, then, I am before my time, for you gave me a week if I wished it, and volunteered more : but however, here I am, so you had better take your money,' — and I pulled out a ten-pound note. " */ a??i very sorry, Sir,^ said False, with a cold smile, ^ hut you are really too late. The costs were not paid when they were due, and the consequence is, that there has been an exe- cution IN YOUR HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY FOR THE LAST TWO DAYS.' " I did not speak — I do not think I could have 284 THE FLEET PRISON. spoken, but I looked at him — so that his limbs were like aspen leaves ; and then, having terrified him sufficiently, I walked away in contempt. " I got into a cab, and was driven to my hotel. Instantly I sent to my livery-stables, and ordered my horse. It came, and I had just mounted, when a clerk of the solicitors to the county paper touched my stirrup, and begged me to alight. I dismounted, and went with him into my hotel. ' I was just about to put my horse to its full speed for II ,' said I. " 'Ha! but you mustn't do that, tho',' said the clerk, ' not but what they would be all happy to see you; but the fact is, there is an execution in yoiu: house.' "'What of that?' said I. 'Is there a magis- trate, is there an alderman, is there the com- monest elector in H that would not bestir himself to get me out of a difficulty ? ' " ' Not one,' said the man, ' not one on our side! but you forget that in completing the fur- nishing of your house, you bought some articles of the upholsterer J .' THE EXECUTION.- 285 " ^ Yes, I know I did ; but what then ?' " 'Why, he is a Whig; and out of pure party spirit he has issued a writ against you, so that you cannot go down to H without being arrested. Nay, more, he is the person who has got the sale of your effects from the under-sheriffs, and you must not, therefore, expect any indulgence from that quarter.' "Upon this my mind was made up; and having dismissed the clerk, I was going up stairs to my wife, to break to her the unwelcome news ! Alas, I found her weeping, and clasping her pretty boy to her bosom, with the very servant before her whom she had left in charge of our house, and who was now telling her how that same house was desolate — or rather, possessed by other spirits more wicked than herself— and how they had taken up the carpets — ransacked the drawers — taken down the pictures— unhung the curtains — assorted the books— eaten all the fruit out of the garden— broken open the cellar— and huddled up into the middle of the room the goods of each apartment. ^S6 THE FLEET PRISON. " * However, ma'am,' said the Abigail, ' I was determined they shouldn't have your handsome dresses, so I took 'em away myself — and the nurse was so hurt about the baby, that she took all its robes and under-linen, and carried them away with her. So you know, ma'am, these ere things is sure to be safe, in spite of the hofficers.' " The handsome dresses and the baby -linen were never more seen ; neither, alas ! were the rest of the be-seized goods. " They were sold ! What I have already told you will convince you, that I was obliged to be absent, — that even my servants had left my house, — that every thing was disposed of, at a mock auction, without reserve. "It is impossible to fancy a house more tastefully or elegantly furnished than mine ; every body in H admired it, every respectable conservative had dined in it. The property which it contained might fairly be estimated at from fifteen hun- dred to two thousand pounds, and I do not think I can easier prove to you this, than by shewing you a verbatim copy of the auctioneer's advertisement. THE EXECUTION. 287 SALE BY AUCTION, C GE H D. Genuine and Modern Household Furniture, Plate, and Plated Articles, China, Glass, Books, Prints, Pictures, Wines, and valuable Effects. BY 3VIR, J' ON THE PREMISES, On FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4th, 1833, ai Eleven o'Clock, Under Execution from the Sheriff of H . THE Furniture, which is perfectly modern, comprises maho- gany feet, pillar 4-post and other bedsteads and hangings, palliasses, mattresses, feather beds, blankets, and counterpanes; chamber chairs, tables, glasses, carpets, mahogany chests of drawers, dining and drawing room chairs, sofas, couches, Brus- sels, Venetian, and Kidderminster carpets, hearth rugs, dining, rosewood, loo, occasional and work tables, handsome fenders, chef- foniers, sideboards, bookstands, fine proof prints framed and glazed, books, china, glass, earthenware, kitchen and culinary articles. A various cellar of old and choice wines, brandies, old whiskeys, shrubs, liqueurs, Sec. ; besides a large quantity'of music, portfolios of annual prints, and other valuable effects.' " Well, Sir, in 7?i^ necessary absence — in the absence of every friend — with the report circu- lated by my plaintiff's attorney in the town, that I was a ruined, runaway swindler, the Tories too delicate, the Whigs too frightened, and the Ra- dicals too poor, to attend ; a sale took place, and 288 THE FLEET PRISON. the whole of my chosen, and elegant property, £1,500 at least in value, was sold for two hun- dred and odd pounds. " My splendid framed and glazed pictures, worth thirty guineas each, were sold for three. — My collection of proof prints before the letters, on India paper, of all the Annuals that had been pub- lished for the previous four years— worth at least £120, were sold as Prints in a Portfolio, 15^.; about £200 worth of fine music — operas, pieces, songs, &c. — fetched five pounds; and apair of duel- ling pistols, which had been presented to me by a friend, and which cost two thousand five hundred francs in Paris, were sacrificed with equal cruelty. They loaded at the breech, fired five shots a minute, and were in other respects so curious, that a gun-maker in the town had offered me c£^20 for the loan of them, in order to imitate their workmanship, with a view to a patent in this coimtry. — The same gun-maker bought them at the sale for three pomids. " But these were not the most distressing sacri- fices. The writing-desk, set with pearl, and hav- THE EXECUTION. 289 ing her dear name engraved upon it, which I had given to my wife before our mamage was, disposed of, heaven knows to whom. It con- tained in a secret drawer all the letters I had written her during her courtship, with a lock of my hair, and a portrait ; of which we have never since heard. " Ha — the watchman calls eleven. Well, Sir, I will retire — but this remorseless execution was the first step towards my ruin. I will tell you the rest another time." Saying this, the stranger abruptly rose, and departed. CHAPTER VII. A CHAPTER OF CHANCE, WITH WHICH THE AUTHOR CLOSES THE VOLUME. " And much it Vails you in this place To graft the love of human race." In closing this first volume of our book we shall take our departure with the author, leaving Mont- ford to his rest, — and betaking ourselves to our own reflections upon some yet unmentioned grievances connected with the law of an-est. — In our next Chapter we will return to our hero. It evidences bad management, and a regard- lessness of right on the part of the authorities, that the Fleet Prison should so long have re- A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 291 mained the filthiest and the most unwholesome gaol in the metropolis. We know not whether the evil be owing to the Board of Works or to the warden, but we do know that it exists, and we cannot help thinking that if the latter at- tended to his duties of inspection, and made proper reports in the proper quarters, it would be speedily remedied. The amount of illness in the other debtors' prisons of the metropolis bears a small propor- tion to the sickness in the Fleet, — almost entirely arising from the facilities unblushingly afforded for ungoremed dissipation, and the dirty, noisome smells and beastly condition of those pai'ts of the prison which it seems to be no one's business to clean. From these causes, we find that the fearful and malignant disease of cholera has more than once made its appearance in the Fleet Prison, carry- ing off many victims, and attacking at least treble the number of debtors who appear to have suffered in all the other gaols united And here we cannot help propounding to 292 THE FLEET PRISON. creditors, the conscience-striking and truth-im- pressing arguments of the unhappy debtor on his dying bed. — You have brought me here for a debt which I may or may not owe. Since my incarceration, my prison home has become also the home of infection and disease, and my hfe — over which you have thus acquired a power — is now depending upon my removal. — Why do you withhold my discharge ? The law has given you my property and my person, — but has human justice or Divine Omnipotence delegated to you the right of robbing me of my existence — my wife of her protector — my family of their father and friend ; or if I die — as I am told I shall — under a disease which is owing to my in- carceration, in what corner of your conscience can you find room for the sophistry which shall afterwards call my death by any other name than that of" murder"? And yet thousands of such appeals have been made to creditors by debtors, — and by their medi- cal men on their behalf, — and made as idly as to the wind. For one case in which an attorney A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 293 has sent a dischai'ge, there are twenty in which the appeal has remained entirely unnoticed, — or simply elicited the expressions, " Let him take the county money." — " Let him starve." — " Let him go to the infirmary," — or, " Let him die." And yet this is an excess of cruelty which even the Whig Government disdained to practise, — for on a late occasion when the Fleet Prison was visited by cholera, and a representation of the fact made in the proper quarter, all the prison- ers — about fifteen in number — confined for fines and penalties to the Customs and the Excise, were instantly discharged from custody ; thus plainly proving that government itself deprecated the injustice — and could not acknowledge the right — of tampering with the lives of its creditors, — even those whom they had imprisoned for being guilty of a fraud. And why should a government — itself revolting from the principle of sacrificing life at the shrine of money — yet recognise the hardened practice by the cruel and gi'asping among the community ? Why, in short, should any one man be suffered to VOL. I. o 294 THE FLEET PRISON. place another's existence in jeopardy, because he is unable to satisfy an unjust extortion, or even to pay a just debt? If the system of imprisonment be not altogether removed, this is one part of it that at least calls loudly for a remedy. For suppose a really infec- tious disease to spring up in a prison — how are the deaths to be numbered ? — where is the sacrifice to end ? Are the debtors, one and all, to be swept off, because the creditor does not like his security, or will not accept tenns ? or, as in the present system, is the prisoner to be left to the merciful consideration of the particular warden in au- thority who, in an extreme case of illness, may wait till the patient is no longer capable of being moved, and then tell him that he may walk into the rules? We have seen more than one to whom such an indulgence has been offered gratuitously to-day, earned out on the morrow in his coffin. Too often, indeed, do we find death the bearer of a discharge which a creditor has long denied. But, to view the fact of cholera having proved so often fatal in the Fleet, we do not hesitate to A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 295 affirm, that that prison is a place to which the dis- ease might be in a manner tempted by the filth ; and although we do not believe cholera to be either contagious or infectious, 5'et we are satisfied that it springs from peculiar causes, — that a pa- tient may be predisposed for it by diet, weather, or dh't, — and that it has all the properties to spread among the inhabitants of a dwelling which from bad locality, or external and internal filth, teems with all the aids to and elements of disease. And here we are again prepared to assert, that the warden has it in his power materially to di- minish, if not altogether to destroy, the dirt and dissipation of the Fleet. He could at least con- trol the number of whistling-shops and gin- rooms ; and he might do a double service by em- ploying some of the poorer prisoners, at the ex- pense of the Board of Works, to clean the gal- leries. He could, too, by immediately investigating the system of room-letting, and so fulfilling the orders of government on that head, rout out the nest of rabble who are inhabiting the prison for the mere purposes of gain, — who foster the dissi- o 2 296 THE FLEET PRISOS'. patiou of young men — -ulio impose upon the cre^ dulity of every strange prisoner — wlio are leagued Trith a countless liost of the most worthless at- torneys — who enlarge the circle of dice and drink — and who live by a general system of swindling, pollution, and petty theft. Pie could, we say, if he would reduce the numbers of these men, by depriving of their rooms those whom he detected in breaking the regulations, and who, being then thrown back upon their own resom'ces, would speedily leave a prison where they would no longer have the power to rob, and there would not only be a general sweeping of iniquitous friendly de- tainers from the gate; but the large and demoral- ized prison rid, to a great extent, of its gin-shops, and entirely of its lodging-houses, would then contain rooms for those really unfortunate prison- ers who cannot help their fate, — and on whom no hardship can be so great, as that by which they are now obhged to pay as much as thirty shillings per week for the privilege of living under a prison- roof. We are sure that if the warden would look to all this, the Fleet Prison would not be half A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 297 SO full — half so dirty — half so demoralized — nor half so dear. We had the misfortune to be seven weeks under his care, during the whole of which period, although we occasionally saw his face in the prison, he did not make one tour of inspection. The only active duty which we saw him perform, was on one occasion, when, having stopped a large stone bottle of spirits at the gate, he brought it into the area with his own hands, and with the becom- ing dignity of a high functionaiy, smashed it on the gi'ating of a drain in the yard, in order, as the prisoners declared, to exhibit with what magna- nimity " blue ruin " might be wasted. Here was an act which held fortli no example, effected no punishment, but made the inteUigent prisoners smile with contempt, and the rabble laugh out- right. In the remaiks which we are here making, we would state that we bear no ill will to Mr. Bro\m, — we do not know him— we have never received an offence at his hands — but we are here lo-okinj]^ into a system, and advocating the 298 THE FLEET PRISON. better regulation, and greater convenience of prisoners confined for debt: and in the per- formance of this public duty, we feel bound to say, that in our opinion Mr. Brown is not a iit and proper person to be the warden of a prison like the Fleet. But it is useless to write against men, as long as a system is at fault ; and gi-ossly indeed must that system err, which depends for a healthy ope- ration upon the good or bad qualities of the indi- viduals who administer its laws. This is an ob- servation generally applicable to all the prisons — it is not confined to the Fleet — perhaps it comes home more to the King's Bench than any other of the debtors' gaols — where it is at once illustrated by the late change of marshals. Although we have schoolboy impressions to keep in our minds the axiom " de mortuis nil nisi honum,^'' we sup- pose there is nobody who would care to violate the principle in regard to Mr. Jones, the late marshal of the Bench — whose government we know was one long reign of corruption and prejudice — terminating in the fruits of an obstinate and A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 299 mischievous dotage. Suddenly he dies — and the new appointed marshal is a man of character and conduct — lenient, and at the same time just. Mr. Brown might be removed from the Fleet, and another might succeed him, much more active, but also much more severe. The humane Mr. Barrett, the indefatigable governor of White-Cross Street, may, at some future day, secede from the arduous labours of his office and the imi^ortant vacancy may be filled by an automaton or a brute. What is the inference deduciblc from all this? — why, that the comfort of some thousands is made entirely to depend upon the persons who have charge of them in their misfortune or their guilt — that the law is neither sound nor powerful enough to protect them so fully and so far as to leave them independent of governors — of whom in justice they ought to be as independent as the very air — in all matters save those immediately relating to. their safe custody and the keeping of the peace. A disgrace is this to the goveniment of a country — that prisoners should be unhappily able to say, 300 THE FLEET PRISON'. — this gaol is well regulated now, but to-moiTovv the severity of a new marshal may convert it into a dungeon; indulgence makes it bearable this year, tyranny may render it dangerous the next. If the prison system were altered or enforced, this could never be ; governors would be obliged to attend to their duties — and although it is right that they should be vested with a discre- tionary power, that power should operate in favour of the debtor. Men have no right to authority who make it the instrument of anger and caprice, as was the case with the late Mr. Jones of the Bench, in his frequent committals to the strong room ; neither are those men fit for it who delegate it to underlings. A gaol-keeper who leaves all his duties to be done by an igno- rant and prying deputy, a mean clerk of the papers, or favourite flattering turnkey, is paid for occupying an office which he has no right to hold. — We hope this hint may be taken in the proper quarter. But we digi'ess. — We sincerely hope that the A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 301 remai'ks we have made may be the means of pointing attention to the inefficiency of the go- verment of the Fleet Prison,— or, at all events, of originating improved and more cleanly internal regulations. In speaking of the late deaths within the gaol from cholera, we ought not to overlook that of Colonel B . The history of his embarrassment is not uninteresting. During a leave of absence, and on his way to some watering place, he fell in with two ladies, a mother and daughter, at a " Table d'Hote." — The young lady had a reputed fortune of seventeen thousand pounds to back the blandishments of a pretty face. — Her manners were fascinating, and the Colonel elected her to be his bride. He insisted, however, that her fortune should be her own ; the settlements were drawn up with that understanding, and a short time after, "he and his lady were one." The honeymoon might have elapsed — we will not say that it had positively passed — when the Colonel had oc- casion to be in town to settle the accounts of his regiment. He took up his residence at the hotel o 3 302 THE FLEET PRISON. in Jermyn Street, St. James's. The morning after ills arrival, as he was reading the newspaper after his breakfast — an intruder poked his head into the door-way, and followed up the ruffian-looking caput with an ill-favoured body cased in habili- inents of greasy cloth. " What may you want r" said the Colonel. " I've got vot ye may call a ticket for you, I thinks — " said the man, hesitating and surj^rised, as if he had not expected to find any one in the room. The Colonel imagined he had come after the plate, and proceeded to punish him as a common thief, — he dragged him to the top of the stairs, and he kicked him to the bottom. In half an hour his horses were brought to the door. The waiter announced them, and with him entered the ugly head of the posterior-kicked gentleman who had departed after the pantomime fashion of *' head over heels." " That 's the man," muttered his lips, but his body was this time withdrawn in a second. Another gentleman entered. A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 303 " Your name is B , Sir, I believe ? " said he. " It is," responded the Colonel. " Then my business is, I regret, of an unpleasant nature. — I have, in short, three Bow-street officers below, and am ordered to take you into custody for an assault on a sberiflfs officer. " A sheriff's officer !" said the Colonel. " Yes, Sir, the man whose head you have broken by kicking his body down stairs," said the stranger, as though he were not sorry for the punishment inflicted, in a double sense, upon the bum. " He had sir," added he " a wTit against you for two thousand pounds." "Two thousand devils'." cried the Colonel. " I do not owe one hundred pounds in the world." " I beg your pardon, sir," squeaked the assaulted bailiff, now bursting into the room with his head bound up in a Field Lane handkerchief. " Vasn 't your vife called Miss ? " " Well, sir, suppose she was," asked the Colonel in initation. " Vy then this here writ's for her millinery, and di-esses, and bonnets, and flounces, and laces, 304 THE FLEET PRISON. and ribbons, and all them things vot helps gals to katch Colonels ; and by virty of vitch, I am com- manded to take your body." The Colonel stormed at first, but he soon found it to be a true bill. He had been duped. His wife, instead of having a fortune of seventeen thousand pounds, had debts amounting to nine, and this writ was for the first two of them. The assault was settled for five pounds, but by the arrest. Colonel B was thrown for some years into the King's Bench. — Eventually he en- deavoured to effect an honourable arrangement with his wife's creditors, by sacrificing his com- mission, and appropriating its proceeds to the payment of the most pressing debts. This re- lieved him for a time — but it did not enable him altogether to suimount his misfortunes. The last stage of ruin by which he was overtaken threw him into the Fleet Prison — where he was, as we have told, attacked by cholera, and died a few months back, a victim to that fearful malady — and to the yet more fatal system of imprisonment for debt. A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 305 We could, however, multiply a dozen more in- stances of death from cholera in the Fleet Prison, and some from starvation too, under far more heart-rending circumstances— but this is not our pui-pose. We prefer to wind up a volume begun in the sincerity of our heart against the system which its pages are intended to expose, with some of the reflections of more eminent men — and a few of our own — upon the iniquities which it fosters, the miseries it produces, and the small share of justice which is ever attained by its unrighteous operation. The class of persons who are usually the most remorseless in the practice of arrest, and subse- quent imprisonment of their fellows, has been well and eloquently characterised by Burke in tlie House of Commons, who, in instancing one ex- ample of such a fraternity, has declared tliat — His God — is his gold, His country — his invoice, His desk— his altar, His ledger — his bible, His church — his exchange ; — and His faith in none but his banker. 306 THE FLEET PRISON. His hopes do not appear to extend beyond this world ; and as for his charity, there is no mention made of it. And for those beings to whom the cruelty of such men awards a hopeless imprison- ment, there is but too small care in the common lieart of the country. It has been truly said by Mr. Jenyns, in his pamphlet on the subject, that— " With us they appear to be entitled to no atten- tion, and their melancholy fate awakens neither compassion nor remorse. On the contrary, the in- sensibiHty which inculcates an indifference to hu- man suffering is to be encouraged, and the cupid- ity, which brutalizes every being infected with it, is either protected, or no salutary and wise checks are provided by which it might be restrained. No Reconciling Court, as in Denmark; no limita- tion of imprisonme7it , as in France ; 7io aliment for the prisoner by him who confines, as is every where enjoined on the continent ; no consideration for sickness, age, or sex ; no compulsory composi- tion clause, by which the agreement of the ma- jority of creditors shall be binding on the lesser number ; — in fine, full of pains and penalties, A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 307 with no thought of commiseration, — none of reHef." In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, debtors are confined unjustly ; but the real question and argument is, — Why, except in cases of absolute fraud, should they be confined at all ? — Is the cre- ditor benefited ? — Assuredly not. Is the debtor ruined } — Alas, yes ! With what scrutinizin*,' truth and eloquence has it been written by Dr. Johnson, that " in a prison the awe of the public- eye is lost, and the power of the law is spent : there are few fears, there are no blushes. The lewd inflame the lewd ; the audacious harden the audacious. Every one fortifies himself as he can against his own sensibility, and endeavours to practise on others the arts which are practised on himself, and gains the kindness of his associates by similitude of manners. Thus, some sink amidst their misery, and others survive only to pro])agatc villainy. It may be hoped that our law-givers will at length take away from us this power of starv- ing and depraving one another ; but if there be any reason why this inveterate evil should not W 308, THE FLEET PRISON. removed in our age, which ti'ue policy has en- lightened beyond former time, let those whose writings fonn the opinions and the practices of their contemporaries, endeavour to transfer the reproach of such imprisonment from the debtor to the creditor, till universal infamy shall pursue the wretch whose wantonness of power, or revenge of disappointment, condemns another to torture and to ruin, till he shall be limited through the world as an enemy to man, and find in hopes no shelter from contempt. Surely he whose debtor has pe- rished in prison, though he may acquit himself of deliberate murder, must at least have his mind clouded with discontent, when he considers how much another has suffered by him ; when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the children begging the bread which their father would have eanied. If there are any made so obdurate by avarice or cruelty, as to revolve their consequences without dread or pity, I must leave them to be awakened by some other power, for I write only to human beings." Here we have quoted a great authority, and, as A CHAPTER OF CHANCE. 309 the last sentence expresses it, so shall it be with us. We "write only to human beings," — but those human beings are our countrymen — English, we hope in heart and sympathies,— and most of all, in those sympathies which we hope to enlist in favour of the prisoner for debt. We have more freedom in England than could be concentrated from the gathered codes and con- stitutions of every other country in the globe — and yet the debtor has in England — we do not say in Great Britain, for in Scotland it is not so, — less liberty than the debtor in any other land ; — and we shall be too surely able to show, in the succeeding volumes, as we have begun to prove in this, that in the words of an anonymous but forcible epistle to the ex-Lord Chancellor Brougham : — " In all its bearings, the system here adopted, as debtor and creditor law, is imconstitutional, fraudulent, ini- quitous — vitally injurious by its operation on com- merce — destructive of religious and moral princi- ples—directly productive of debt, swindling, de- gi-adation of our national character, and every species of injustice— indirectly productive to a 310 THE FLEET PRISON. great extent of those thefts, forgeries, house-break- ings, murders, suicides, incendiarisms, riots, and misdemeanors, which give such an appalHng im- portance to the criminal records of our country — thus being pernicious in a thousand channels to the best interests of government and the commu- nity. At the same time it is equally demonstra- ble that, to counterbalance this enormous load of evil, there is not one argument, nor fraction of argument, which can be successfully maintained in favour of the practice ; nor is there even a sha- dow of reason for its continuance, except the profits that accrue by professional law, and the undeniable truth that not a year passes in Britain without an expenditure of eight millions ster- Hng in sheer law costs." end of vol. i. NOTES AND ERRATA TO THE FIRST VOLUME. In pages 77 and 78, for Charles King read John King. Page 181, third line from the botto.-n, for Como esta vma—read Como esta vmd. Pages 229 and 230— for Mr. Buff, read Mr. Butt.— Note : ^Ve were misinformed when we stated this gentleman's fine to have been £20,000. It was but £1000, and his detention in the Fleet, at the time we mention, did not, it appears, arise out of that transaction, but from a private debt, from which we are glad to find he has been since discharged. Our following remark in allusion to Lord Cochrane now, of course, goes for nothing. For the correct account of these matters, see our second vohnne. Page 235, seven lines down, instead of " Hurst and Robinson, St. Paul's Church Yard," read " Hurst and Robinson, Pall Mall." Pages 235 and 236. Mr. Grimstead, the gentleman here spoken of, is since dead. His embarrassments, we beheve, arose out of some transactions with Howard and Gibbs, by which he became saddled with some responsibility which he did not think himself justified in paying. He declared that he never would —and he kept his word. He left a good fortune behind him. Peace to his manes. ( 312 ) Page 246. We believe Mi\ Brewer has now had recourse to the Insoh^ent Court — or, at all events, has filed his schedule. In page 113, we have mentioned the case of Gait, and his imprisonment by Valpy. — The " Times'''' newspaper, in a polite notice of our first volume, made some just remarks on the ten- dency of our observations on Mr. Valpy, supposing us to have spoken on our own ' Ijjse divit.' — Out of respect for the opinion of the " Times," we immediately referred the passage objected to to counsel, together with the source from whence we derived our information — when we received it as an opinion, that " The Author is borne out in his statement by the following passage (to which he has referred, speaking of Gait, in the words, p. 1 13, ' as he has touchingly convinced us in his own auto-b'wgraphy.^ ) From the Auto-biography of John Gait, in 2 vols, octavo, pub- lished in 1833. " ' Passage from Mr, Gait's Book. " ' Scarcely had they arrived in town, when the natural effects of my recall began to manifest themselves by applications for the payment of two accounts. I had left authority with the ac- countant of the Canada Company to receive payment of £1000 a-year of my salary to discharge in the first place these and other small accounts ; and I had drawn upon him for a half- yearly payment, for the education of my three so7is — who were at Reading school, with one of my oldest acquaintances in England^ the well-known Rev. Dr. Valpy. — The bill had been sent by me to the accountant to be transmitted, when accepted, to the Rev. Doctor— but it was not so done — and accordingly, soon after my arrival, before I well knew where I was, I received a letter from the Doctor requesting payment. At that time I could only beg him to give me a little indulgence, and I thought to him this request might be made, because he was not only a personal friend of twenty -five years' standing, but had been for about forty years a partner with my wife's father. Soon after my letter, I received a formal demand for pajinent from his solicitors. This sharp practice was now blunted to the sense by the excoriation that my other misfortunes had previously produced. The answer ( 313 ) was similar to what I had given the Doctor liimself, and was followed by an arrest.— This was perfectly legal. • • • When the writ was returnable, I determined to surrender, still hoping that when the Doctor saw me so resolute he would order the gore-dropping fangs of the law to be relaxed. I was mis- taken. Before, however, finally resolving on any thing, I con- ceived it but right to beg he would relent in his pn^ceedings — for he is a man of sagacity enough to discern, that the lave of arrest is criminal in its provisions against those icho arc prevented by misfortune from paying their just debts.'''''' Mr. Gait finding his appeal unsuccessful, concludes — "/ there- fore submitted to the insolvent act.'''' As we entirely agree with the " Times " that it would have been unjustifiable in us to have printed page 113 of this volume upon an ipse dixit — we have printed the above note, not less t»» satisfy the public and ourselves, than with the hope, that, should it meet the eye of the editor of the influential journal we have named, he will give us credit for not giving rise to a wilful or injurious assertion without authority, nor even then without leaving it open to contradiction. G. Woodfall, Printer, Angel Court, Skinntr btrect, London. WORKS PUBLISHED BY A. H. BAILY AND CO. 83, CORNHILL, LONDON. • WORKS OF THOMAS HOOD. TYLNEY HALL. A Novel. In three volumes, post 8vo, price 1/. 11*\ 6d. II. THE COMIC ANNUAL For 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833, and 1834. New Editions. Price 12^. each. III. In Novemher, price 12^., THE COMIC ANNUAL FOR 1835. BY THOMAS HOOD, ESQ. IV. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES: Hero and Leander : Lycus and Centaur : and other Poems. Post 8vo. 8s. 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