Foreword
Charles Huntingdon was never a politician of the first rank, and even the great Sir Lewis Namier, in his famous surveys of Parliament in the 1760s, could find little to say about him. I knew scarcely more than just his name before the document I am publishing here came into my hands.
I was doing the rounds of the Cambridge colleges and the university library, conducting research into eighteenth century politics, when a young trainee assistant librarian, Ms. Whitmore, produced for me something she had found gathering the dust of centuries in the depths of what is euphemistically known as the “reserve collection”. It was a large wooden box, catalogued as having been deposited in 1775 by “Charles Huntingdon, M.P.”, with instructions that it should not be opened until after his death and that of his wife; but as far as Ms. Whitmore was able to ascertain, it had never in fact been opened since it came into the college’s possession. The box proved to contain the memoirs of the said Charles Huntingdon.
Although Huntingdon was an obscure politician, he met many of the most important people of that period. He has left us descriptions of them, and he also casts a fresh light on the daily lives of the landed classes of his day. The most startling aspect of his memoirs, however, is that he reveals details of some extraordinary adventures in which he took part; and after reading these I can well understand why he did not want them to become widely known until much later.
It is for this reason that I am bringing his memoirs to the attention of the public for the first time. Some episodes, which appear to be unrelated to the main story, have been relegated to an appendix at the conclusion. With the aim of attracting a wider readership, I have modernised the spelling and punctuation and broken up the narrative into short chapters, for which the titles are entirely my own. The illustrations, which show various eighteenth century scenes, are also my choice.
My thanks are due above all to Ms. Abigail Whitmore, without whose encouragement and advice my task would have been impossible.
P.G.S.
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Chapter One: I find a friend in London
My story begins in London in November of 1760. The city was full of excitement, for the war with France, which had begun so disastrously four years earlier, was bringing almost daily reports of victories on land and sea in all parts of the world. But now His Majesty King George II, who had reigned over us for so many years, had died, and his grandson was our new monarch: King George III, a man in his early twenties, no older than me.
A new age was dawning, and I had my own reasons to be happy because, unexpectedly and through no merit of my own, I was about to become a man of wealth!
It was a cold morning of heavy cloud, and I was walking in the Strand, when a carriage passed nearby and I heard a man’s voice halloo me. I turned as the carriage stopped, the window was opened and the same voice exclaimed, “It’s Charles Huntingdon, is it not?” I saw it was Lord Staines, the only son of the Earl of Teesdale. I recognised him from our college at Cambridge University; though I had then been merely a poor scholar hoping to find a living in the Church, and he had been far above me in station. We poor scholars had had to wait on the young noblemen in Hall, and neither expected nor received many thanks in return. I was surprised that he had remembered me at all.
(The President's lodge at Queens' College, Cambridge)
His manner was most friendly; in marked contrast to how he had often behaved at the college. He asked me what I was about, and I explained my recent great good fortune: that I had become the heir of an aunt, Mrs Andrew, a widowed lady without children who had resided near the town of Bereton, north of Mulchester, where she owned extensive properties; that I had not been long in London and knew little of the great metropolis, but was on my way to see the banker, Mr Coutts, and then the lawyers at Lincoln’s Inn, to discuss my inheritance.
Staines congratulated me, and said, “I must go now, but meet me this afternoon at Brown’s club, and tell me more. It’s not far from here; between the Savoy and St Clement’s church." With that he instructed his coachman to drive on, and clattered away across the paving stones.
Having concluded my business for the morning I made my way to Brown’s club. I had never previously heard of that establishment, but had no great difficulty in locating it. I found a substantial room with a wooden floor and a high ceiling. A fire was blazing in a wide grate, and a large kettle was hung above it. At one end was an enclosed area where coffee was being prepared. A dozen or so gentlemen sat around tables, drinking and smoking pipes while they talked together. Newspapers were laid out to be read and there were coloured engravings on the walls. Waiters trotted to and fro with coffee pots.
A look around the company told me that Staines was not present. One or two of the gentlemen glanced in my direction and then returned to their own affairs. I stood irresolute in the doorway, uncertain as to what to do. After what seemed like an age, a waiter approached me and politely asked me my business. When I informed him that Lord Staines had asked me to meet him there, he ushered me to sit at a table in a corner while I awaited his lordship’s arrival.
(An 18th century coffee-house)
No-one took further notice of me, so I remained silent and listened snatches of the conversation of the other gentlemen as they discussed the latest news of the war. I had, of course, followed reports in the newspapers of the great battles, and I knew of Mr William Pitt, the Secretary of State who was planning the war against France, and hoped I might learn more. I was interested to hear that some of those present thought the war must end soon, lest the costs became ruinous. They also spoke of our new King, though none of them had ever met him. But soon talk then turned to their own affairs, and to the new plays, and scandalous gossip, and my attention wandered.
I wondered about Lord Staines. I was surprised that he should care about me. At our college he had been an inhabitant of a different and higher world, but perhaps now that I was about to be the owner of a significant landed estate, he might consider me a friend. I had come to the city alone, and if I had now gained a friend who could advise and guide me, my life would become far more enjoyable.
I assembled together the scattered recollections I had of him. He was slender in his build, and shorter than me. His eyes were blue. He had a charming smile, though he seldom revealed it; preferring to appear solemn even when he was joking. He was always the central figure in any gathering. I never heard him raise his voice in anger; nor did he ever appear hasty or flustered. Occasionally he was polite towards us humble servitors, but at other times he was rude and sneering. He could be scathing in his denunciations of other men, usually when they were absent, or when he wished to display his wit to his numerous acolytes. As was common with young noblemen at the university, he left without taking a degree, and I had heard that his father the Earl had then purchased him a commission in a cavalry regiment and he had joined our allied army in Germany. That being the case, I wondered why he was in London, and not in uniform, with the war still raging. I was still pondering this point when Staines himself entered.
He appeared soon after three o’clock, came to sit beside me and immediately summoned a waiter. “Why have you not served my friend with coffee?” he demanded. “Well then: bring some immediately!” he continued, interrupting the servant’s stuttering apologies.
We began our conversation by exchanging some trivial reminiscences of our times at the college. He dismissed the institution as useless, and was contemptuous of the scholarship of the dons. “I would rate my years there," he said, “As the most unprofitable period of my life, redeemed only by the pleasurable company of my companions. You should have joined us!” We had all heard of the drinking and debauchery supposed to have taken place in Lord Staines’s rooms in a part of the college known as “Holy Joe’s”, after an ancient statue of St. Joseph that stood there (“A fitting place for a sainted cuckold”, someone had said). I had never been invited to join the young noblemen in their pleasures, but did not point this out.
He continued in this vein for a while, with witty dissections of the character and habits of our more eccentric dons. During this discourse, to which I contributed no more than an occasional word, I observed that gentlemen at an adjacent table had interrupted their talk to listen to him, and were laughing. Lord Staines had always enjoyed performing before an appreciative audience.
Then we fell to talking of the future. He commiserated with me on the death of my aunt, Mrs Andrew; but I explained to him that she was in reality a more distant relation, a cousin of my late mother; I had not set eyes on her since I was a small child, and was as surprised as anyone to find myself named as her heir. He replied that Mrs Andrew was not unknown to his family, for his father also owned lands around Bereton. He had wondered who would inherit the Andrew estate, and he was glad it was me, rather than a stranger.
“And now”, he added, “we must now be considered neighbours; for my father’s country seat, Maybury, is in the same county, and no great distance away. I shall make sure that my father invites you there, once you are established”.
He asked me how I lived now. I said that since the death of both my parents I had no permanent residence, but that at present I lodged in Crown Street, Westminster, and that the bankers allowed me £30 a quarter in expectation of my eventual inheritance; but I was experiencing frustrating delays in the sorting through of my aunt’s investments in the Funds. Staines said that his father’s attorney and man of business was in town, and if necessary he would instruct him to help me.
“His name is Jarrett”, he said, “He is a most ingenious fellow, and I would back him to navigate a way through the most tangled labyrinths of the law, even if blindfolded!”
I thanked him for the offer of assistance, and said that as soon as everything was settled I proposed to travel up to Bereton to inspect my new property, and perhaps reside there for a while. At that he shook his head and laughed, saying that the country was no place for any young man of spirit, that I would quickly find it dull and tedious.
I asked him what he knew of Bereton.
“I have never set foot there”, he replied, “Nor do I propose to do so! I know only what my father has told me. It is an ancient, decayed town. I fear you will find no gentleman of taste or refinement there, for most of the so-called gentry in the county are in reality little better than farmers, working their own fields and never come to town. Believe me, my father knows them only too well! They have ridiculous names like “Sir Heatherbrain Fitzbooby”, and are as ignorant as their peasants. Clowns and boors, every one! All they seek in life is to eat and drink to excess and to hunt foxes!” I wondered whether the listening gentlemen would take offence at this, but they merely chuckled. They must have considered themselves to be of a superior breed to the country folk.
“The town elects two members to the Parliament. One of these is Sir James Wilbrahim who is a typical specimen of the breed I have described. He is a stupid old Tory and a notorious Jacobite, and seldom comes to London.”
“A Jacobite, you say?”
“Oh yes! You may be amazed that there are still such benighted men in our nation, but I assure you that numbers still lurk in the depths of the country. Sir James Wilbrahim is one. You will doubtless meet him when you visit Bereton, and I wish you joy of him! The other Member, Mr Bailey, is a friend of my father. At the last election, Wilbrahim and Bailey were returned unopposed without a poll, which saved my father any further expenditure of money, though he had already spent vast sums. You will not meet Bailey there: he now rarely leaves his home in Hampstead.”
A Jacobite, I thought: a supporter of the exiled Stuart who calls himself King James III, and of his son Charles, who had led a rebellion back in 1745, when I had been a child and too young to comprehend anything about it. It all seemed so long ago, and the cause so hopeless that I was surprised that its supporters still lived.
Lord Staines continued. “As for your aunt’s house, which is now yours: I believe it is in a hamlet to the west of the town, but I know nothing about it. I cannot imagine that you will find it anything but old and ugly in its design and furnishing. No: once you have viewed your new properties and settled your affairs there, I warrant you will quickly return to London!”
I said to Staines that I understood he had served in the army. At this his face grew dark, and lowering his voice so that he should not be overheard he asked me whether I knew anything of the recent battle of Minden, in Germany. I replied that I had heard the name, but that having only recently arrived in town, I knew no details.
“Well then”, he told me with an unusual degree of bitterness in his voice, “I must tell you that Lord George Sackville, who commanded our cavalry and was my patron and friend, was accused of cowardice for failing to charge home with his men when ordered to do so. I was there, as his aide-de-camp, and I knew the accusation to be most villainously unjust, for the orders he had received made no sense at all. So when he was dismissed from the army at the express command of the King himself, was subjected to public humiliation and had his private life traduced in the vilest rumours, I resigned my commission forthwith and came home. I must beg you in all earnestness never to mention the subject again”.
(A cartoon of the battle of Minden)
I thought it best to say nothing, but to wait for him to regain his composure. This he quickly did, remarking that the war would soon be over and that such matters could then be forgotten. More cheerful now in his manner, he asked me how I liked our great capital. I replied that at first, having never lived in any town larger than Cambridge, I had been bemused by the immense bustling crowds, the constant noise, the dirt and all-pervading smells. He laughed and said that this was a common feeling among those newly arrived from the country, but that he would wager that ere long I, like him, would never wish to live anywhere else in England. He further told me that now I was about to become rich, I should live appropriately; and that he would instruct me in the fashionable life of the town that my newfound wealth had opened up to me.
Realising that my life was about to change, I resolved to start a journal. Reading now through such scattered pages as have survived, I recall how the next few weeks were passed in endless activity, as Lord Staines endeavoured to reform my way of life. He conducted me first to his tailor, and commanded the man to make me two new suits of clothes, one red and one green, richly embroidered and with silver buttons. The tailor measured me and assured me that the garments would be ready without delay. I also paid six guineas for a very splendid waistcoat of golden silk, embroidered with tiny flowers and birds in vivid colours. To go with these I acquired a fine tricorn hat with lace, stockings of the best silk, shoes with silver buckles, and finally two bag wigs tied with a black ribbon in the latest fashion, which cost twelve guineas. The tradesmen treated me with a most gratifying respect that verged on servility. I also provided myself with a gold-topped cane, a watch for twenty guineas and a snuffbox of tortoiseshell and silver. The only one of these vanities that I still retain is a very handsome silver-mounted sword with an elaborate hilt of cut steel, which was purchased from the shop of Mr Jefferys, sword-cutter to His Majesty, and cost ten guineas. It was only a toy sword, worn just for show; and I did not know how to use it, never having had a fencing lession in my life, but I had never before owned a sword, and I contemplated it every day with a degree of pleasure. I would play with it in my rooms, to the alarm of my landlady. I felt myself now fully equipped to parade through the best parts of our capital city.
I was not required to pay any money at the time for these purchases. Some of the tradesmen were unwilling to grant me credit, since they did not know me, but Lord Staines said he and his father would personally vouch for me, and this was generally accepted. I thus piled up debt after debt in a very short time. I thought little of economy then, but I was later grateful that I did not follow Staines’s advice to change my lodgings to a fashionable place on Pall Mall. That would have cost me £200 a year, and I pleaded that I was living very comfortably for little more than a tenth of that, with a landlady who sewed the ruffles on my shirt without asking for payment, and had discovered a tavern nearby where I could dine off a good beefsteak for little more than a shilling. Staines shook his head at this, but did not press me.
Eventually he announced that I looked a proper gentleman, fit to meet his friends and to wait on his father the Earl when he next gave a dinner party. I felt absurdly proud. My new life was beginning!
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Chapter 2: Our nights in London
Lord Staines had a wide circle of friends; young gentlemen of about the same age, not yet married, who were the sons of rich fathers. When I sallied forth in my new finery, and with my new friends to guide me, I discovered London to be a place of infinite variety. My days were never empty, and my nights full of entertainment. I began to think that perhaps Staines was right, and that no-one with sufficient funds could ever tire of London.
I had long hoped to behold the great David Garrick on stage at Drury Lane. Now Lord Staines accompanied me there, together with two of his friends, John Robertson and Henry Darnwell.
My first impressions were of the theatre itself, which caused me much surprise, for it was very crowded and very noisy. Many of the audience, both men and women, seemed more interested in eating and making conversation than giving any attention to the stage. Others felt free to comment loudly on any aspects of the performance that displeased them, and even the immortal Garrick himself was not immune from their criticism. Of my companions, Robertson was mostly silent, but Darnwell laughed immoderately, and Lord Staines uttered the occasional icy comment on the defects of the performance. I cannot now recall the name of the play, which was merely some trivial comedy, but to my mind Garrick’s performance was so affecting that he made it all seem very real. I was also much smitten by a charming young actress who played an innocent girl who narrowly escaped from attempts of seduction.
I mentioned to Staines afterwards that I had hoped to see Garrick in some great Shakespearean tragedy, which I had heard could produce sensations of sheer terror in his audience. But he replied, with an affectation of weariness, that it might indeed be the case that silly women could interrupt a performance with cries and weeping, and bumpkins newly arrived from the country, who had perhaps never before seen a play might be alarmed; but, speaking for himself, he had seen Garrick in many different roles; he considered that the man was well past his peak and was unlikely now to bring anything fresh could now be brought into his performances. As for the pretty young actress; he said that the girl in question was in real life far from being the innocent maiden that she depicted on stage; that if I wished, I could join the long line of admirers who trailed after her, but I should reconcile myself to a place at the rear of that train, for a certain great nobleman has his eye on her, and if she was a girl of sense, she would bestow her favours on that man rather than an unknown youth. For his part, he would not be joining any such procession, for he considered her acting weak and insipid, and predicted that her career as an actress would be short.
Danrwell laughed at this, but Robertson explained to me the perils of the theatre. As we walked through Covent Garden he drew my attention to a lady hoping to collect a few coppers in a handkerchief at her feet as she sang. Her dress had once been fine but was now much stained, and her face was lined, but her voice was still magnificent. I wondered why she was not employed by a theatrical company rather than being forced to beg in the street.
“Would you believe,” Robertson told me, “that less than ten years ago that lady was the toast of London and rumoured to be the mistress of a certain member of the royal family? But she threw it all away by her own foolishness, and now no theatrical manager will employ her, for no sooner has she earned some money than she spends it all on gin, and will not return to work until none is left. Let us hope that your young actress does not come to such an end.”
I was moved by this to drop a shilling onto the singer’s handkerchief. Robertson shook his head sadly, but the lady halted in her Handel aria to smile at me. Some time later I bought an engraving of Garrick playing the role of Richard III in Shakespeare’s tragedy, depicting the scene where King Richard is haunted by visions of his victims on the eve of his defeat at Bosworth field. I still possess it.
Robertson and Darnwell now became two of my particular friends. The former was tall and dark, more serious-minded than other young gentlemen of Lord Staines’s circle and somewhat detached from their more madcap ventures, giving the impression that he would shortly be leaving the activities of his youth behind. Henry Darnwell, by contrast, was always the first in some reckless scheme; attracting trouble wherever he went and seeming to revel in it. He was invariably cheerful, and well-liked by everyone who knew him. Unlike Robertson, who preferred to dress in sober colours, he spent large sums on colourful fashions derived from Italy or France. He never persisted in anything for long: he said he was studying the law and boasted of how he would inevitably become a famous advocate, but according to Robertson had never done the smallest amount of work.
Once, when I mentioned to Robertson that Darnwell has invited me to join him at a certain club the next evening, he warned me against too close an association.
“Henry Darnwell is an excellent fellow in most ways, and would never betray a friend, but is sadly devoid of good sense in his conduct. His reckless behaviour is the despair of his father. Both for his sake and your own you should never lend him money for his wagers, or agree to cover his debts. It would be best to plead poverty, for he will assuredly gamble it away and then ask you for more, with a friendly smile on his face and without the least intention of doing you harm.
“As for the club he mentions; go if you wish, but avoid all invitations to play at cards there, for it is a notorious haunt of dishonest players. You might consider it a worthy deed to rescue Darnwell from their clutches if you can, and conduct him home before he is plucked clean like a pigeon ripe for roasting.”
The club was an opulent building near St James’s Square. I wore my best clothes for the occasion, and was bowed in by a most obliging footman. I did not immediately find Darnwell, and instead wandered into a room that was crowded and smoke-filled. Faro was being played: a game which, as far as I could tell, involved little or no degree of skill. Large sums were being staked on the turn of a card, with perhaps whole estates being forfeited as a result. One young fellow, a mere schoolboy, with blue powder on his wig and red heels on his shoes, was playing with complete abandon. He appeared not to care whether he won or lost, for either made him laugh uproariously and increase the stake on the next card. I asked a gentleman standing next to me, in a whisper, who this boy might be.
“That”, he told me, is Charles James Fox, and standing by him is his brother Stephen. They are the sons of the Right Honourable Henry Fox.”
“Oh yes: I know of him,” I said, wishing to appear a man of the world. I had heard of Mr Fox as a member of the ministry, but knew little else about him. “And does the father know of the debts his sons are accumulating? Young Charles there is losing very large sums and does not seem to care.”
“His father indulges the boys most outrageously, sir! No matter what vast amounts they squander, the father pays. I am told that Charles Fox’s example is corrupting a whole generation of schoolboys at Eton. But why should we care at that? Mr Fox is Paymaster of the Army, and during the course of this war enormous quantities of the country’s money have found their way into his pocket. We, the taxpayers, have been robbed, and it is no more than just, sir, that the unaccounted millions stolen by the father should be wasted by the sons!”
I watched a while as young Fox continued on his costly path with every sign of enjoyment. I did not wager anything myself, but walked to another room where there were several card tables. I was approached by an older man who invited me to join him and his friends in a game.
I pleaded that I did not know how to play. He must have concluded from my attitude, and perhaps also from my voice, that I was an innocent recently arrived from the country, for he laughed and said that they would quickly teach me: playing only for the very smallest stakes until I was familiar with the game. Remembering Robertson’s advice, I took refuge in pleading that I had sworn to my father on his deathbed that I would never gamble with strangers. This entirely false excuse caused one of the cardplayers to turn his back and mutter that I was a feeble milksop. The older man, however, smiled sympathetically and said that we were all gentlemen together and that I was old enough to choose for myself. I was sorely tempted, and was about to take my seat at the table when Henry Darnwell appeared. He was evidently well-known to the card-players, and they greeted him warmly, but he acknowledged them with no more than a brief salutation of the hand before turning to me. His manner was flustered.
“Mr Huntingdon – Charles,” he pleaded, “I’ve searched the whole building for you. Would you please be kind enough to lend me a few guineas? Or, better still, add your name to a bill of mine? Otherwise I shall be in the most deuced fix. Why, only last week at the Cockpit I was put in a basket and raised up to the ceiling as a defaulter, and now I dare not show my face there again! Who knows what might happen here! So please help me out, I beg you!”
The card-players were unanimous that it was indeed my duty to open my wallet for my friend, for otherwise I would prove myself no sportsman. The scene was becoming unpleasant, but I was saved by the sudden arrival of John Robertson himself. He ignored the card-players and me, but instead addressed himself to Darnwell.
“I thought I might find you here!” he exclaimed, “May I remind you that we had promised to dine with Lord Staines tonight? We are late, but there is still time!”
He bowed to the cardplayers, who were perhaps impressed by the mention of Lord Staines’s name. He then took Darnwell by the right arm and I copied this by taking the left, and so together we marched him from the building. On the street outside two elderly gentlemen, their wigs all awry, were engaged in fisticuffs, presumably over a gambling debt, but were too drunk to inflict much damage on each other. A crowd of ragged urchins stood jeering at the impotent violence, and doubtless hoping to rush in and grab any object that fell on the pavement. They parted to let us through, with the accompaniment of vulgar comments which we ignored.
(Hogarth: The ruined gamester)
The story about the dinner was, of course, false. When we were out of sight, we released our prisoner and Robertson apologised for the untruth; but Darnwell admitted we had rescued him from a dangerous situation, and, under pressure, promised not to enter that club again. Whether he kept the vow I never found out, but he remained a friend and bore no grudge at my refusal to lend him money.
Another friend of Lord Staines was George Davies, who was by far the tallest and strongest man I had ever met, and wholly fearless in his behaviour. He was entirely without malice, though his impulses frequently led him into actions that were wrong.
I remember instances of this. At night Staines and his friends would explore an entirely different London; one that was poor, dirty and often dangerous. We would leave our swords and best clothes behind and venture into the mean streets of the city to the east of the Tower and around the Mint. Darnwell and Davies revelled in these expeditions, and so, to my surprise, did Staines himself. Even the boldest among us did not dare venture into the narrow and dark alleyways that lay behind: cesspits of desperate poverty that also served as refuges for low criminals, where pigs rooted in the noxious dunghills. We knew such places only by their evil repute: Rosemary Lane, inhabited by the Irish, and Poor Jewry Lane, the home of Israelites from Poland and Russia. Instead we walked eastwards from the Tower down the great Ratcliff Highway, lined with sailors’ taverns and brothels, where drunken seamen and coalheavers would fight, encouraged by the howls and imprecations of their ragged harpies. When we entered such a place, our disguises can have deceived nobody as to our true rank: sometimes we were welcomed for the money we would spend freely, and would chaff on easy terms with the other customers, but on other occasions these expeditions resulted in ourselves giving and receiving blows, and we would recount our adventures with glee the next day.
One night in a low tavern somewhere near the Tower, Henry Darnwell suddenly seized a man by his collar and shouted, “You’ve picked my pocket!” The man so accused, a short, dirty, unshaven fellow, wriggled out of Darnwell’s grip and retreated, denying all knowledge of the crime.
“My purse has gone! Give it back!” Darnwell shouted. Various of the accused man’s friends turned to face us. They looked ready for a fight, but Lord Staines was undaunted. “You had best return the purse immediately, or it will be worse for you”, he pronounced in a quiet but cold voice. At this, George Davies stepped forwards to Staines’s side, raising his fists in the manner of a pugilist and challenging the thief and any friends to come forward. One of them raised a bludgeon, but Davies was too quick for him and felled him with a single blow.
Chaos now ensued. One fellow advanced on me, cursing loudly, and aimed a wild swing at me which I avoided and responded with a punch to his chest. It was not a strong blow, but by great good fortune he tripped over his own feet and tumbled backwards, striking his head against a bench and taking no further interest in the proceedings.
We were heavily outnumbered and were obliged to make a strategic retreat. Our opponents appeared satisfied at having driven us out of their citadel, for they did not pursue us far; contenting themselves with hurling a few stones. Fortunately their aim was poor, probably as a result of the consumption of too much gin, and all missed the target. Davies had sustained a bloody nose, which he wiped casually with his sleeve, and appeared extremely cheerful. Whether Staines had any part in the battle I did not know, for he showed no sign. I felt blood tricking into my collar, and found I had been stuck on my right cheekbone, though I had no memory of receiving any blow. Davies lent me a silk handkerchief to stem the wound, and commended the way I had overthrown my opponent, saying that he had not previously considered me a fighting man. I did not disillusion him as to my pugilistic abilities.
“Oh, and by the way,” he said to Darnwell, “Your purse wasn’t stolen. You dropped it on the floor, but you were too drunk to notice!”
“Then why did you not say so?” Darwell replied indignantly.
“What, and lose the opportunity for a good scrap?” retorted Davies, roaring with laughter.
On more than one occasion we were pursued down the street by groups of drunken men and women who shouted the most disgusting abuse at us from a safe distance. This alarmed me, but it was as if my companions were unable to hear, and did not even turn round. John Robertson explained that in his opinion it was undignified to acknowledge such comments from ruffians, and he preferred to feign deafness and take no notice at all; at which George Davies added, “If they really anger you, knock them down! That’s what I always do!” I would not have felt confident acting in this manner, and wished I felt safer.
Some of Davies’s behaviour was less excusable. The city watchmen were frequently old, idle and useless, and we would provoke them with jokes and insults and then run away laughing, leaving them cursing impotently. One night we discovered one of these Charlies (as they were derisively nicknamed) asleep in his little sentry-box, wrapped up in his huge dirty coat and snoring; his mouth open to reveal just two decayed teeth. His lantern was unlit and his truncheon and rattle on the ground by his feet. Davies, on seeing this, seized the sentry-box and with no great effort tipped it over, laughing uproariously at the plight of the unfortunate man inside. Happily, the victim escaped uninjured, though he was furiously angry. His truncheon had bounced away across the cobbles, and Davies took it as a souvenir of his triumph: it was a handsome object, freshly painted with the arms of the city.
He commented, “These old Charlies are quite useless; for the most part they are too old and feeble to catch any robber, and spend most of the night skulking in their boxes lest they should get wet in the rain. So whenever I find one asleep, or too deaf to hear my approach, I make sure that he is awake and alert to his duties!” Although I laughed, I felt that it was a most sophistical argument if taken seriously; and when at this point Davies struck his head on a low-hanging inn sign that he had failed to see in the darkness, I felt it was no less than the hand of Divine justice in action. Happily, Davies was blessed with an extremely thick skull, and suffered no more damage than the loss of his hat and wig in the dirt, but his reaction to the accident astonished me, for, to the accompaniment of an oath, and with all the force he could muster, he deliberately struck the offending board again with his forehead! He would no doubt have done so many more times, until either the board cracked or he lost all consciousness, had no his friends seized him by the arms and, not without difficulty, dragged him away. They were roaring with laughter, and had no doubt witnessed such scenes before, and very soon he was laughing too.
Roberson turned to me and tapped his own head. “Mad!” he proclaimed, “Quite mad!”
(London in the 18th century)
The best that could be said of our exploits is that we never attacked harmless law-abiding citizens, as some parties of young bravoes did. One such group, who styled themselves the Mohawks, after the North American tribe, would surround some unfortunate man and prick him with their swords, or assault respectable women. We never sank into this level of barbarism, though sometimes we could not resist enjoying the pusillanimous behaviour of those who thought that we might. One night we had a man grovelling on his knees in the mud, begging us to spare him, pleading that he was but a poor tailor with a wife and children dependent on him. Staines held him with an icy expression until, bored and disgusted by this spectacle of abject cowardice, he abruptly turned on his heel and strode away without a word. It is only now when I look back that I realise that humiliating the poor man in this way could be as wounding as violence.
It was through Henry Darnwell that I became acquainted with Bartley Wandescote. I never considered him a friend, and but for the fact that he was to have a very important part to play later in my story I would happily blot the man entirely from my memory, for he took a peculiar delight in one particular feature of London life.
Several times a year, a grim procession of carts would set forth from Newgate and make their way westwards along Holborn and past the old church of St Giles, bearing a number of unfortunates, both men and women, to the gallows at Tyburn. The rabble of London would assemble in vast numbers to witness these processions, and the hangings would provide a climax to the entertainment, especially if some particularly noted criminal was to suffer; and there Wandescote would be among them. He told me with pride that he had never missed an execution since he was a boy!
Once he persuaded me to accompany him. The people gathered in the streets around Tyburn looked to be a mob of the most degraded men and women, and I kept a hand close on my purse, but Wandescote appeared to find the scene exhilarating. There were roars of excitement as the procession came in sight.
“This first man is a notorious pickpocket”, Wandescote explained, indicating a mere boy who appeared to be half-witted with fear, and who gawped open-mouthed as the poorly-dressed clergyman who was with him pointed at the heavens and urged him to repent. In the next cart was a woman, certainly younger than me, who stood upright and motionless. The crowd were sympathetic, and shouted encouragement, but she ignored them and her expressionless face looking neither to the right or the left.
“She was condemned for stealing a roll of cloth”, Wandescote explained, “She said it was to feed her family. She is only eighteen years old, and as it was her first offence, it was expected that she would be reprieved, but she doomed herself by her insolence to the judge.” I contrived to slip away before the actual hangings, and had no desire to witness any more such events.
I never heard Wandescote express any sympathy with the victims. He said that many were be drunk on the way their final destination, which was as well for them, since they might take as long as twenty minutes to die by strangulation. He further told me that if a particularly notorious criminal was to suffer, it was possible to hire an upper room to obtain a better view of the elevating scene of his despatch. I am glad to say that none of our friends accepted his invitation to accompany him to such an occasion. He had also, he said, once been allowed to view the bodies of the executed, but his ambition to attend their dissection at the Royal College of Surgeons, which was the ultimate fate of those deemed to be the very worst of criminals was as yet unfulfilled.
Wandescote often visited the prisons, where, doubtless with the aid of extensive bribery, he was by his own account able to meet and talk with practically every famous criminal in London. He also regaled us with accounts of his visits to the Bethlehem lunatic asylum: the famous “Bedlam”. He described how he had talked to a man who was kept chained up in a cage, like a dog, on account of his occasional bouts of ungovernable violent rage; and how an unfortunate woman, all in rags, had grovelled before him and attempted to kiss his feet.
“She must have taken me for Jesus Christ, no less”, he commented, in a voice that made it impossible to tell whether or not he was jesting.
He sometimes said that he would write a book about his experiences, and at other times that he was torn between becoming an advocate or a physician; but we all knew, and perhaps he knew too, that he would do none of these things, but would contentedly wander idly through life, secure in the vast wealth he had inherited from his father.
Staines’s sarcastic comments deterred me from pursuing Garrick’s pretty young actress, though I did indeed find that in London I was surrounded by free-spirited women of all degrees, from the splendid madam at fifty guineas to the nymph who walks along the Strand or lurks in an alley-way, and who might resign herself to your pleasure for a shilling and a bottle of wine. Many of the latter class would join us on our nocturnal expeditions, but I behaved with great continence. To excuse myself with Staines’s friends I pleaded a dread of contracting the pox, with the added explanation that most of these women were often very old and excessively ugly; so much so that they could not possibly arouse any amorous instinct in me. I was commended in this by Robertson:
“It may be considered a universal rule, that the darker the night, the uglier the whore; for surely a handsome young whore would wish for light, to reveal her charms? And to follow any whore into darkness is courting danger. A friend of mine, a young lawyer at Gray’s Inn, one night incautiously followed one of these ladies into a lightless entry, where he was immediately knocked down, and when he regained his faculties discovered himself to be lying prostrate upon a dunghill and robbed not only of his purse but also of all his clothes, leaving him quite Adam-naked, so he had to make his way home with his shame covered only by a filthy rag he found in the gutter, to the vast amusement of all who beheld him”.
Henry Darnwell laughed at this, and told Robertson that he would have a future as a novelist.
The truth, which I did not reveal for fear of their ridicule, was that at the time I had very little experience of women, and was afraid of making a fool of myself. Staines wondered at my abstinence, and enquired whether my proclivities might lie in another direction. I did not at the time comprehend what he might mean. Others of his friends spoke of a dose of the clap as virtually a badge of manhood, and another suggested that I should enjoy the ladies “wearing armour”, by which I understood he meant a certain instrument made from an animal’s gut. I was also advised that certain discreet “houses of assignation” were available for the use of young gentlemen who did not wish to disturb their parents or landladies. My sole lapse at that time I shall describe shortly, but it occurred only after the most important event of my early life in London.
