Much was made of the honourable nature of Hackman’s obsession. A correspondent who called himself ‘PHILANTHROPIST’ in the St James’s Chronicle of 10 April pointed out that ‘Mr Hackman, so far from being an abandoned and insensible profligate, was rather distinguished for taste and Delicacy of Sentiment85’, while James Boswell wrote in the same paper a few days later:
As his manners were uncommonly amiable, his Mind and Heart seem to have been uncommonly pure and virtuous; for he never once attempted to have a licentious connection with Miss Ray. It may seem strange at first; but I can very well suppose, that had he been less virtuous, he would not have been so criminal. But his Passion was not to be diverted by inferior Gratifications. He loved Miss Ray with all his soul, and nothing could make him happy but having her all his own86.
Writers thought it important to establish that Hackman was no sexual predator – a rake or libertine – who lashed out in anger because of thwarted desire, but merely a young man hopelessly in love.
Martha Ray, ‘the lovely victim87’ as she was described in the London Chronicle, was given a similarly good press. The PHILANTHROPIST who praised Hackman described her as ‘irreproachable in her conduct, any otherwise than what perhaps was not well in her power to prevent, that she was unprotected by the legal Marriage ceremony88’. A poor girl who became a rich man’s mistress was hardly culpable. The General Evening Post assured its readers that ‘the memory of Miss Ray, with respect to Mr Hackman, stands clear, at present, of every imputation89’. He may have loved her, but she remained true to her keeper. The St James’s Chronicle saw her as a female paragon. It glossed over the potentially sordid origins of Ray’s relationship with Sandwich, alluding only to her being ‘under the protection of the noble Peer90’. It lauded her looks and accomplishments: ‘Her person was very fine, her face agreeable, and she had every Accomplishment that could adorn a woman, particularly those of Singing, and Playing most exquisitely on the Harpsichord91.’ And it placed her in the bosom of the family: ‘She was also highly respected by all those who knew her, especially all the Servants, and her death is most sincerely regretted in the Family92.’
Several papers dwelt on Ray’s virtues as a companion and parent. Her fidelity to Sandwich, the General Evening Post reported, ‘was never suspected’. In return for his ‘protection’ Ray gave Sandwich a ‘life of gratitude and strict fidelity93’. Her five surviving children were raised, according to the London Chronicle, with the ‘strictness of motherly attention94’. Several papers reported on her concern for the financial well being of her much-loved but illegitimate children. ‘Miss Ray made it a rule, on the birth of every child,’ they wrote, ‘to solicit her noble admirer for an immediate provision for it, which was invariably acquiesced in.’ Her children were therefore provided for after her death: ‘the issue of this lady will have nothing to lament from her sad fate … but the circumstance of having lost a tender mother95’.
In the eighteenth century charity came high among the concerns of virtuous women, and Ray was seen as no exception. She was ‘liberal in a high degree, and the bounty of her noble Lover enabled her to indulge benevolence, in becoming the patroness of the poor’. One of the objects of her charity, it was said, was her elderly and poor parents who lived in Elstree. She could not refuse them aid though, in line with her reputation for moral scrupulousness, she refused to see her father because of the way he had encouraged her to become a mistress or a courtesan.
Ray’s most remarked upon quality was her having mastered the skills of an elegant lady. Sandwich, the papers said, had spent lavishly to refashion a milliner’s apprentice as a lady. The London Chronicle waxed lyrical on her accomplishments:
There was scarce any polite art in which she was not adept, nor any part of female literature with which she was not conversant. All the world are acquainted with the unrivalled sweetness of her vocal powers, but it was the peculiar pleasure of a few only to know that her conversation, her feelings, and indeed her general deportment, all participated of an unparalleled delicacy, which had characterized her through life96.
No doubt the shocking manner of Martha Ray’s death prompted a surge of sympathy for her. The General Advertiser commented on how ‘all ranks of people drop the tear of pity on her bier, while the sharp tooth of slander seems for a time to have lost its edge97’. Even the author of one of the most vicious attacks on Ray, a mock opera published in 1776 that had portrayed her as an unfaithful greedy harridan who twists a besotted but impotent Sandwich round her finger, was heard ‘to describe in the most pathetic terms, the amiable qualifications of her head and heart98’. Sympathy for Ray stemmed equally from admiration for a poor, fallen woman who had successfully transformed herself not into a flamboyant courtesan, but into a respectable mother who could pass for a lady.
Sandwich was the least likely of the three victims of Hackman’s crime to be treated kindly in the press, but even he was accorded an unusually sympathetic reception. Naturally enough the government-subsidized Morning Post pleaded his case:
Is there any one so obdurate, however party may have warped or blunted his affections, as not to feel some little concern for a man, who, in the course of one month, has had a personal accusation adduced against his honesty as a man – several vague imputations, and the measure of a direct charge against his character, as a Minister – a daughter dead [his daughter-in-law had just died], and a beloved friend most bloodily assassinated?99
But even the opposition papers were willing to acknowledge Sandwich’s dignity in his suffering. Several articles emphasized his benevolence towards Martha Ray – his willingness to pay for her education and to provide for their offspring. His performance as a good father and spouse matched the domestic virtues of his murdered lover. Others praised his remarkable action in being willing to forgive James Hackman for his terrible crime. ‘We are assured from respectable authority, that a noble Lord, much interested in the death of the late unfortunate Miss Ray, pitying the fate of the unhappy Hackman, sent a message to him after condemnation by the Honourable Captain W––– [Walsingham], informing him, “that he would endeavour to get him a pardon;” but that unhappy man replied, “he wished not to live, but to expatiate his offence, if possible, by his death100”.’
Above all, reports of Sandwich’s suffering at the news of Ray’s death made the man who was regularly depicted in the opposition press as a political monster appear altogether more vulnerable and human. He was ‘inconsolable’…‘he wrung his hands and cried, exclaiming – “I could have borne anything but this; but this unmans me102”.’ The General Advertiser suggested that Sandwich was so stricken that his servants feared that he might kill himself, while the Gazetteer depicted his situation as ‘deplorable’ and portrayed him as withdrawn and wounded, seeing ‘no one but his dearest friends103’. The St James’s Chronicle, no special admirer of Sandwich as a politician, summarized the prevailing sentiment:
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