PETER LE MAITRE.
CONVICTED OF ROBBING THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM AT OXFORD.
WHEN Lord Thurlow was chancellor of England some villains broke into his house, in Great Ormond-street, and stole the great seal of England, which was never recovered, nor were the thieves known. We have heard also of a valuable diamond being stolen from the late Duke of Cumberland, when pressing into the theatre in the Haymarket to see the bubble of the bottle conjurer. It is also a fact that the Duke of Beaufort was robbed of his diamond order of St. George as he went to Court on a royal birthday; but we have yet to tell that a museum was robbed of its curious medals.
Peter Le Maitre, the thief, was a French teacher at Oxford, and being supposed to be a man of industry and good morals, he was indulged with free admission to the Ashmolean Museum. Thither he frequently went, and appeared very studious over the rare books, and other valuable articles there deposited. He was frequently left alone to his researches. At one of such times he stole two medals, and at another he secreted himself until the doors were locked for the night. When all had retired he came from his lurking-place, and broke open the cabinet where the medals were locked up, and possessed himself of its contents; he then wrenched a bar from the window, and, unsuspected, made his escape.
The college was thrown into the utmost consternation on finding their Museum thus plundered. Some were suspected, but least of all Le Maitre, until it was discovered that he had privately left the city in a post-chaise and four, and that he had pledged two of the stolen medals to pay the post-boys. This left little doubt that he was the ungrateful thief. He was advertised and described, and by this means apprehended in Ireland.
He was conveyed back to Oxford, in order to take his trial; and it appeared that two of the stolen medals were found in a bureau in his lodgings, of which he had the use; and two more were traced to the persons to whom he had sold them.
He had little to offer in extenuation of his crime, and on the clearest evidence he was found guilty on the 7th March, 1777; and he paid the penalty of his offence by enduring five years’ hard labour at ballast-heaving on the river Thames.
Whether the ungrateful depredation of Le Maitre stimulated others to the commission of similar crimes we know not, but it is certain that soon afterwards Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, was broken open by two thieves, who stole from the altar a pair of large silver candlesticks and a silver dish, with which they escaped undetected.
DAVID BROWN DIGNUM.
CONVICTED OF PRETENDING TO SELL PLACES UNDER GOVERNMENT.
THE case of this offender may be well looked upon as a warning to many of those whose advertisements are daily seen in the newspapers of the present day, offering a premium to any person who will find a situation for the advertiser. Many persons have recently been duped in their search after employment, by fellows who have obtained their money by means of false pretences; but few have gone the length to pretend to put the advertiser in possession of the place which he sought.
Dignum was indicted on the 5th of April, 1777, at the Guildhall, Westminster, for defrauding Mr. John Clarke of the sum of one hundred pounds two shillings and tenpence, which he had obtained from him under pretence of investing him with the office of clerk of the minutes in his majesty’s custom-house in Dublin. The evidence in the case was very simple. The negotiation was commenced between Mr. Clarke and the prisoner at an early period in the year; and the money having been paid over, the prisoner handed to the prosecutor a stamped paper or warrant, bearing the signature of Lord Weymouth, and countersigned by “Thomas Daw,” which he told him would enable him to assume the office which it mentioned. Upon his proceeding to do so, however, he was found to have been hoaxed; and upon inquiry, he discovered that the signatures were forged, and that the seals attached to the warrant had been taken from some other instrument. The jury immediately found the prisoner guilty; but the magistrates hesitated a long time on the punishment which should be inflicted on such an offender, and at length sentenced him to work five years on the river Thames.
The prisoner, while in Tothill-fields Bridewell, tried every means in his power to effect his escape, and offered to bribe an attendant in the prison with a bank-note of ten pounds, to favour his escape in a large chest. Upon his conviction, no time was now lost in conveying him on board the ballast-lighter. Being possessed of plenty of money, and having high notions of gentility, he went to Woolwich in a post-chaise, with his negro servant behind, expecting that his money would procure every indulgence in his favour, and that his servant would be still admitted to attend him: but in this he was egregiously mistaken. The keepers of the lighter would not permit him to come on board, and Dignum was immediately put to the duty of the wheelbarrow.
On Monday, the 5th of May, Dignum sent a forged draft for five hundred pounds for acceptance to Mr. Drummond, banker, at Charing-cross, who, discovering the imposition, carried the publishers before Sir John Fielding: but they were discharged; and it was intended to procure an habeas corpus to remove Dignum to London for examination.
This plan, however, was soon seen through; for, on consideration, it seemed evident that Dignum, by sending the forged draft from on board the lighter, preferred the chance of escape, even though death presented itself on the other side, to his situation; so that no further steps were taken in the affair, and he remained at work for the period to which he was sentenced by the laws of his country.
JAMES HILL, alias HIND, alias ATKINS, alias JOHN THE PAINTER. EXECUTED FOR FIRING PORTSMOUTH DOCK-YARD.
A MORE dangerous character than this has rarely existed. His offence was of a nature aimed at the very safety of the kingdom, and, if successful, and followed up by the operations of his more powerful friends, for whose benefit it eventually appeared that he had committed the foul crime of which he was guilty, the most disastrous consequences might have ensued.
Hill, it appears, was a Scotchman by birth, and was by trade a painter; from which circumstance he obtained the name by which he is generally known, of “John the Painter.” Having gone to America at an early age, during a residence there of some years, he imbibed principles opposed to the interests of his own country. Transported with party zeal, he formed the desperate resolution of committing a most atrocious crime against the welfare of England—namely, the burning of the dock-yards at Portsmouth and Plymouth. At about four o’clock in the afternoon of the 7th of December, 1776, a fire broke out in the round-house of Portsmouth dock, by which the whole of that building was consumed, and from whose ravages the rest of the surrounding warehouses were with difficulty saved. The fire was at first attributed to accident; but on the 5th of January following, three men, who were engaged in the hemp-house, discovered a tin machine, somewhat resembling a tea-canister, and near the same spot a wooden box, containing various kinds of combustibles. This circumstance being communicated to the commissioner of the dock, and circulated among the public, several vague and