“Your constant reader and admirer, “Virtuous.”
Such are but a few of the iniquities practised by the ministers of the Fleet. Similar transactions were carried on at the Chapel in May Fair, the Mint in the Borough, the Savoy, and other places about London; until the public scandal became so great, especially in consequence of the marriage at the Fleet of the Hon. Henry Fox with Georgiana Caroline, eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond, that at length—not, however, without much and zealous opposition—a Marriage Bill was passed, enacting that any person solemnising matrimony in any other than a church or public chapel, without banns or license, should, on conviction, be adjudged guilty of felony, and be transported for fourteen years, and that all such marriages should be void. This act was to take effect from the 25th of March, 1754.
Upon the passing of this law, Keith, the parson who has already been alluded to, published a pamphlet entitled, “Observations on the Act for Preventing Clandestine Marriages.” To this he prefixed his portrait. The following passages are highly characteristic of the man:—
“ ‘Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing,’ is an old proverb, and a very true one; but we shall have no occasion for it after the 25th day of March next, when we are commanded to read it backwards, and from that period (fatal indeed to Old England!) we must date the declension of the numbers of the inhabitants of England.”—“As I have married many thousands, and consequently have on those occasions seen the humour of the lower class of people, I have often asked the married pair how long they had been acquainted; they would reply, some more, some less, but the generality did not exceed the acquaintance of a week, some only of a day, half a day,” &c.—“Another inconveniency which will arise from this act will be, that the expense of being married will be so great, that few of the lower class of people can afford; for I have often heard a Fleet-parson say, that many have come to be married when they have but had half-a-crown in their pockets, and sixpence to buy a pot of beer, and for which they have pawned some of their clothes.”—“I remember once on a time, I was at a public-house at Radcliff, which then was full of sailors and their girls; there was fiddling, piping, jigging, and eating: at length, one of the tars starts up, and says, ‘D—n ye, Jack, I’ll be married just now; I will have my partner, and. …’ The joke took, and in less than two hours ten couple set out for the Fleet. I staid their return. They returned in coaches, five women in each coach, the tars, some running before, others riding on the coach-box, and others behind. The cavalcade being over, the couples went up into an upper room, where they concluded the evening with great jollity. The next time I went that way I called on my landlord and asked him concerning this marriage adventure. He at first stared at me, but recollecting, he said those things were so frequent that he hardly took any notice of them; for, added he, it is a common thing when a fleet comes in, to have two or three hundred marriages in a week’s time, among the sailors.” He humorously concludes, “If the present Act in the form it now stands should (which I am sure is impossible) be of service to my country, I shall then have the satisfaction of having been the occasion of it, because the compilers thereof have done it with a pure design of suppressing my Chapel, which makes me the most celebrated man in this kingdom, though not the greatest.”
The passing of the Marriage Act put a stop to the marriages at May Fair; but the day before the Act came into operation (Lady-day 1754)[10] sixty-one couple were married there.[11]
It would exceed the limits of this brief sketch were we to give the official history of the different scandalous ministers who thus disgraced themselves, and impiously trifled with one of our most sacred institutions. That some of these wretched adventurers were merely pretended clergymen is certain; but it cannot be denied that many of them were actually in holy orders.
Of this latter class were Grierson and Wilkinson, the subjects of our present notice; and notwithstanding the heavy penalties imposed by the statute, they were not to be deterred from continuing the dangerous and unlawful traffic in which they had been engaged. Wilkinson, who was the brother of a celebrated comedian of the day, it would appear, was the owner of a chapel in the Savoy, and Grierson was his assistant; and their proceedings having at length become too notorious to be passed over, proceedings were instituted against them. Grierson was first apprehended, and his employer sought safety in flight; but supposing that he could not be deemed guilty of any offence, as he had not actually performed the marriage ceremony, a duty which he left to his journeyman, he returned to his former haunts. It was not long before he was secured, however, and having been convicted with Grierson, they were shipped off as convicts together to the colonies, in the year 1757.
WILLIAM PAGE.
EXECUTED FOR HIGHWAY ROBBERY.
WILLIAM PAGE was the son of a respectable farmer at Hampton, and being a lad of promising parts he was sent to London to be educated under the care of his cousin, a haberdasher. His early life, by the superstitious believers of old sayings, would be adduced as proof positive of the truth of the old adage, that “a man who is born to be hanged will never be drowned;” and although we cannot put much faith generally in such notions, we cannot help in this instance pointing out some peculiarities in the adventures of our hero, which might have been considered by him as a sufficient indication of his fate. The early chronicler of his life says, that, during the hard frost in the winter of 1739, Page was sliding with other boys on the canal in St. James’s Park, when the ice broke under him, and he sank; and the ice immediately closing over him, he must have perished; but just at this juncture the ice again broke with another boy near him, and Page arose precisely at the vacancy made by the latter, and was saved, although his companion was drowned. The second instance of the intervention of his good fortune occurred in the summer following this singular escape. Page was then trying to swim with corks in the Thames, when they slipped from under his arms, and he sank; but a waterman got him up, and he soon recovered. On the third occasion he was going up the river on a party of pleasure, about five years afterwards, with several other young fellows, when the boat overset with them in Chelsea Reach, and every one in the boat was drowned except Page. But his fourth and last escape from a watery grave was even more miraculous than any of those which preceded it. About eighteen months after that which is last related he was on a voyage to Scotland. The ship in which he sailed foundered in Yarmouth Roads, and most of the people on board perished; but another vessel, observing their distress, sent out a long-boat, by the help of which Page and a few others saved their lives.
To return, however, to the ordinary events of his life. It appears, that his cousin having given him employment in his shop, his vanity prevented him from bestowing that attention on his business to which it was entitled; and his extravagance being checked by his relation, who stopped his pocket-money in order to curb his refined notions, he had recourse to plunder to supply his necessities. Money being repeatedly missed from the till, and all attempts to discover the thief among the servants having failed, suspicion at length rested on our hero; and his guilt having been distinctly proved he was dismissed from his situation forthwith. An effort which he made to conciliate his relation after this proved ineffectual; and his father, who had learned the nature