A neighbour hearing the cries of the distressed female, and suspecting some foul deed, knocked at the street-door, and inquired the cause of the noise; to which Leonard, opening the window, replied that it was only a drunken woman: and the inquirer retired.
The three villains, Leonard, Graves, and Gay, were afterwards indicted for this cruel outrage: Leonard as the principal, and the others as accessories to the fact; and upon their trial they were all found guilty. Graves and Gay were burned in the hand and imprisoned; but sentence of death was immediately passed upon Leonard.
Although convicted upon the clearest evidence, this obdurate man denied that he was guilty; and on the Sunday before he suffered, he received the sacrament from the hands of the Rev. Mr. Temple, and then, in the most solemn manner, declared to that gentleman that he was entirely innocent of the fact for which he was to die; that he had been repeatedly intimate with Miss Boss, with her own consent; and that all the reason he could conjecture for her prosecuting him was, that he had communicated this matter to Graves, one of the other followers, who availed himself of the secret, and found means to get into the young lady’s room, and who really perpetrated the fact with which she had falsely accused him.
In this story he persisted all the time he remained in Newgate; but Mr. Temple, suspecting his veracity, delivered a paper to Mr. Toll, another gentleman who usually administered spiritual comfort to the malefactors in their last moments, in which he requested him to ask Leonard about those two assertions before he was turned off.
This request Mr. Toll and his colleague punctually complied with, and the unhappy man then acknowledged that he had taken the sacrament to an absolute falsehood; that there was not a word of truth in his impeaching Miss Boss, but that he alone abused her; that he was taught in Newgate to believe that the falsehood might do him service; that he found his mistake too late, and all the atonement he could make was to acknowledge the truth before he left the world, and to beg pardon of God for having acted in so atrocious a manner.
He was executed on the 11th August, 1773, at Tyburn.
SAMUEL MALE.
EXECUTED FOR ROBBERY.
THE short life of this culprit was remarkable for producing two surprising instances of the uncertainty of identity.
On the 4th of September, 1772, he was arraigned at the bar of the Old Bailey for a robbery upon a Mrs. Ryan.
The prosecutrix and other witnesses swore positively that the prisoner committed the robbery on the 17th of June then last past.
The court consequently supposed conviction would follow; but being called on for his defence, he said he was innocent, and that the books of the court would prove where he was on the day of the robbery.
Reference was immediately made to the records; and strange yet true to relate, that, on the very day and hour sworn to, Male was actually on his trial at the bar where he then stood, for another robbery, when he was unfortunate enough to have been mistaken for another person. He was consequently acquitted; but the force of example did not deter him from the commission of crime, and although he was discharged from prison without reproach, he came out a determined thief.
His career of villany was soon ended; for in six months afterwards we find him expiating his crimes at the gallows. He was charged with a real robbery, committed by him on the person of Mrs. Grignion, and being unable again to prove an alibi, as he had hitherto done, he was found guilty, and was executed at Tyburn on the 25th of March, 1773.
WILLIAM FARMERY.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS MOTHER.
WHILE we sketch the shocking crime of this monster, we have some consolation in observing that, in our long researches into the baseness of mankind, he is the first we have met with, who, with long-lurking malice, shed the blood of his mother.
A subject so strangely horrid and unnatural we shall dismiss by a bare recital of the shocking circumstance.
It appears that among other undutiful acts, he had one morning given offence to his parent, for which he was justly reproached, whereupon he went out of her house, took the knife from his pocket, and deliberately whetted it till quite sharp. Then returning with the murderous instrument in his hand, he found his unfortunate mother in the act of making his own bed.
Without uttering a word, he threw her down, and as a butcher kills a sheep, he stuck her in the throat, and left her weltering in her blood, of which wound she died.
On his examination he confessed the fact, and said that he had determined upon his mother’s death three years before; for that he had treasured up malice against her since she had corrected him for some trifling fault when a little boy.
He was executed at Lincoln, where his offence was committed, on the 5th of August, 1775.
AMOS MERRITT.
EXECUTED FOR BURGLARY.
THE case of this prisoner is a fit successor to that of Samuel Male, which has been just related. His execution arose out of the following circumstances. On the 19th August, 1774, Patrick Maden, convicted of a foot-robbery on the highway, and William Waine and Levi Barnet for burglary, were carried to Tyburn for execution, pursuant to their sentence. When the cart was drawn under the gallows, a man among the crowd of spectators called out for the others to make way for him, as he had something to communicate to the sheriff respecting one of the prisoners. This being effected, the man, who proved to be Amos Merritt, addressed Mr. Reynolds, the under-sheriff, and declared that Patrick Maden was innocent of the crime for which he was about to suffer. Mr. Reynolds desired he would look upon the prisoner, and speak aloud what he had represented to him. He did so, and declared that he was not guilty; but declined accusing himself. The sheriffs, on hearing this declaration, despatched Mr. Reynolds with the information to the secretary of state, and to request his further orders; and a respite being obtained for Maden, he was carried back to Newgate, amid the acclamations of the people.
Merritt was then taken into custody, and at the public office in Bow-street, before Mr. Justice Addington, confessed that he himself was the person who had committed the robbery of which Maden had been convicted, and the last-named prisoner was then pardoned.
Though no doubt remained of Merritt’s guilt, yet, as no proof could be adduced to that effect, he for a while escaped justice.
He had been guilty of many robberies, the particulars of which are not interesting, and we shall therefore come to that for which he suffered.
At the sessions held at the Old Bailey in the month of December 1774, Amos Merritt was indicted for feloniously breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Edward Ellicott, early in the morning of the 26th of October, and stealing from it a quantity of plate, a gold watch, and other valuable articles, to a large amount.
Mr. Ellicott deposed that he lived in Hornsey-lane, near Highgate, that he was awakened