Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
"As to the neighbours, who were at their doors and windows seeing the
whole without the least concern or alarm, there was not probably one
of those who, though as good and as loyal subjects as any his Majesty
has, and as well affected to the peace and quiet of his government,
imagin'd or dream'd there was any spirit of sedition or riotous
designs in these proceedings beyond the open and expressed intention
of destroying these obnoxious houses; and tho' the coolest and
sensiblest doubtless thought the joke was going too far, and wished
even that the Government had interposed sooner, and less faintly, yet
they had not the least notion of any such extraordinary measure of
guilt in their proceedings as would affect life or limb."
The sailors had now gathered about them, some as lookers on, some as
assistants, a large number of men and boys, and these now moved up the
street in a body, with a bell ringing before them, to the house of one
Peter Wood, a hairdresser, but in bad odour, as keeping a disorderly
house, under the sign of the Star.
Into this house the mob broke, although Peter Wood offered money if
only they would spare him and its contents. But they were deaf to his
entreaties, and his house was only saved by the arrival of the guards,
who at once proceeded to arrest several persons. Among those they
secured was Bosavern Penlez, or Penlees, son of a clergyman in
Cornwall, who had been put apprentice to a wig-maker in town.
With him were secured John Wilson, Benjamin Lander, and another, who
shortly after died of gaol-fever in Newgate. All these four, not one
of whom was a sailor, were locked up in prison, and kept there till
the September Sessions, when they were indicted "for that they,
together with divers other persons, to the number of forty and
upwards, being feloniously and riotously assembled, to the
disturbance of the public peace, did begin to demolish the house of
Peter Wood against the form of the statute in that case made and
provided, July the 3rd."
Against Lander, Peter Wood swore that "he was in the passage of his
house, assisting to break the partition; that that was the first time
of his seeing him; that he broke the window of the bar with his stick;
that he (Lander) was taken upstairs."
On a cross-examination he averred that he did not see Lander at the
first coming up of the mob to his house; but he asserted that he stuck
fast to him when he saw him in the passage, which was half an hour
before the arrival of the guards.
Peter Wood's wife swore that Lander had knocked her down, and had
beaten her almost to a jelly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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