London in the Jacobite times, Volume IIDoran, Dr. (John)
History
London in the Jacobite times, Volume II
Doran, Dr. (John)
London (England) -- History -- 18th century
This was on December 10th. All public entertainment for the
death-delighting mob seemed suppressed; but there was an exulting crowd
the next day, lining the road from the barracks and military prison,
in the Savoy, to the parade, St. James’s Park, and from the latter
place to Hyde Park, where savages had come ‘in their thousands,’ and
assembled round a gibbet in the centre of the Park. From the Savoy
was brought a stalwart sergeant, in gyves, marching, without music,
and eagerly gazed at as he passed on his way to the Parade. He was a
good soldier, something of a scholar, knew several languages, and was
utterly averse from serving any other sovereign than King James or
his friend King Louis. Sergeant Smith had deserted, had been caught,
and was now to suffer, not a soldier’s death by shooting, but the
ignominious one of a felon. On the Parade, he was received by his own
regiment, in the centre of which he was placed, and so guarded went
slowly on to Hyde Park, to a dead roll of the drums. He was dressed in
a scarlet coat, all else white. In token of his Jacobite allegiance,
he wore, and was allowed to wear, a rosette of tartan ribbons on his
bosom, and similar bunches of ribbons on each knee. The sergeant went
on with a smile. His self-possession made the hangman nervous, and
Smith bade his executioner pluck up a spirit and do his duty. And so he
died; what remains of him may perhaps still lie in the Park, for the
Jacobite sergeant was buried beneath the gibbet. The quality of the
newspaper reporting at this time is illustrated by the fact that, in
some of the journals, Jacobite Smith is said to have been shot.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE’S JOURNAL._]
In December 1747, a new paper was started, called the ‘Jacobite’s
Journal.’ It was eminently anti-Jacobite, and was adorned with a
head-piece representing a shouting Highlander and his wife on a donkey,
to whose tail is tied the shield and arms of France; and from whose
mouth hangs a label ‘Daily Post;’ the animal is led by a monk with one
finger significantly laid to the side of his nose. The journal joked
savagely at the idea of the above-named Sergeant Smith, being compelled
to listen to his own funeral sermon in the Savoy Chapel, and hoped
there was no flattery in it. As to the gay rosettes of tartan ribbons
which he wore, the journal was disgusted with such a display on the
part of a traitor.
[Sidenote: _CARTE’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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