The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
Blood!---- must a colonel, with a lord's estate,
Be thus obnoxious to a scoundrel's fate?
Brought to the bar, and sentenced from the bench,
Only for ravishing a country wench?
Shall men of honour meet no more respect?
Shall their diversions thus by laws be check'd?
Shall they be accountable to saucy juries
For this or t'other pleasure?--hell and furies!
What man through villany would run a course,
And ruin families without remorse,
To heap up riches--if, when all is done,
An ignominious death he cannot shun?
A most severe but just description of the character of Charteris was
afterwards written by Dr. Arbuthnot, who published it in the form of an
epitaph, as follows:--
HERE LIETH THE BODY OF
COLONEL DON FRANCISCO,
WHO, WITH AN
INFLEXIBLE CONSTANCY,
AND INIMITABLE UNIFORMITY
OF LIFE, PERSISTED, IN SPITE OF
AGE AND INFIRMITY, IN THE PRACTICE OF
EVERY HUMAN VICE, EXCEPTING PRODIGALITY
AND HYPOCRISY; HIS INSATIABLE AVARICE EXEMPTING
HIM FROM THE FIRST, AND HIS MATCHLESS IMPUDENCE FROM
THE LATTER. NOR WAS HE MORE SINGULAR IN THAT UNDEVIATING
VICIOUSNESS OF LIFE THAN SUCCESSFUL IN ACCUMULATING WEALTH,
HAVING, WITHOUT TRUST OF PUBLIC MONEY, BRIBE, WORTH, SERVICE,
TRADE, OR PROFESSION, ACQUIRED, OR RATHER CREATED, A MINISTERIAL ESTATE.
AMONG THE SINGULARITIES OF HIS LIFE AND FORTUNE, BE IT LIKEWISE
COMMEMORATED, THAT HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN HIS TIME
WHO WOULD CHEAT WITHOUT THE MASK OF HONESTY;
WHO WOULD RETAIN HIS PRIMEVAL MEANNESS, AFTER
BEING POSSESSED OF 10,000 POUNDS A YEAR;
AND WHO, HAVING DONE EVERY DAY OF
HIS LIFE SOMETHING WORTHY OF
A GIBBET, WAS ONCE CONDEMNED
TO ONE FOR WHAT HE
HAD NOT DONE.
THINK NOT, INDIGNANT READER, HIS LIFE USELESS TO MANKIND.
PROVIDENCE FAVOURED, OR RATHER CONNIVED AT, HIS
EXECRABLE DESIGNS, THAT HE MIGHT REMAIN, TO THIS
AND FUTURE AGES, A CONSPICUOUS PROOF AND
EXAMPLE OF HOW SMALL ESTIMATION
EXORBITANT WEALTH IS HELD IN
THE SIGHT OF THE ALMIGHTY,
BY HIS BESTOWING IT ON
THE MOST UNWORTHY OF ALL THE DESCENDANTS OF ADAM.
SARAH MALCOLM.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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