The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
The prisoners included many persons of note. Two of them--Mr. Forster,
who thought himself slighted and ill-used because, in consideration of
his seat in Parliament, he had not been imprisoned in the Tower; and
Francis Anderson, esquire, commonly called Sir Francis, a gentleman of
£2000 per annum--had apartments in the governor’s house at £5 per head
per week. There were also Colonel Oxborough, Brigadier Macintosh, the
two Talbots, the Shaftos, Mr. Wogan, and Captain Menzies, who with their
adherents and servants were thrust into the worst dungeons,--such as
“the lion’s den” and the “middle dark,”--till for better lodgment they
had advanced more money than would have rented one of the best houses in
Piccadilly or St. James’s Square. The fee or premium paid by Mr. Forster
and Sir Francis Anderson for being accommodated in the governor’s house
was £60, and it cost the latter twenty-five guineas more to keep off his
irons. Mr. Widdrington, Mr. Ratcliffe, and others paid twenty guineas
apiece for the like favour at their first coming in; and every one that
would not be turned to the common side, ten guineas, beside two
guineas, one guinea and ten shillings per man for every week’s lodging,
although in some rooms the men lay four in a bed. As the result of these
extortions it was computed that Mr. Pitt cleared some £3000 or £4000 in
three or four months, “besides valuable presents given in private, and
among others a stone (entire) horse.”
Money was, however, plentiful among the incarcerated Jacobites, and so
far as was consistent with their situation, they lived right royally.
Sympathetic friends from without plied them with wines and luxurious
diet. They had every day a variety of the choicest eatables in season,
“and that too as early as the greatest and nicest ladies.”[93] Forty
shillings for a dish of peas was nothing to their pockets, nor 13s. for
a dish of fish. These, “with the best French wine, was an ordinary
regale.” They “lived in this profuse manner, and fared so sumptuously
through the means of daily visitants and helps from abroad.” Money
circulated plentifully within the prison. While it was difficult to
change a guinea at any house in the street, nothing was more easy than
to have silver for gold in any quantity in Newgate. Nor did many of them
lack female sympathy. Ladies of the first rank and quality, even
tradesmen’s wives and daughters, “made a sacrifice of their husbands’
and parents’ rings and precious movables for the use of those whom the
law had appointed to be so many sacrifices themselves.”[94] “It is not
to be supposed that a champion so noted for the cause as Captain Silk
was neglected; for he had his full share of those treats which soon made
his clothes too little for his corpse.” When not feasting and
chambering, the prisoners found diversion in playing shuttlecock, “at
which noble game the valiant Forster beat all who engaged him, so that
he triumphed with his feather in the prison though he could not do it in
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