| THE CRIMINAL. | 125 |
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Alas! alas!
Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took.
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.—Shakspere.
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Among my other miscellaneous movements during this period was a
mission to Oxford to be present at Lord
Grenville’s installation as Chancellor of the University, It was a
splendid and interesting ceremony, and as crowded as possibility or practicability could,
any how, accommodate. I should have been obliged to walk the last stage, for want of a
fore-ordered conveyance, but for the good-nature of Mr.
Sheridan, who, having stopped with Lord
Fitzhardinge to dine at an inn on the road, instead of plunging into the
confusion at head-quarters, lent me a chaise to extricate me from my difficulties at
approaching night. I have no vocation to describe the stately and brilliant proceedings—it
is enough to remember that some visitors, for want of lodgings, slept in their carriages on
the first night, when exorbitant prices were demanded, and that I had to pay five guineas a
week for a three-pair-back room in an obscure
| 126 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
I have now to record two events of a painful nature; the one of private,
the other of public interest. The first relates to the melancholy fall from rectitude and
respect of an individual with whom I lived on terms of constant intimacy, and who, till the
moment of his detection and disgrace, was one of the pleasantest and best-liked persons in
the social circle of Brompton, where he resided. His name was Hammon; he was a clerk in the banking house of Birch and Co., Bond-street,
in which he had risen, by time and talent, into a handsome salary, and the confidential
position he abused; had married the daughter of a highly respectable tradesman in
Curzon-street, and, with the prettiest little wife in the neighbourhood, entertained their
friends and visitors in the neatest and best appointed small abode which the vicinity of
Hans-place and Sloane-street could boast. He was himself good-looking and intelligent,
| THE CRIMINAL. | 127 |
I said if there’s peace to be found in the world The heart that is humble may hope for it here! |
At last the mine exploded, and the offender fled. Never shall I forget my
dismay and sorrow when one morning on descending to breakfast a letter was put into my
hands written by the unhappy being, dated from Tothill-fields prison, briefly stating what
had befallen him, and begging for my pity and succour. An event so utterly unexpected; a
| 128 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
I trust the exalted moralist, the strict, the sanctimonious, the
self-approving sinless, will not be startled by the statement that the unfortunate
Hammon was comparatively innocent of wrong. I am
no apologist for the artful means he employed for his unrighteous purpose, nor for his
flagrant breach of the inflexible laws of honesty and honour, nor for the dangerous
doctrine, that the absence of evil intention can justify evil acts; but in the instance
before me I am simply telling the truth when I say that there were palliatives in the case
which might make stern Virtue pause, and Justice hesitate. There was enough to condemn, and
the well-being of the community might render it absolutely necessary that punishment should
be awarded; but for the sake of frail humanity, even in its lowest degradation, I would
fain put in the plea that some genuine, though dormant, good may lie in the breast of the
fallen malefactor. Cases of hardened guilt and atrocious crime I have had no opportunities
to observe; hut even among these I was assured by the worthy ordinary of Newgate, the
Rev. Mr. Davis, there are very few which do not
yield some traits of a redeeming nature, and the reawakening of consciences, which prove
that though the divinity within had been silenced for a season, it had not been entirely
obliterated. All that I contend for, then, is, that in such transgressions as
Hammon’s, the world ought not to put on the impenetrable
armour of outraged impec-
| THE CRIMINAL. | 129 |
Should gently scan his brother man; |
Shut the gates of mercy on mankind. |
Hammon went unsuspected to the coast, and might easily have escaped to the continent by hiring a boat (for it was during the non-intercourse period), but he insanely loitered for several days, as if at play with his existence, and was consequently apprehended, committed, tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to death.
During all these fatal transactions I saw him frequently, and endeavoured
to impress upon him the serious and wicked character of his delinquency, but all my
arguments were vain. By a strange perversion of the moral faculty, he never could be
brought to feel or confess that he had been guilty of a grave offence, and far less of one
worthy of the severest penalty of the law. This was his argument: he had never intended to
wrong or rob his employers; he had, it was true, helped himself for temporary convenience,
but he was resolved to replace every farthing. To this end, having been disappointed in his
wife’s fortune, which instead of being forthcoming on their marriage, was settled to
be paid at her father’s death, he had endeavoured to sell a house belonging to him,
in Vere Street, valuable as being near Ibbotson’s hotel, and convenient for lodging
its over-numerous frequenters, but the negotiations had been protracted—he dreaded
detection in the Bank—and fled. Such were the opiates with which he beguiled his proper
senses, the flattering unction which he laid to his sinking soul. In all his transactions
out of the pale of the banking-house, he was not only honourable,
| 130 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Deeply interested as I was in the fall of the wretched convict, and of his
amiable wife, I strained every nerve to save him from execution; there was a legal
distinction in his case resembling that of Aslett, which afforded some
footing, and his fair conduct and integrity in all beyond the scene of his fraud, helped me
farther on; so that I procured numerous respectable signatures to a petition for the
modification of his sentence; and having, from my own position, ready access to the
government authorities, where the fountain of mercy lay, I urged every favourable
circumstance which could strengthen the application. For a while the scales hung dreadfully
on the balance; the prosecutors were inexorable; and the portentous words, “Justice
must take its course,” rung frightfully on my ear. Under these impressions, I went to
speak with the unhappy man in the condemned cell, and received a shock the effect of which,
though quite casual, has not been obliterated to this day, when I shudder at its bare
remembrance. My spirits were excited almost to distraction by the interview, and I wrung
the poor fellow’s hand, perhaps for the last time, and rushed from the dismal place.
To my horror I found the doors bolted and egress denied; I screamed for the gaoler, but no
one answered my call; reason had not time to exercise its influence, and after another
fruitless effort with hand and voice, I tried to grasp the iron fastenings and fell down,
as if shot, perfectly insensible upon the pavement. I had luckily been observed though not
answered, and I awoke under stimulants in the governor’s apartment, to
| THE CRIMINAL. | 131 |
Another, and a disgraceful incident preceded my final success, and though I have publicly alluded to it years ago, and was only dissuaded by prudential friends, from making it a matter of serious charge against a high legal functionary, I yet relate with reluctance, in the firm belief that such a thing would be utterly impossible in the present day. In the course of our beseeching of interests in every quarter, to aid us in our salvatory endeavours, I accompanied Mrs. Hammon and another lady to the chambers of the then Recorder of London, familiarly, and to my judgment rightly, called “Black Jack,” who (I think) had tried the cause, and had therefore paramount influence in directing the result, in order to obtain his merciful representation to the Secretary of State. We went to his house or chambers in Chancery Lane, and made our errand known to an attendant, who communicated its purport to his master. At his desire Mrs. Hammon was shown up stairs, whilst her friend and I waited in the room below. What was our astonishment, in a short while, to see her rush in, aghast and panting with terror—the Angelo of that infamous hour, had proposed to her to go with him to Richmond from the Saturday to Monday, as the condition of his recommending the remission of her husband’s life!!! This fact may appear incredible: it is literally true! But to end this tale. I ultimately procured a commutation of the sentence, and leave for the criminal to transport himself for life.* I got him, with a full knowledge of his antecedents, into the employment of a humane and worthy wine merchant of
* See Appendix G. |
| 132 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
His unfortunate wife retired into the North of England; and blameless and excellent as she was, I should regret, if still living, that ever this volume of my chequered life should fall under her notice.
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