Volume IV
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for shooting a Peace Offcer in the act of apprehending him offender, and had committed numerous crimes which called aloud for justice. At length he was brought to trial before Mr Baron Perryn, at Croydon, in the county of Surrey, on the 30th of July, 1795, charged on two indict- ments: one for having, at the Three Brewers public-house, Southwark, feloniously shot at and murdered D. Price, an officer belonging to the police office held at Union Hall, in the Borough; the other for having, at the same time and place, fired a pistol at Bernard Turner, another officer attached to the office at Union Hall, with an intent to murder him. Mr Garrow, the leading counsel for the prosecution, opened his case to the Court and jury by stating that the prisoner at the bar, being a person of ill fame, had been suspected of having perpetrated a number of felonies. The magistrates of the police office in the borough of Southwark, having received information against the prisoner, sent, as was their duty, an order for his apprehension. To execute the warrant, the deceased Price and another officer went to the Three Brewers, a public-house, where they under- stood he then was drinking, in company with some other persons. At the entrance of a parlour in the house the prisoner appeared in a posture of intending to resist. Hold- ing a loaded pistol in each of his hands, he, with threats and imprecations, desired the officers to stand off, as he would otherwise fire at them. The officers, without being intimid- ated by those menaces, attempted to rush in and seize him, on which the prisoner discharged both the pistols at the same instant of time, and lodged the contents of the one in the body of David Price, and with the other wounded Turner very severely in the head. Price, after languishing a few hours, died of the wound. The jury, after a consultation of about three minutes, pronounced the verdict of guilty. Through a flaw in the indictment for the murder an objection was taken by counsel. This was urged nearly two hours, when Mr Baron Perryn intimated a wish to take the opinion of the twelve judges of England, but the counsel for the prosecution, waiv- ing the point for the present, insisted on the prisoner's being tried on the second indictment, for feloniously shooting at Barnaby Windsor, which, the learned counsel said, would occupy no great portion of time, as it could be sufficiently supported by the testimony of a single witness. He was accordingly tried, and found guilty on a second capital indictment: The prisoner, who, contrary to general expecta- tion, had in a great measure hitherto refrained from his usual audacity, began, with unparalleled insolence of ex- pression and gesture, to ask his Lordship if he was to be murdered by the evidence of one witness. Several times he repeated the question, till the jury returned him guilty. When Mr Baron Perryn put on the judicial cap, the prisoner, unconcerned, and regardless of his sad situation, at the same time put on his hat, observing the judge with contemptuous looks while he was passing the awful sentence. When the constables were removing him from the dock to the coach he continued to vent torrents of abuse against the judge and jury, whom he charged with, as he styled it, his murder. As his desperate disposition was well known he was, to prevent resistance, handcuffed, and his thighs and arms bound strongly together, in which situation he was conveyed back to prison. So callous was this ruffian to every degree of feeling that on his way to be tried, as he was passing near the usual place of execution on Kennington Common, he put his head out of the coach window and, with all the sang-froid imaginable, asked some of those who guarded him if they did not think he would be twisted on that pretty spot by Saturday, Having got some black cherries in prison, he amused him- self with painting, on the white walls of the room in which he was confined, various sketches of robberies which he had committed, one representing him running up to the horses' heads of a post-chaise, presenting a pistol at the driver, and the words, " D---n your eyes, stop ! " issuing out of his mouth; another, where he was firing into the chaise; a third, where the parties had quitted the carriage, and several others, in which he was depicted in the act of taking the money from the passengers, being fired at, and where his companion was shot dead, etc. At the place of execution he appeared entirely uncon- cerned; he had a flower in his mouth, his bosom was thrown open, and he kept up an incessant conversation with the persons who rode beside the cart, frequently laughing and nodding to others of his acquaintance whom he perceived in the crowd, which was immense. He suffered, 3rd of August, 1795, at Kennington Common, with John Little, who, having had employment at the laboratory of the palace at Kew, became acquainted with Mr Macevoy and Mrs King, persons of very advanced years, and who had been many years resident at Kew. Supposing they had some property at home, he watched an opportunity and murdered them both. |