Defoe on Sheppard and Wild: The True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild by Daniel Defoe. Richard Holmes
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On the 19th of May last, in the evening, Sheppard, with another robber named Benson, were passing through Leicester Fields, where a gentleman stood accusing a woman with an attempt to steal his watch. A mob was gathered round the disputants, and Sheppard’s companion, being a master, got in amongst them and picked the gentleman’s pocket in good earnest of the watch. The scene was surprisingly changed from an imaginary robbery to a real one, and in a moment ensued an outcry of ‘Stop thief.’ Sheppard and Benson took to their heels, and Sheppard was seized by a sergeant of the guard at Leicester House, crying out ‘Stop thief’ with much earnestness. He was conveyed to St Ann’s round-house in Soho, and kept secure till the next morning, when Edgworth Bess came to visit him, who was seized also. They were carried before Justice Walters, when the people in Drury Lane and Clare Market appeared and charged them with the robberies afore mentioned. But Sheppard pretending to impeach several of his accomplices, the Justice committed them to New Prison, with intent to have them soon removed to Newgate, unless there came from them some useful discoveries. Sheppard was now a second time in the hands of justice, but how long he intended to keep in them the reader will soon be able to judge.
He and his mate were now in a strong and well-guarded prison, himself loaded with a pair of double links and basils of about fourteen pounds weight, and confined together in the safest apartment called Newgate Ward. Sheppard, conscious of his crimes, and knowing the information he had made to be but a blind amusement that would avail him nothing, he began to meditate an escape. They had been thus detained for about four days, and their friends having the liberty of seeing them, furnished him with implements proper for his design; accordingly Mr Sheppard goes to work, and on the 25th of May, being Whitsun-Monday, at about two of the clock in the morning, he had completed a practicable breach, and sawed off his fetters; having, with unheard-of diligence and dexterity, cut off an iron bar from the window, and taken out a muntin, or bar of the most solid oak of about nine inches in thickness, by boring it through in many places, a work of great skill and labour. They had still five-and-twenty feet to descend from the ground; Sheppard fastened a sheet and blanket to the bars and causes Madam to take off her gown and petticoat, and sent her out first, and she being more corpulent than himself, it was with great pain and difficulty that he got her through the interval, and observing his directions, she was instantly down, and more frighted than hurt; the philosopher followed, and lighted with ease and pleasure. But where are they escaped to? why, out of one prison into another. The reader is to understand that the New Prison and Clerkenwell Bridewell lie contiguous to one another, and they are got into the yard of the latter, and have a wall of twenty-two feet high to scale before their liberty is perfected. Sheppard, far from being unprepared to surmount this difficulty, has his gimlets and pincers ready, and makes a scaling ladder. The keepers and prisoners of both places are asleep in their beds; he mounts his baggage, and in less than ten minutes carries both her and himself over this wall and completes an entire escape. Although his escape from the condemned hold of Newgate has made a greater noise in the world than that from this prison hath, it has been allowed by all the jail-keepers in London, that one so miraculous was never performed before in England; the broken chains and bars are kept at New Prison to testify and preserve the memory of this extraordinary villain.
Sheppard, not warned by this admonition, returns like a dog to his vomit, and comes secretly into his master Wood’s neighbourhood in Wych Street, and concerts measures with one Anthony Lamb, an apprentice to Mr Carter, a mathematical instrument maker, for robbing of Mr Barton, a master tailor, a man of worth and reputation who lodged in Mr Carter’s house; Charles Grace, a graceless cooper, was let into the secret, and consented and resolved to act his part. The 16th of June last was appointed. Lamb accordingly lets Grace and Sheppard into the house at midnight; they all go up to Mr Barton’s apartments well armed with pistols, and entered his rooms without being disturbed. Grace was posted at Mr Barton’s bedside with a loaded pistol, and positive orders to shoot him through the head if in case he awaked; Sheppard being engaged in opening the trunks and boxes the meanwhile. It luckily happened for Mr Barton that he slept sounder than usual that night, as having come from a merry-making with some friends; the poor man little dreaming in what dreadful circumstances. They carried off in notes and bonds, guineas, clothes made and unmade, to the value of between two and three hundred pounds; besides a Paduasoy suit of clothes, worth about eighteen or twenty pounds more; which having been made for a corpulent gentleman, Sheppard had them reduced, and fitted for his own size and wear, as designing to appear and make a figure among the beau monde.
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