Queering Benedict Arnold 11 Old Bailey and Tyburn: April 23, 1762 By: Jake Preston
This episode dramatizes eighteenth-century prejudices against "sodomy" and "buggery."
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Benedict intended to visit Child's Coffee-House the next day, but he was alarmed at how easily Caribou Brave had succumbed to the dubious charms of Mr. Terrie. "The English, like their Colonial Cousins, are devious and cunning in ways that are inscrutable to a noble Indian," he said, but the result was something that Caribou needed to see for himself, so Benedict decided to take him to Old Bailey to see innocents tried, and afterwards hanged at Tyburn. "With any luck, we'll see sodomities tried and hanged in the maw of justice," he said. Caribou found the idea so repugnant that he doubted it could be so.
After a three-pence breakfast at Somerset Coffee-House, our heroes took a brisk walk up Fleet Street east toward St. Paul's, with Dodsley's "New and Correct Plan of London" in hand. "This map was published a few months ago, so it should be correct in all its details," Benedict told Caribou Brave. They crossed Fleet Ditch, and after two blocks turned north on Old Bailey Street. Just before 8:00 AM they reached Sessions House (popularly called Old Bailey) but learned that they had come two hours too early for Court, so they proceeded north to Newgate Prison, at the southeast corner of Old Bailey and Newgate.
(Note to the Reader: in earlier English, "gate" means "street," as it still does in Scandinavian countries. "Gate" is a loan-word from Danish.-Jake Preston)
At Newgate, Benedict and Caribou Brave were surprised to learn that could tour the courtyard outside the prison. There they saw three rows of cells. Each row was four levels high, with cells stacked one on another. The cell windows were partly obscured by two rows of iron bars, and the prisoners were shackled in iron chains.
"May we speak with the prisoners?" Benedict asked a constable in the courtyard.
"You must be visitors from the country," the constable replied.
"From Ilchester, in Somerset," Benedict replied, recalling the hometown of his great- grandfather, Benedict Arnold I (1615-1678), who succeeded Roger Williams as President of Rhode Island Colony in 1657.
"And your silent friend?" the constable asked.
"My friend Mr. Caribou is from Wales," Benedict said.
"Caribou: ain't that some sort of bird in Africa or India?" the constable asked.
Benedict ignored the question: "We are distant cousins, being descendants of King Ynir of Gwentland. Our lineage can be traced to twelfth-century Wales." Caribou smiled at the ease with which Benedict simulated the less harmful English vanities. They both wore the dress and hairstyle of English gentry. "If anyone asks," Benedict had warned him, "tell them you're Welsh, not Irish. If Londoners think you are Irish they will assume you're a rat and keep a distrustful watch on you. If they think you're Welsh, they'll assume you're a harmless insect and ignore you." 'Mr. Caribou' was astonished by the facile success of his disguise as a Briton.
Benedict's pomposity persuaded the constable that Benedict was a trustworthy Englishman. His silent companion was Welsh, but, being silent, and a cousin, was English enough, and as one pomposity merits another, he expostulated on the denizens of Newgate: "Each prisoner is a moral allegory, like the town drunk. Their fates dramatize what comes from drunkenness and gambling, robberies, sodomies, rapes, murders, pickpockets, strangulations, forgeries, counterfeits, blackmailing, pilfering, extortions, whore-mongering, gratuitous quarrels, beatings, conspiracies, disturbances of the King's peace, treasons against the state, and all manner of criminal pastimes. Newgate stands the end of the road in the Rake's Progress, the ultimate destination. All the prisoners you see here will be hanged at Tyburn by the week's end. Their crimes are mileposts on the road to perdition; their trials explicate the 'text' of their crimes; their fates are allegories that warn us against evil conduct. The prisoners in the lower cells at your left were condemned yesterday, and will be hanged today. Of course you may speak with them, and by that means improve your morals."
"We thank you for your explication of this important allegory," Benedict said, nodding gravely. The constable's gratuitous allusion to the "town drunk"-which could have been his father-cut him cruelly, but after lifelong observations of Congregationalists in Norwichtown, he could act as hypocritical as any Puritan. While Benedict matched wits with the constable, Caribou gazed at prisoners who were standing at the barred windows in their cells. At the far right, a dark-haired handsome man in his twenties caught his eye. The prisoners at the right were to have their trials the next day.
When the constable looked his way, Caribou feigned disinterest in the youth with jet- black hair, and asked if they could interview some of the prisoners who were condemned to hang at noon. The constable led them to Hanna Diego's cell, and explained that "she stole the household goods of Eleanor Hussey, being all the poor woman had in the world." She was a large woman, overweight, and appeared to be unconcerned about her situation. She said she would go to chapel, because it afforded a brief relief from confinement in her cell. Next to Hanna was Joshua Rice, a gray-haired broker whose crime was described by the constable: "he forged a power-of-attorney and sold a client's stock to invest in an opium-dealing scheme in India, but the swindler was swindled by his partners. Rice escaped to France but was extradited, condemned in the Court of Common Pleas. Today is his last day on earth, God be praised!"
"There are so many prisoners, do you keep track of all their crimes?" Benedict asked.
"Here we have Paul Lewis, the highwayman, a regular Macheath from The Beggar's Opera," the constable continued, ignoring Benedict's question. He was a man of twenty-four, and cut a fine figure in his white coat and blue silk vest adorned with silver, and his hair neatly queued below a smart, silver-laced hat. "Last month he held up a farmer named Jamie Brown, pulled a gun on him and fired twice. The first time, he missed. The second time the gun misfired, and the farmer wrestled him to the ground. He was in the Army, and his Colonel tried to get him off, but the jury found him guilty and the judge condemned him to Tyburn. After these exemplars, what say you to the King's justice, Sirs?"
Benedict looked the constable in the eye: "I can find no fault in it, Sir."
"Good," the constable replied. "And now I must leave you, gentlemen. Duty calls. I must conduct the next bunch to the chapel for their daily reading from the Book of Common Prayer."
"Pray for us sinners now and at our death," Benedict said while the constable departed. They visited the cell of William Casey, an Army man, twenty years old, who had served four years in the war in Spain. He said he was convicted of assaulting one Joseph Stone in St. James's Park at eleven o'clock on the night of April 10, together with three others who escaped. They stole his hat, his wig, his neck-cloth, and fourteen shillings. They beat him and stomped him and broke a rib, and said that if he cried out, they would "swear Sodomy against me" (said Joseph Stone, in court).
"I'm surprised that one man would falsely accuse another of sodomy," Benedict said. "What's to stop others from suspecting him of sodomy as well?"
"Ah, Sir, you must understand that crying sodomy, or threatening to do so, is a weapon in the arsenal of the criminal classes," William Casey said. "I've heard tell that one man might love another with a love that will not speak its name, but criminals and magistrates chatter endlessly about buggery and sodomy. They feed on each other, these criminals and magistrates do, in a mutual fellatio of legal verbiage. London is plagued by extortion-artists who separate law- abiding men from their money by threatening to cry sodomy. I once knew a blackguard who would have accused his grandmother of sodomy for thirty shillings. He outdid himself one night on London Bridge when he threatened a military officer and drowned in the Thames after taking an accidental fall. Men who are brought to Old Bailey for robbery or murder sometimes are acquitted for want of evidence, but no one accused of sodomy ever gets off. Perhaps the Old Bailey jurors fear that they might be suspected of sodomy, too, if they let a defendant go free. Perhaps the judges fear the same. They never commute a capital sentence."
"What do you think of William Casey?" Benedict asked Caribou Brave.
"He's innocent, of that I am certain," Caribou replied.
"And why do you say so?"
"If Joseph Stone had been beaten and stomped by four robbers, a cracked rib would have been the least of his injuries," Caribou said. "This poor fellow was falsely accused by Stone, probably for money, and he was framed by a third party whose identity and motive should have come out at trial, but didn't. I'm surprised that the jury didn't see through such a thinly-veiled conspiracy."
"The third party was Corporal Jacob Lennox," said William Casey. "He testified at my trial. Since we were neighbors in London, and fought together in Spain, I expected him to give me a good character, but instead he said that I was a trouble-maker. I warrant you, a search of Army records would find nothing against me. After I was convicted, Colonel Lennox came to my cell. He told me that while I was in Spain, my father threatened his father for raping my sister. The accusation was false, and when Corporal Lennox learned of it in a letter, he swore to avenge his family on mine 'to the third generation'. He came to my cell to vaunt his revenge."
Benedict gazed up at the roof of Newgate Prison. Across the courtyard he could see a corner of Old Bailey. He thought about Tyburn Tree, the place of execution at the western extreme of the road to Oxford. "Newgate, Old Bailey, Tyburn: an unholy trinity; a death- juggernaut," he said, and added, "I agree that William Casey was framed, but I think there's more to the story. There's something he's not telling."
"However that may be, I admire his rebellious spirit," Caribou said. He examined the architecture of Newgate, looking for weak spots in the prison's security. Was escape possible? At regular intervals, he noticed, prisoners were released from their cells in groups of six and led under guard to the chapel. If there was any chance of escape, it probably would be during these chapel visits, when security was light. "The chapel looks like an old parish church, so it probably has an underground crypt, and a tunnel leading to Ludlow Church or to St. Paul's, which is only 200 yards from where we are standing," Benedict said.
Caribou's attention shifted to the cell of the man with the jet-black hair, who sang a devotional hymn by Isaac Watts that lately was adopted by Methodists for their "Low Church" services:
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.
He sang in a deep masculine voice that could only have come from a large-barreled chest. "I'd like to speak with this fellow on my own," he told Benedict.
Caribou approached the cell, and gazed at the large-boned muscular man of six feet, with a back so straight and a head so well poised that he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. A sleeve rolled up to the elbow disclosed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength at a village fair. Yet his long, supple hands, with broad fingertips, looked ready for skilled labor. The keen glance of his dark eyes, shining under strongly-marked mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood. His rough-hewn face held no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humored, honest intelligence.
"I hear in your song a soul as beautiful as your voice," Caribou said to the unfortunate man in the cell. He asked the man's name.
"Bede."
"Just Bede?"
"You may call me Adam."
"May I ask why you're here?"
"I've been accused of attempted buggery by a man who owes me three months' wages for carpentry work on his house," Adam said. "The details of his accusation are unknown to me, so I have no means of defense. I guess I'll hear his story tomorrow at my trial. 'Just tell the truth and you'll be fine', my Methodist friends tell me. Some of them have assured me that they will testify to my character at the trial. I trust in God for the best, but my soul is prepared for the worst. Are you an attorney, Sir?"
"I am, like you, not what I appear to be," Caribou said. "An attorney might give you some comfort at your trial, but he wouldn't do you much good. No man accused of sodomy ever gets out of Old Bailey alive. I don't mean to dampen your spirits. I came to advise you that I am ready to help you get out of this dreadful place. But if I try to rescue you, you must agree to do everything I say. We will both be in great danger, but you have nothing to lose. Every man in this place gets hanged at Tyburn."
"You haven't asked me if I'm guilty," Adam said.
"Of sodomy? Why would I care if you're guilty or not?" Caribou exclaimed. "You're a man of character, I can see that. Sodomy has nothing to do with it. Besides, my partner has need of a carpenter for his business. Maybe I'm an instrument of God; maybe not. I'm willing to risk finding out, if you are, Sir."
Never before had Adam heard a man speak of sodomy without declaiming it as evil. "The accusation against me is false," he said, "but not entirely without foundation. I might be a sodomite in my heart, although I have never been with another man in that way."
"That might be something for us to speak of in the future, but for the present our concerns are existential," Caribou said. "Be sure to go to chapel tomorrow morning. I'll be there in a disguise that you may not recognize. Look for a disruption at the entrance to the chapel. I'll take you by the hand, and you must follow. Whether we live or die, your case will never go to trial."
"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" The crier's call from Old Bailey announced the opening of Sessions. Caribou said farewell to his new friend, and went with Benedict to one of the courtroom galleries. Whether by chance or design, Benedict led Caribou Brave to the trial of one Thomas Andrews, a stout man in his fifties, who was indicted "for committing the detestable crime of sodomy on the body of John Finimore in a public-house called the Fortune of War in Pye-Corner, on the night of April 9 in the second year of His Majesty's Reign, King George the Third" (meaning the present year, 1762).
Thomas Andrews was a victualler: a merchant who was licensed to provide food and beverages in a pub. He was the proprietor of the Fortune of War. His accuser, John Finimore, a slightly-built man in his twenties, was a shiftless domestic servant who moved from one master (or mistress) to another, and often enough found himself homeless, as happened on April 9, when Andrews offered to share his bed with him since his wife was out of town and there were no other unoccupied beds in the tavern. According to Finimore, Andrews kept him up late, got him drunk, and raped him during the night while he slept. It seemed an 'open and shut' case if Finimore was credible, the conflicting testimony of witnesses disclosed more than a little reasonable doubt. The affair on the whole was a tawdry lower-class mystery. Listening to it, Benedict and Caribou felt like unwholsome voyeurs, but with each new witness they clung to every word, fascinated by the difficulty of determining the facts of the case. Each of them thought to himself: "What would I do, if I were a member of the jury?"
During the opening rituals of the trial, Caribou whispered to Benedict that the magistrate and Thomas Andrews's Counsel looked rather comical in robes and wigs. "Don't underestimate them," Benedict whispered back. "These are dangerous men. It is their vocation to exercise the power of life or death over many a defendant. They are the gods of Old Bailey." The court proceedings must speak for themselves as we listen in media res:
JOHN FINIMORE: The prisoner [Thomas Andrews] lived at the Fortune of War, a public-house in Pye-Corner. I went to his house on the 7th of April last, about noon. I came out of place that day, and went there, endeavoring to get me a lodging.
Benedict rolled out his copy of Dodsley's Plan of London and pointed to Pye-Corner at Cock Lane, just outside the city's medieval wall. "Thomas Andrews may be a victualler by day, but by night he's a resurrectionist," he whispered to Caribou.
"What's a resurrectionist?"
"A fencer of corpses. He buys them from grave-robbers, hides them in the Fortune of War, and conveys them to Bartholomew Hospital for use by the surgeons in their anatomical studies. His carriage conveys victuals by day and corpses by night. If someone on the jury knows this, Andrews don't stand a chance in this trial. See here on the map, Bartholomew is just a stone's throw from the pub."
MAGISTRATE: Was you acquainted with him before?
JOHN FINIMORE: I had known him before by my living in a family where he has a filter lives. He said, John, my wife is out of town, you shall be welcome to lie with me, I have nowhere else that you can lie at present. I did not stay then, but went to the lady where I had lived. She said, John, you shall lie here to-night.
MAGISTRATE: Where had you lived last?
JOHN FINIMORE: That was at one Mrs. Unwin's in King's-street, I lived with Mrs. Mead, before I lived with Mrs. Unwin; she lives in Red-lion-court, behind St. Sepulchre's Church. I told my mistress I was come away from my place; she said, she was sorry for it, and would endeavor to get me another if she could. I went back to him [Thomas Andrews] that afternoon, and told him I was very much obliged to him for his kind offer, but my mistress had said, I should lie there [at the Fortune of War] that night. He said, John, it is very well; then I left him, and lay at Mrs. Mead's. I went the 8th, that was the next day, to the prisoner [Thomas Andrews], and asked him the question again, he answered as before, John, my wife is out of town, you shall be welcome to lie along with me, if you approve of it.
"What's a filter?" Caribou whispered.
"I think he means a rain-barrel, equipped with a filter, used to purify and collect rainwater as it falls from the roof," Benedict whispered back. "No doubt Andrews stopped by Mrs. Unwin's house after each rain, to collect water for his victual-business.
"So Finimore had a closer acquaintance with Andrews that he's letting on," Caribou whispered.
MAGISTRATE: How came you not to continue to lie at Mrs. Mead's?
JOHN FINIMORE: As she did not offer it, I did not.
MAGISTRATE: What time of the day was it, that you went to him; on Saturday the 8th?
JOHN FINIMORE: I cannot justly say the hour; but it was some time in the morning.
MAGISTRATE: Did you accept of the offer?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did. I returned him a great many thanks, and said, I was very much obliged to him.
MAGISTRATE: Did you stay that time till night?
JOHN FINIMORE. No, I did not; I went to my mistress's [Mrs. Mead again. Then I went round amongst my acquaintance, to hear if I could hear of a place.
MAGISTRATE: Did your mistress [Mrs. Mead] enquire where you was to lay that night?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, she did not; I came back to Mr. Andrews's in the evening, about eight o'clock, as near as I can guess.
MAGISTRATE: How did you spend your evening?
JOHN FINIMORE. My first cousin went with me, and we had a pot of beer between eight and nine.
MAGISTRATE: What is his name?
JOHN FINIMORE: His name is Jonathan Finimore.
MAGISTRATE: Was the prisoner in your company?
JOHN FINIMORE: He was all the evening.
MAGISTRATE: How long did you continue together?
JOHN FINIMORE: The prisoner [Thomas Andrews] and I did till one o'clock, my cousin Jonathan did not stay all that time; he drank part of one pot of beer, and went away.
MAGISTRATE: What time did he go away?
JOHN FINIMORE: He went away, and left us together, between the hours of eight and nine; he did not stay any time.
"If Finimore was hard up for lodging and reluctant to sleep in the same bed with Andrews, why didn't he go home with his cousin?" Caribou whispered.
"That question is made all the more interesting by the fact that no one in court seems to be willing to ask it," Benedict whispered back.
MAGISTRATE: Were there any other company in the house?
JOHN FINIMORE. There were; but there were nobody in our company.
MAGISTRATE: Were you in a public drinking room?
JOHN FINIMORE: Yes, we were.
MAGISTRATE: Did you sup together?
JOHN FINIMORE: We did; and about one o'clock the company were gone, he shut up the doors and windows, and he and I went to bed together.
MAGISTRATE: Did his wife come home?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, his wife was still out of town:
MAGISTRATE: Did company stay all the time till he shut up the doors?
JOHN FINIMORE: Yes, there did.
MAGISTRATE: When you went to bed, how was you for liquor?
JOHN FINIMORE: I was a little in liquor, I had been walking about all day, and had been drinking with him all the evening.
MAGISTRATE: Was he in liquor?
JOHN FINIMORE: I cannot say he was drunk.
MAGISTRATE: Was he as much gone as you?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, I cannot say he was.
MAGISTRATE: Was he drunk or sober?
JOHN FINIMORE: He was rather sober than otherwise?
"How can a man in a drunken state be expected to know if his drinking-partner is sober?" Benedict whispered to Caribou.
MAGISTRATE: Did anything happen before you went to bed?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, I went to sleep soon, and about four o'clock, as near I can guess, I awaked with a violent pain and agony, which I was in, and found his yard in my body.
MAGISTRATE: Are you sure you was sober enough to be positive?
JOHN FINIMORE: I was so far sober as this, that I was able to undress myself, and to see the key was taken out of his room door after he had locked it; this I saw before I went to bed.
MAGISTRATE: Did you take any notice to him, why he locked the door?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, I did not; I could undress myself, and get into bed; I had been fatigued to be sure in the day.
MAGISTRATE: Was you drunk or sober, when you awaked about four o'clock in the morning?
JOHN FINIMORE: I was sober; by his getting away from me, I felt something warm, but what it was I cannot say.
MAGISTRATE: Did you say anything to him when you awaked?
JOHN FINIMORE: I said to him, Mr. Andrews, what are you doing of?
MAGISTRATE: What was his answer?
JOHN FINIMORE: He said, I am doing nothing at all, John; and immediately withdrew, and got farther from me. I got out of bed immediately.
MAGISTRATE: Are you sure he had penetrated into your body?
JOHN FINIMORE: I am sure of that. Then I sat in a chair by the bed-side. He said, John, you had better come into bed again; you can't go anywhere yet.
MAGISTRATE: Did he continue in bed?
JOHN FINIMORE: He did.
MAGISTRATE: Did you go into bed again?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did; by his persuasion, and being tired by the fatigue of the day.
MAGISTRATE: How long might you sit in the chair?
JOHN FINIMORE: I believe about a quarter of an hour.
MAGISTRATE: Did anything happen afterwards?
JOHN FINIMORE: I went to sleep; and when I awaked I found him going the same way again.
MAGISTRATE: How long do you think you might lie before you went to sleep?
JOHN FINIMORE: I believe ten minutes, or thereabouts.
MAGISTRATE: Did he offer anything to you before you went to sleep?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, he did not.
MAGISTRATE: How long do you think you might be before you awaked the second time?
JOHN FINIMORE : I awaked between six and seven o'clock.
MAGISTRATE: Did he penetrate a second time?
JOHN FINIMORE: No.
MAGISTRATE: What do you mean by saying he went?
JOHN FINIMORE: I found him approaching my body.
MAGISTRATE: What did you do upon this?
JOHN FINIMORE: I got out of bed directly. I dressed myself, and he got up at the same time. He unlocked the door, and I went down stairs with him.
MAGISTRATE: Did you say anything at all to him about it?
JOHN FINIMORE: No; I said nothing at all to him: then I went to my first cousin, Jonathan Finimore, the same person that had been with me over night, and I told him the same as I have now told in court. He said, John, this is a difficult thing to go through with. It being Sunday I could not do anything in it that day, but on the Monday morning, I went and told a fellow servant of mine of it.
MAGISTRATE: What is his name?
JOHN FINIMORE: Daniel Goodwin.
MAGISTRATE: Did you tell him the same you have here?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did. We had some other persons in company with us at that time. They persuaded me to get a constable and take him up.
MAGISTRATE: Did you take their advice?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did. The constable going in, Mr. Andrews went upstairs.
MAGISTRATE: How long did he stay upstairs?
JOHN FINIMORE: I can't say how long he stayed above, because I did not go in with the constable. When he came down, the constable, and them that were with me, asked him where he had been; he said he had been up to change his cloaths: but he was in the same clothes he went up in.
MAGISTRATE: Did you tell him what you came about when you first went in?
JOHN FINIMORE: No; we did not till he came down again; then I charged the constable with him. The constable said to him, you are my prisoner. Then the constable said to him. Do not you charge the constable with him? [ By him, he meant me.] Then the prisoner [Thomas Andrews] said, I do. Then we went to my lord-mayor's. He was not to be spoke with that day, then we went to two aldermen's houses. They were neither of them at home; so that we could have no hearing that night. He was committed to the Compter, and I was put in to Old Bridewell.
MAGISTRATE: Did you receive any injury from this affair?
JOHN FINIMORE: I have been very bad ever since, from what he did to me that night.
MAGISTRATE: Have you had any surgeon to look at you?
JOHN FINIMORE: I have had two.
MAGISTRATE: In what manner have you been bad?
JOHN FINIMORE: I could hardly walk.
MAGISTRATE: Where did you find yourself hurt?
JOHN FINIMORE: In my fundament.
MAGISTRATE: How? In what manner?
JOHN FINIMORE: I was torn there.
MAGISTRATE: Was you ever before subject to any complaint in those parts?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, never in my life.
MAGISTRATE: Did the surgeon apply anything to that part?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, nothing at all.
MAGISTRATE: During the time he was apprehended, had you any particular conversation about this matter?
JOHN FINIMORE: There were people with me; the prisoner [Thomas Andrews] said, this thing might be made up for a pint of beer. There was the constable with us, and others.
MAGISTRATE: Tell the words he used, and who introduced them?
JOHN FINIMORE: It was as we walked together going along.
MAGISTRATE: Why did he charge the constable with you?
JOHN FINIMORE: He had me apprehended, fearing I should run away from what I had said, because we could not have a hearing that night before the alderman. When we came on Monday, the 12th of April, before Sir Robert Ladbroke, there he was examined. Sir Robert said, "Mr. Andrews, do you know this young man?" He said, "Yes, I know him very well." "What do you know of him?" "I have nothing to say against him. He is as honest a lad as any in England."
MAGISTRATE: What did he say for himself?
JOHN FINIMORE: He said he was innocent. That was all he said to the alderman.
MAGISTRATE: Did you tell Sir Robert the case the same as now?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did, every word. Every word that I can think of, as I have now?
Cross examination.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How long might Jonathan Finimore stay, when he drank with you that night?
JOHN FINIMORE: He might stay about ten minutes, or thereabouts.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Was you and Mr. Andrews in a room by yourselves, that evening?
JOHN FINIMORE: No. It was in the common tap-room. We were not alone.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Is Mr. Andrews a married man?
JOHN FINIMORE: He is.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Has he any children?
JOHN FINIMORE: He has several.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Can you say how many?
JOHN FINIMORE: I cannot. He has two at home that I know.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: I suppose you drank glass for glass.
JOHN FINIMORE: We had a pint, and drank it; and then another, and so on.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Whereabouts is this bed-chamber?
JOHN FINIMORE: As near as I can guess, I think it is over the tap-room.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How many rooms are there on the same floor?
JOHN FINIMORE: I really cannot say whether three or four.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: What family was there in the house that night?
JOHN FINIMORE: He had two men in the house with him.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you know William Bear?
JOHN FINIMORE: No. There are two drawers. I do not know their names. I saw his two daughters.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you see Richard Tompson, a lodger in the house?
JOHN FINIMORE: There was a lodger in the house.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Who lay in the room next to the room where you lay?
JOHN FINIMORE: I can't say who lay there. There was somebody lay there.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you know who lay in the other room?
JOHN FINIMORE: I do not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did anybody lie in the other two rooms?
JOHN FINIMORE: I can't say that anybody did. As for one room, I am certain somebody lay in it; but who I cannot say.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you mean that room next to where you lay?
JOHN FINIMORE: Yes; it was joining it.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How do you know somebody lay in that room?
JOHN FINIMORE: I saw somebody in the bed in the morning after I got up, but whether a man or a woman I cannot say.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you go through the room?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How could you see the person then?
JOHN FINIMORE: It is a glass door that looks on to the stair-case.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you mean, that you could see through the glass-door when you was in the room that you and Mr. Andrews lay in?
JOHN FINIMORE: No; I do not mean so.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: What sort of a partition was it between the two rooms?
JOHN FINIMORE: I can't say what sort it was. I never was up in that room in my life before. I know that side next the street was wainscotted.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: I should be glad to know, when you and Mr. Andrews were in bed together, in what position did you lie when asleep?
JOHN FINIMORE: I lay on my side, with my back towards him.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Whether in a public-house it is any unusual thing for the landlord of the house to lock his bed-room door, where are a great many people backwards and forwards?
JOHN FINIMORE: I can't be certain of that.
DEFENSE COU NSEL: After you had been used as you say, how came you to go to bed to him a second time, when there were people near that you could call to?
JOHN FINIMORE: My being in a strange house, and he having a sister that lived in the same family where I did, I was very unwilling to make a disturbance in the house.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not you fall into a great passion?
JOHN FINIMORE: I said as I have already said, Mr. Andrews what are you doing of? He said, John, nothing at all. I said, it is a thing that I have not been used to.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How came it you did not call out?
JOHN FINIMORE: Because I was not willing to make a disturbance in the house; but as soon as I could get out, I went and told a relation of it.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How came it you did not dress yourself, and go out of the house?
JOHN FINIMORE: The door was locked, and the key taken out, and I did not know where to find it; and all the doors were locked besides. I stayed no longer than while he got up.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Would it not be natural for everybody used in that manner, to put their clothes on, and wait till he got up?
JOHN FINIMORE: That is all that I blame myself in, for going to bed again. There I own myself in a fault, and a very great one.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Can you swear anything came from the prisoner?
JOHN FINIMORE: I do not pretend to swear anything came from him in my body.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Can you say there did not?
JOHN FINIMORE: I cannot say there did not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: When you went away in the morning, what time was it?
JOHN FINIMORE: It was between six and seven o'clock.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you clean and dress yourself at his house?
JOHN FINIMORE: I put on a clean shirt in the morning before I went away. I carried just one shirt with me to put on clean.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you carry your dirty shirt away along with you?
JOHN FINIMORE: I left it there in the bar-room. This was on the Sunday morning, when I got up, between six and seven o'clock.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Who was by when you put your shirt on?
JOHN FINIMORE: Nobody.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you observe anything upon it?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Where is that shirt now?
JOHN FINIMORE: I asked for it [at the Fortune of War]; they said it was not to be found. They [Thomas Andrews's children] did not know where their father had put it.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: When did you ask for it?
JOHN FINIMORE: I went and asked for it on the Tuesday, after we came from Guildhall.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Had you anything to eat or drink in the morning?
JOHN FINIMORE: I had a glass of gin and a crust of bread.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not Mr. Andrews drink with you?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, he did not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not you drink to him?
JOHN FINIMORE: No, I did not.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not you borrow a cane of him?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did; and left another in the room of it.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not you shake hands with him before you went out of the house?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did; and he said, John, will you come back to dinner? I said, Mr. Andrews, if I can come back, I will. He said, I have a nice pig, and a piece of beef, and some greens, to dinner; and that I have not got often.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you acknowledge your thankfulness for his kindness and civility?
JOHN FINIMORE: I did, for lying there in his house, and for what I had had.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Where did you go to drink together?
JOHN FINIMORE: We went to the Dolphin in Honey-lane market, after we had been to see for the alderman, and could have no hearing that night, and had a tankard or two of beer.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Who was present?
JOHN FINIMORE: One Mr. Richardson, a taylor, Mr. Bateman Griffiths, a carpenter, and Mr. Leage, the constable.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Anybody else?
JOHN FINIMORE: Nobody else.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did not you there agree to make it up?
JOHN FINIMORE: I said I had not money to go through the law, as I had heard it would be an expensive thing, I being just come out of place; so I would make it up, on condition he would give me a note of hand under his hand, not to trouble me, for I never was before a judge or an alderman in my life before.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How came you to make this offer?
JOHN FINIMORE: I was afraid I should lie out of place a great while upon it.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did this come of yourself, without any proposal?
JOHN FINIMORE: We proposed both alike.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Who proposed first?
JOHN FINIMORE: I cannot say who did.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Preferring a bill of indictment, and coming here, would not come to ten shillings.
JOHN FINIMORE: That I did not know.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: If you had declared nothing but the truth, how could you be afraid of his troubling of you?
JOHN FINIMORE: I have declared nothing but the truth; I was afraid of being hurt for making of it up.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Whether some person that was by did not dissuade you not to make it up, and say you had lost a great deal of time, and you should have satisfaction for it.
JOHN FINIMORE: The prisoner [Thomas Andrews] had wrote with his own hand, it is here in court; as near as I can speak the words, they were these. The 20th of April, John Finimore, and Thomas Andrews, have agreed that all is made up. Then he desired of me to write the same, which I could not write. The person that sat by said, John, what are you going to do? Do you know what you are going about? If you offer to have anything to do with it, I'll cut your hands off.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: What man was that?
JOHN FINIMORE: That was Bateman Griffiths.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did anybody persuade you to demand any satisfaction for your lost time?
JOHN FINIMORE: I believe somebody said you shall not make it up, he ought to pay smart-money.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: What answer did the prisoner make to this?
JOHN FINIMORE: He said he would not be imposed upon, and he would spend a hundred pounds to right himself. This was after smart-money was mentioned.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Were there mutual charges?
JOHN FINIMORE: I charged him; then the constable said to him, "Don't you charge me with him, Sir." "Yes," said Andrews, "I do." Then said the constable, "You are my prisoner."
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Was the complaint for the actual fact, or an assault with intent to commit it?
JOHN FINIMORE: I declared the same before Sir Robert Ladbroke, as I have now.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: How long did you remain in Bridewell?
JOHN FINIMORE: I believe I was carried there between five and six in the evening, before I came to the Sitting-alderman; then he was committed, and I was discharged.
"What say you of Thomas Andrews's defense counsel?" Benedict asked Caribou while they waited for the next witness to be sworn.
"His cross-examination made two good points," Caribou said. First, during the night and next morning, Finigan's conduct was inconsistent for a man who claims he injured in a brutal rape. Second, Finigan and his friends negotiated with Andrews for smart-money, a euphemism for a bribe. Finigan tried to cover up the "smart-money" issue with a lame complaint about getting compensated for lost time. But Defense Counsel failed to drive his points home, and he failed to inquire why John didn't go home with his cousin, since he felt uncomfortable about sleeping in Andrews's bed."
"I think Defense Counsel failed to drive home a third point, about Andrews locking the bedroom door. If I were the proprietor of the Fortune of War, where criminal grave-snatchers were wont to hang out, I would not fail to lock my door before going to sleep. Better to be exposed as a resurrectionist than a sodomite. And Defense Counsel made a fourth point, namely: John Finigan feared that Andrews might make a counter-accusation against him. Why would he think that?"
"Do you think Finimore was buggered?" Caribou asked.
"If he was, it was consensual. Very likely it was his first time and he didn't enjoy it, but the injury he claims to his rectum was too great to have been caused by a man's yard."
The next witness was sworn in and identified; it was Jonathan Finimore, John's cousin.
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I am a relation to the prosecutor. [He means the accuser, John Finimore.]
MAGISTRATE: Do you know Andrews the prisoner?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I do. I have known him some years. On the 18th of April, about nine, I was at Mrs. Mead's, in Red-lion court, and I found my kinsman was there. He was to be at Mr. Andrews's house. We went there together to drink a pint of beer, which he said he had left upon the table. After we had drank that we had another. I went away, and left Mr. Andrews and he drinking together.
MAGISTRATE: How long did you stay in the house?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I did not stay in the house above a quarter of an hour.
MAGISTRATE: How were they for liquor?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: They were both sober at that time, as far as I could be a judge; I desired my kinsman to come to our house the next day, to go of a message for me. He came about ten minutes before seven in the morning.
MAGISTRATE: Where do you live?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: In Leather-lane, at the George; this was the 19th of April: the first of my seeing of him was in the tap-room.
MAGISTRATE: Who keeps the house?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: One Smith keeps it. I am coachman to Mr. Baldery, and our horses stand there. I was writing a letter for him to carry to Clapham. I asked him how he did; he said very ill. I asked him what the reason was, and said I left him very well last night. He said, after I went away, Mr. Andrews kept him up till about one o'clock, and that he had asked Mr. Andrews once or twice to let him go to bed; Mr. Andrews said he might as well stay till he went to bed; and when they had been in bed some time, Mr. Andrews awaked him, and he was in very great pain. I asked what Mr. Andrews was going to do to him. He said he was ashamed to tell me. I said, "Why are you ashamed? Speak freely." Then he said Mr. Andrews wanted, as he imagined, to bugger him. I said, "In what manner did he behave? Did he bugger you?" "Yes," said he, "he was in my body." Said I, "Are you sure of that?" He said, yes, he was quite sure of it. I said this is a very nice point, as it touches a man's life, you must be very particular in it. Yes, he said, he was quite sure. I said, "Are you capable of going to Clapham today?" He had said he was in great pain, that he could hardly sit. I said, "What do you impute it to?" He said, to what Mr. Andrews did to him. He said, the linen that he had put on that morning, was much stained with a running matter.
MAGISTRATE: Did you see his linen?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I did, but not at that time; I saw it the day after, when he came from Clapham.
MAGISTRATE: Did he appear at that time to be in pain?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: He appeared to be in very great pain, he could not sit well upon his seat, and flinched several times; and said he was never used so in his life, and was surprised Mr. Andrews being a married man, should offer to attempt such a thing.
MAGISTRATE: Did he complain in what part his pain was?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: He complained it was in his fundament, and seemed extremely uneasy: he was well the night before at Mrs. Mead's, and at Mr. Andrews's tap-room.
MAGISTRATE: Did you ever hear him make any complaint of any illness in those parts before?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: No, never in my life.
MAGISTRATE: What time did he return from Clapham?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: He returned the next morning by nine o'clock, and came and delivered me a letter in answer to mine that I had sent.
MAGISTRATE: Did he go on foot, or on horseback?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: He went on foot; he lay at Clapham that night, as he told me. I asked him then how he was; he said he was extremely bad, and he looked very faint, and appeared very much out of order; he said he was so faint, he could hardly stand.
MAGISTRATE: How old is he?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I suppose he is 29 years of age, but he is small in stature. I asked him if he found himself still bad in the part he mentioned. He said, yes. I said come to me at two o'clock this day, then I shall be at home, and shall ask you some questions more particular, and will find some way or other to take Mr. Andrews into custody.
MAGISTRATE: What day was it that you saw his shirt?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: That was on the 11th; there were marks upon it, and a sort of a putrified matter.
MAGISTRATE: On which part was the shirt marked?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: On the fore-part, because he had clapped that under him for casement. He went away, and never returned to me that day; but, as I found afterwards, went and told it to his fellow-servants at Mrs. Mead's. I never saw him 'till about nine in the evening, after they had taken Mr. Andrews up; and he was committed to the Poultry-Compter, and my kinsman was in Bridewell. Then his fellow-servants came to me, and desired I would go to him, and told me what had happened.
MAGISTRATE: Have you heard Mr. Andrews say anything about it at any time?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: When he came before Sir Robert Ladbroke, he said he knew nothing of it, he was wrongfully accused; but, upon the evidence against him, Sir Robert sent him to the Poultry-compter.
MAGISTRATE: Was you with them at the Dolphin?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: No, I was not.
Cross examination
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Was it supposed to be any venereal disorder by the stains upon your kinsman's linen?
JONATHAN FINIMORE: I am not a judge, here is a surgeon here. Nathaniel Goodwin. I know John Finimore, I was a fellow-servant with him almost three years, at Mrs. Mead's in Red-lion-court; I remember on the 10th of April I went in at the White-hart in Giltspur-street; there was Mr. Richardson, who told me something of the story; then John Finimore came in, and sat as it was on half of his body. I said "John, your countenance seems to be changed, what is the matter with you?" He said, "Coachman, I am very bad, I can neither walk nor sit; and as for eating, I can eat nothing; and what I drink, I bring up again." I said, "This is a thing of great consequence, tell the truth." He said, "I will as well as I can." He said he had been about to look for a place, and was drowsy and sleepy, and Mr. Andrews kept him up till between 12 and one, and he wanted to go to bed; but Mr. Andrews desired him to stay till he went; and when he was in bed he was very heavy, and dropped into a dead sleep; and about four o'clock he awaked with a great surprise, and found Andrews in his body. I said, "John, are you sure of that?" He said it was so indeed, and complained he was very full of pain, and could neither sit nor walk. He always had a fresh countenance before, but his countenance was quite changed: he pulled his shirt out, and showed it me, and the bottom of it seemed to be quite corrupted.
Defense Counsel ended its cross-examination of Jonathan Finimore too abruptly to bring out anything in Thomas Andrews's favor. Perhaps the Defense thought that Jonathan was biased against Andrews and got him off the witness stand. It would have been better if they has asked him nothing at all. The next witness was Dr. Henry Jones, who examined John Finimore at St. Thomas Hospital.
DR. HENRY JONES: I am at St. Thomas's-hospital for experience.
MAGISTRATE: How long have you been there?
DR. HENRY JONES: I have been there about four months.
MAGISTRATE: How long have you been a surgeon?
DR. HENRY JONES: I have been six years before I came there.
MAGISTRATE: Do you know John Finimore?
DR. HENRY JONES: I do, he came to me.
MAGISTRATE: When?
DR. HENRY JONES: The last time was on Wednesday; the first time was, I believe, last Monday. He said he was very ill, and desired me to examine him; he told me the case, and said he was in a great deal of pain.
MAGISTRATE: How did the part appear?
DR. HENRY JONES: It appeared to me to be lacerated; there was an appearance as if there had been violence offered.
MAGISTRATE: Could you form any conjecture what kind of violence?
DR. HENRY JONES: It appeared to me to be something of that kind; but whether it was or not, I cannot say; the injury is considerable.
MAGISTRATE: Where is the laceration?
DR. HENRY JONES: The edge of the rectum was lacerated just at the edge of the anus, and that part bled.
MAGISTRATE: Could not the parts be lacerated in that manner by a hard stool?
DR. HENRY JONES: No, they could not.
Cross examination
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you think there must have been great violence used to make that laceration?
DR. HENRY JONES: I do.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you think that must have been with great pain?
DR. HENRY JONES: I do think it must.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: With pain enough to awake a person out of his sleep?
DR. HENRY JONES: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you not think he must awake before the laceration could be made?
DR. HENRY JONES: That I cannot answer to, how fast a man may be asleep, the person can account best for that himself.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Did you see his linen?
DR. HENRY JONES: No, I never did.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Was there any venereal complaint?
DR. HENRY JONES: No, there was not.
MAGISTRATE (to John Finimore): Have you got your linen here?
JOHN FINIMORE: I have here the shirt I put on the next morning in the prisoner's bar- room. [Producing a shirt.] This is it, it is as I pulled it off.
DEFENSE COUNSEL (to John Finimore): How long did you wear it?
JOHN FINIMORE: I wore it till the Tuesday morning; then I put a clean one on, after I came from Bridewell. [The Jury inspect it; it appears at the bottom of the fore-part of a reddish color; the stains all in creases.]
"Now that's what I would call tainted evidence," Benedict whispered to Caribou. "Andrews had custody of the culpatory linen. Who's to know it wasn't stained with pig's blood?"
The last prosecution witness was Benedictor Goodwin (Daniel Goodwin's wife), a sometime fellow servant in Mrs. Unwin's house.
BENEDICTOR GOODWIN: I have washed John Finimore's linen this half year, from the 1st of December.
MAGISTRAGE: Was anything the matter with his linen from the 1st of December, 'till the 8th of April?
BENEDICTOR GOODWIN: No, nothing at all; no stain of blood, of one sort or another.
MAGISTRATE: When was the last you washed for him before this affair?
BENEDICTOR GOODWIN: I washed for him the week before it happened; he used to bring them sometimes once a fortnight, sometimes three weeks.
Prisoner's defense: Thomas Andrews was allowed to speak.
THOMAS ANDREWS: I know no more of it than the child unborn. When we came before Sir Robert Ladbroke, said Sir Robert [to John Finigan], "When you was used in this terrible manner, did you say anything to him about it?" He said, "I cannot say I did." I owned to everything that was right. In the first place I told him, he came to me on the Friday, crying like a child whipped with a rod; he said his mistress had turned him away, and he had been there but thirteen days: he wanted a lodging; I told him I had never a bed empty; but as I know you (my wife happens to be in the country), "you shall have half my bed and welcome." Then he came again, and told me his lady had asked him to lie there, as he was out of place. I said, very well John. On Saturday he came again, and asked me again, saying, his mistress had not asked him a second time, and he did not choose to ask her. Accordingly, he went out again, and about eight he came in again with his cousin Finimore: they came to the bar, and had two pints of beer; I was backwards and forwards drawing beer, and making punch. Then his cousin went away, and he never asked me to go to bed at all. It happened to be one o'clock when we went to bed. As for the key being taken out of the door, I never took it out since I have been in the house: I double locked it, and went to bed, and never awaked till St. Sepulchre's clock struck six, and waked me. He never was out of bed, I will take my oath. Then I joggled him with my elbow, and said, "John, John, it is past six o'clock." "Is it?" said he. Said I, "You are to go to Clapham, will you breakfast?" He said, "No, I have promised my cousin Finimore to breakfast with him." He must be very bad indeed, if he could not walk there. He told me himself, he got drunk there, and could not come home. He shifted himself in the bar-room. I said, "Will you have anything before you go?" He said, "I will be very glad for a glass of your best gin." I drank to him, and gave him a full glass, and a bit of bread. Said I, "Do you think of coming back to dinner?" He said, "I have some thoughts I shall go to see your sister; I positively will come home to dinner." We shook hands, and I wished him a good walk: he thanked me, and I never set eyes on him till about four o'clock on the Monday; then he brought Mr. Leage to apprehend me. My daughter told me some people wanted me in the back-parlour. Said I, "Who are they?" She said, "John is one." There was my neighbor Leage, and two more that I did not know: they charged me with this thing. I never was more surprised in all my life! Said I, "I am ashamed to hear you." Then, said I, "I will charge him." If I had been afraid of it, why should I charge him, that he should not run away? If I had been guilty of that thing, I would have let him run away and welcome. It is as true as God made the world, I know no more of it than the child unborn; I will plead innocent of it to the hour of my death; it is all nothing but false-swearing, as sure as I am here. When we came to the public house, the constable said, "Let us go in, and have a pot of beer, don't let us go wrangling and jangling." There were five of us, we had some beer: the constable said, "You had better have general releases drawn between you." Said John, "If you, Mr. Andrews, will be kind enough to give me a receipt from under your hand, that you will not hurt me, I will make it up." I said, "What is there to make up?" He said, "I don't see any great matter." "Nor I neither, I am sure." Then I said, "If you serve me so, I will have a warrant for you." Then, said he, "Write a paper for the present." Said I, "I don't want to hurt you, I have done no ill to you, and will not be imposed upon." They called for a bit of paper, and desired me to write; I had no spectacles about me, so I wrote only, "John Finimore and Thomas Andrews have agreed all is made up." One of the other persons snatched it away, and said to him, I will cut your hands off, you shall sign nothing, we will have some smart-money." Said I, "Before I will agree to that, I will spend a hundred pounds. What have I done? I will not agree to anything of that kind." I know no more of it, than the child that is unborn.
MAGISTRATE (to John Finimore): You seem to speak doubtful as to emission; but you closed your evidence with saying, he penetrated your body, can you, or can you not say as to that of emission?
JOHN FINNIMORE: I will not take a false oath for the world, I cannot say there was, I felt something warm.
MAGISTRATE: What do you mean by that, do you mean something liquidly warm?
JOHN FINIMORE: Yes, I do; I felt something wet, I am perfectly sure of that, just as he withdrew from me.
"He's making up new details as he goes along," Caribou whispered to Benedict.
Witnesses for the Prisoner
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I am drawer to Mr. Andrews, I remember the prosecutor coming to our house on the 9th of April, and also his laying there at night.
MAGISTRATE: What time did he go to bed?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I believe between twelve and one.
MAGISTRATE: How many rooms are there on a floor?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: Three, Mr. Andrews and the prosecutor [John Finimore] lay in one, and I lay in the next joining to it. The partition is a sort of wainscot, but it is very thin. I went upstairs with them, and I wish'd them a good night.
MAGISTRATE: What time did you get up in the morning?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I got up between five and six in the morning, very near six.
MAGISTRATE: Did you hear any disturbance in the night?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I heard nothing at all in the night.
MAGISTRATE: Who was up first, your master or you?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I was up after my master. When I came down Finimore was just gone out, I saw him go by my room-door, it is a sash-door, Mr. Andrews knocked against it for me to get up.
MAGISTRATE: Have you ever laid with Mr. Andrews?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I have, in his house, some time ago.
MAGISTRATE: How many times?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: Once.
MAGISTRATE: How did he behave?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: The same as other people, he lay on one side the bed, and I on the other; there was a considerable ridge between us; he never offered any such thing to me. I do not live with him, but when I am out of place, then I go there; I have been there twice, about a fortnight the first time, and now about a month.
MAGISTRATE: How long have you known him?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I have known about a year and a half.
MAGISTRATE: How came you to lie with him that time?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: I was to go on the other side of the water, to the Old Barge-house, and it rained very hard, and I could not go, they had no other beds in the house, so Mrs. Andrews lay with her daughter, and I lay in her bed along with him.
MAGISTRATE: How long is that ago?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: About five months ago.
MAGISTRATE: Has he any children?
WILLIAM PEIRCE: He has four; I think I have heard the neighbors say he has had twelve. Here is the shirt that John Finimore pulled off that morning, (producing it). I had it of Miss Andrews.
Next witness: Samuel Johnson
SAMUEL JOHNSON: I am a waiter at Mr. Andrews's while I am out of place, I never was there before, I have been there five weeks.
MAGISTRATE: Did you ever lie with him?
SAMUEL JOHNSON: Yes once, and never but once, and that was but for four hours; I found no misbehavior by him in any shape at all.
MAGISTRATE: Where was Mrs. Andrews then?
SAMUEL JOHNSON: She was at Pancras a nursing her daughter.
MAGISTRATE: How came you to lie with him that time?
SAMUEL JOHNSON: I lay in the garret at other times, and I lay with him that he might call me up at five, to help open the house. I went to bed at one, and got up at five.
Benedict whispered to Caribou: "I hope we'll soon me meeting the more famous Samuel Johnson. This is not he."
Next witness: Sarah Andrews
SARAH ANDREWS: I am daughter to the prisoner, I saw John Finimore at our house on the 8th of April, he was drinking with my father; and on the 9th I came down just after he went out, he left this shirt, here produced, which he had pulled off, in the bar, on the Sunday morning; he asked for the shirt when he came for his clothes, I think on the Wednesday; it is in the same condition now as it was then. ( The Jury inspect it, there were no stains upon it.)
JOHN FINNIMORE: This is my shirt, which I pulled off at Mr. Andrews's house.
MAGISTRATE (to Sarah Andrews): How long has your father been married?
SARAH ANDREWS: He has been married twenty-five or twenty-six years, for what I know.
MAGISTRATE: How many children has your mother had?
SARAH ANDREWS: She has been twelve times with child, there are four now living.
MAGISTRATE: When the prisoner came for his shirt, how came it not to be delivered to him?
SARAH ANDREWS: I was desired by my father not to deliver it to him, this was after my father was accused. I suppose he was advised not to deliver it.
Next witness, Constable James League (apparently inebriated)
JAMES LEAGUE: I am the constable, I went with the prosecutor, Mr. Andrews, and others, to a public-house, in Honey-lane market; there they were as great as two whores, and wanted to make it up, they seemed to be very friendly; yes, they seemed as great as two whores?
MAGISTRATE: Have you been drinking this morning?
JAMES LEAGUE: They both drank together.
MAGISTRATE: Have you been drinking?
JAMES LEAGUE: They were together friendly, but I thought I could not be safe without carrying them before a magistrate.
MAGISTRATE: I ask you the question, have you been drinking?
JAMES LEAGUE: No, not yet.
MAGISTRATE: Do you remember any talk about smart-money?
JAMES LEAGUE: No, I do not; they were talking one was not to twit the other in the teeth with it, and the other was not to tell the other of it; they were both angry with me because I would not let them go home.
MAGISTRATE (to John Finimore): How came it you was so long before you applied to a surgeon?
JOHN FINIMORE: We were before Sir Robert Ladbroke on the Tuesday; we went to Dr. Blagden, a surgeon on Snow Hill, he was not at home; we went again the next morning, and I showed myself to him. He said, Young man, there is a sort of a pile, or some such thing.
MAGISTRATE: How came you to go to Dr. Jones?
JOHN FINIMORE: I went there as Dr. Blagden did not give me any encouragement, to tell me what it was; I thought proper to go to some other person, so I was recommended to Dr. Jones.
The Magistrate sent for Dr. Blagden and swore him.
MAGISTRATE (to Dr. Blagden): Was the prosecutor [John Finimore] under your inspection?
DR. BLAGDEN: He came to me with some other person, and said he had received an injury from somebody; and desired I would look at him.
MAGISTRATE: When was this?
DR. BLAGDEN: It may be about a week or ten days ago, really I cannot recollect it, it may be longer, I took no manner of notice of it.
MAGISTRATE: Did he complain of what kind of injury?
DR. BLAGDEN: He told me he lay with somebody that had entered his body, and had hurt him. I inspected him, and told him I could see no injury; there was a little excavation of the flesh, what I apprehended to be the effect of a pile, on the left-side of the fundament.
MAGISTRATE: Was there a laceration?
DR. BLAGDEN: No, there was not.
MAGISTRATE: Can you say there was none?
DR. BLAGDEN: I can.
MAGISTRATE: Did you see him afterwards?
DR. BLAGDEN: No. I gave him the same account as I have now told here.
MAGISTRATE (to Dr. Henry Jones): Now, in the hearing of Mr. Blagden, describe what you observed.
DR. HENRY JONES: I opened the anus, the part was lacerated, there was blood, and also there was blood by the friction.
MAGISTRATE: Were there any signs of his having the piles?
DR. JONES: There were; that was on the right-side, the excavation was on the left.
DR. BLAGDEN: If the court will please to let us take the prosecutor out and examine him, I can convince the young gentleman there was no laceration.
JOHN FINIMORE: I am willing to be inspected.
They retire into a private room, and in about twelve minutes return into court.
MAGISTRATE (to Dr. Blagden): Have you had an inspection?
DR. BLAGDEN: We have. I see no marks of laceration; there has been an excavation, which is different from a laceration. I am still of the same opinion as before. The excavation on the buttock arises oftentimes by walking in warm weather, by one buttock rubbing against the other. When anything is introduced into the body, the part that is mostly injured is the sphincter muscle, because it prevents the excrement in coming away.
MAGISTRATE (to Dr. Jones): What do you think now?
DR. JONES: There has been an excavation.
MAGISTRATE: Was not you mistaken?
DR. JONES: There was some blood appeared.
MAGISTRATE: Are you now as confident there was a laceration?
DR. JONES: The man is surprisingly mended since I examined him; to the best of my knowledge there was a laceration.
MAGISTRATE (to Dr. Blagden): If the body had been entered by a man, must you have perceived it when you examined him on the Wednesday?
DR. BLAGDEN: No, I cannot say positively I could, because it may be observed there will be excrement come away from the gut, almost as big as my arm, very large and hard, and the party receive no injury; as may sometimes be seen by countrymen.
The Jury came in with a verdict: Guilty of sodomy. The Magistrate awarded Thomas Andrews the sentence of death by hanging. Benedict and Caribou left court despondent. "No doubt Thomas Andrews is a rascal," Benedict said: "He runs a resurrection-business out of his pub. As the owner of the Fortune of War, he's a relatively wealthy man surrounded by jealous neighbors. I think this whole affair started as an extortion scheme to get smart-money, and when Andrews resisted, the affair got out of control and ended up in Old Bailey."
"I think it started as a lovers' quarrel," Caribou said. "This Finimore fellow is devious and unstable. At the end of the trial, the medical evidence seemed to support Andrews; at the least, it was too ambiguous to support Finimore. There's no doubt that Finimore was shamming his injury."
"Either way, the verdict proves the dictum: no man accused of sodomy in Old Bailey escapes hanging at Tyburn."
Benedict and Caribou exited Old Bailey, just in time to see fourteen condemned prisoners assembled in the courtyard at Newgate, preparing to make their dolorous pilgrimage westward down Oxford Road to Tyburn. Among them were Hanna Diego, Joshua Rice, Paul Lewis, and William Casey. Their chains were off, but they were bound together with ropes. Two horse- drawn carts awaited them: seven prisoners in each cart. The constable waved merrily at Benedict and Caribou.
The carts moved slowly up Newgate Street to Snow Hill, and then west on Holburn, which turned into Oxford Road when it crossed the boundary of the Old London wall. Benedict and Caribou decided to walk the distance to Tyburn. The parade of the condemned took place almost every weekday, and people gathered along Oxford Road to watch them pass by. Some people gathered north of Soho Square; others south of Oxford Market. They jeered and threw rocks at the two-cart procession while a small choir of Methodists sang hymns. Benedict praised one of them as apt to the occasion:
Great God, I own thy sentence just
And nature must decay;
I yield my body to the dust
To dwell with fellow clay.
Yet death may triumph o'er the grave
And trample on the tombs.
My Jesus, my Redeemer lives,
My God, my Saviour comes.
"I can't help but think of that farewell poem by John Donne, 'Good Friday, Riding Westward', for this is indeed Friday, and the westward path down Oxford Road is indeed the road of mortality," Benedict said.
Tyburn was truly the Gate of Hell. Its rituals mocked divine grace, and human decency. One by one, each of the fourteen prisoners mounted the scaffold. A preacher recited the Lord's Prayer. Then the prisoner was allowed to speak his (or her) last words, or, in the alternative, he could give a prepared text to a bailiff who would read it to the crowd. After that, a sack was put over his head, the noose was tightened, and the hangman released a rickety trapdoor, allowing gravity to do its work; surely a travesty against the laws of Nature. Joshua Rice had intended to speak, but instead shat his pants and grew mute. The rope around Hanna Diego's hands came loose and she struck the hangman, but she was quickly dispatched. Paul Lewis, still smartly dressed, vaunted his years as a military man and a highwayman. He refused the indignity of a sack over his head, but when the trapdoor was released, the force of his fall separated his head from his body, and both hit the ground in two dull thuds. Blood spattered spectators who stood close by. During the first four or five hangings, the crowd was so festive that the Lord's Prayer could not be heard, certainly not by the Lord, but they grew somber after the horror of Paul Lewis's unscheduled decapitation, which gave Londoners a topic for gossip over weekend and into the next week.
"I will endure no more of this spectacle," Caribou said to Benedict.
"We must wait here for William Casey's sake," Benedict replied. "We will be two friends among the spectators. Our task is to witness his innocence."
After two further scenes of cruelty, William Casey mounted the steps of Tyburn Tree. The sight of this handsome youth drew sympathy from the crowd, especially from the ladies, some of whom wept. He recited the Lord's Prayer along with the preacher, and afterwards read a text that he had prepared. The spectators usually jeered at any prisoner who had the gall to blandish his crime with a speech, but this time they listened attentively:
"Good People,"-these were his words-"I Am now brought to this place to suffer a shameful and ignominious death, and of all such unhappy persons 'tis expected by the World they should either say something at their death, or leave some account behind them. And having that which more nearly concerns me, (I mean the care of my immortal soul) I chose rather to leave these lines behind me, than to waste my few precious moments in talking to the multitude. But now that I am before you, on my more advice I will read the text that I wrote.
"And first, I declare I die a member, tho' a very unworthy one, of the Church of England as by Law establish'd; the principles of which, my now unhappy father took an early care to instruct me in.
"And next, for the robbery of Mr. Stone, for which I am now brought to this fatal place, I solemnly do declare to God and the World, that I never had the value of one halfpenny from him; and that the occasion of his being so ill-used was, that he offered to me that detestable and crying sin of sodomy."
People in the crowd gasped in shock. "He's getting his revenge on Joseph Stone," Benedict remarked to Caribou Brave. William Casey continued his statement:
"I take this opportunity, with almost my last breath, to give my hearty thanks to the Honorable Colonel Pitts, and Colonel Pagill, for their endeavours to save my life. Indeed I had some small hopes that his Majesty, in consideration of the services of my whole family, having all been faithful soldiers and servants to the Crown of England, he would have extended one branch of his mercy to me, and have sent me to have served him in another country; but welcome be the grace of God, I am resign'd to His will, and die in charity with all men, forgiving, hoping to be forgiven myself through the merits of my blessed Savior Jesus Christ.
"I hope, and make it my earnest request, that nobody will be so ill Christians as to reflect on my aged parents, wife, brothers or sisters, for my untimely end. And I pray God, into whose hands I commend my spirit, that the great number of sodomites in and about this city and suburbs, may not bring down the same judgment from Heaven as fell on Sodom and Gomorrah."