Eighteenth Century Waifs

In the memorable fight off Brest, on the ‘Glorious First of June,’ Captain Harvey was killed, and our heroine severely wounded both in the ankle by a grape-shot and in the thigh a little above the knee. She was, of course, taken to the cockpit; but the surgeon could not extract the ball in the ankle, and would not venture to cut it out; nor, when they arrived home, and she was taken to Haslar Hospital, could they extract the ball. Partially cured, she was discharged, and shipped on board the Vesuvius bomb, belonging to Sir Sydney Smith’s squadron, where she acted as midshipman, although she did not receive the pay which should have accompanied the position; and, while thus serving, a little anecdote she tells give us a fair idea of what stuff she was made.

‘It was necessary for some one on board to go to the jib-boom to catch the jib-sheet, which in the gale had got loose. The continual lungeing of the ship rendered this duty particularly hazardous, and there was not a seaman on board but rejected this office. I was acting in the capacity of midshipman, though I never received pay for my service in this ship but as a common man. The circumstance I mention only to show that it was not my particular duty to undertake the task, which, on the refusal of several who were asked, I voluntarily undertook. Indeed, the preservation of us all depended on this exertion. On reaching the jib-boom I was under the necessity of lashing myself fast to it, for the ship every minute making a fresh lunge, without such a precaution I should inevitably have been washed away. The surges continually breaking over me, I suffered an uninterrupted wash and fatigue for six hours before I could quit the post I occupied. When danger is over, a sailor has little thought or reflection, and my mess-mates, who had witnessed the perilous situation in which I was placed, passed it off with a joke observing, “that I had only been sipping sea broth”; but it was a broth of a quality that, though most seamen relish, yet few, I imagine, would like to take it in the quantity I was compelled to do.’

By the fortune of war the Vesuvius was captured, and the crew were conveyed to Dunkirk, where they were lodged in the prison of St. Clair, and the rigour of their captivity seems to have been extreme, especially in the case of Mary Anne Talbot, who perhaps partially deserved it, as she attempted, in company with a mess-mate, to escape. ‘We were both confined in separate dungeons, where it was so dark that I never saw daylight during the space of eleven weeks, and the only allowance I received was bread and water, let down to me from the top of the cell. My bed consisted only of a little straw, not more than half a truss, which was never changed. For two days I was so ill in this dreadful place that I was unable to stir from my wretched couch to reach the miserable pittance, which, in consequence, was drawn up in the same state. The next morning, a person – who, I suppose, was the keeper of the place – came into the dungeon without a light (which way he came I know not, but I suppose through a private door through which I afterwards passed to be released), and called to me, “Are you dead?” To this question I was only able to reply by requesting a little water, being parched almost to death by thirst, resulting from the fever which preyed on me. He told me he had none, and left me in a brutal manner, without offering the least relief. Nature quickly restored me to health, and I sought the bread and water with as eager an inclination as a glutton would seek a feast. About five weeks after my illness, an exchange of prisoners taking place, I obtained my liberty.’

She then shipped to America as steward, and from thence to England, and was going on a voyage to the Mediterranean, when she was seized by a press-gang, and sent on board a tender. But she had no wish to serve His Majesty at sea any more, and, discovering her sex, she was examined by a surgeon, and of course at once discharged.

Her little stock of money getting low, she applied at the Navy pay-office, in Somerset House, for the cash due to her whilst serving in the Brunswick and Vesuvius, as well as her share of prize-money, arising from her being present on the ‘glorious 1st of June.’ She was referred to a prize-agent, who directed her to call again; this not being to her taste, she returned to Somerset House, and indulged in very rough language, for which she was taken off to Bow Street. She told her story, and was ordered to appear again, when a subscription was got up in her behalf; and she was paid twelve shillings a week, until she received her money from the Government.

Her old wound in the leg became bad again, and she went into St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on her discharge, partially cured, she petitioned the King and the Duke of York for relief. The latter gave her five pounds. Then she cast about for the means of earning a livelihood, and bethought her that, when she was a prisoner at Dunkirk, she had watched a German make little ornaments out of gold-wire, which he sold at a good profit; and she did the same, working at the shop of a jeweller in St. Giles’s, and so expert was she that she made the chains for a gold bracelet worn by Queen Charlotte. But the old wound still broke out, and she went into St. George’s Hospital for seven months. When she came out, she led a shiftless, loafing existence, always begging for money – of Mr. Dundas, of the Duke of York, or anyone else that might possibly be generous.

At last these kind friends got her case introduced in the very highest quarters, and she kissed the Queen’s hand at Buckingham House, as it was then called; and soon afterwards she was directed to apply at the War Office, in her sailor’s dress, to receive a half-year’s payment of a pension the Queen had granted her, in the name of John Taylor. Still her wound kept breaking out, and twice she had to go into Middlesex Hospital. She had some idea of going on the stage, and performed several parts at the Thespian Society in Tottenham Court Road, but she gave it up, finding begging a more profitable business; but even then she had to go to Newgate for a small debt. She took in washing, but the people did not pay her, and misfortune pursued her everywhere.

One night, in September, 1804, she was thrown from a coach into a hole left by the carelessness of some firemen, in Church Lane, Whitechapel, and she broke her arm, besides bruising herself badly. The fire office would give her no compensation, but many people were interested in her case, among them a Mr. Kirby, a publisher in Paternoster Row, who employed her as a domestic servant. In 1807, she fell into a decline, doubtless induced by the very free life she had led; and she died on the 4th of February, 1808, having just completed her thirtieth year.

It is not to be thought that England enjoyed the monopoly of these viragos – the country of Jeanne d’Arc was quite equal to the occasion, and Renée Bordereau affords an illustration for the last century. She was born, of peasant parents, in 1770, at the village of Soulaine, near Angers; and at the time of the insurrection in La Vendée, when the royalists were so cruelly punished, she lost forty-two relations in the struggle, her father being murdered before her eyes.

This crushed out of her any soft and feminine feelings she might have possessed, and she vowed vengeance on the hated Republicans. She obtained a musket, taught herself how to use it, learned some elementary drill, and then, donning man’s attire, joined the royalists. Among them she was known by the name of Langevin, and where the fight was fiercest, there she would be, and none suspected that the daring trooper was a woman. On horseback, and on foot, she fought in above two hundred battles and skirmishes, frequently wounded, but seldom much hurt. Such was the terror with which she inspired the Bonapartists, that, when the rebellion was put down, Napoleon specially exempted Langevin from pardon, and she languished in prison until the Restoration. She died in 1828.

THE ‘TIMES’ AND ITS FOUNDER

A discursive book anent the eighteenth century, as this is, would be incomplete without a mention of one of the greatest powers which it produced. This marvellous newspaper, whose utterances, at one time, exercised a sensible influence over the whole of the civilised world, and which, even now, is the most potent of all the English press, was founded by Mr. John Walter, on January 1, 1788.

This gentleman was born either in 1738 or 1739, and his father followed the business of a ‘coal buyer,’ which meant that he bought coals at the pit’s mouth, and then shipped them to any desired port, or market. In those days almost all coals came, by sea, from Newcastle, and its district, because of the facility of carriage; the great inland beds being practically unworked, and in many cases utterly unknown: it being reserved for the giant age of steam to develop their marvellous resources.

His father died in 1755, John Walter then being seventeen and, boy though he was, he at once succeeded to his father’s business. In it he was diligent and throve well, and he so won the confidence and respect of his brother ‘coal buyers’ that when a larger Coal Exchange was found necessary, in order to accommodate, and keep pace with its increasing business, the whole of the arrangements, plans, and directions were left in his hands. When the building was completed, he was rewarded by his brethren in trade with the position of manager, and afterwards he became Chairman to the Body of Coal Buyers.

He married, and, in 1771, things had gone so prosperously with him that he bought a house with some ground at Battersea Rise, and here he lived, and reared his family of six children, until his bankruptcy, when it was sold. He also took unto himself partners, and was the head of the firm of Walter, Bradley, and Sage. For some time all went well, but competition arose, and the old-fashioned way of doing business could not hold its own against the keenness, and cutting, of the new style. Let us hear him tell his own story.39

‘I shall forbear relating the various scenes of business I was engaged in prior to my embarking in Lloyd’s Rooms; sufficient it is to remark that a very extensive trade I entered into at the early age of seventeen, when my father died, rewarded a strong spirit of industry, and, for the first ten or twelve years, with a satisfactory increase of fortune; but a number of inconsiderable dealers, by undermining the fair trader, and other dishonourable practices, reduced the profits, and made them inadequate to the risque and capital employed. It happened unfortunately for me, about that time, some policy brokers, who had large orders for insurances on foreign Indiamen and other adventures, found their way to the Coal Market, a building of which I was the principal planner and manager.

‘I was accustomed, with a few others, to underwrite the vessels particularly employed in that trade, and success attended the step, because the risque was fair, and the premiums adequate. This was my temptation for inclining to their solicitations of frequenting Lloyd’s Rooms.40 With great reluctance I complain that I quitted a trade where low art and cunning combated the fair principles of commerce, which my mind resisted as my fortune increased; but from the change I had to encounter deception and fraud, in a more dangerous but subtle degree.

‘The misfortunes of the war were of great magnitude to the Underwriters, but they were considerably multiplied by the villainy and depravity of Mankind. In the year 1776, at a time when they received only peace premiums, American privateers swarmed on the seas, drove to desperation by the Boston port act passing at the close of the preceding year, to prohibit their fisheries, and our trade fell a rapid prey before government had notice to apply the least protection. Flushed with success, it increased the number of their armed vessels, and proved such a source of riches as enabled them to open a trade with France, who had, hitherto, been only a silent spectator, and produced the sinews of a war which then unhappily commenced.’

He then details the causes which led to his bankruptcy – how the wars with the French, Spaniards, and Dutch, all of whom had their men-of-war and privateers, which preyed upon our commerce, ruined the underwriters, and continues,

‘In two years only of the war I lost, on a balance, thirty-one thousand pounds, which obliged me, in 1781, to quit the Coal Trade, after carrying it on so many years, when I had returned’ (? turned over) ‘above a Million of money, the profits of which have been sunk as an Underwriter, that I might have the use of my capital employed in it, to pay my unfortunate losses… Last year, I was obliged to make a sacrifice of my desirable habitation at Battersea Rise, where I had resided ten years, and expended a considerable sum of money, the fruits of many years of industry, before I became acquainted with Lloyd’s Rooms.

‘These reserves, however, proved ineffectual, and I found it necessary, on examining the state of my accounts early in January last, to call my Creditors together; for, though some months preceding I found my fortune rapidly on the decline, I never suspected my being insolvent till that view of my affairs, when I found a balance in my favour of only nine thousand pounds, from which was to be deducted a fourth part owing me by brokers, who, unfortunately for me as well as themselves, were become bankrupts. This surplus, it was clear, would not bear me through known, though unsettled, losses, besides what might arise on unexpired risques. I therefore, without attempting to borrow a shilling from a friend, resorting to false Credit, or using any subterfuge whatever, after depositing what money remained in my hands, the property of others, laid the state of my affairs before my Creditors.

‘This upright conduct made them my friends; they immediately invested me with full power to settle my own affairs, and have acted with liberality and kindness. They were indebted for the early knowledge I gave them of my affairs to the regularity of my accounts; for, had I rested my inquiry till after the broker’s yearly accounts were chequed, in all probability a very trifling dividend would have ensued. Had the merchant been obliged to stand his own risque during the late war, few concerned on the seas would have been able to withstand the magnitude of their losses.

‘The only alleviation to comfort me in this affliction has arose from the consideration that I have acted honourably by all men; that, neither in prosperity nor adversity, have I ever been influenced by mean or mercenary motives in my connections with the world, of which I can give the most satisfactory proofs; that, when in my power, benevolence ever attended my steps; the deserving and needy never resorted to me in vain, nor has gratitude ever been wanting to express any obligations or kindnesses received from those I have had transactions with by every return in my power. I have the further consolation of declaring that, in winding up my affairs, I have acted with the strictest impartiality in every demand both for and against my estate; that I have (unsolicited) attended every meeting at Guildhall to protect it against plunder. A dividend was made as soon as the bankrupt laws would permit, and the surplus laid out in interest for the benefit of the estate, till a fair time is allowed to know what demands may come against it. I am fully convinced that it will not be £15,000 deficient; above double that sum I have left in Lloyd’s Rooms as a profit among the brokers.

‘No prospect opening of embarking again in business for want of Capital to carry it on, I was advised to make my case known to the administration, which has been done both by public and private application of my friends, who kindly interceded in my behalf for some respectable post under Government, and met with that kind reception from the Minister which gave me every prospect of success, which I flatter myself I have some natural claim to, from the consideration that, as trade is the support of the nation, it could not be carried on without Underwriters.

‘And as the want of protection to the trade of the Country, from the host of enemies we had to combat, occasioned by misfortunes, whom could I fly to with more propriety than to Government? as, by endeavouring to protect commerce, I fell a martyr on the conclusion of an unfortunate war. I was flattered with hopes that my pretensions to an appointment were not visionary, and that I was not wanting in ability to discharge the duties of any place I might have the honour to fill. The change of administration41 which happened soon after was death to my hopes, and, as I had little expectation of making equal interest with the Minister who succeeded, I have turned my thoughts to a matter which appeared capable of being a most essential improvement in the conduct of the Press;42 and, by great attention and assiduity for a year past, it is now reduced from a very voluminous state and great incorrectness to a system which, I hope, will meet the public approbation and countenance.

‘Such is the brief state of a Case which I trust humanity will consider deserving a better fate. Judge what must be my sensations on this trying occasion: twenty-six years in the prime of life passed away, all the fortune I had acquired by a studious attention to business sunk by hasty strides, and the world to begin afresh, with the daily introduction to my view of a wife and six children unprovided for, and dependent on me for support. Feeling hearts may sympathise at the relation, none but parents can conceive the anxiety of my mind in such a state of uncertainty and suspense.’

From an unprejudiced perusal of this ‘case,’ the reader can but come to the conclusion that Mr. John Walter was not overburdened with that inconvenient commodity – modesty; and that his logic – judged by ordinary rules – is decidedly faulty. But that he did try to help himself, is evidenced by the following advertisement in the Morning Post of July 21, 1784:

‘To the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common-councilmen of the City of London

‘My Lord and Gentlemen,

‘The Office of Principal Land Coal Meter of this City being at present vacant by the death of Mr. John Evans, permit me to solicit the honour of succeeding him. My pretensions to your countenance on this occasion are the misfortunes in which (in common with many other respectable Citizens) I have been involved by the calamities of the late war, and an unblemished reputation, which has survived the wreck of my fortune. Having been a Liveryman twenty-four years, during which time I carried on an extensive branch of the coal trade, my fellow-citizens cannot well be unacquainted with my character; and my having been greatly instrumental in establishing the very office which I solicit your interest to fill, will, I hope, be deemed an additional recommendation to your patronage.

‘If my pretensions should meet your approbation, and be crowned with success, I shall ever retain a lively sense of so signal an obligation on,

‘My Lord and Gentlemen, ‘Your most obedient, devoted, humble servant, ‘John Walter. ‘Printing House Square, Blackfriars.’

We hear of him again in connection with this situation, which he did not succeed in obtaining, in an advertisement in the Morning Post, 30th of July, 1784.

‘To the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, &c

‘The Report, which a few days ago was credited by few, is now confirmed by many, and believed by all men, that a Coalition has been formed for the purpose of forcing you to bestow the emoluments of the Principal Land Coal Meter Office on two Aldermen, and it has been agreed that, on the day of the Election, one of them shall decline the Contest, and make a transfer to the other of the votes which some of you were pleased to engage to him…

‘My pretensions I submit to the Corporation at large, and I strongly solicit the assistance of the merchants and traders of the Metropolis to join their efforts, and endeavour to wrest the power of appointment from the hands of a Junto, and restore the freedom of Election. Assert your independence, and consequence, in time; with your breath you can blast the Coalition in its infancy; but, if you suffer it to conquer you in its present state, it will become a Hydra that will swallow up your Franchises, and leave you, like a Cathedral Chapter, the liberty of obeying a congé d’èlire sent to you by a self-constituted faction.

‘I am, &c., &c., ‘John Walter. ‘Printing House Square, Blackfriars.’

How did he come to this (to us) familiar address? It was by a chance which came in his way, and he seized it. In 1782 he, somehow, became acquainted with a compositor named Henry Johnson, who pointed out the trouble and loss of time occasioned by setting up words with types of a single letter, and proposed that at all events those words mostly in use should be cast in one. These were called ‘Logotypes’ (or word types), and printing, therefore, was called ‘Logography.’ Caslon at first made the types – but there is evidence that they quarrelled, for in a letter of August 12, 1785, in the Daily Universal Register of that date, which he reprinted in broadside form, he says, ‘Mr. Caslon, the founder (whom I at first employed to cast my types), calumniated my plan, he censured what he did not understand, wantonly disappointed me in the work he engaged to execute, and would meanly have sacrificed me, to establish the fallacious opinion he had promulgated.’

People had their little jokes about the ‘Logotypes,’ and Mr. Knight Hunt, in his ‘Fourth Estate,’ writes, ‘It was said that the orders to the type-founder ran after this fashion, “Send me a hundred-weight of heat, cold, wet, dry, murder, fire, dreadful robbery, atrocious outrage, fearful calamity, and alarming explosion.”’ That he obtained not only literary, but royal recognition of his pet type, is shown by a foot-note to the letter above quoted (respecting Mr. Caslon),

‘Any gentleman who chuses may inspect the Logographic Founts and Types, at the Printing-office, or at the British Museum, to which place they have been removed from the Queen’s Palace.’

Where he got his money from he does not say, but on the 17th of May, 1784, he advertised that ‘Mr. Walter begs to inform the public that he has purchased the printing-house formerly occupied by Mr. Basket near Apothecaries Hall, which will be opened on the first day of next month for printing words entire, under his Majesty’s Patent;’ and he commenced business June 1, 1784.

Printing House Square stands on the site of the old Monastery of Blackfriars. After the dissolution of the monasteries, in Henry the Eighth’s time, it passed through several hands, until it became the workshop of the royal printer. Here was printed, in 1666, the London Gazette, the oldest surviving paper in England; and, the same year, the all-devouring Great Fire completely destroyed it. Phœnix-like, it arose from its ashes, more beautiful than before – for the writer of ‘A New View of London,’ published in 1708, thus describes it: Printing House Lane, on the E side of Blackfryars: a passage to the Queen’s Printing House (which is a stately building).’

‘Formerly occupied by Mr. Basket,’ a printer, under the royal patent, of Bibles and Prayer-books. To him succeeded other royal and privileged printers. Eyre and Strahan, afterwards Eyre, Strahan, and Spottiswoode, now Spottiswoode and Co., who, in 1770, left Printing House Square, and moved to New Street, Fleet Street, a neighbourhood of which, now, that firm have a virtual monopoly.

John Walter could not have dreamed of the palace now built at Bearwood; for, like most mercantile men of his day, he was quite content to ‘live over the shop’; and there, in Printing House Square, his son, and successor, John (who lived to build Bearwood), was born, and there James Carden, Esq., received his bride, John Walter’s eldest daughter, who was the mother of the present venerable alderman, Sir Robert Carden. There, too, died his wife, the partner of his successes and his failures, in the year 1798.

The first work printed at this logographic printing establishment was a little story called, ‘Gabriel, the Outcast.’ Many other slight works followed; but these were not enough to satisfy the ambitions of John Walter, who, six months after he commenced business, started a newspaper, the Daily Universal Register, on the 1st of January, 1785.43 Even at that date there was no lack of newspapers, although our grandfathers were lucky to have escaped the infliction of the plague of periodicals under which we groan; for there were the Morning Post, the Morning Chronicle, the General Advertiser, London Gazette, London Chronicle, Gazetteer, Morning Herald, St. James’s Chronicle, London Recorder, General Evening Post, Public Advertiser, Lounger, Parker’s General Advertiser, &c. So we must conclude that John Walter’s far-seeing intelligence foretold that a good daily paper, ably edited, would pay. It was logographically printed, and was made the vehicle of puffs of the proprietor’s hobby. The Times was also so printed for a short period, but, eventually, it proved so cumbersome in practice, as absolutely to hinder the compositors, instead of aiding them.