Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 59

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THIS offender was a victim to his own feelings of superstition. At the time of his crime and execution the belief in witchcraft was almost universal, and Colley was hanged for the murder of a poor old woman named Osborne, whose qualities as a witch he tested by ducking her in a pond until she was dead, thereby indisputably proving to the satisfaction of all, and to the credit of the deceased woman, how unjustifiable were the suspicions which had been entertained of her character.

The evidence given against the prisoner was to the following effect:—On the 18th April, 1751, a man named Nichols went to William Dell, the crier at Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, and delivered to him a paper to the following effect, which was to be cried:

“This is to give notice, that on Monday next, a man and woman are to be publicly ducked at Tring, in this county, for their wicked crimes.”

This notice was given at Winslow and Leighton-Buzzard, as well as at Hemel-Hempstead, on the respective market-days, and was heard by Mr. Barton, overseer of the parish of Tring, who being informed that the persons intended to be ducked were John Osborne, and Ruth his wife, and having no doubt of the good character of both the parties, sent them to the workhouse, as a protection from the rage of the mob.

On the day appointed for the practice of the infernal ceremony, an immense number of people, supposed to be not fewer than five thousand, assembled near the workhouse at Tring, vowing revenge against Osborne and his wife, as a wizard and a witch, and demanding that they should be delivered up to their fury. In support of their demands they pulled down a wall belonging to the workhouse, and broke the windows and window-frames. On the preceding evening the master of the workhouse, suspecting some violence from what he heard of the disposition of the people, had sent Osborne and his wife to the vestry-room belonging to the church, as a place the most likely to secure them from insult. The mob would not give credit to the master of the workhouse that the parties were removed, but, rushing into the house, searched it through, examining the closets, boxes, trunks, and even the salt-box, in quest of them. There being a hole in the ceiling, which had been left by the plasterers, Colley, who was one of the most active of the gang, exclaimed, “Let us search the ceiling;” and this being done, but of course without success, they swore that they would pull down the house, and set fire to Tring, if the parties were not produced. The master of the workhouse, apprehensive that they would carry their threats into execution, and unmindful of the safety of the unfortunate wretches whom it was his duty to protect, at length gave up their place of concealment; and the whole mob, with Colley at their head, forthwith marched off to the church and brought them off in triumph. Their persons secured, they were carried to a pond, called Marlston Mere, where they were stripped and tied up separately in cloths. A rope was then bound round the body of the woman, under her arm-pits, and two men dragged her into the pond, and through it several times; Colley going into the pond, and, with a stick, turning her from side to side. Having ducked her repeatedly in this manner, they placed her by the side of the pond, and dragged the old man in, and ducked him: then he was put by, and the woman ducked again as before, Colley making the same use of his stick. With this cruelty the husband was treated twice over, and the wife three times; during the last of which the cloth in which she was wrapped came off, and she appeared quite naked.

Not satisfied with this barbarity, Colley pushed his stick against her breast, and the poor woman attempted to lay hold of it; but her strength being now exhausted, she expired on the spot. Colley then went round the pond, collecting money of the populace for the sport he had shown them in ducking the old witch, as he called her. The mob now departed to their several habitations; and the body being taken out of the pond, was examined by Mr. Foster, a surgeon; and the coroner’s inquest being summoned on the occasion, Mr. Foster deposed that, “on examining the body of the deceased, he found no wound, either internal or external, except a little place that had the skin off on one of her breasts; and it was his opinion that she was suffocated with water and mud.”

Hereupon Colley was taken into custody, and when his trial came on, Mr. Foster deposed to the same effect as above mentioned; and there being a variety of other strong proofs of the prisoner’s guilt, he was convicted, and received sentence of death. His defence was that he had endeavoured to protect the old people from violence, instead of attempting to injure them.

After conviction he seemed to behold his guilt in its true light of enormity. He became, as far as could be judged, sincerely penitent for his sins, and made good use of the short time he had to live in the solemn preparation for eternity.

The day before his execution he was removed from the jail of Hertford, under the escort of one hundred men of the Oxford Blues, commanded by seven officers; and being lodged in the jail of St. Albans, was put into a chaise at five o’clock the next morning, with the hangman, and reached the place of execution about eleven, where his wife and daughter came to take leave of him. The minister of Tring assisted him in his last moments, and he died exhibiting all the marks of unfeigned penitence.

He was executed on the 24th of August 1751, and his body afterwards hung in chains at a place called Gubblecut, near which the offence was committed.

It is not a little remarkable that, at so recent a period, so many people as composed this mob should be found so benighted in intellect, and utterly uninformed, as to be guilty of so miserable and so glaring a piece of absurdity and wickedness as that which was proved in the evidence against the prisoner. In former ages, it is true, not only the people, but even the authorities of the land, believed in witchcraft and sorcery; but it is indeed extraordinary that in the eighteenth century a scene such as that described could have been permitted to occur at a village within thirty miles of the metropolis.

The following copy of an indictment, furnished us by a friend who took it from the American Court record, must prove a matter of curiosity to the reader at the present enlightened era:—

“Essex, ss. (a town in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in New England.)

“The jurors of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen (King William and Queen Mary), present, that George Burroughs, late of Falmouth, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, clerk (a Presbyterian minister of the Gospel), the 9th day of May, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts, called witchcraft and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practised and exercised at and in the town of Salem, in the county aforesaid, upon and against one Mary Walcot, single woman, by which said wicked arts the said Mary, on the day aforesaid, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, was, and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented against the peace,” &c.

A witness, by name Ann Putnam, deposed as follows:—On the 8th of May, 1692, I saw the apparition of George Burroughs, who grievously tormented me, and urged me to write in his book, which I refused. He then told me that his two first wives would appear to me presently and tell me a great many lies, but I must not believe them. Then immediately appeared to me the forms of two women in winding-sheets, and napkins about their heads, at which I was greatly affrighted. They turned their faces towards Mr. Burroughs, and looked red and angry, and told him that he had been very cruel to them, and that their blood called for vengeance against him; and they also told him that they should be clothed with white robes in heaven when he should be cast down into hell, and he immediately vanished away. And as soon as he was gone, the women turned their faces towards me, and looked as pale as a white wall; and told me they were Mr. Burroughs’s two wives, and that he had murdered them. And one told me she was his first wife, and he stabbed her under the left breast, and put a piece of sealing-wax in the wound; and she pulled aside the winding-sheet and showed me the place: she also told me that she was in the house where Mr. Daris, the minister of Danvers, then lived when it was done. And the other told me that Mr. Burroughs and a wife that he hath now, killed her in the vessel as she was coming to see her friends from the eastward, because they would have one another. And they both charged me to tell these things to the magistrates before Mr. Burroughs’s face; and if he did not own them, they did not know but they should appear this morning. This morning, also, appeared to me another woman in a winding-sheet, and told me that she was Goodman Fuller’s first wife, and Mr. Burroughs killed her, because there was a difference between her husband and him.

Upon the above, and some other such evidence, was this unfortunate man condemned and executed.

The days are now, happily, past, when such monstrous absurdities are heard of.