The Masters of Bow Street (50 page)

Partly because of the register’s success, Fielding was now considering producing a journal giving news and descriptions of all known criminals, to be circulated to all in authority throughout Britain.

‘But how long will it be before the government will finance it is a matter for conjecture,’ he said wryly at the end of a day’s hearings.

‘What will you call it, sir?’ James asked.

‘Perhaps your friend Benedict Sly will have some ideas!’ Fielding smiled thoughtfully.

The journal was founded in the autumn of 1772, and after a number of variations the name was finally settled; the expression ‘hue and cry’ now became the name of the official peace journal.

One of the first things reported was the robbing by a highwayman of the Prime Minister, Lord North, but even this would not persuade him to work for the return of the horse patrol.

‘With the patrol and the journal together we could stamp out crime in all England,’ Benedict Sly growled. ‘Why is the government always so reluctant to pay a trifle to fight outrages which cost the people hundreds of thousands?’

‘It is a kind of blindness,’ James said, resignedly. ‘I never cease talking to fellow Members, never cease pointing out the obvious truth, but few listen. True,’ he added grimly, ‘they have cause for deep anxiety these days. There is talk that as a result of our tax policies there is much unrest in the American colonies and even sentiment for rebellion. If that is true. . .’

In the year 1775 came war with the colonies.

A war that would be over in weeks, boasted Lord North.

And at last, in 1781, surrender.

Slowly the wounds of war began to heal, and for a while the madness was done.

During those years, James maintained his friendship with Benedict Sly and often visited the coffee houses patronised by editors and reporters. He made some friends among the more independent minded men in the House of Commons, was constantly in touch with his constituents, and occasionally met Simon Rattray, who would sometimes ask him to raise some matter in the House or with the government - always a reasonable request. He saw little of the Furnival family except Timothy, who had helped when he had fought and won Minshall at the General Election, and he spent much less time in Bow Street, although he still interceded for poor clients whenever need arose. He was at ‘Mr. Londoner’ at least one morning each week and came to look on Nicholas, now married and with three children, as a younger brother.

The one man he seldom saw, except in court, was David Winfrith. And David now looked so gaunt that his face was like a skull. He had withdrawn from his old haunts and friendships. Nobody could persuade him to visit or to receive callers, and conditions at his house became so bad that fewer and fewer tried. Sir John Fielding, as concerned as any, tried to ease his mind, but the death of his two children and its effect on his wife had made too deep a mark. Mary had been to see him, offering help with the remaining child, but he would not admit her to the house. Whenever the front or back door opened a great stench billowed out, and David smelled as bad as if he had come from the Fleet or Newgate.

No one knew for certain but it was rumoured that a Bow Street magistrate had told him that unless he cleaned himself there would be no position for him.

One morning early in 1777, David did not come to court, the first time he had missed since his children had died. Word came from Bow Street to ‘Mr. Londoner’ on a morning when James was there, and he hurried out, called a sedan chair, and was carried at a sharp pace to Bell Lane. As he turned into it he saw people streaming towards the corner where David lived and an eddy of smoke sweeping down from the chimneys; the word ‘Fire!’ was bellowed once and was immediately taken up in a great refrain. The parish fire engine was already at the scene and men were working the wooden pump and trying to make sure that the flames did not spread. The house itself was already a charred ruin, the roof burned through and only two walls standing.

‘Was anyone inside?’ James demanded.

‘No one came out,’ a neighbour told him. ‘They perished in the flames, that’s what they did. Tell you one thing, the ‘ouse ain’t no loss, like a stinking sewer that place was.’

James had never seen Mary cry so bitterly as when he told her. It was several weeks before she seemed fully to recover.

Meanwhile, much had happened to change the face of London.

If he were called upon to name the change he most approved, James would say, ‘The covering over of the Fleet River!’ Like many other once open sewers, it had been completely covered. Many of the old rookeries had been pulled down because of the danger of fire, whilst in the Strand the greatest palace in all London, Somerset House, was now near completion.

Much was stirring, also, in the fields of science and invention. James Watt was making a new kind of steam engine, which, it was said, would not fail, as earlier attempts had done, and some prophesied an enormous revolution in industry.

More traffic than ever crowded London’s roads and thronged on the nation’s highways, some no more than rutted tracks linking towns and villages, some - controlled by the Turnpike Boards - improving whenever they were close to the larger towns. Many towns were now growing beyond a population of fifty thousand as industry moved north. Lancashire proved to be far better than London for the treatment of cotton, with the greater use of Arkwright’s spinning machine, Hargreaves’ spinning jenny and Crompton’s mule. Yorkshire was better for the treatment of wool, but silk weavers stayed a long time in Spitalfields. London became more sharply aware of competition from other ports as well as industrial towns, yet continued to grow at an almost frightening pace. More than three thousand miles of canal now eased traffic on highways and inside many great cities.

One day, after three men had been brought into Bow Street and charged with inciting to riot, Sir John Fielding dismissed the charges so summarily that those who knew him well were surprised. He had been ailing on and off for years, but never had he looked as ill as then.

He was helped from the bench and was taken home. Now and again in the next year he returned, but slowly it dawned on James and on Benedict Sly that this great and powerful man had little longer to live.

Other magistrates sat at Bow Street although no one was appointed to replace Sir John. James now found Bow Street and the nearby streets and yards strange and unfamiliar. He knew few people, for many new houses had been built and more families had moved in. Only when he went into the courtroom itself did he find the same grimy walls, the same stale odours, the same hapless prisoners; there everything was unchanged.

Caught up inextricably in parliamentary work, gradually accepted by many who had at one time cursed his name, he had become a familiar figure at Westminster, renowned for slowly delivered, well-informed speeches and for never missing an opportunity for calling for a London, if not a national, police force. He was grey at the temples now, and his face had acquired dignity as well as greater handsomeness; the hooked nose and deep-set eyes had begun to feature in cartoons, as had his bow-shaped lips and thrusting chin.

It was his custom to meet with any who wanted his help.

One day in late May of 1780, a day when the sun shone from behind the Abbey onto the far bank of the river and gave the whole scene a golden cloak of beauty, he glanced up from his table in Miller’s Coffee House to see Simon Rattray and a stranger.

Rattray looked not only older but thinner, and gave the impression of a man who did not get enough to eat, but nothing of this reflected in his manner as he bowed before James and said, ‘Jack Bowyer, sir, a friend of mine.’

‘Mr. Bowyer.’ James half rose and indicated two empty chairs to Rattray and a small man with a leathery face and piercing blue eyes.

‘My pleasure, sir,’ he said in an unexpectedly well-modulated voice, and they waited until a lad brought coffee. As James poured from an earthenware pitcher, Rattray spoke again.

‘I brought Mr. Bowyer along because he is my chief informant, sir. He is a potboy at a coaching inn called the Coal Hole, at Blackfriars, and they do a big trade.’

‘Very big trade indeed, sir, and much bigger since the Blackfriars Bridge went up.’ Although it had now been there for ten years, it was still talked of in awe.

‘And a lot of people meet to make plans there,’ Rattray put in. ‘For years it was a favourite haunt of highwaymen, and certain trading justices still hold court there.’

‘Four, that’s a fact, exactly four,’ Bowyer declared.

‘And they have private rooms where groups can meet and cellars for secret meetings,’ continued Rattray.

‘Secret meetings, that be the truth,’ affirmed the potboy.

Knowing Rattray, James did not doubt that all this was going to lead up to a revelation of much significance, although nothing yet said gave a hint of what it was. Usually Rattray was quick to reach the point, but now he edged slowly towards it, as if anxious to build a strong foundation.

‘There was one last week and two more this week,’ he went on, ‘attended by the same people and for the same purpose, sir. To plan an uprising in London against the papists.’

‘To do what?’ James gasped.

‘That’s right, sir, and a terrible thing it’s going to be,’ declared Bowyer. ‘They’ll likely plan some terrible deeds. Lord George Gordon has been battling for the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act, but Parliament won’t take it back, sir, will they?’

James thought back to the passing of the Act, which gave Catholics privileges they had not had for generations, and the accompanying protests and demonstrations.

‘I doubt very much if they will,’ he replied. ‘There is a petition before the House for repeal but I expect it to be heavily defeated.’

‘If it is, sir, then the Gordon lot - begging your pardon, sir - are going to attack all papists they can lay hands on, and anyone who tries to stop them. A terrible thing it’s going to be.’

James thought: Papists! And had a swift mental picture of Johnny and the way he had spat the word out.

‘Murder and pillage will be the result,’ went on Rattray in a low-pitched voice. ‘I’m no papist, heaven forbid, but whatever his religion a man has a right to practise it. It’s already under way, sir, a very big uprising indeed. Mr. Bowyer informs me that paid rabble-rousers and rioters already have been sent to many points of vantage to whip up riots. They’re bound to pillage and to burn, sir.’

‘Bound to, certain as can be,’ Bowyer echoed.

‘Unless you can have them stopped in time,’ Rattray continued. ‘You’ve little enough time to work in, I’ll admit, but no one needs telling who the leader is. The crowds will follow Lord George Gordon, sir. If you could have him put in some place to cool his heels it might all come to nought.’

James thought: Johnny is involved in this. So great was his sense of shock that for a few moments he made no reply, thoughts of his half brother excluding all else from his mind. What had Johnny said? ‘But rather a fool than a tool of the papists. . . The devils are everywhere, plotting against the Church and the State. . . We’re victims of a papist plot, Jamey, and anyone who is not against them is for them.’ To emphasise the words he had gripped James’s arm so that the pressure had hurt. In another strange mental flash James seemed to hear Johnny’s voice from even farther back in time: ‘Cut him down, Jacob.’

He saw. Simon Rattray move forward and peer at him tensely.

‘Did you hear me, sir?’

‘I heard you,’ James assured him, forcing his mind to return to the present. ‘I heard very clearly. Mr. Rattray, can you or Mr. Bowyer give me any evidence, any proof, that paid rabble-rousers and rioters have been sent to points of vantage to whip up the riot?’

‘No proof, sir. But certainty.’

‘I have to deal with people who will demand proof before they act,’ James said. ‘How many rabble-rousers? Can you say?’

‘They’ll be everywhere, everywhere,’ Bowyer declared. ‘How many, sir? How many I cannot say.’

‘Dozens? Hundreds?’

‘Many hundreds, sir.’ Bowyer appeared to be making a great effort to concentrate on what he was saying; being an echo to Simon Rattray was one thing, speaking for himself was obviously another. ‘It is said that the Shadows will be present, sir. And every highwayman and footpad in London. They—’ His concentration wavered and he dropped back in his chair. ‘Every highwayman and footpad in London will take advantage of the troubles,’ he muttered, his chin on his chest so that the words were barely audible. ‘Fact,’ he muttered. ‘Certain fact.’

‘He told me that supporters of Lord George Gordon are giving ten shillings to each man who will start a fight and twenty to each who will start a fire, sir,’ added Simon. ‘And I can tell you beyond all doubt that money has been offered to some of my friends - men known to be ready to march anywhere in protest against the workers’ conditions. My friends won’t take bribes, what they do they do out of principle, but some people are well known for creating public disorders, hence the offer.’ After a pause he went on: ‘Have we convinced you of the seriousness, sir’?’

‘Yes,’ replied James. ‘If only Sir John Fielding were at Bow Street.’

‘Is he not there, sir?’ Rattray seemed shocked.

‘He is very ill at his home,’ James answered. ‘And with Mr. Welch out of the country, the remaining magistrates are not likely to take swift action. I will try to help,’ he promised, finishing his now cold coffee, ‘but if I know the authorities they will not act until it is too late.’ His eyes met Rattray’s and they seemed to be Johnny’s eyes. ‘I know what is needed but I do not think it can be arranged, Mr. Rattray.’

‘It will be a grievous day for London if it is not,’ Rattray replied.

‘You are absolutely convinced of what is to happen?’

‘As I believe in God, sir.’

‘I know what is needed,’ James repeated. ‘Every parish constable and every deputy, every peace officer and every Charlie, should be put on the alert; the Bow Street officers should be mounted and ready to move to trouble centres at short notice. And the first men to cause violence or start fires should be taken before a magistrate at once and committed to Newgate, Fleet or Gatehouse. If the affair could be crushed before it really began, then the use of troops could be avoided.’