Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

His silence after he entered the room enabled the Cousins James to mop their eyes and compose themselves. Mr. James Hyde took the time to examine Richard Morgan at closer quarters than the court room had allowed. A striking fellow, big and tall-a pity he had not worn a wig, it would have transformed him. The case had hinged upon whether the accused was a decent man insulted beyond bearing at finding his wife in bed with another man, or whether the accused had, so to speak, cashed in on the opportunity his wife’s infidelity had offered. Of course he knew from the Cousins James that the woman was not his client’s wife, but had not made capital of it because, were she known as a mere whore, the case would have been blacker. It was the unveiling of a plot had done for Richard Morgan; judges were notoriously prejudiced against accused felons who committed their crimes with cold-blooded forethought. And juries found as the judge instructed them to find.

Cousin James-the-druggist broke the long silence, handkerchief tucked away. “We have bought this room and all the time we want with you,” he said. “Richard, I am so sorry! It was a complete fabrication-every one of those people, however menial, was a part of Ceely’s circle.”

“What I want to know,” said Richard, sitting down, “is why Mr. Benjamin Fisher of the Excise did not appear for me as a character witness? Had he, things might have gone very differently.”

The Reverend James’s mouth compressed to a thin line. “He was too busy, he said, to make a journey of eighty miles. The truth is that he is busy concluding a deal with Thomas Cave, and cares not about the fate of his chief witness.”

“However,” said Mr. Hyde, who looked far less imposing out of his attorney’s gear, “ye may be sure, Mr. Morgan, that when I write your letter of appeal to Lord Sydney, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, I will have a letter from Mr. Fisher attached. But not Benjamin. His brother John, the Commander.”

“Can I not appeal in a court?” Richard asked.

“No. Your appeal takes the form of a letter begging the King’s mercy. I will draft it as soon as I return to London.”

“Have some port, Richard,” said Cousin James-the-druggist.

“I have had naught to eat today, so I dare not.”

The door opened and a woman brought in a tray bearing bread, butter, grilled sausages, parsnips, cabbage and a tankard. She put it down without any expression on her face, bobbed a curtsey to the gentlemen, and departed.

“Eat, Richard. The head gaoler told me that supper has been served already in the gaol, so I asked for food.”

“Thank you, Cousin James, truly thank you,” said Richard with feeling, and dug in. But the first piece of sausage on his knife’s point was subjected to a long sniff before being gingerly tasted; satisfied, Richard chewed with gusto and carved off another slice. “Sausages,” he said, his mouth full, “are usually made from rotten meat when they are served to felons.”

His meal finished, Richard did sip at the glass of port, then grimaced. “It is so long since I have had sweet things that I seem to have lost my appetite for them. We get no butter with our bread, let alone jam.”

“Oh, Richard!” chorused the Cousins James.

“Do not feel sorry for me. My life is not over because I must spend the next seven years of it under some form or other of imprisonment,” said Richard, rising to his feet. “I am six-and-thirty and I will be six months short of four-and-forty when my sentence is done. The men of our family are long-lived, and I intend to keep my health and my strength. Those five hundred pounds from the Excise Office are mine no matter what happens, and I will write to the lackadaisical Mr. Benjamin Fisher directing that he pay them to you, Cousin James-the-druggist. Take what I have cost ye out of them, and use the rest to keep me supplied with dripstones, rags, clothes and shoes. With some to the Reverend James for books, including those he has already given me. I am not idle here, and my labor means that I am fed. But on Sundays I read. A blessing.”

“Remember, Richard, that we love you dearly,” said Cousin James-the-druggist, hugging and kissing him.

“And we pray for you,” said Cousin James-of-the-clergy.

Willy Insellwas the only prisoner acquitted at the assizes held in Gloucester during that March of 1785. Six were sentenced to be hanged: Maisie Harding for receiving stolen goods, Betty Mason for stealing fifteen guineas, Sam Day for stealing two pounds of weaving yarn, Bill Whiting for stealing a sheep, Isaac Rogers for highway robbery, and Joey Long for stealing a silver watch. The rest, some ten in all, were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Africa, wherein His Britannic Majesty possessed no formal colony. Richard was well aware that had the Cousins James not testified as to his character, he too would have gotten the rope; though Bristol was far away, two of its leading citizens could not be quite ignored.

More importantly, how were they all going to fit into this tiny place? Within a week the answer was manifest: nine of the prisoners died of a malignant quinsy in the throat, as did the remaining children and ten debtors on the Bridewell side.

The situation in England’s prisons was absolutely desperate, which had not prevented the Gloucester judges from handing down their drastic sentences.

Between 1782 and 1784 three attempts had been made to deliver felons to America. The Swift was turned away on her first voyage, though some of her transportees escaped, assisted to do so by the Americans. On her second voyage in August of 1783 she took 143 prisoners on board and sailed from the Thames for Nova Scotia. But she got no farther than Sussex, where her human cargo mutinied and beached the ship near Rye. After which they scattered to the four winds. Only 39 were recaptured; of those, six were hanged and the rest sentenced to transportation to America for life. Just as if transportation to America were still an option, so slowly did the mills of government grind, not to mention the judicial mills.

In March of 1784 a third attempt to unload transportees in America was tried. This time the ship was the Mercury and the destination was Georgia (which, along with the other twelve newly united states, had already served stern notice to England that it would not, repeat, would not accept any transported felons). The Mercury took 179 men, women and children felons aboard and sailed from London. The mutiny occurred off the coast of Devon and the Mercury fetched up near Torbay. Some were still on board when recaptured, most had fled; 108 all told were apprehended, a few having ranged as far afield as Bristol. Though many of them were sentenced to hang, only two actually were. The political climate was shifting.

The Recovery in January of 1785 represented the last attempt of a disorganized nature to relieve gaol overcrowding; she took a cargo of felons to the equatorial wetlands of Africa and dumped them ashore without guards, supervision or much by way of necessities to survive. They died hideously, and the African experiment was never repeated. Clearly future transportees would have to be cared for in ways less provocative of public scandal. Between the prison reformers John Howard and Jeremy Bentham, the Quaker agitators against slavery and African expansion in general, and the two new names of Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce looming on the horizon, Mr. William Pitt the Younger’s fledgling government deemed it wise to provide no ammunition for social crusaders of any kind. Especially since Bentham and Wilberforce were important men in Whig Westminster. The extra taxes economic necessity had made unavoidable were odious enough. Mr. William Pitt the Younger owned one quality in common with a convicted felon named Richard Morgan: he intended to survive for many years to come. And in the meantime, Jeremy Bentham was allowed to tinker with the plans for the new Gloucester Gaol, while Lord Sydney of the Home Department was instructed to find somewhere-anywhere!-to dump England’s huge surplus of convicts.