Blind Justice

Having often been asked to commit to print these memories of my association with the late Sir John Fielding, the celebrated magistrate of the Bow Street Court, I now set pen to paper for the first time, determined not merely to illuminate the feats of detection for which he is so justly renowned, but also to set forth those prodigious qualities of character that enabled him to accomplish them. He was indeed a man of remarkable powers. Although deprived of his sight, what most would deem the cardinal of the senses, Sir John nevertheless led an exemplary life. His professional achievements are, of course, well remembered. With his half-brother Henry, the late, lamented romancer and jurist, he organized and commissioned that band of worthies known ever after as the Bow Street Runners. These thief-takers have functioned as London’s constabulary and made safe even by night a city in which previously, as even one of their severest critics declared, “one was forced to travel even at noon as if one was going to battle.”

As magistrate. Sir John sat daily, judging in all fairness the poor wretches who were paraded before him, giving unto each the full measure of his keen intellect, questioning witness and accused with like impartiality. Finding cause, he would of course bind over for trial. Yet such was his nature that the mere accusation of a felony was never sufficient in itself to doom a man to an ordeal before the bench at Old Bailey. Unlike many of his fellow magistrates, he demanded evidence. He required direct witness of the eyes, valuing above all else what he himself could not have given. Should one appear before him and have the temerity to offer as truth what had been merely heard or supposed, that unworthy would immediately feel the sharp, quick lash of Sir John’s tongue and be sent on his way forthwith. In truth, he discharged more prisoners than he sent on for trial. Never lenient, he was albeit exact. And he was particularly watchful (if indeed one may use so fanciful a conceit with regard to one who lacked the power of sight) of those so-called independent thief-takers, masters of false witness and entrapment, who made it practice to deliver the innocent up as guilty. Of this sinister legacy from the days of the notorious Jonathan Wild I myself had direct experience, for I, reader, truth to tell, first laid eyes upon the good Sir John when I found myself brought before the bench of the Bow Street Court as one accused of thieving.

Pray, let not this confession shock you so that you be tempted to set aside this eulogy, for as it will soon be shown, accused though I may have been, my accusers themselves were the true thieves; though what they plundered from me and sought to destroy was my own good name. Indeed it may be said true that I, Jeremy Proctor, myself now a member of the bar, first saw the inside of a court of law as defendant. How I came to be there I shall briefly impart, though to recall those terrible circumstances now brings me pain some thirty years after the event. Nevertheless, now to my history:

I was born in the year 1755 in the town of Lichfield, also the birthplace of the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson. There, my father, a printer by trade, earned an honorable living for himself and his small family in the assistance of a master printer, one John Berkeley by name. Of us Proctors there were but four: my father, my mother, my brother, Matthew, who was two years my junior, and myself. When a plague of typhus settled upon Lichfield in the summer of 1765, it claimed my mother and my brother. Having then but two mouths to feed and being enterprising by nature, my father set forth the following year for the village of Stoke Poges with his savings and me, having determined to seek his fortune with a print shop of his own. He should have chosen a better site.

In the beginning he prospered, finding commissions aplenty from parishes in the area, a few merchants, and from the local squire. His stock-in-trade was handbills, programs and adverts of one nature or another. He also instructed me in the trade, and to this day my skill in setting type is cause for amazement among my colleagues, most of whom have no knowledge of trade of any sort. My father also tutored me in letters and sums, and by near my thirteenth year had undertaken to teach me some Latin and what he knew of the French language. What he knew was considerable. Though an autodidact himself, he took great interest in the language and literature of our near neighbors across the water. Yet it has ever beeti so that an interest in things French has carried with it a certain risk here in England, and so it was for him, for it ultimately proved his undoing and led to his death.

Being something of a freethinker himself, he had a great passion for the writings of the philosopher and romancer who signed himself Voltaire. He had arrived at a point where he wished to demonstrate that he was capable in his art of something more than the handbills he turned out daily, and so he resolved to print a pamphlet. Because he claimed no skill as a writer and no doubt also because he wished to propagate the views of M. Voltaire, my father set about to translate a pamphlet of the Frenchman, the name of which I have blotted from my mind. The resultant work, which he titled “A Call to Thought,” he hoped to sell for the odd penny. But since he reckoned it primarily as a sample of his work as a printer, he freely distributed it gratis through the village, making sure in particular that copies were put in the hands of his regular customers. Among them were, as I earlier mentioned, certain members of the local clergy. They were generally displeased by the pamphlet; not my father’s printing, of which they appreciated little; nor by his translation, which they appreciated less; but rather by the sentiments of M. Voltaire, whom they deemed an atheist and a troublemaker. One spoke sharply to him of the content of the essay, and my father was unwise enough to argue the matter with him.

That man, by name Mr. Pettigrew, who headed a congregation of Low Church brethren, felt most specially grieved by the pamphlet, and with him my father argued most vehemently and imprudently; for Pettigrew (I cannot bring myself to use the honorific further) preached a sermon of a Sunday against atheism in general, Voltaire in particular, and my father most specifically. I know not what was said, for I have not been from that time to this a communicant, but it was sufficient to stir the congregation to wrath and dispatch it forth as a mob of avenging angels to wTeak havoc upon us. They marched straightaway to the print shop and beat upon the door demanding entry. My father, warning me to remain in our rooms above, descended bravely with the intention of calming and dispersing the mob. Yet no sooner had he appeared before them than they set upon him and abused him unmercifully. From above I watched, cowering shamefully, I allow, as the congregation knocked and kicked him senseless, then cast him aside and poured through the doors of our shop. Once inside, they smashed the press and scattered type. All this I heard and merely guessed at as I hid in our two rooms above. The destruction complete, the mob’s fury somewhat dissipated. The good people of Stoke Poges retired, dragging after them the dazed and inert body of my father.

When next I set eyes upon him he had been clamped in the stocks. He had been brought before the local magistrate, charged with blasphemy, convicted as a matter of course, and sentenced to a week in the stocks. He was to be released the following Sunday, when he might then take himself to the church and beg God’s pardon, the congregation’s—and Pettigrew’s, of course. Yet my father never lived past Tuesday. What know you, reader, of this cruel and humiliating punishment which is still practiced in some benighted corners of the realm? It is no joke, as some seem to hold it, for a man to be trapped head and hands between two blocks of wood, his face a target of all manner of filth which the brutes of the village may wish to pelt him with.

I visited him once and only once in that state. I carefully wiped his face clean of ordure and mud with the tail of my coat. He looked up at me gratefully and declared his sorrow at being seen in such condition. His face, revealed, was a mass of bruises from the beating given him by the mob. There were also fresh cuts and welts from the stones that had been cast at him. Although barely to his senses, he earnestly charged me to leave. “There is nothing for you here, Jeremy,” said he to me. “Lock up the house. Board up the shop. Go to John Berkeley in Lichfield. I will meet you there.”

I nodded and whispered my promise to do as he bade, then departed, running away in tears as a pack of village lads approached. Some distance away, I stopped and looked back to see the jeering, noisome bunch pitching mud and stones at the poor figure bent double between the boards. This was my last glimpse of him alive. Word came ere I had finished with my preparations for the trip to Lichfield that my father was dead: pelted to death. The messenger was the fat deacon, one Kercheval by name. He informed me with a leer that I was now an orphan and that I was to be brought before the magistrate so that my future might be settled. I recall that the wild notion passed through my young head that I needs must take my father’s place in the stocks. Yet on leaving I had the foresight to take up my little bundle of belongings with the coins from our cashbox rolled up inside. Kercheval grabbed me roughly and made to march me forth. In opening the door, he unwisely relaxed his grip, and I shook loose from him and took to my heels. I ran tor the fields as though the devil himself were after me and not some lubbering, lumbering deacon going apoplectic in the chase. I distanced him in no time and made for a copse where I hoped I might hide. When I reached it, I had no thought of remaining, for from there I had a view of the crossroads at which stood the stocks, and I saw that what Kercheval had said was indeed true. My father’s body had been removed from them and laid out beside the fiendish contraption, his shirt pulled up over his head to cover his face. A group of townsfolk stood around him, talking amongst themselves and shaking their heads. Whether he had been done in by a sharp stone or had suffocated beneath a weight of mud or manure I cannot say. It was, however, clear that he was dead. And so I continued on, running, walking, hiding from passersby. I slept in a field that night. It was not until the next day that I learned that the road I had taken led not to Lichfield but to London.

Of how I came to the great metropolis I shall not recount much here, reader. Let it be said only that the journey took the lesser part of a week and that sometime along the way I passed my thirteenth birthday. I arrived in London nearly exhausted in body and spirit, with only a few shillings between myself and penury. What was I to do? I had some vague plan of seeking employment from a printer yet had no notion of how and where to go about it. Even if I had, surely the sight of such a great city with its multitudes teeming through the streets would have expunged it from my mind. My first day in London I spent wandering about, dodging through the throng, my bundle clutched tight in both hands. I remember that I asked one man politely how I might find my way to a printer’s and then was answered with such a torrent of abuse as I, in my young life, had never heard before. How had I offended the man, merely detaining him? Pondering that, I approached another and put the same question to him. He responded readily enough but in a manner of speech for which I had no understanding. The fellow was speaking plainest Whitechapel to me, yet my comprehension of it was so dim that he may as well have been speaking to me in another language—nay, French I would have indeed understood better! From him I got only the phrase “flight straight,” and I wondered how he supposed I might manage any sort of flight, straight or crooked. But perhaps he meant I should continue straight ahead.

You can imagine my relief when, as I stood perplexed on a corner of the street, I myself was approached by a man. He was a rather rough-looking sort, but seemed friendly enough, with a smile fixed on his face, “You’re a likely-looking lad,” he said to me.

“I hope so,” said I to him.

“How would you like to earn a shilling?”

Remembering that my supply of cash had dwindled to not much more than that, I answered enthusiastically, “Oh, indeed I would, sir.”

He explained that there was an errand to be run for a man of his acquaintance, one that required a pair of swift feet. “Can you run, boy?”

“Oh yes, sir,” said I, “like the wind.”

He laughed heartily at that and led me a short way down the street. I could not help but note the stout staff he carried in one hand, using it to strike sharply on the stones of the street with each step. I thought it strange, for he was surefooted and showed no signs of lameness. As we went, he explained that all I need do was carry a package at all speed to an address which I would be given. I informed him that I was a stranger in the city and knew not London well, yet I was told I would be provided with directions to the location.

“Will it take me near a printer, sir?” I asked. “I seek employment as an apprentice.”

“You’ve good fortune by you, boy, for there is one not two doors past.” And then he halted me suddenly and indicated a way down a dark lane. “There,” said he, “go to the end of this alley here, and you will find a man name of Slade awaiting outside the Cock and Bull. Just tell him you’re the lad what Bledsoe sent.”

I nodded. “You’ll accompany me no farther?”

“No, I’ve my own matters to look after.” And he turned and walked away in the direction we had come.

I stood, looking after him, thinking this a very queer business indeed. Yet I was new to London and eager to earn a shilling, so I turned down the lane and sought the Cock and Bull. It was as I had been told. Outside the grogshop a figure stood by the door, lounging indifferently. Was this the same Slade who was so keen for quick delivery he was willing to pay a shilling for foot post? His attitude did seem passing strange.

Yet as I approached him he roused himself and nodded with some show of interest as he listened to me repeat the formula given me by Bledsoe. From under his coat he produced a packet of goodly dimensions in a kind of woolen purse. Ihis he offered me, saying, “Here, lad. You must make straightaway with this to one William of Threadneedle Street, a broker. ‘1 is a mile from here, hard left at Shoreditch, whence you came. Can you run a mile?”