John Everett did not become a highwayman by virtue of a single lapse. He had labored, served under arms, worn the uniform of the Foot Guards, and subsequently obtained the post of turn-key at the New Prison; yet each return to a regular existence yielded to some fresh financial embarrassment, an arrest, or an unfulfilled pledge. His final prosecution, arising from the robbery of Mrs. Manley, was to bring this career to an irrevocable close.
Born at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, of parents whom the chronicle describes as honest and reputable, Everett was educated for trade and apprenticed to a merchant. Before his term of service had expired, he departed for Flanders, taking part in several sieges and engagements during the recent war. He rose to the rank of sergeant in General Howe’s regiment of foot. Following the conclusion of peace, he returned to England and, while quartered at Worcester, purchased his discharge.
In London, he earned his bread for some seven years as an officer of the Whitechapel Court. When impending debt threatened him with imprisonment, he re-enlisted in the Foot Guards, serving in the Earl of Albemarle’s company. At the lodgings of a certain Mr. C——th, he became acquainted with Richard Bird, who, observing their mutual penury, proposed that they seek their fortunes upon the highway. Everett consented. Having equipped themselves, they began to ply their trade throughout Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, and Kent.
Among their earliest notable exploits was the robbery of the Dartford coach. From it they carried off a portmanteau containing jewels, money, and goods of substantial value. They spent their gains as rapidly as they acquired them and, despite multiplying their thefts, were never extricated from want. Stopping the Woodford coach, they found but a single passenger whose possessions attracted their notice, stripping him of a gold watch and some money. The gentleman complained bitterly of the loss of his timepiece; the robbers offered to restore it provided he promised to deposit a specified sum at an appointed place. The chronicle does not record whether this bargain was ever fulfilled.
Upon Hounslow Heath, they set upon two army officers attended by servants armed with blunderbusses. Notwithstanding the officers’ resistance, they deprived them of their gold watches and money. In consequence of an understanding reached on the spot, the watches were left at the Young Man’s Coffee House in Charing Cross, where their owners redeemed them for twenty guineas. The account depicts these transactions as covenants extorted under duress; the restitution of property upon the payment of a demanded sum did nothing to alter the felonious character of the theft.
Squire Amlow, of Bream’s Buildings, was attacked on the Epsom road while riding in an open chaise. Drawing his sword, he attempted to strike at the highwaymen, who nevertheless robbed him of two guineas, a silver watch, a silver-hilted sword, and several parchment deeds. At his earnest entreaty, they returned his writings. The watch, pawned with one Corket, a broker in Houndsditch, was likewise subsequently recovered by him. In another encounter, they despoiled an elderly woman of a high-crowned hat which she declared had belonged to her mother; upon examining it, they discovered three pounds concealed in the lining and restored the garment to her. On Acton Common, they halted two carriages carrying gentlemen and ladies, carrying off money, watches, and other effects valued at forty pounds.
Everett himself recounted several of these robberies in a narrative wherein a cynical levity turned violence into sport. Upon Hounslow Heath, he describes intercepting a coach carrying two Quakers, who reportedly denounced him as a son of violence and leaped to the ground to offer resistance. He claimed to have stripped the pair of thirty or forty shillings and their watches, before tearing away the toupee of the one and clapping an old wig upon his head. He added that Bird rifled the remaining passengers. The chronicler reproduces this relation to demonstrate the trifling air with which Everett represented his misdeeds, noting that he chose to omit the profanities of the original text.
In these same memoirs, Everett recounts a robbery upon Millington Common, where he and Bird stayed two horsemen, depriving them of a few pounds and their watches. They slit the saddle-girths and carried off the bridles to impede pursuit. To make good their escape, the pair crossed the Thames by ferry; when their pursuers pressed too near, they paid the watermen, compelled them to cast their oars into the stream, and, plunging into the water themselves, swam to the opposite bank. Everett relates this flight as an almost diverting adventure, giving no heed to the terror this coercion inflicted upon the boatmen.
He was ultimately arrested on suspicion and committed to the New Prison, where he lay for three years. His conduct there proved sufficiently orderly that the magistrates granted him his liberty and appointed him gaoler of the place. He subsequently took the Red Lion, an inn in Turnmill Street, in the hope of bettering his condition, and resigned his office when his successor—formerly a servant to the Duchess of Newcastle—desired the post. The latter, however, soon discovering his own incompetence in the office, recalled Everett, who consented to return. He instructed the new keeper in the management of the prison and the provisioning of the prisoners, only to be dismissed as soon as his superior believed he could dispense with his services.
Everett then took another public house, fell heavily into debt, and was confined within the Fleet. While there, he kept several tap-rooms in succession, including the Fleet Cellar, until the House of Commons committed both the warden and Everett himself to Newgate for their participation in an illicit scheme concerning the prison’s administration. During this confinement, a brewer seized his stock of beer, valued at three hundred pounds. Everett subsequently asserted that this ruinous loss drove him back to the road. The chronicler doubts whether he is to be believed: Everett had previously preserved his own neck by impeaching Bird, who was hanged at Chelmsford, and had solemnly sworn to renounce such crimes forever.
His first venture under this renewed resolution was directed against a lady traveling in a carriage with a six-year-old child. At her request, Everett put up his pistol so as not to terrify the infant, contenting himself with a single guinea and some silver, leaving her gold watch and other valuables untouched. The lady’s husband, accompanied by another gentleman, pursued him on horseback. Everett reached the Globe Tavern in Hatton Garden by the narrowest margin, sent his horse away, and took refuge in an obscure alehouse in Holborn; his pursuers rode past the door without discovering him.
His final robbery was committed against Mrs. Manley and another gentlewoman, in a coach attended by a boy named William Coffee. Everett initially eluded his pursuers and slipped back into town, but the suspicions of his neighbors were aroused; he was taken, then discharged for want of evidence. Apprehended anew, he was brought to trial at the Old Bailey for this assault. Mrs. Ellis deposed that he was the man who had stopped the carriage, having observed him dogging them as they quitted London. Mrs. Manley likewise identified him. William Coffee, who had been riding behind the coach, swore positively to his person. Several men present at his capture testified that he was found carrying a pistol, a dagger, six balls, a flint, and a powder-horn beneath a red coat.
His defense carried little weight with the jury, who returned a verdict of guilty after a brief deliberation. Sentenced to death, Everett initially entertained hopes that the gentlewomen he had robbed would petition for his mercy. In a letter addressed to them, he entreated their pardon for the terror occasioned to the passengers and the child, protesting that his sole design had been to raise fifty pounds in order to establish himself in a public house and lead an honest life. He further imputed his penury to the counsel of a master whom he claimed to have served. The letter solicited a petition to the Recorder that the King might commute the sentence. This plea availed him nothing; the warrant for his execution was speedily issued.
The accounts of his final days do not entirely agree. The chronicler takes issue with the Ordinary of Newgate, who had drawn an unmitigatedly dark portrait of the man: he contends that Everett possessed certain commendable traits, not least a natural good nature, and notes that he attended chapel with decent composure. Other endeavors to preserve his life, conditioned upon his providing disclosures regarding a matter of public moment, came to naught. Everett was executed on February 20, 1730—the date being recorded as 1729–30 in the source. He was about forty-four years of age. The chronicle adds that the executioner leaped upon his shoulders to hasten his death, whereupon the rope broke; Everett was bound anew and remained suspended until the other malefactors had been cut down.