The record of James How does not terminate with the burglary for which he was tried, but with certain papers he entrusted to the prison ordinary, requesting that they be preserved for their rightful owner. Between the two lie a disputed accusation, an abortive attempt to deliver a prisoner from Newgate, and a petition for mercy addressed to a person who had no power to grant it.
How was a native of Windsor, in Berkshire. His parents, honest folk of middling station, had bestowed great care upon his education, which, according to the chronicler, ought to have fitted him for almost any respectable calling. He, however, preferred idleness to sustained labor. Having become too heavy a charge upon his family, he was sent to sea. His hardy constitution and natural daring soon earned him some advancement aboard; he even served upon the admiral’s flagship and was remarked as a youth likely to thrive. That fair prospect vanished the moment he set foot on shore.
How fell in once more with his former companions. They represented pocket-picking to him as the readiest means to supply expenses born of the pursuit of pleasure. He gave ear to them and, according to the narrative, thereafter laid hands on whatever lay within his reach. Within a few years, he passed repeatedly through Bridewell and various common gaols; the chronicler recounts the attendant degradations and corporal punishments customary to such commitments. After several confinements in Newgate for lesser misdemeanors, How was at length convicted of felony and sentenced to transportation.
To evade being sent to labor in the plantations, he forged a letter purporting to come from a gentleman of quality. The instrument, according to the account, directed that he be set at liberty so that he might serve usefully aboard one of His Majesty’s ships of war. The fraud was detected. He was sentenced to two years’ hard labor in Bridewell; yet when he was brought thither, the keeper refused to admit him. The governors of the house knew him of old, and feared he would render the other prisoners unruly by furnishing them with contrivances for escape. How was accordingly conducted back to Newgate, where he served out the prescribed term. The chronicle nowhere records the precise date of his discharge, nor the warrant by which it was effected.
It states merely that he returned forthwith to his thieving ways. Having turned housebreaker, he was apprehended and charged with stealing five pounds from the dwelling of John Spence. At the following sessions, a bill of indictment was found against him and he was set to the bar. How began by declaring that certain proposals had been made to induce him to make discoveries, and prayed to be admitted as King’s evidence. The court replied that it could not treat with a prisoner at the bar: the indictment having been read, he was required to plead guilty or not guilty.
How persisted in claiming the status of an evidence and refused to plead to the indictment. The bench warned him that such obstinacy could never purchase clemency, and that should he stand mute of malice, he would incur a far heavier judgment than that reserved for his conviction upon the charge. He made answer that he could but die, and that the manner of his death mattered little to him. Sentence was accordingly pronounced in conformity with the statutory procedure for prisoners who refused to plead; the chronicle records that he was led away and ordered to be put under the press. Yet before the matter proceeded further, he begged respite until the following morning to consider his course. The delay was granted him. On the morrow, he pleaded guilty.
While he lay under sentence of death, a robbery of household plate brought How’s name once more before the Ordinary of the gaol. Mrs Dawson had been robbed of two silver tankards, two mugs, a cup, a punch-ladle, seven pounds sixteen shillings in coin, and a quantity of papers she held to be of great value. Her suspicions fell upon Eleanor Reddey, who was taken into custody. Reddey initially confessed to having unbolted the door by night to William Read, who was alleged to have carried off the goods while she kept watch. She was convicted; Read, tried alongside her, was acquitted, the record observing that no evidence whatever was produced against him.
Following her conviction, Reddey protested her innocence, maintaining that her first confession had been suggested to her by neighbors. According to her later account, these persons had persuaded her to confess and to accuse Read, flattering her with the hope of saving herself by turning evidence against him; she had yielded through the terror of having the whole crime laid upon her shoulders. She affirmed that she had signed this declaration before Justice Jackson. The narrative thus leaves us with two irreconcilable accounts: a confession of complicity, followed by a post-conviction recantation. It reports neither fresh inquiry, nor review of the sentence, nor any independent proof capable of resolving the matter. Read’s acquittal is set down to the absolute lack of evidence against him, whereas Reddey had been condemned upon her own admission. This late retractation worked no change in the outcome of the trial within the surviving pages; it nevertheless leaves open whether the initial confession spoke the truth. It is of equal moment that this denial arose after Reddey’s condemnation, at the very juncture when How, already sentenced for another felony, claimed direct knowledge of the missing effects.
How then interposed, asserting that he had himself robbed Mrs Dawson. He declared that he held a great part of the plate and most of the papers, offering to restore them if the lady possessed sufficient interest to procure a pardon either for himself or for Reddey. The Ordinary observed to him that Mrs Dawson was powerless to grant such a pardon, and exhorted him to make what restitution lay in his power. How initially refused to surrender anything, unless some benefit were obtained either for himself or for the condemned woman. This negotiation did not in itself establish Reddey’s innocence; it nevertheless cast upon the conviction already pronounced a doubt which the chronicler leaves unresolved. The source does not record that How was ever indicted for the robbery at Mrs Dawson’s, nor that he answered any fresh charge before the court. His declaration was made while he lay in the condemned hold; it stands as a belated claim of responsibility, not as a judicial verdict delivered upon the matter of the plate.
As his execution drew near, How altered his demeanor toward the chaplain. He told him that the plate was no longer within his power, but that the papers had been brought to him in a box. He delivered this up, desiring that it be preserved with care, knowing well the value its owner set upon it. The notice specifies neither the nature of these writings, nor whether the box was ever delivered into Mrs Dawson’s hands. Nor does it record that the plate was recovered, that royal clemency was solicited, or that any judicial re-examination followed the surrender of the box. Thus the promised restitution remained partial and its sequel unknown: the papers were placed in the Ordinary’s keeping, the silver remained beyond recovery, and the victim obtained no further judicial resolution within the record.
At the place of execution, on September 11, 1728, How appeared chiefly concerned to clear his wife, whose name the chronicle omits, from every breath of suspicion. He died aged near thirty-eight years. The narrative leaves unanswered the ultimate fate of the papers entrusted to the Ordinary, that of the plate which How declared beyond his power, and the final destiny of Eleanor Reddey.