In 1815, James Mackcoull arrived in Glasgow to demand the return of certain drafts and bills that had been seized by the authorities. He claimed them as his lawful property. The bankers, however, maintained that these securities had been purchased with the proceeds of a robbery committed against their own establishment. For five years, the matter shifted from correspondence with magistrates to civil litigation, culminating in two trials wherein Mackcoull was at last compelled to answer for the true source of the funds.
The man had already shed and assumed several lives and names. Born in London in 1763, he grew up in a numerous household: his father, a pocket-book maker, later became a city beadle; a younger brother was eventually executed for a highway robbery, while his mother and sisters were repeatedly convicted of petty offences. Mackcoull himself commenced his career early. At school, he plundered the playthings of his fellows; soon, his eye fell upon the vendor of cat’s-meat, who was wont to hang his money-bag from the handle of his barrow. Watching his moment while the vendor’s back was turned, young James severed the cord and made off with the pouch.
His father apprenticed him to a leather-stainer in Clerkenwell. The lad continued to consort with his former companions and was duly discharged. Following the theft of some watch-seals in St. James’s Park, the police apprehended his confederate. Mackcoull evaded arrest by slipping away under cover of night to a recruiting vessel off Tower Hill, where he entered as a volunteer in the Royal Navy.
The sea detained him for many years. He served as an officer’s servant on board the frigate Apollo, and subsequently upon the Centurion. Eventually rising to become clerk to the purser, he accumulated a considerable sum over nine years. In 1785, he returned to London, squandered his savings in the gambling-dens and haunts of the town, and resumed his thieving. He gained a reputation as a pugilist, gamester, and pickpocket; he plyed his craft even in places of worship, pressing close to the congregants. On one occasion, he relieved a preacher of his watch as the latter descended from the pulpit, earning from his confederates the moniker of the “Heathen Philosopher.”
At the age of twenty-eight, he married the keeper of a brothel and assisted in furnishing their lodgings in Clifford’s Inn Passage. He also converted the premises into a repository for stolen property. When the cache was discovered, he fled London. In 1802, he journeyed through Germany under the style of Moffat, giving himself out as an English merchant; running short of money, he reverted to plunder in the towns through which he passed. In 1805, he returned and repaired to Scotland, where he passed as a dealer in leather.
It was there that, in company with Huffey White and a man named French, he took part in the robbery of a Scottish bank. Mackcoull retained eight thousand pounds of the spoil. While the world believed him to have embarked for the West Indies, he remained quietly in Scotland, putting the banknotes into circulation.
In 1812, he reappeared in London. The bank had not forgotten the stolen eight thousand pounds. Arrested and conveyed to Glasgow, he did not seriously dispute his participation in the robbery, but offered to make restitution of one thousand pounds and delivered up a bill for four hundred. The bankers, not yet possessed of sufficient evidence to establish his guilt, consented to his liberation in July. According to Pelham, their agent subsequently received one thousand pounds from Harmer, an attorney—a sum Mackcoull later recovered through an action against Harmer, on the grounds that the lawyer had surrendered the money without lawful authority.
Mackcoull was by no means wedded to the names of Moffat and Mackcoull alone. In the company of a certain Harrison, he traversed Scotland purchasing commercial paper under the alias of James Martin, while presenting Harrison as a gentleman of fortune and credit. In 1812, he likewise opened a deposit account with the banking house of Marsh and Company under the name of James Ibel, which at one juncture held upwards of two thousand pounds.
In March 1813, he returned to Scotland to negotiate further bills. On this occasion, he was apprehended; the magistrates stripped him of drafts drawn to the order of James Martin, amounting to roughly one thousand pounds. He was presently liberated, but the securities remained in the bankers’ hands. Two years later, he demanded their surrender through legal correspondence, and subsequently repaired in person to Glasgow to demand them viva voce. Met with a firm refusal, he brought an action against the magistrates. The litigation dragged on for five long years: Mackcoull attended the sittings, instructing his counsel with consummate coolness, while the bank bore the burden of proving that the drafts were the direct fruits of the stolen notes. Had they failed, they stood to forfeit the papers and incur heavy costs, while Mackcoull openly intended to sue them for damages. Thus did the bank find itself partly financing an action brought by the very man it accused of having plundered its vaults.
At the bar, he gave himself out as a merchant and claimed to conduct his principal business with one James Martin—the very alias under which he had purchased the bills. When interrogated as to where Martin might be found, he could furnish no reply. He argued points of law with the subtilty of an advocate, treated all insinuations regarding his past with lofty disdain, and smiled whenever the gallery laughed at his sharp retorts. The proceedings repeatedly adjourned without a decision; he would return to London in high spirits to consult his brother John on their next manoeuvre.
In December 1819, the dispute was set down for a definitive trial of issue to determine whether Mackcoull had participated in the robbery. In preparation, the bank dispatched Donovan, a shrewd Edinburgh officer, to London to retrace the culprits’ route and gather witnesses. He returned with Scoltop, the blacksmith who had fashioned the false keys and implements used in the burglary, several inn servants, Mrs. Huffey White, and Mrs. Mackcoull herself, who was prepared to testify against her husband. The civil trial was heard, according to Pelham, on 11 May 1820; the concourse was so immense that the avenues leading to the court were utterly blocked.
When Scoltop stepped into the witness-box, the blow fell entirely unawares. Mackcoull repeatedly left the court, and upon catching sight of the artisan who had forged his tools, fell down in a swoon. The testimony of the witnesses marshalled by Donovan established his complicity beyond doubt. A few weeks later, on 19 June, he was placed upon his criminal trial before the High Court of Justiciary. The same witnesses were examined afresh; the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the court pronounced sentence of death. Mackcoull cast a vacant glare across the courtroom, ground his teeth, and received the dread decree with a bitter sneer. Yet upon his return to the gaol, his bravado vanished; he remarked that, had not the eye of God directed it, so unbroken a chain of evidence could never have been forged against him. Presently, he regained his composure, receiving with easy humour the curious spectators who flocked to see him.
His wife, whom he had nonetheless treated with great cruelty, came to visit him and brought comforts to alleviate his confinement. She likewise petitioned for royal mercy. On 14 July, a first reprieve stayed his execution; three weeks later, a further respite suspended the sentence until His Majesty’s pleasure should be declared. Mackcoull was thus spared the gallows. In August, he fell grievously ill; his bodily frame and mental faculties rapidly decayed, and his raven-black hair turned completely grey. He expired in the county gaol of Edinburgh on 22 December 1820, and his wife defrayed the charges of his decent interment in the Calton Burying-ground.