The sergeant was going his rounds across the great square when an unexpected noise drew his attention toward two open chests. In one lay James Carrick, his own officer, gagged and bound; in the other lay the Spanish friend with whom Carrick had accepted a gallant invitation. Only hours before, both gentlemen had entered a handsome residence. A trapdoor had given way beneath their feet, thieves had stripped them of their possessions, and Carrick had been shorn even of the gold lace upon his coat. Thus opens one of the adventures ascribed by the chronicle to this Irish ensign turned highwayman.
James Carrick, otherwise called Valentine Carrick, was the younger son of an Irish gentleman residing near Dublin. His father procured him an ensign’s commission in a regiment ordered to Spain and provided amply for his maintenance. The young officer accordingly cut a figure in camp far above what his pay could warrant: his tent was the resort of the fashionable, and when the troops were in quarters, he was wanting neither in equipage nor expense. He had received a liberal education and belonged to a family accounted by the chronicler to be of sufficient estate; yet this fortunate condition did not preserve him from an extravagance that soon exceeded what his rank could endure.
The regiment was cantoned at Barcelona after the reduction of that city by the English forces. There Carrick became acquainted with several Spanish gentlemen who favored King Charles. Among these was Don Rafael de Ponto, a man of birth and fortune, who conceived a very warm friendship for the young officer. Carrick had been bred to the Roman Catholic faith, and notwithstanding what he professed before his English comrades, he readily accompanied his friend to mass; the officers, notes the chronicler, regarded this merely as an act of civility toward his companion.
Vespers frequently served the two comrades as a rendezvous when they set forth in pursuit of amorous adventures. One evening, a duenna delivered to Don Rafael a billet appointing a meeting beneath a window near a convent, inviting him to come with his friend if he did not fear a Spanish lady. Carrick accepted the adventure. At the appointed hour, wrapped in their cloaks, they posted themselves beneath the balcony. The woman presently reappeared at the casement, threw down a second note, and bade them have patience. After a quarter of an hour, she came down, opened a door behind them, and ushered them into an elegant apartment where two young women received them.
Their compliments were brief. The two gentlemen were approaching the ladies when a great disturbance was heard upon the stairs. Leaving the women, they fell back toward the window with drawn swords. The noise ceased; the floor shook beneath them and suddenly gave way. They fell headlong into a low, dark cellar, where several men disarmed, gagged, and bound them fast. The robbers rifled them of their valuables, going so far as to strip the gold lace from Carrick’s clothes. Having left them there for a considerable time, they carried them out in two lidless chests and set them down in the middle of the great square.
They had lain in the square scarcely a quarter of an hour when Carrick’s sergeant passed on his rounds with a detachment of musketeers. Carrick recognized his voice and made all the noise he was able. The sergeant and his men sought out the sound, discovered the chests, and released the two companions. The following morning, Don Rafael’s steward waited upon Carrick. He explained that his master, being very ill, sent his service and a packet. Within it, Carrick found a watch, a diamond ring, and a bill of exchange for two hundred pieces of eight. The record observes that this sum answered exactly to what Carrick claimed to have lost; Don Rafael desired in this manner to repair the misfortune his friend had sustained.
Upon his return to England, Carrick no longer held his commission and found no other honest livelihood. Yet he continued in the expensiveness and pleasures to which he was accustomed. The women of the town occasionally supplied him with money, but their contributions proved insufficient to support his style of living. He thereupon agreed with one Smith, his countryman, to rob upon the highway. They presently associated themselves with Butler, another Irishman, whom Carrick subsequently impeached, and who was executed upon his evidence. Carrick’s elder brother, hearing in Ireland of the young man’s courses, wrote earnestly entreating him to return to Dublin, where he promised to receive him and provide him with an establishment notwithstanding what was past. He exhorted him not to despair of doing better; the prospect of a restoration to his family thus remained open, though Carrick answered it by no reformation in his life.
Carrick disregarded this counsel. As soon as he regained his liberty, he returned to robbery upon Finchley Common, Hounslow, and Bagshot Heath. He squandered the money thus obtained at play, in fine clothes, and upon the women of his acquaintance. When these highway robberies proved too slow in their returns, he joined Molony, Carrol, and other Irishmen to rob passengers in the streets. In this course they gained more for a time, without being apprehended.
One night, between one and two in the morning, they stopped a sedan chair in Little Queen Street, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The passenger was the Honourable William Young. Carrick held a pistol to the gentleman’s breast; the gang carried off a gold watch valued at fifty pounds, a sword, and forty guineas. Carrol kept watch upon the street, while Molony pressed the traveler to deliver his money. Shortly after this robbery, Carrick and Molony were taken. Carrol succeeded in escaping into Ireland.
In Newgate, Carrick carried himself with a cheerfulness which the chronicle deemed singular. He recounted the adventures of his life to visitors as though they were divertissements intended for a company at cards. The report of this demeanor spread through the town, and curiosity ran high; the turnkeys demanded money from all who came to see him, and these repeated visits greatly increased their fees. He jested upon the price put upon this curiosity, remarking that the crowd might have seen him for nothing on the day he was carried to Tyburn. Down to his final hours, he kept several of his former female acquaintances about him, despite all admonitions to dismiss them from his cell.
At the place of execution, Carrick preserved this same assurance. According to Mr. Purney, the Ordinary of Newgate, he affected an airy manner, bowed to those he recognized in the crowd, and continued his light pleasantries until the cart drew off. He declared himself a Roman Catholic and believed he had made his peace with God in his own way. The chronicler discovers in this no proof of genuine repentance; he describes rather a man who, even upon the gallows, maintained to the last his concern for outward show.
James Carrick was executed at Tyburn on the 18th of July, 1722, being about twenty-seven years of age. The young ensign who had lived beyond his pay had known in Spain the snare of an ambuscade, and in England the roads, the night streets, and the prisons. The narrative traces in his taste for fine attire and prodigality the thread uniting these successive stations; it concludes upon this final performance of self, sustained before the populace until the very moment the cart was driven away.