Upon Hounslow Heath, a man vanished by the wayside. John Cole Steele, a vendor of lavender water, had departed London for his plantation at Bedfont. He was expected to return according to his custom; instead, his kin went in search of his trace along the lanes and coppices. He was discovered beneath a bush, his face and head battered to pieces, his boots and hat removed, and the pockets of his garments cut away. Near the body, an old hat of military cut at first encouraged the suspicion that soldiers had committed the murder. Yet no one could identify a culprit. When the jury heard the description of the corpse, they learned that a leather strap had been cinched about the neck, and that a heavy bludgeon and an old pair of shoes had been abandoned near the remains. Traces of blood marked the opposite side of the highway; the investigators concluded that the body had been dragged across.
Steele’s family had waited in vain for his return. The trial, as related by Borrow, reconstructs his final hours from recollections that do not always agree to the day. The tradesman had travelled to Bedfont, where he cultivated his lavender, and had subsequently slept at Feltham. In the evening, failing to procure a carriage, he set out toward London on foot. His disappearance dated from the early days of November 1802.
For several years, the search proved fruitless. Suspects were apprehended, notably two labourers who fell to quarrelling in Bristol and accused one another of dreadful crimes. The inquiry cleared them. A subscription was raised for their relief; Sir Richard Ford bestowed upon them three guineas and a pass to Liverpool. The clue of the military hat proved insufficient to establish who had killed Steele, and the case remained unsolved.
The turn of fortune came through a man already convicted of larceny. Benjamin Hanfield lay awaiting transportation aboard a prison hulk at Woolwich. Falling gravely ill, he spoke of the murder, professing a desire to unburden his soul before he died. The magistrates obtained his transfer ashore and had him conveyed to the heath. There, Hanfield pointed out a spot near the eleventh milestone, beside a clump of trees; he related that Holloway and Haggerty had proposed to him that they undertake a “no toby”—a footpad robbery upon the highway. According to his testimony, the three men had concealed themselves among the trees to lie in wait for a traveller. They had quitted London at midday, halted at the Bell public-house to drink porter, and then waited near the eleventh milestone. When the moon rose, Holloway deemed that they had arrived too early. Hanfield related that they then walked along the road toward Bedfont until Holloway declared he heard footsteps.
Hanfield stated that Steele surrendered his money and pleaded that no harm be done him. He resisted, however, when Holloway demanded his pocket-book; Hanfield pinioned his legs whilst Haggerty rifled his clothing. In the struggle, the men crossed the road. When a carriage approached and Steele raised a cry, Hanfield related that Holloway swore he would silence him, striking him repeatedly about the head and body.
The man who delivered this narrative incriminated himself therein: he did not appear as a distant spectator, but as one of the three assailants. He asserted, however, that he had fled before the remaining two abandoned their victim.
At Hounslow, he recounted, Holloway and Haggerty rejoined him. Holloway thrust Steele’s hat into his hand as proof that they had “done the job.” Hanfield disapproved of the slaughter, but initially consented to hold his peace. Upon returning to London, he questioned Holloway concerning the stolen pocket-book; the latter retorted that he would share none of the plunder, as Hanfield had refused to share the peril. Shortly thereafter, Hanfield observed Steele’s name written inside the hat. The three men weighted it with stones, tied up the lining, and cast it into the Thames near Westminster Bridge.
The confession did not immediately become a public accusation. In Newgate, Hanfield let slip that only three souls knew of the robbery, and he perceived that the other prisoners suspected he meant to turn King’s evidence. Aboard the Portsmouth hulks, guilt drove him, he declared, to drink in order to drown his knowledge. At length, he made a formal disclosure to Sir John Carter. Since his own felony still disqualified him from testifying against his confederates, the authorities petitioned for a royal pardon. An officer was dispatched to fetch him; on the journey to London, Hanfield once more pointed out the scene of the death. His subsequent discharge permitted him to appear as an approver for the Crown, though his complicity demanded the closest scrutiny of his words.
Holloway was apprehended at Brentford; Haggerty, who had enlisted in the Marines, was discovered aboard the frigate Shannon at Deal. Under examination, Haggerty denied knowing either Hanfield or Holloway, or frequenting the taverns mentioned. Holloway, for his part, acknowledged knowing both men, but swore he had never drunk with them nor ever set foot in Hounslow. Yet witnesses had seen them together in the public-houses of Dyot Street. John Sawyer, an ostler at the Bell, had seen them repeatedly at Hounslow, though he could not affirm they were in company together. The officers likewise produced articles of clothing resembling those described by Hanfield. A pair of shoes was tried upon Haggerty; they proved somewhat too large, but a shoemaker observed they had been pulled out of shape by a wearer with a smaller foot.
A police officer named Bishop contributed a singular piece of evidence. At the Worship Street police office, the two men were confined in adjoining rooms divided by a partition. Behind the cells lay a privy; Bishop took up a post there following the examinations, transcribing their private conversation. In one exchange, Haggerty asked Holloway where Hanfield had claimed they drank gin after the murder. Holloway replied: at the Black Horse. Haggerty assented that they had indeed drunk there. For Borrow, this dialogue, taken with their other overheard remarks, demolished their pretences of mutual ignorance.
At trial, the two prisoners repudiated Hanfield’s narrative. Haggerty maintained he knew nothing of the informer and had never been to Hounslow; Holloway now conceded he had visited Hounslow several times and might have been there when the others were, whilst continuing to deny any connection with them. The defence could point to the manifest infirmity of an accomplice saving his own neck by impeaching his associates. Borrow’s record, however, joined his deposition to the eavesdropped words in the cells, the witnesses to their companionship, the hat, and the shoes. The jury deliberated for roughly fifteen minutes and returned a verdict of guilty against both men.
On the eve of their execution, both convicts continued to assert their innocence. Holloway protested that he did not even know the place of the murder. At the gallows, he cried out, “Innocent!”, and then, according to the report, “No verdict!” The chronicle turns thereafter to the vast multitude assembled to witness the execution. Borrow estimated the throng at nearly forty thousand souls; he described persons trampled, women unable to extricate themselves from the press, a boy crushed beneath the feet of the crowd, and an infant passed from hand to hand until a man succeeded in sheltering it beneath a cart. The dead were conveyed to several places of reception. The final spectacle of the tragedy was thus one of public retribution that mangled the onlookers in their turn, while the two condemned men died without ever admitting the crime.