When John Carr had exhausted his expedients, there remained to him, according to Camden Pelham, only a commerce with the dead. He had quitted the sea, known the counter and the barracks, borne arms as a sergeant, and followed privateers in their prizes. In London, after the revenue officers seized his contraband merchandise, he set about forging the last wills of mariners. The enterprise brought him to the Old Bailey; he was condemned to death and hanged at Tyburn on the 16th of November, 1750. In the consulted edition of 1887, Pelham’s retrospective compilation recounts less a trial than a prolonged succession of departures, hoped-for fortunes, and ill-assured identities.
Carr’s first adventure, as recounted by the chronicler, still places him among the dupes. The son of parents whom he termed respectable, educated in the north of Ireland, he entered trade in Dublin at sixteen years of age as a wine merchant. Ill company, it is said, soon drove him from it. An associate proposed that he join him in Kilkenny; in the coach, Carr remarked a young woman whose elegance led him to suppose her of high birth.
He applied himself to making her acquaintance. At the inn, he obtained from the coachman the intelligence that she came from Dublin and was journeying to the waters of Mallow. On the morrow, Carr persuaded the travelers to prolong their halt in order to view the seat of the Duke of Ormond. Pelham makes of this promenade the ground whereupon each appraised the other to advantage: Carr believed himself to be courting a lady of quality, whilst his companion took him for a gentleman of distinction. She represented herself as an Englishwoman of noble extraction; he paid his addresses to her. She held out the hope that a union might be possible, contingent upon her fortune and the consent of her relations. Carr followed the traveler to Mallow, notwithstanding the warnings of a friend who harbored suspicions of her.
Summer being ended, she spoke of a voyage to England prior to the nuptials. It was requisite to raise the passage money. Carr procured it; but, while he was occupied with securing the tickets, the woman caused her effects to be carried aboard a vessel bound for Amsterdam, assumed male attire, and embarked. She departed without him. The chronicle offers this episode as a lesson in credulity, without disclosing what subsequently became of the traveler, nor how Carr responded beyond the regret attributed to him.
After this reverse, Carr reached London and enlisted in the army. He served there several years before receiving his discharge, and thereupon entered the marine infantry. Having returned to the capital, he opened a shop in Hog Lane, in the parish of St Giles. He married a young woman whom he believed to be possessed of wealth; discovering that she was not, he abandoned her and went to reside in Short’s Gardens, where he entered into partnership with a cork-cutter.
His trade prospered tolerably well, says Pelham, yet gaming consumed whatever it brought in. Carr’s table companions sought to turn his condition to their own advantage. Aware that he already possessed a wife, they promised him another advantageous match and introduced him to an heiress of fortune. The design came near to succeeding. One of the men, seized with remorse, disclosed the matter to the young woman’s father, thus putting an end to the intrigue. For Carr, once again, the narrative makes of a contemplated marriage the threshold of discomfiture.
He subsequently found employment as a porter to a merchant. His master entrusted him with a bill for sixty pounds to be cashed. Carr took the money and, according to Pelham, squandered it in debauchery. He then returned to the marine forces. On this occasion, his superiors deemed his conduct sufficiently commendable to advance him to the rank of sergeant. The chronicle insists upon this contrast: the man it depicts as a gamester and faithless to his employers knew how to bear himself honorably under the orders of his officers, who showed him marked favor.
Aboard a stout vessel, Carr took part in several captures. A merchantman of valuable cargo was taken, followed by several smaller craft. The prize-money distributed among the crew gave him, writes Pelham, a taste for privateering. He quitted the service and entered aboard a privateer as master-at-arms. The cruise opened with the capture of two French vessels, brought the one into Bristol, the other into the port of Poole. Putting to sea once more, the crew took a French privateer; they subsequently gave chase to three sail, which proved to be Falmouth vessels captured by the French. The English recaptured them. On their way toward Falmouth, they took yet another French vessel, whose lading enriched the crew.
On the ensuing voyage, a ship gave them chase. An engagement ensued; Pelham records that several Frenchmen were killed, whereupon their ship sought to fly, being captured after a pursuit of some leagues. The English commander had sustained mortal wounds. He died a few days thereafter. Carr paid court to his widow; she too died of a violent fever, having bequeathed unto him the whole of her worldly possessions. The narrative provides neither her name nor the particulars of this estate. Carr disposed of the property by sale and returned to London.
It is at this juncture that the chronicle turns the course of his life from maritime prize-taking toward forgery. Carr betook himself first to the smuggling trade. The revenue officers seized his goods. He then adopted, according to Pelham, a more hazardous course: the fabrication of sailors’ wills. The chronicler specifies neither the names of the purported testators, nor the sums aimed at, nor the persons who laid information against Carr. He states merely that he gained money for a season, that he was apprehended, brought before the Old Bailey, found guilty, and condemned to death.
Throughout these vicissitudes, money never appears as an enduring store: Carr acquires it in trade, loses it at play, embezzles it from a master, divides it as prize-money, and then receives it of a widow. In the end, according to Pelham, he reaped profit from the testaments he attributed to departed mariners. This alternation imparts to the biography a measured cadence—to gain, to lose, to begin anew—without the chronicler pretending to explain the forgery by that alone.
The chronicler adds that Carr professed the Catholic faith and that he died with a decent resignation. On the 16th of November, 1750, he was executed at Tyburn. It is upon this sentence, recorded in a few lines, that Pelham closes the career of a sailor turned privateer, and at the last, a forger.