James Shaw, who also answered to the name of Smith, received sentence of death following the demise of Philip Pots, who was assaulted by several footpads in the vicinity of Pancras. As the hour of his own execution drew near, Shaw acknowledged he had prior knowledge of the deed, whilst maintaining to the last that he had borne no active part in the murder. The chronicle leaves this distinction unresolved. In return, it faithfully recounts the robberies he did confess, the stratagems he was wont to relate, and the plot for a gaolbreak devised within the prison walls where he lay awaiting Tyburn.
The chronicler was unable to determine which of the two appellations—James Shaw or Smith—was his true name. His parents possessed both the means and the inclination to provide him with a liberal education, yet, according to the narrative, his unsettled humour only grew more obstinate through family indulgence. He was put to trial in several callings, none of which could fix his interest. He remained long enough with a maker of gun-locks to acquire some portion of the mystery; from this craft he would occasionally turn a penny, though he vastly preferred easier and more illicit expedients.
Shaw laid a portion of his earliest thefts at his wife’s door. When he earned nine shillings a week by his labour and returned home spent with toil, he would find his hearth in disorder, with no one to dress his supper or husband what little goods he possessed. He put forward this domestic wretchedness as the source of his necessities and of the fatal shifts he embraced to relieve them. This explanation rests solely upon his own word; the chronicle offers no corroboration from any other tongue.
The Hampstead Road was his chief hunting ground. Shaw professed to see no great wickedness in stripping the superfluous coin from those who squandered it in luxury, or who had won it by sharping at play. Under these categories he included the gentry who frequented the Wells and Belsize. One evening, he rode up to a coach bearing a notable magistrate, who had just carried off some four hundred pounds at the tables, and Count U——n, a foreign gamester of considerable repute. Shaw and a confederate on horseback stopped the carriage. The justice thrust his long purse behind a cushion; the Count, having little to lose, produced a few pieces of gold; and the magistrate offered twenty guineas to induce the highwaymen to begone.
Shaw would not be put off with such a composition. He dropped a broad hint that the hidden purse must hold far more, and ordered the travellers to alight. Shaking the cushion with some violence, he dislodged the bag, whose contents scattered upon the road. The two riders gathered up the gold. The magistrate, so the narrative runs, cursed the ill luck that had stripped him of his winnings, whilst the Count lent a hand in scooping up the coin. Witnesses appeared almost at that very instant; Shaw and his companion spurred away at a gallop, but were taken in London some three hours after the robbery, alongside the witnesses, and conveyed before a magistrate.
Shaw demanded why the Count was not likewise brought to book, seeing that he had assisted in gathering up the booty. The magistrate inquired into the foreign gentleman’s quality, and was informed that he was indeed a Count, newly returned from Naples upon affairs of great moment. The justice observed that he had heard of his person before, yet declared he would not entertain the charge, in regard that the Count had been travelling in company with his fellow magistrate. The Count’s judicial fate was thus wholly different from that of the two robbers, notwithstanding Shaw’s insistence that the foreigner had profited from the scattered gold. Shaw was subsequently discharged.
Once at large, lacking the means to purchase a horse, he returned to robbery on foot. He was wont to observe that a footpad could never effect an escape without doing violence either to his victim or to the traveller’s horse. A grave elderly gentleman whom he accosted on the Hampstead Road begged him to show civility, promising in return an old pair of breeches stuffed with coin and valuables. He pointed toward a tree where, he claimed, his avarice had driven him to bury the treasure. Shaw repaired to the spot, where the old man bade him grope for three pieces of tobacco pipe intended to mark the cache. As Shaw stooped down, the gentleman whipped out his small-sword and dealt him several thrusts in the neck, side, and breast.
Upon another occasion, likewise near the Hampstead Road, Shaw fell in with a well-attired man, an erstwhile peruke-maker turned gamester. The fellow took him for an easy dupe and proposed a game of cards. Shaw feigned to have sworn an oath never to gamble within doors, but consented to hazard a few shillings upon the greensward, provided his companion first secured his horse to a tree. The two men tethered their beasts near a small alehouse and made for a pasture. When the gambler set about shuffling the pack, Shaw sprang forward, seized him by the throat, and eased him of three and a half guineas from his breeches pocket. He thereupon smashed two false card-boxes, split two pairs of loaded dice, scattered the cards to the winds, and left the gamester bound hand and foot.
Soldiers were subsequently quartered along this highway; their presence reassured the inhabitants of London, yet it afforded little protection to travelers. According to the chronicle, robberies went on unabated, and the thieves treated their victims with greater cruelty, fearing pursuit. It was for an outrage of this nature that Shaw received his sentence. Philip Pots was on horseback when he was set upon by several footpads near the Pancras tile kilns. He was unhorsed and grievously wounded in several parts of his body with his own sword, which one of the assailants had wrested from him. Passers-by lifted him from the road and conveyed him to the Pinder of Wakefield. He had been attacked on a Saturday; on the following Monday, after lingering in great agony, he expired.
Shaw was apprehended for this murder and for another robbery committed between Highgate and Kentish Town. At first, he denied having the least knowledge of the fatal affray; as death drew near, he admitted he was privy to the crime, though he maintained he had no hand in the execution of it. The jury found him guilty of the murder and of the robbery; to the very last, Shaw preserved the distinction he drew between being privy to the deed and acting in it.
Whilst awaiting execution alongside John Smith, William Colthouse, and Jonah Burgess, the four felons concerted an escape. They had procured pistols and resolved to shoot their way out against any who offered resistance. The design was discovered before it could be put in motion. Burgess, in a transport of rage, cut his own throat. According to the chronicle, Burgess then asserted that Shaw had intended to make away with himself with one of the pistols. This Shaw vehemently denied. He asserted, on the contrary, that when Burgess declared he would prevent his enemies from beholding him ride over Holborn Bridge on his way to Tyburn, he, Shaw, had earnestly exhorted him not to lay violent hands upon himself, nor grant his adversaries a second triumph by the damnation of his soul.
His wife remained foremost in his reproaches. At the close of his existence, Shaw persisted in tracing the ruinous path of his life to her conduct, which he could not bring himself to forgive. The chronicler notes that while he made no formal confession of Pots’s murder, he did not positively deny it either. He was about twenty-eight years of age, and met his end on the 8th of February, 1722, on the same day as John Smith. Thus was Shaw brought to Tyburn after a career of robberies on the highway and an escape boldly concerted but brought to naught, without ever turning his condemnation into a full and unreserved confession.