Robert Holloway

“ Reader! as the business becomes a little more serious, I must crave a little unprejudiced attention. The warrant being executed in the evening, I undertook to produce the parties next morning, before the magistrates; they, of course, willingly appeared; when the hardy villain related the particulars of the assault committed upon him, as if he had never heard of the crime of perjury, or the punishment annexed to it: however the two defendants were of course ordered to find bail, which they did. ”

“ And yet the laws of the country afford her no redress, the abomination is no cause of divorce; yet if, on her part, she should listen to the voice of nature, and presume to convince the world that she feels the poignancy of her misery, and flies to the arms of a man who knows how to estimate her worth, the law, like a bull-dog, seizes on her indiscretion, and she is deemed unworthy the association of the virtuous part of sex! ”

“ We will now come to the prevalency of the crime in the present age. About five and twenty years ago, there existed a society of the same order with the Vere-street gang, in the City of Exeter, most of whom were men of rank and local situation; they were apprehended, and about fifteen of them tried; and, though they were acquitted by the letter of the law, the enraged multitude was so convinced of their guilt; that without any respect to their rank, they burnt them in effigy. ”

“ I must now bestow a few observations upon the transactions at Marlborough-street: and, first, with respect to the extortion and respectability of the prosecutor, who, by his own account, is a gentleman’s servant out of place—no very promising subject for extortion; a fellow whom Cook states to be one of the lowest attendants at Vere-street, for the most depraved purposes;—a fellow that was obliged to borrow a great coat to appear before the magistrates!!! ”

“ I own I participated in all the guilt except the final completion of it, which is abhorrent to my nature. I am, therefore, the more criminal, because I had no unnatural inclinations to gratify:—I was prompt by Avarice only, and not by the indulgence of vicious propensities;—if I had, there would be witnesses enough against me, among the detestable crew I am about to expose.”
Cook, though an illiterate, man, possesses a strong mind, and an accurate memory. ”

“ There is now a wretch in Newgate, under sentence of three years, for this abominable crime, and that, too, for the third time!—this lump of excremental filth (known among the p. 16gang by the appellation of Miss Fox) has been a common hack ever since he was twelve years old, and is now about seven and twenty: it is said that he is at this hour the darling of a young man of rank, who audaciously introduced him to his family as a fellow-student at college; and, in one year, squandered seventeen hundred pounds upon this miscreant. ”

“ It has been observed by an elegant writer, that “the man who allows the oppression shares the crime;” and I certainly shall shew that Cook has endured a scene of oppression that the laws of this country never did, and I never will sanction, for the purpose of p. 8screening opulent infamy; the crime of the man is no justification of the brutality with which he was treated—a brutality repugnant to the feelings of every man possessing the generous bravery of Englishmen, who are ever merciful. Cowards only are cruel ”

“ I have only to observe, on the conduct of the reporter, that there can be no act of diabolism equal to the mischief originating in the ignorance, falshood, or that species of low bribed calumny, that is to be procured from the necessities of a fellow, who would libel the fairest character in the nation, for a beef-steak and pot of porter: and it is astonishing, that magistrates will suffer such vermin to infest the office:—at best, these hireling reporters are not to be depended upon ”

“ Cook, under an idea that it would procure him a remission of the pillory, was desirous of disclosing the names of a great number of p. 20persons involved in the transactions: and a meeting took place, at the Secretary of State’s Office, upon the subject; but which produced no other effect, than an order to put Cook in the Pillory the next day, which was accordingly done; and, upon his return to Newgate, Suter, the head turnkey, said to him, “Cook, it was not intended you should have come back alive!”—There can be no doubt but that the Turnkey’s apprehensions were well founded. ”

“ The sufferings of Cook and his wife are marked with great aggravation: for they are sacrificed, not as an atonement for their own crimes, but that the crimes of others shall not be atoned for! and for myself, I should not be surprised at any act of desperation their wrongs may drive them to;—for, when injustice is thought no crime, revenge becomes a virtue.
FINIS.
p. 65ADDENDA.
I think it necessary to give some account of the debt of £60 for which Cook is now confined in the Fleet, at the suit of Mr. Henry Meux. ”

“ It is an offence, like that of rape, easily charged, but very difficult to be disproved;—the accusation should, therefore, be clearly and incontestibly made out; for if false, it deserves a punishment inferior only to that of the crime itself: and Sir M. Hale relates two very extraordinary cases of malicious prosecutions for rape, that happened within his own observation, and concludes thus; “I mention these instances, that we may be more cautious upon trials of offences of this nature, wherein the court and jury may with so much ease be imposed upon, without great care and p. ”

“ Cook’s brother, a poor hard-working man, happened to have about forty pounds in his possession, a sum devoted to pay for some timber, to carry on his business as a bedstead-maker; and who, under the agonizing affliction of a brother in such a predicament, in order to facilitate his enlargement, deposited the amount of the debt, and ten pounds costs, in the Sheriff’s office, until the return of the writ, when it was intended to justify bail, and try the cause. I will now account for Cook’s p. 50being defeated in a remedy provided even by an Act of Parliament. ”

“ Having stated sufficient to lay the foundation of an inquiry in a Court of Justice into the truth of Cook’s relation, I shall in this place only ask a few questions of the parties implicated; and that, too, without raising a pretence to prate about libels: in doing which it may be sufficient only to enlarge upon a sagacious and judicious remark of a worthy Magistrate, viz. How came a man of fortune and fashion to such a house?—I, therefore, shall repeat the question—What possible business could a man of rank, or respectable merchant, or clergyman, or any other man in the p. ”

“ Cook is really a good-looking, nay, a pretty woman. However J. Shenston, whether John or Jane I know not, received from Cook a knock-down blow in (his) turn; with the token of which clinging to his nose and month he ran back to Moggy Stewart’s; and, after a fainting fit or two had been recovered, Shenston assumed his male character, and posted away to Marlborough-street; where, upon the p. 52usual terms, he obtained a warrant against both Cook and his wife, for a pretended assault committed upon him. ”

“ The old worn-out catamites are stationed in different lodgings, and maintained, for the purpose of entrapping servants out of place, and other distressed characters; and as distress is the most potent enemy to virtue, they too frequently succeed in the objects of their employers:—no expence is spared for clothes, public places, or pocket money, till the ends are obtained. Many of these breeches-clad bawds have chambers in the different Inns of Court, the Temple not excepted, where they carry on their practices with greater security from detection ”

“ James Cook, the author of this pamphlet, with shame, confesses that he was an eye and ear witness to the execrable scenes of iniquity he relates, and, but for the damning proofs that put to confusion every attempt at contradiction, he would despair of gaining credit for an hundredth part of the odious tale he has to unfold. ”

“ It is somewhat about the same period, that I was with Sir William Aldington, at Bow-street, about some business; when a gentleman of great worth (if such a wretch can be said to have any worth) was brought into the office by a soldier, named Cope, and changed with attacking him, with an intent to commit an unnatural crime. He stated, that the preceding evening, about half past eleven o’clock, he was stationed in the Park, under the wall of Marlborough-gardens; when this gentleman came up to him, and after some conversation, attempted to put his hand in his breeches ”

“ In this dreadful situation, I call it a dreadful situation, for whatever crimes a man be charged with, he is certainly entitled to the benefit of a defence; especially when he p. 6paid so amply for it: and though ultimately he was convicted, and sentenced to the Pillory, I would ask, if, under all these circumstances, his virtuous attorney ought not to have been sentenced to a gibbet?—However, it does not appear to me, that had Wooley done all that he was able, he could have saved Cook from his fate ”

“ The reader will recollect that I declared myself an advocate for the oppressed of every description; a declaration I shall elucidate in the close of these pages, and which will be found to originate in Cook’s anxiety to expose the parties implicated in the atrocious scenes related: and it must be lamented, that in this instance, as in all others where indigence has to combat with wealth, this man has raised a host of powerful enemies; for there is scarcely any description of men, but some individual p. ”

“ He is now in Newgate, undergoing a punishment for keeping the rendezvous of the miscreants; a punishment which ought, in strict justice, to have fallen to the lot of the characters whose infamy will shortly come under the cognizance of the public.
“N.B. It is said that the ghost of White, the drummer boy, lately executed for Sodomy, pays his nocturnal visits to old Moggy, the rump-rider, Park-street, exclaiming,
“Monster! amidst the din of infernal howl
The fiends in hell will scramble for thy soul.” ”

“ The country round the tree was inhabited by people strongly addicted to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah; when the great Prophet, Mahomet, determined not to suffer them to lead such detestable lives any longer, he applied to God to punish them ”

“ Meux is wholly ignorant of his wretched situation.
After Cook’s trial for the pretended assault, the public will be favored with the names and residences of the parties who are the principal objects of this publication; a great number of whom will be compelled to attend in Court, to give evidence on particular points connected with the trial. ”

“ O say procured—for, during forty years’ practice I never before, in any one instance, hired bail: and, upon her being liberated, the magistrate, of course, granted a supersedeas to the warrant. Yet, astonishing as it may appear, at least to every professional man, this ill-fated woman was seized on the Saturday-night following, as she was going into the Fleet to her husband, by a ruffianly fellow named Creswell, a city constable; and a companion, disdaining to be behind-hand with his master in brutality ”

“ I may not be correct as to the number of times he stood in the Pillory, but I know it was more than once.
When this phenomenon of a trial was ended, Mr. Bond, the magistrate, and myself walked out of the court together, who exclaimed—“what do you think of this conviction?” To which I answered, I think as you do, that the jury ought to be taken out of the box, and hanged at the hall door. However, what can be said? but, alas, poor human nature! judges are but men, and juries subject to fallability! It may be supposed, that the prosecutor received every assistance that could be had: the late Mr. ”

“ It may naturally be supposed that this vice is more expensive than any other, and is the vortex that engulphs the property of men, whose acquaintance are astonished at the mode of their getting rid of their fortunes. I remember a man, who had a place of great emolument, a considerable sum of ready money, and thirty thousand pounds, the fortune of an p. ”