Then Captain Hawkes spoke. “My lords, I worked very hard to keep that boy”—he gestured to me in a courtly way—“from a life of crime, but against all my kind advice, he persisted in his thievery. My lords, I speak as a parish minister’s son. May I add, sirs, that jacket he is even now wearing, I do solemnly swear, he stole from me.”
Finally, Mr. Jonathan Wild came forward. When he did there was a stir in the crowd, as though some great luminary had burst into view. He was, as I had seen him before, scowling, but he was now shaved smooth. Dressed all in black—like a parson—his look was severe, as if he bore the burden of great judgment. His hat was in his hands but his coat was open, and as before, I could see that he still carried a pistol.
“My lords, as chief thief-taker general of Great Britain and Ireland,” proclaimed Mr. Wild, “it was I who arranged for the arrest of this notorious Melcombe Regis gang. May I call my lords’ attention to the fact that this band includes the infamous pickpocket Charity Pitts, sadly misnamed, who has stolen countless silk handkerchiefs from many a gentleman.”
To hear all these utterly untrue accusations left me nothing less than dumbfounded. They were preposterous. Beyond belief. Farcical fictions. I was reminded of my father’s phrase, “A man should be known, not by his friends but by his enemies.”
So we were.
But no one objected until the clerk asked Father if he had anything to say.
Father leaned out of the dock. “My lords,” he shouted. “You have heard nothing but sheer nonsense! Skimble-skamble! Not one word of it is true. All perjury.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I have spoken the truth, my lords. In this kingdom, surely that should be enough.”
From somewhere I heard a snicker. I was astonished, utterly crushed that Father offered absolutely no further defense. His brief tirade seemed useless.
Next moment the chief judge—who had not previously spoken—turned to the jury and said, “Have you a verdict?”
The men in the jury huddled together for a few brief moments. Even the sleeping man was prodded awake. All too quickly one of the men stood up. “All guilty,” he announced.
“Very well,” said the judge to us. “You are all sentenced to be hanged.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
In Which I Reveal What Happened Next.
The sentence was given carelessly. No ceremony. No emotion. Just said. Hardly more than a mere “hallo” or “good-bye.” Hearing those words was a piercing blow to my heart, causing deep and awful agony. I could not think or breathe, though I could weep, and did, the kind of choking, sobbing cry that shakes the whole body and soul. Charity wept, too. We stood there, heads bowed, trembling hands linked together. Who else had we to cling to?
The judge intoned, “Have you anything more to say?”
“Yes, my lord, I do,” Father cried out, leaning out of the dock. “I do!” Then he did the most extraordinary thing: he held up that leather bag, the one he had purchased in the Compter and brought along. “My lord, may I approach the bench?”
The chief judge looked up and perhaps for the first time I saw him smile. “You may do so,” he said, quickly recovering a severe look.
Father, clutching the leather bag, hastily climbed down from the dock and fairly ran through the crowd of prisoners, until he reached the judge’s desk. Standing as tall as he could, he plumped the bag heavily on that desk. It landed so heavily I could hear it clink.
The judge leaned forward. Words were exchanged. Father made his way back to the dock. I watched him come, and when I glanced over to the judge, I saw that the bag was gone.
Then the judge made an announcement: “An appeal for clemency has been asked and granted by the mercy of this court. Master Oliver Pitts shall not be hanged, but be transported to the American colonies for seven years. Mistress Charity Pitts, likewise not hanged but also to be transported to the same place for seven years. Mr. Gabriel Pitts, acquitted. Next case!”
It’s hard to give a full expression to what I felt. A marvel to have gained an unexpected life; wonderful to have the hanging noose withdrawn, delightful to be Lazarus-like, breathing the London air, foul though it was.
The next moment that joy was jolted by a dreadful new realization: I had been banished from England. Thrown out. Much more than banished. Transportation meant that for seven years I was to be a slave somewhere in the American colonies. Whereas I thought I knew what death might bring with all its terrors, I knew absolutely nothing about living in those remote places, save they were across a vast and hazardous sea. What would become of me?
The only softening of this terrible exile was that I felt relief that Charity and I would remain together. For had not the judge said, “Mistress Charity Pitts, likewise not hanged but also to be transported to the same place for seven years.”
Unexpected lives indeed.
But, lackaday, there was more to come.
CHAPTER SIXTY
In Which I Experience an Unexpected Ending.
Believe me,” Father whispered as we were led down from the dock. “I tried to bribe the judge for all our lives.” He was pleading to us now, pleading with embarrassment. “It was the judge’s perversity that acquitted me,” he added. “I asked clemency for all. At least I saved your lives.”
That certainly was true. I felt gratitude. But I felt bitterness, too. I did not think of myself as a criminal. I did not think so of Charity either. As far as I could think it through, we had been forced into crime. Yet here Charity and I had been turned into slaves.
The verdict also served to further separate us from Father. A pity that, for he had proved—in his fashion—that he did care for us.
In a low voice he also said, “I have saved a little money.”
With chains heavier than when we came to court, now on wrists and feet, Charity and I were led from court. Father, acquitted, followed along as best he could. He was free. We were going to Newgate.
Newgate Prison is the ancient stone prison infamous for its filth, corruption, and deprivation. Earlier in my account, I quoted Mr. Daniel Defoe’s (he who wrote Robinson Crusoe) sweet words about Melcombe. Regarding Newgate Prison, the same author wrote: “Such wickedness abounds that the place seems to have the aspect of Hell itself.” He spoke true: the Compter, by comparison, was a graceful palace.
Along with other prisoners we were brought into the entryway, something called the lodge. Immediately a demand was made of two shillings, six pennies to remove our irons. Then we prisoners were further divided, women from men so that Charity and I were instantly separated.
More choices: the master side for those who could pay fees, the common side for those who could not. Those who could pay gave six shillings and sixpence to the turnkey, plus more to the steward, who was the longest surviving prisoner in the jail.
By paying more than twenty pounds, Father secured me (and I presumed for Charity) the best accommodation, which meant a small room with a wooden floor and one window. Crowded. Beyond that he had to pay for the most ordinary comforts, food and drink. If you did not pay you were stripped, beaten, and generally physically abused. The truth is, as at the Compter, there was nothing for which one did not pay. A fellow prisoner told me the prison warden had paid some five thousand pounds for the wardship of Newgate. It was clear he was determined to wring back his investment.
The air was bad. Filth was everywhere. When I walked about, there was a crunching sound, which, as I discovered, came from stepping upon the vast numbers of fleas and lice that lived on the floors.
It was not unusual for transported felons to wait long times—months—in Newgate before being shipped out. As a result many died there before their time. Mind! If you died in Newgate, your family was required to buy your corpse—if they wanted it.
Our great luck was this: we were sent off within a few days.
Though it happened much faster than normal, the common practice was this: We were purchased by some shipping agent for three poun
ds. He would carry us across the Atlantic Ocean, then once in America, he would sell our seven years’ labor for ten pounds.
Our few days’ imprisonment passed. Charity and I both remained protected by Father’s open purse. He, like a repentant sinner, bestowed more care for us than we had ever experienced from him before.
On the day we were to board the oceangoing ships, just as when we had been marched from the Compter, a great crowd of prisoners was handcuffed two by two. These prisoners were mostly young men and women, plus children, for these were the people easiest to sell in America for labor.
Charity and I were bound together, as we wished it, and as Father paid for.
He also marched along with us. I shall be honest: we paid little attention to him.
As we passed through the London streets, there was much weeping and wailing among the prisoners, for people understood they were unlikely to see family ever again. If they outlived their transportation time, they might never come back.
Along the street many Londoners shouted abuse and wished us well out of country. Many a rotten vegetable and worse were flung at us. “Good riddance,” was the general tone of their remarks and actions.
Being linked by iron, and love, Charity and I walked side by side. To go together in misery, I suppose, is to make less of that misery.
Father walked by our side. At one point I asked him where he would go.
To my surprise he said, “Once I have raised enough funds I intend to go to America and join you so we can be reunited. There can’t be less justice than is here, and perhaps in the colonies there will be more.”
“I pray so,” Charity said.
We were led down to the edge of the Thames River, via the Blackfriars steps. We understood we’d be placed in small oar-driven boats, taken to the transatlantic ship, and then drop down the Thames and depart as soon as tide and wind proved favorable.
At the top of Blackfriars steps Father slipped some coins in our pockets, gave us final embraces, and said, “We shall meet again. Stay together.”
It was only when we reached the bottom step that disaster came.
Just as we were about to walk into the little boats, the line of prisoners was divided.
I was forced into one boat.
Charity was forced into another.
“We can’t be separated,” I cried, resisting my guard’s hand and trying to hold on to Charity. With a blow he simply knocked me down. “You go in different ships,” he said.
“But where?” I cried in great anguish.
“Who cares,” said the sailor.
If ever a heart was finally broken, surely mine was then and there. I sat in one small boat, Charity in another. The boats pulled away from shore and once upon the great river, they moved toward different ships.
I looked back. Father was standing on the steps, his face red with useless fury.
Swinging around I watched Charity’s boat move farther away, oars working in unison, like some multi-legged water beast. Her frightened, weeping face was turned toward me, as mine was turned to her. I shouted out a sacred vow:
“I will find you, Charity! I promise!”
Charity opened her mouth and no doubt returned my call, but the words were lost in the splash of oars and the moans and wails of my fellow prisoners. Would I ever, I wondered, hear the voice of my beloved Charity again?
I turned toward London, gazed upon its multitude of buildings, its church spires, and its vast crowds of people—its monsterish being—and hastily closed my eyes. Then and there, even as I was being pulled away, I swore that I would never be a slave.
And more: In some way, in some fashion—no matter what or how long it took—I would restore our freedom.
[To be continued in Book Two]
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
On pages 139 and 179 of his story, Oliver records the words of a song he overhears. In fact, the song he mentions comes from The Beggar’s Opera, by John Gay, first performed in 1728, some four years after Oliver’s story takes place. Gay’s song so perfectly captures the spirit of the times, I could not resist including it. It probably didn’t exist in 1724, but it certainly could have.
While the events and characters in this story are based on history, they are the product of my imagination, with one notable exception: Jonathan Wild was a real person, a most notorious and truly wicked man. In his lifetime, he was Great Britain’s preeminent criminal, who stole vast sums by pretending he was on the side of the law. When it suited him, he betrayed those who worked for him and sent them to death or transportation. His exploits were written about often (including by Daniel Defoe and Henry Fielding), and he was the model for many a literary criminal mastermind, including, perhaps, Fagan in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist and Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’s archenemy, as written by Arthur C. Doyle.
In May of 1725, Wild was in turn betrayed and then executed before a huge audience. His body was taken to the Royal College of Surgeons for dissection. If you are so inclined, you may view his skeleton in the Royal College’s Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.
AVI is the author of the Newbery Medal novel Crispin: The Cross of Lead and the Newbery Honor books Nothing But the Truth and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, among many other books for young readers. Avi lives in Colorado. You can visit him online at www.avi-writer.com. (Author photo by Katherine Warde.)
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an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
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ISBN 978-1-61620-720-5
Avi, The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts
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