The Chronicles of Crime. Camden Pelham
of a handsome annuity upon the prosecutrix, he received a pardon from the King. He soon found, however, that London was no longer a place in which he could appear, unless to be pointed at with the finger of scorn; and he retired to Edinburgh, where, after a lapse of two years, he died in a miserable manner, the victim of his own dissolute and hateful passions.
His vices were so notorious, that it was not without great difficulty that his body was committed to the grave. The place appointed for the reception of his remains was the family vault in the church of the Greyfriars in Edinburgh; but the mob having assembled, they made a violent effort to obtain possession of his coffin, with a view to tear it and its contents to pieces, and committed a variety of other irregularities, in honest contempt of the detestable character which he bore. At the time of his death, he was possessed of very large estates in England and Scotland, the produce of many usurious transactions, to which he was a party during the latter portion of his life. He was married to the daughter of Sir Alexander Swinton, of Scotland, by whom he had one daughter, who was afterwards united to the Earl of Wemyss.
Soon after Charteris was convicted, a fine mezzotinto print of him was published, representing him standing at the bar of the Old Bailey with his thumbs tied; at the bottom of which was the following inscription:
Blood!—— must a colonel, with a lord’s estate,
Be thus obnoxious to a scoundrel’s fate?
Brought to the bar, and sentenced from the bench,
Only for ravishing a country wench?
Shall men of honour meet no more respect?
Shall their diversions thus by laws be check’d?
Shall they be accountable to saucy juries
For this or t’other pleasure?—hell and furies!
What man through villany would run a course,
And ruin families without remorse,
To heap up riches—if, when all is done,
An ignominious death he cannot shun?
A most severe but just description of the character of Charteris was afterwards written by Dr. Arbuthnot, who published it in the form of an epitaph, as follows:—
HERE LIETH THE BODY OF
C O L O N E L D O N F R A N C I S C O,
WHO, WITH AN
INFLEXIBLE CONSTANCY,
AND INIMITABLE UNIFORMITY
OF LIFE, PERSISTED, IN SPITE OF
AGE AND INFIRMITY, IN THE PRACTICE OF
EVERY HUMAN VICE, EXCEPTING PRODIGALITY
AND HYPOCRISY; HIS INSATIABLE AVARICE EXEMPTING
HIM FROM THE FIRST, AND HIS MATCHLESS IMPUDENCE FROM
THE LATTER. NOR WAS HE MORE SINGULAR IN THAT UNDEVIATING
VICIOUSNESS OF LIFE THAN SUCCESSFUL IN ACCUMULATING WEALTH,
HAVING, WITHOUT TRUST OF PUBLIC MONEY, BRIBE, WORTH, SERVICE,
TRADE, OR PROFESSION, ACQUIRED, OR RATHER CREATED, A MINISTERIAL ESTATE.
AMONG THE SINGULARITIES OF HIS LIFE AND FORTUNE, BE IT LIKEWISE
COMMEMORATED, THAT HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN HIS TIME
WHO WOULD CHEAT WITHOUT THE MASK OF HONESTY;
WHO WOULD RETAIN HIS PRIMEVAL MEANNESS, AFTER
BEING POSSESSED OF 10,000 POUNDS A YEAR;
AND WHO, HAVING DONE EVERY DAY OF
HIS LIFE SOMETHING WORTHY OF
A GIBBET, WAS ONCE CONDEMNED
TO ONE FOR WHAT HE
HAD NOT DONE.
THINK NOT, INDIGNANT READER, HIS LIFE USELESS TO MANKIND.
PROVIDENCE FAVOURED, OR RATHER CONNIVED AT, HIS
EXECRABLE DESIGNS, THAT HE MIGHT REMAIN, TO THIS
AND FUTURE AGES, A CONSPICUOUS PROOF AND
EXAMPLE OF HOW SMALL ESTIMATION
EXORBITANT WEALTH IS HELD IN
THE SIGHT OF THE ALMIGHTY,
BY HIS BESTOWING IT ON
THE MOST UNWORTHY OF ALL THE DESCENDANTS OF ADAM.
SARAH MALCOLM.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THIS unhappy young woman, who at the period of her death was only twenty-two years of age, was born of respectable parents, in the county of Durham, in the year 1711; but her father having, through his extravagance, spent the whole of the property which he possessed, she was at length compelled to resort to what is commonly called “servitude,” for the means of subsistence. In this condition for several years she conducted herself extremely well; but at length being employed at the Black Horse, a low public-house in Boswell-court, near Temple-bar, which up to the present day has been constantly the notorious resort of persons of bad character, she formed connexions of no very creditable class, by whom she was led on to her ruin. Having at length quitted the Black Horse, she was recommended as a laundress to take charge of chambers in the Inns of Court; and amongst those for whom she there worked, was a Mrs. Lydia Duncomb, a lady nearly eighty years of age, who occupied a set of chambers in the Temple; Elizabeth Harrison, aged sixty, and Ann Price, aged seventeen, living with her in the capacity of servants. This lady being reputed to be very rich, a scheme was formed by Sarah Malcolm of robbing her chambers; her object being, it was supposed, by the acquisition of wealth, to make herself a fitting match for a young man named Alexander, who she hoped would marry her.
The night of Saturday, 3d February, 1733, was fixed upon by her for the commission of the robbery; and Martha Tracy, a woman of light character, her paramour Alexander, and his brother, were to be her assistants in the execution of the project. Malcolm, by means of her acquaintance with the chambers, obtained possession of the keys of the outer door in the course of the day, and at night the robbery was effected, but with it the murder also of Mrs. Duncomb and her servants Harrison and Price. On the Sunday morning some surprise was excited on its being observed that none of Mrs. Duncomb’s family were to be seen; and at length, as the day advanced, great alarm was exhibited, and suspicions were entertained that all was not right. Mrs. Love, Mrs. Rhymer, and Mrs. Oliphant, friends of Mrs. Duncomb, assembled in the afternoon at the door of her chambers, in obedience to an invitation which they had received to dinner; but being unable to gain admittance by knocking, they at length determined to force an entrance. One of the windows was resorted to for this purpose, to which access was obtained from a neighbouring set of chambers; and then, on Mrs. Oliphant going into Mrs. Duncomb’s bed-room, the old lady was found there strangled, while her servant Harrison was discovered in an adjoining apartment also strangled, and the girl Price was seen lying on her bed with her throat cut from ear to ear. The news of this diabolical crime soon became published through the neighbourhood; and the chambers of the deceased being examined, it was found that they had been stripped of all the valuables which could be easily carried away, consisting of money, silver plate, and other articles of a similar description. In the course of the day some circumstances transpired, tending to fix the suspicions of the police upon the woman Malcolm; and upon her lodgings being searched, a silver tankard, the handle of which was covered with blood, was found concealed in a close-stool. She was in consequence taken into custody, and having undergone an examination on the following day before the magistrates, she was committed to Newgate. Upon her entering the jail, she was searched by Johnson, one of the turnkeys, who took from her a considerable sum of money in gold and silver coin, and she admitted to him that it was Mrs. Duncomb’s. “But,” added she, “I’ll make you a present of it if you will say nothing of the matter.” The jailer took possession of the money, but produced it to his superior officers, acquainting them with the conversation which had passed. In the