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time with a carpenter; but being of a wild disposition, his friends determined on sending him to sea: accordingly they got him rated as a midshipman, and he sailed to the coast of Spain; but soon quit ting the naval service, he returned to England, and commencing highwayman, committed many robbe ries on the road to Hampstead, on Finchley-Common, and in the neighbourhood of Hammersmith. When he first began the practice of robbing, he formed a resolution to retire when he had acquired as much money as would support him: but this time never arrived; for finding his success by no means proportioned to his expectations, he became one of the gang under Jonathan Wild, of infamous memory; and was for a considerable time screened from justice by that celebrated master of thieves. Burridge being confined in New-prison for a capital offence, broke out of that gaol; and he was repeatedly an evidence at the Old Bailey, by which means his associates suffered the rigour of the law. At length, having offended Wild, the latter marked him down as one doomed to suffer at the next execution after the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey; which was a common practice with Wild, when he grew tired of his dependants, or thought they could be no longer serviceable to him. Alarmed by this circumstance, Burridge fled into Lincolnshire, where he stole a horse, and brought it to London, intending to sell it at Smithfield for present support: but the gentleman who had lost the horse, having sent a full description of it to London, Burridge was seen riding on it through the street, and watched to a livery stable. Some persons going to take him, he produced a brace of pistols, threa tening destruction to any one who came near him; by which he got off; but being immediately pur

sued,

:

sued, he was apprehended in May-fair, and lodged in Newgate. On his trial, a man and a woman swore, that they saw him purchase the horse; but as there was a material difference in their stories, the court, was of opinion, that they had been hired to swear, and the judge gave directions for their being taken into custody for the perjury. The jury did not hesitate to find Burridge guilty and after sentence was passed, his behaviour was extremely devout, and he encouraged the devotion of others in like unhappy circumstances. He suffered at Tyburn, on the 22d of March, 1722, in the 34th year of his age; having first warned the spectators to be obedient to their parents and masters, and to beware of the crime of debauching young women, which had first led him froin the path of duty, and finally terminated in his ruin.

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BUSH,

See DUCE, Wм. and

See POULTER, J.
BUTLER, JAMES.
WILD, JONATHAN.

BUTTERWORTH, WILLIAM, (MURDERER,) had lived by depredations upon the public, almost from his childhood, till at length he was capitally convicted of a burglary, at the assizes at Maidstone, but received a reprieve, on condition of serving on board the hulks for life. He had not, however, been on board the hulks more than seven days, when he and Francis Jennison, another convict, (who had been condemned, and reprieved in like manner) resolved to murder Mr. Groundwater, one of the persons deputed to look after them, and which they unfortunately effected. They were tried at the Hants assizes, in the beginning of August, 1794, before Mr. Justice Grosse and Mr. Baron Thomson. The circumstances of this murder were of the most brutal and atrocious nature. These har

hardened wretches, on being reprimanded by Mr. Groundwater, who threatened to report them for ill-behaviour, swore that they would rip his bowels out; and were heard by another of the convicts debating about the manner of perpetrating the mur der. Accordingly, about six in the evening of the same day, they fell upon him with two iron shovels, with which they had been at work in spreading gravel, and with which they gave him three such wounds on the skull, that his brains fell out in the quantity of a double handful. They then struck down one of the shovels upon his neck, with intent to sever the head from the body, but, striking against the bone, it had not the intended effect. The rest of the convicts ran to the spot, and one of them caught hold of Butterworth, to prevent his mangling the body any more: but after a struggle, he disengaged himself, ran back to the unfortunate sufferer, and, catching up the spade again, gave him several cuts, saying, "There, d-n him, I have done him out and out." On being remonstrated with for his inhuman conduct, he replied, that he was transported for life, and he would rather be hanged than suffer that sentence." It is a most extraordinary circumstance, established on the evidence of Mr. Hill, surgeon, who attended him, that Mr. Groundwater lived eighteen hours after he had received these grievous wounds, notwithstanding the brains had fallen out, and a prodigious effusion of blood had taken place. He never spoke after the second blow was given him, but the action of the pulse was strong, and respiration con tinued the whole of the eighteen hours. Butterworth, though thus steeled in cruelty, was only nineteen years old; his wretched companion was twenty-five. The atrocious publicity of the deed,

and

and consequent clear evidence of their guilt, would not admit of their setting up any defence. The jury pronounced them guilty-they were sentenced to be executed in three days after, in Lanston harbour, and their bodies to be afterwards hung in chains in Cumberland Fort. They were taken from gaol about four o'clock on the ensuing Monday morning, and reached Portsea about eleven. The spectators that crowded to see the execution were immense. Both the prisoners acknowledged, that they alone were the persons who committed the murder, exculpating all the other convicts from a participation in this horrid crime. Their behaviour was very penitent, and they seemed sensibly to feel the enormity of their offence. The execution took place about twelve o'clock, and their bodies were afterwards hung in chains, pursuant to sentence, near the spot where the murder was committed.

C.

CADDELL, GEORGE, (MURDERER,) was a native of the town of Broomsgrove, in Worcestershire, at which place he was articled to an apothecary, with whom he served his time, and then repaired to London, where he attended several of the hospitals, to give him an insight into the art of surgery. As soon as he became tolerably acquainted with the profession, he went to Worcester, and lived with Mr. Randall, a capital surgeon of that city in this situation he was equally admired for the depth of his abilities, and the amiableness of his temper. Here he married the daughter of Mr. Randall, who died in labour of her first child. After this melancholy event he went to reside at Litch

field, and continued upwards of two years with Mr. Dean, a surgeon of that place. During his residence here, he courted Mr. Dean's daughter, to whom he would probably have been married, but for the commission of the following crime, which cost him his life. A young lady, named Elizabeth Price, who had been seduced by an officer in the army, lived near Mr. Caddell's place of residence; and, after her misfortune, supported herself by her skill in needle-work. Caddell becoming acquainted with her, a considerable degree of intimacy subsisted between them; and Miss Price, degraded as she was by the unfortunate step she had taken, still thought herself an equal match for one of Mr. Caddell's rank of life. As pregnancy was shortly the consequence of their intimacy, she repeatedly urged him to marry her, but Mr. Caddell resisted her impor tunities for a considerable time: at last Miss Price heard of his paying his addresses to Miss Dean; she then became more importunate than ever, and threatened, in case of his non-compliance, to put an end to all his prospects with that young lady, by discovering every thing that had passed between them. Hereupon Caddell formed the horrid resolution of murdering Miss Price; for he could neither bear the thought of forfeiting the esteem of a woman that he courted, nor of marrying her who had been as condescending to another as to himself. This dreadful scheme having entered his head, he called on Miss Price on a Saturday evening, and requested that she would walk in the fields with him on the afternoon of the following day, in order to adjust the plan of their intended marriage. Miss Price, thus deluded, met him at the time appointed, on the road leading towards Burton upon Trent, at a house known by the sign of the Nag's Head. VOL. I. Hav

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