LEWIS JEREMIAH AVERSHAW,

MURDERER.

Executed at KENNINGTON COMMON, August 3, 1795

THE subject of the following particulars was a most depraved character, who had long been the pest of society, and whose unparalleled audacity did not terminate but with his life. On July 30, 1795, he was tried before Mr. Baron Perryn, at Croydon. He was convicted on two indictments: one for having, at the Three Brewers, public-house, Southwark, feloniously shot at and murdered D. Price, an officer belonging the Police-office, held at Union-hall, in the Borough. The other for having, at the same time and place, fired à pistol at Bernard Turner, another officer attached to the office at Union-hall, with an intent to murder him.

Mr. Garrow, the leading counsel for the prosecution, opened his case to the court and jury, by stating, that the prisoner at the bar, being a person of ill fame, had been suspected of having perpetrated a number of felonies. The magistrates of the Police-office, in the Borough of Southwark, having received information against the pri soner, sent, as was their duty, an order for his apprehension. To execute the warrant, the deceased Price, and nother officer, went to the Three Brewers, a publichouse, where they understood he then was drinking, in company with some other persons. At the entrance of a parlour in the house, the prisoner appeared in a posture of intending to resist. Holding a loaded pistol in each of

his hands, he, with threats and imprecations, desired the officers to stand off, as he would otherwise fire at them. The officers, without being intimidated by those menaces, attempted to rush in and seize him, on which the prisoner discharged both the pistols at the same instant of time, lodging the contents of one in the body of David Price, and with the other wounded Turner very severely in the head. Price, after languishing a few hours, died of the wound.

Mr. Garrow was very pathetic and animated in his description of the several circumstances composing the shocking act of barbarity. To prove it, he would call four witnesses, whose evidence, he said, would be but too clear to establish the prisoner's guilt. The jury

would be enabled to judge from the facts to be submitted to them, and would undoubtedly decide on the issue joined between the crown and the prisoner at the bar. The learned counsel accordingly called Turner, the landlord of the house, a surgeon, and a fourth witness; but as the substance of their evidence is comprised in Mr. G's opening of the indictment, it would be superfluous to repeat it. Turner said, positively, he saw the prisoner discharge the pistols, from one of which he himself received his wound, and the contents of the other were lodged in the body of Price, who died very shortly after. The surgeon proved that the death was in consequence of the wound. Mr. Knowles and Mr. Best were counsel for the prisoner, but the weight of evidence against him was too strong to be combated by any exertions. Mr. Baron Perryn summed up the evidence, on every essential part of which his lordship made several apposite, pointed, and accurate observations.

The counsel for the prisoner, he remarked to the jury, had principally rested his defence on the circumstance of several other persons being present when the pistols were discharged, by some of which they contended the death wound might possibly have been inflicted. But, with respect to that part of the transaction, it would be proper

for the jury to observe, that the witness Turner, had sworn positively to his having seen the prisoner in the act of discharging the contents of the pistol. The jury, after a consultation of about three minutes, pronounced the verdict of-guilty. Through a flaw in the indictment for the murder, an objection was taken by counsel. This was argued nearly two hours, when Mr. Baron Perryn intimating a wish to take the opinion of the twelve judges of England, the counsel for the prosecution, waving the point for the present, insisted on the prisoner's being tried on the second indictment, for feloniously shooting at Barnaby Windsor, which the learned counsel said, would occupy no great portion of time, as it could be sufficiently supported by the testimony of a single witness. He was accordingly tried and found guilty on a second capital indictment.

The prisoner, who, contrary to general expectation, had in a great measure hitherto refrained from his usual audacity, began with unparalleled insolence of expression and gesture, to ask his lordship if he was to be murdered by the evidence of one witness?" several times repeating the question, till the jury returned him-guilty. When Mr. Baron Perryn put on the judicial cap, the prisoner, unconscious, and regardless of his dreadful situation, at the same time put on his hat, observing the judge with contemptuous looks while he was passing the sen

tence.

When the constables were removing him from the dock to a coach, he continued to vent torrents of abuse against the judge and jury, whom he charged with, as he stiled it, his murder. As his desperate disposition was well known, he was, to prevent resistance, hand-cuffed, and his thighs and arms also bound strongly together, in which situation he was conveyed back to prison. So callous was this ruffian to every degree of feeling, that on his way to be tried, as he was passing near the usual place of execution on Kennington Common, he put his head VOL 1.

out of the coach window, and with all the sang froid imaginable, asked some of those who guarded him, if they did not think he would be twisted on that pretty spot by Saturday? After receiving sentence of death, he was conducted back to prison, where, having got some black cherries, he amused himself with painting on the white walls of the room in which he was confined, various sketches of robberies which he had committed; one representing him running up to the horses' heads of a post chaise, presenting a pistol at the driver, and the words, "D-n your eyes stop," issuing out of his mouth; another where he was firing into the chaise; a third, where the parties had quitted the carriage, and several others, in which he was described in the act of taking the money from the passengers, being fired at, where his companions were shot dead, &c.

At the place of execution he appeared entirely unconcerned, had a flower in his mouth, his bosom was thrown open, and he kept up an incessant conversation with the persons who rode beside the cart; frequently laughing and nodding to others of his acquaintance whom he perceived in the crowd, which was immense. He suffered August the 3d, 1795, at Kennington-Common, with John Little, who having had an employment at the laboratory of the palace at Kew, became acquainted with Mr. Macevoy and Mrs. King, persons of very advanced years, and who had been many years resident at Kew. Supposing they had some property at home, he watched an opportunity and murdered them both.