CHAPTER XIV.

SOME FAMOUS SWINDLERS.

Recurrence of Criminal Types--Heredity and Congenital Instinct--The Jukes and Other Families of Criminals--John Hatfield--Anthelme Collet's Amazing Career of Fraud--The Story of Pierre Cognard: Count Pontis de St. Hélène: Recognised by an Old Convict Comrade: Sent to the Galleys for Life--Major Semple: His many Vicissitudes in Foreign Armies: Thief and Begging-Letter Writer: Transported to Botany Bay.

The regular recurrence of certain crimes and the reappearance of particular types of criminals have been often remarked by those who deal with judicial records; the fact is established by general experience, and is capable of abundant proof. It is to be explained in part by heredity. The child follows the father, and on a stronger influence than that of mere imitativeness; and these transmitted tendencies to crime can be illustrated by many well-authenticated cases, where whole families have been criminals generation after generation. There is the famous, or infamous, family of the Jukes, a prolific race of criminals, starting from a vagabond father and five of his disreputable daughters. The Jukes descendants in less than a hundred years numbered twelve hundred individuals, all of them more or less evincing the criminal taint. These facts have been brought out by the patient investigation of Mr. Dugdale, an American scientist. An old case is recorded of a Yorkshire family, the Dunhills, the head of which, Snowdon Dunhill, spread terror through the East Riding as the chief of a band of burglars. This Snowdon Dunhill was convicted in 1813 of robbing a granary, and sentenced to seven years' transportation. He returned from the Antipodes to earn a second sentence of exile, and his son was at the same time sentenced to transportation. One of his sisters, Rose Dunhill, was twice imprisoned for larceny; another, Sarah, had been repeatedly convicted of picking pockets, and was finally sent across the water for seven years. It may be incidentally stated, as showing the contamination of evil, that nearly all who came into association with the Dunhills felt the baneful influence of the family. Dunhill's wife was transported; so were Rose Dunhill's two husbands and Sarah's three.

In 1821 a wide district of Northern France known as that of Santerre, between Peronne and Montdidier, was the scene of numerous and repeated crimes. There was no mystery about their perpetrators; the thieves and their victims lived side by side, yet the latter only spoke of them with bated breath, and shrank from denouncing them to the police. At last the authorities interposed and arrested the malefactors, who were tried and disposed of in due course of law. It was found that they were all of one family, which had started originally in one village and ramified gradually into neighbouring districts. Eleven years later, in 1832, a second generation had come to manhood, and these true sons of their fathers perpetrated exactly the same offences. Yet again, in 1852, a fresh wave of depredation passed over the district, and again the same families were responsible for the crimes. The last manifestation was perhaps the worst of all. Thefts, arson, and murder had been of repeated occurrence, but no arrests were made until a knife found in the possession of a villager was identified as one of a lot stolen from a travelling cheap-Jack. The man who had it was a Hugot. Through him others were implicated, a Villet and a Lemaire. These three names, Hugot, Villet, and Lemaire, were full of sinister significance in the neighbourhood, and recalled a long series of dark deeds, perpetrated by the ancestors of these very criminals.

Lombroso has collected a number of cases showing how the criminal tendency has reappeared in successive generations. Dumollard, the wholesale murderer of women, was the son of a murderer; Patetot, another murderer, was the grandson and great-grandson of a criminal. There was a family named Nathan, of which, on one particular day, there were fourteen members in the same gaol. These Nathans were a band of thieves entirely made up

of relations--parents and children, brothers and cousins. It has been observed that the most notorious Italian brigands regularly inherited the business from their parents; we shall see presently how the Coles and Youngers of the Western States of America were all closely related; many of the most desperate members of the Neapolitan Camorra were brothers. There is a village in the south of Italy which has been a nest and focus of criminals for centuries. The natives are mostly related to each other by intermarriage, and all seem bound by tradition to prey upon their fellows. Again, in the Madras Presidency, at Trichinopoly, a whole caste of thieves existed, one and all vowed to various kinds of crime; and the practice of crime by certain Indian tribes generation after generation is well known to Indian police officers.

That the criminal virus is widely disseminated is proved by its unfailing reappearance in all times and places. Crimes of the same sort have been and are being continually committed, with no greater difference than is due to surroundings, opportunities, individual idiosyncrasies, the changing circumstances that accompany the varying conditions of life. I propose to show now from a number of selected cases how thieves, swindlers, depredators, murderers, and all kinds and classes of criminals who make mankind their prey, have been reproduced again and again. Both men and women have been found acting under the same baleful impulse, showing greater or less ingenuity, but working on the same lines. The sharper follows out his long career of successful fraud and imposture century after century. Such men as Hatfield, Collet, Coster, Sheridan, Benson, Shinburn, Allmeyer, are the seemingly inevitable recurrence of one and the same type. Jenny Diver and the German Princess have had their later manifestations in Mrs. Gordon Baillie, La "Comtesse," Sandor, and Bertha Heyman. Cain has innumerable descendants; nothing stops the murderer when the savage instinct is in the ascendant; he feels no remorse when the deed is done. I shall presently give a short account of one or two of those miscreants who might otherwise escape classification, and whose very names are synonymous with great crimes--Troppmann, Bichel, Dumollard, De Tourville, and Peace. But this section may very well begin with some account of a few famous swindlers.

HATFIELD.

One of the earliest swindlers in modern records was John Hatfield, a youth of low origin, who was yet so gifted by nature, had such mother wit and such a persuasive tongue, that he succeeded in passing himself off as a man of rank and fortune without detection or punishment for a long series of years. He was born of poor parents in Cheshire, in 1769, and on reaching manhood became the commercial traveller of a linen-draper, working the north of England. On one of his rounds he met with a young lady, a distant connection of the ducal house of Rutland, who had a small fortune of her own, and, using his honeyed tongue,

he succeeded in inducing her to marry him. The happy pair proceeded to London, where they lived on their capital, the wife's dowry, some £1,500, which was quickly squandered in extravagance and riotous living. It was impossible to keep this up, and Hatfield again retired to the country, where he presently deserted his wife, leaving her with her children in complete destitution. He made his way once more to London, and, boasting much of his relationship with the Manners family, got credit from confiding tradesmen, until the bubble burst, when he was sent to a debtors' prison. About this time his wife died in great penury. Hatfield soon afterwards, by a series of artful misrepresentations, obtained money from the Duke of Rutland, who secured his release.

In 1735 the Duke was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Hatfield, hoping to find fresh openings for exercising his ingenuity, determined to follow him to Dublin. Here he gave the landlord of a good hotel a plausible excuse for his arriving without servants, carriages, or horses, and for some time lived very pleasantly, being treated with much deference as a relative of the Viceroy. At the end of the month the landlord presented his bill, and was referred to Hatfield's agent, who, strangely enough, was "out of town." When the bill was again presented, Hatfield gave the address of a gentleman living in the castle; this gentleman, however, declined to be answerable, whereupon Hatfield was served with a writ, and conveyed at once to the Marshalsea, in Dublin. He was there able to win the commiseration of the gaoler and his wife by the old story of his high connections, and by his deep anxiety that his Excellency should hear of his temporary embarrassments. By means of these lies he was lodged in most comfortable quarters, and was treated with every respect; and upon his making further application to the Duke of Rutland, his Grace again weakly agreed to pay his debts, on the condition that he left Ireland immediately.

Hatfield, on his return to England, visited Scarborough and renewed his fraudulent operations, but he was discovered and thrown into prison, where he remained for eight and a half years. At the end of that time he was released through the intervention of a Miss Nation, a Devonshire lady, who paid his debts for him, and afterwards gave him her hand in marriage. He now posed as a reformed character, and lived an honest life for just three years, during which period he became partner in a firm at Tiverton. Then he offered himself as parliamentary candidate for Queenborough, but his past misdeeds had been too notorious, and the constituency would not elect him. Balked in his attempt, he straightway left his home and family, and once more disappeared.

In 1802 he came to the surface under the assumed name of Colonel the Hon. Alexander Augustus Hope, brother to Lord Hopetoun, and member for Linlithgow. Hatfield was staying in the Lake district, at the Queen's Hotel, Keswick, and near here, at Buttermere, he met a village beauty, Mary Robinson, whose parents owned an hotel on the shores of the lake. He was not long in winning her affections. But the double-faced scoundrel at this moment was paying attention to another young lady, the rich ward

of an Irish gentleman, Mr. Murphy, who, with his family, was resident in the same hotel. This suit prospered. Hatfield's proposal was accepted, and communications were opened with Lord Hopetoun. The villain allowed none of the letters to reach their destination. The day was even fixed for the marriage. At the last moment the bridegroom did not appear, but Mr. Murphy received a letter from him at Buttermere, under his name of Colonel Hope, asking him to cash a cheque or draft which he enclosed, drawn on a Liverpool banker. The money was obtained, and sent to Buttermere, but Colonel Hope continued to be missing, until the news arrived that he had run off with Mary Robinson. It never transpired why he preferred this sweet girl, whose charms were afterwards sung by Wordsworth, to his other well-dowered _partie_. Some do him the credit of saying that he really loved Mary Robinson; others that, already fearing detection and exposure, he thought it wise to disappear.

Exposure was, indeed, close at hand. Mr. Murphy wrote direct to Lord Hopetoun, and soon heard that the supposed Colonel Hope was an impostor. The draft on the Liverpool bankers also proved to be a forgery, and many letters fraudulently franked by Hatfield as an M.P. were brought up against him. After his marriage with Mary Robinson he had gone to Scotland, but had cut short his wedding trip to return to Buttermere, where he was arrested on several charges. Hatfield dexterously made his escape from the constable who took him, and was long lost sight of. At last, after many wanderings, he was captured in the neighbourhood of Swansea, and sent to the gaol of Brecon. He tried to pass off as one Tudor Henry, but was easily identified, and on his removal to Carlisle was tried for his life. Sentence of death was passed upon him, and he suffered on the 3rd of September, 1803. "Notwithstanding his various and complicated enormities," says a contemporary chronicle, "his untimely end excited considerable commiseration. His manners were extremely polished and insinuating, and he was possessed of qualities which might have rendered him an ornament to society."

COLLET.

Anthelme Collet stands out in the long list of swindlers as one of the most insinuating and accomplished scoundrels that ever took to criminal ways. A number of curious stories have survived of his ingenuity, his daring, and his long, almost unbroken, success. He is a product of the French revolutionary epoch, and found his account in the general dislocation of society that prevailed in France and her subject countries in the commencement of the last century.

Collet's parents lived in the department of the Aisne, where he was born in 1785. From his childhood up he was noted as a consummate liar and cunning thief, and to cure him of his evil propensities he was sent to an uncle in Italy, a priest, who kept him by his side for three years, but made nothing of him. Young Collet then returned to France, and entered the military school at Fontainebleau, from which he graduated as _sous-lieutenant_, and passed on to a regiment in garrison at Brescia. Here he soon made friends with the monks of a neighbouring Capuchin monastery, and, preferring their society to that of his comrades, became the subject of constant gibes. Exasperated by this, and chafing at the restraints of military discipline, he resolved to desert. A wound received in a duel strengthened him in this determination. He was sent for cure to a hospital, that of San Giacomo, in Naples, and there met a Dominican monk, chaplain of the order, who persuaded him to take the cowl. Collet also earned the gratitude of a sick mate, a major in the French army, whom he seems to have nursed, but who was so seriously wounded that he did not recover. At his death the Major left Collet all his possessions--3,000 francs in money, a gold watch, and two very valuable rings.

Collet, in due course, entered as a novice with the brothers of St. Pierre, and was soon so high in the good graces of his companions that the Prior appointed him _quêteur_, the brother selected to seek alms and subscriptions for his convent. The young man's greed could not resist the handling of money; he quickly succumbed to temptation, misappropriated the funds he collected, and returned to the convent from his first mission several thousand francs short in his accounts. Fearing detection, he made up his mind to disappear. One day, talking with his friend the syndic of the town, he succeeded in securing a number of passports signed in blank. Then he went to the Prior, and informed him that he had come into a large fortune, but had hesitated to claim it as he was a deserter from his regiment. If the Prior would protect him he would now do so, and on this he was permitted to go to Naples, armed with introductions to a bank, and other credentials from the convent.

At Naples, Collet's first act was to obtain 22,000 francs from the bankers by false pretences, and, being in funds, he threw off his monkish garb, assumed that of a high-born gentleman, and, filling up one of his passports in the name of the Marquis de Dada, started _viâ_ Capua for Rome. _En route_ he again changed his identity, having become possessed of the papers of one Tolosan, a sea captain, and native of Lyons, who had been wrecked on the Italian coast. Some say that Collet had picked up Tolosan's pocket-book, others that he had stolen it. In any case, he called himself by that name on arrival at Rome, and as a Lyonnais sought the protection of a venerable French priest also from Lyons, who was acquainted with the Tolosan family, and through whom he was presented to Cardinal Archbishop Fesch, the uncle of the Emperor Napoleon.

He now became an inmate of the Cardinal's palace, and was introduced by his patron everywhere, even to the Pope. Under such good auspices he soon began to prey upon his new friends, before whom he put the many schemes that filled his inventive mind, and from most of whom he extracted considerable sums. He persuaded a rich merchant clothier to endorse a bill for 60,000 francs; he borrowed another sum of 30,000 francs from the Cardinal Archbishop's bankers; he bought jewellery on credit to the value of 60,000 francs from one tradesman and defrauded many others; even the Cardinal's personal servants were laid under contribution. A more daring theft was a number of blank appointments to the priesthood which he abstracted from the Cardinal's bureau, and with them a bull to create a bishop _in partibus_. Then he decamped from Rome.

His thefts and frauds were soon discovered, and the papal police put upon his track. He had left Rome on an ecclesiastical mission, and in company with other priests, one of whom was informed of his real character and requested to secure him. But Collet, having some suspicion, forestalled him by making off before he could be arrested. The place to which he fled was Mondovi, where he set up as a young man of fashion, and was soon a centre of the pleasure-loving, with whom he spent his money freely. His next idea was to organise amateur theatricals, and he forthwith constituted himself the wardrobe-keeper of the company. A number of fine costumes were ordered, among them the robes of a bishop and other ecclesiastical garments, the uniforms of a French general officer and of French diplomatists, with all the accessories, ribbons, medals, decorations, feathers, and gold lace. On the night preceding the first dress rehearsal he again decamped, carrying off most of the "properties" and clothes.

Now he assumed the garb of a Neapolitan priest who was flying into Switzerland from French oppression. He fabricated the necessary papers and was fully accepted by the Bishop of Sion, who appointed him to a cure of souls in a parish close by. Here he discharged all the clerical functions, confessing, marrying, baptizing, burying the dead, teaching youth, visiting the sick, consoling the poor and needy. He also started a scheme for restoring the parish church, and collected 30,000 francs for the good work, promising to make up from his own purse any balance required. The building was set on foot, an architect was engaged, and many purchases were made by the false _curé_, who was, of course, treasurer of the fund. Collet finished up by paying a visit to a neighbouring town, where he bought religious pictures, candelabra, and church plate, all on credit, and despatched them to his parish. But he proceeded himself with the building money to Strasburg, driving post.

Using many different disguises, and playing many parts, he travelled from Strasburg into Germany, and then by a circuitous route through the Tyrol into Italy, making for Turin, where he forged a bill of exchange for 10,000 francs, and got the money. But the fraud was detected, and he had to fly, this time towards Nice. Now he filled in the bull appointing to a bishopric, and created himself Bishop of Monardan, by name Dominic Pasqualini. This gained him a cordial welcome from the Bishop of Nice, who invited him to his summer palace, where all the clergy were assembled to be presented to him. His Eminence wished the sham bishop to examine his deacons, but Collet avoided the danger by saying there could be no need; he was sure that his brother of Nice had not ordained "ignorant asses." Yet the other was not to be entirely put off, and at his earnest request Collet put on his episcopal robes, stolen from the amateurs of Mondovi, and ordained thirty deacons, after which he preached a sermon--one of Bourdaloue's, which he had by heart.

The _rôle_ of bishop was a little too dangerous, so Collet abandoned the violet apron and went on to Paris as a private person. On arrival he came across the friend who had helped him to his first appointment in the army, and being well provided with funds, he renewed his acquaintance by giving him a sumptuous dinner. Through this friend's good offices he was reappointed to the army, this time to the 47th of the line, in garrison at Brest, and Collet started for the west to join his regiment. But he does not seem to have got further than L'Orient. He, however, perpetrated a number of robberies by the way, and now resolved to break ground in an entirely new and distant quarter. Bringing his inventiveness to bear, he fabricated papers appointing himself inspector-general and general administrator of the army of Catalonia; his new name and title being Charles Alexander, Count of Borromeo.

He took the road to Fréjus, on the Riviera, not the most direct to Catalonia, and was everywhere received with great honour on presenting his credentials. Thence, with an imposing escort, he passed on to Draguignan, and appeared in full uniform, covered with decorations, before the astonished war commissaries, explaining that he had the Emperor's express commands to undertake an inquiry into their accounts. At the same time he appointed a staff, aides-de-camp, secretaries, and attendants, and soon had a suite of some twenty people. Amongst the papers he had forged was one which empowered him to draw upon the military chest for the equipment of his army of Catalonia. At Marseilles he had made use of this to secure 130,000 francs, and at Nismes he laid hands on 300,000 more. Whenever he arrived in a garrison he reviewed the troops, and conducted himself as a grand personage.

At Montpelier his luck turned. He had begun well; a crowd of suppliants fell at his feet, including the prefect, to whom Collet promised his influence and a strong recommendation for the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. But at this moment the bubble burst. The prefecture was suddenly surrounded by the gendarmes, a police officer entered the salle-à-manger and arrested Collet as he sat at table with the prefect and his staff. No fault could well be found with those whom Collet had duped, but the swindler himself was in fear of being instantly shot. He was, however, kept in confinement awaiting superior orders.

One day the prefect, still chafing at the trick played upon him,

told his guests at dinner that he would allow them to see this bold and unscrupulous person, whose name was on every tongue. He accordingly sent for Collet, who was brought from the prison to the prefecture escorted by the gendarmes. While waiting to be exhibited he was lodged in the serving-room, next the dining-room. Here he found, to his surprise and delight, a full suit of white, the costume of a _marmiton_, a cook's assistant. He quickly assumed the disguise, and taking up the nearest dish, walked out between the sentries on guard, passed into the dining-room, through it, and out of the prefecture. He was soon missed, and a great hue and cry was raised through the country, but Collet all the time had found a hiding-place close by the house.

When the alarm had ceased, he slipped away, and leaving Montpelier, made his way to Toulouse, where he cashed another forged bill of exchange, now for 5,000 francs. With the funds obtained he travelled northward, but was followed from Toulouse, for the forgery was quickly discovered. When arrested they carried him to Grenoble, and there he was tried for the forgery. His sentence was to five years' _travaux forcés_, and exposure in the pillory (_carcan_). Before long he was recognised at Grenoble by one of those whom he had nominated to his staff at Fréjus, and being tried again he was now sent to the Bagne of Brest. Collet passed five years in this prison, and somehow contrived to live more or less comfortably as a galley slave. He was always in funds, but how he obtained them, or where he kept them, was a profound mystery to the very last. With the money thus at his disposal he purchased extra food, he bought the assistance of his fellows to relieve him of the severer toils, and no doubt bribed his keepers. He became so fat and round-faced, and generally so benignant and smiling, that he was nicknamed by his comrades of the chain "Monsieur l'évêque." Numberless attempts were made to discover the sources of his wealth; he was supposed to have secreted a store of precious stones, but, although he was watched and frequently searched, they were never found. He was free-handed, too, with his money, gave freely to other convicts, and was much esteemed by them. It is told of one who committed a murder in the prison that, when permitted to address his comrades before execution, after acknowledging their general kindness to himself, he added, "I wish especially to thank Monsieur Collet." He did not live to return to liberty, and died, only a few days before the end of his term, consumed with despair at ending his days at the Bagne, but carrying with him the secret of his wealth. Nine louis d'or only were found, in the collar of his waistcoat; what had become of the rest no one could tell. He never had money in the hands of the prison paymaster, he was never found in the possession of more money than he was entitled to receive as prison earnings, and yet, when he wanted it to gratify any expensive taste, to buy white shirts, snuff, books, wine, or toothsome food, the gold flowed from his hand as if by legerdemain.

COGNARD.

Hardly less remarkable than Collet's adventures are those of Cognard, an ex-convict, who, in the topsy-turvy times of the First Empire, came to be colonel of a regiment, wearing many decorations and having a good record of service in the field.

Pierre Cognard, when serving a sentence of fourteen years in the Bagne of Brest, made his escape, and passed into Spain, where he joined an irregular corps under the guerilla leader Nina, and gained the cross of Alcantara. While in garrison in one of the towns of Catalonia, he made the acquaintance of a person who had been a servant to Count Pontis de Ste. Hélène, recently deceased. This servant had, by some means or other, laid hands upon the Count's titles of nobility, and he now handed them over to Cognard, who adopted the name and title without question. Despite his antecedents, he appears to have displayed great strictness in dealing with public money, and on one occasion denounced two French officers whom he caught in malpractices. They turned on him, and accused him of complicity. General Wimpfen ordered all to be arrested, but Cognard resisted, and was only taken by force. He was relegated to a military prison in the island of Majorca, from which he escaped with a party of prisoners, who, having seized a Spanish brig in the harbour, sailed in it to Algiers. There they sold their prize, and Cognard crossed into Spain, which the French were occupying. The pretended Comte was appointed to Soult's staff, took part in the later operations in the Pyrenees, and was in command of a flying column at the battle of Toulouse. After the abdication of Napoleon, he disappeared from sight, but he was with the Emperor at Waterloo, where he acquitted himself well.

At the Restoration Cognard passed himself off as a grandee of Spain, who had served Napoleon under pressure. Having demanded an audience of the king, Louis XVIII., he seems to have had no difficulty in persuading Louis that he was what he pretended; he was well received at Court, and treated with distinction. During the Hundred Days Cognard accompanied the king to Ghent, and made himself conspicuous everywhere as a member of the Court. On the second Restoration he was nominated lieutenant-colonel of the 72nd regiment, and formed part of the garrison of Paris. He was now seemingly at the height of prosperity, but his downfall was near at hand.

There was a review one day in the Place Vendôme, and Cognard was present at the head of his regiment. In the crowd of bystanders was a recently liberated convict, named Darius, who had been at Brest with Cognard. The ex-convict was struck by Cognard's likeness to an old comrade, and asked the colonel's name. He was told it was the Count Pontis de Ste. Hélène, a distinguished officer, much appreciated at the Court. Darius was not satisfied, still holding to the idea that he had seen this face at Brest. So when the parade broke up he followed the pretended count to his house, and then asked if he might speak to him. After some parleying, he was admitted to the presence of Cognard, whom he at once addressed with the familiarity of an old friend. "Of course you know me," said Darius. "I am glad to find you so well off. Do not think I wish to harm you, but you are rich and I am needy. Pay me properly, and I will leave you alone." Cognard indignantly repudiated the acquaintance, and sent his visitor to the right-about. Darius was furious, and would not let the matter rest there. He went straight to the Ministry of the Interior, who sent him on to the War Office, where he was received by General Despinois. "What proof can you give me," asked the War Minister, "of this extraordinary statement?" "Only confront us," replied Darius, "and see what happens." Cognard was forthwith summoned by an aide-de-camp, and promptly appeared at headquarters. General Despinois treated him with scant ceremony, charging him at once as an impostor. "But this can go on no longer," said the general. "You cannot humbug me or the Government; we know that you are Cognard, the escaped convict." Cognard kept his countenance, and merely asked to be allowed to fetch his credentials and other papers from home. The general made no difficulty, but would not suffer Cognard to go alone, and before he started he called in Darius.

Cognard was unable to control a slight movement of surprise, which did not escape the quick eye of General Despinois. But now a fierce war of words ensued between the pretended count and the other convict, to end which Despinois sent Cognard, accompanied by an officer of gendarmes, to fetch his papers. On the way Cognard inveighed against the lies that were being told against him, and had no difficulty in gaining the sympathy of his escort. Arrived at home, Cognard called for wine, and begged the officer to help himself, while he passed into an adjoining room to change his clothes. The other agreed readily enough, and Cognard, finding his brother, who acted as his servant, close by, changed into livery, and in a striped waistcoat, with an apron round his waist, and a feather brush in his hand, quietly walked down the back staircase and straight out of the house. The gendarmes who were on sentry below did not attempt to interfere with this man-servant, and the escape was not discovered until the officer above grew tired of waiting. Now he knocked at the door of the next room, and peremptorily ordered the count to come out. There was, of course, no Cognard to come out, and the officer returned to the War Office without his prisoner.

Cognard now reverted to his old ways. He found a hiding-place with a comrade, and remained there a couple of days, when he left for Toulouse. The records do not say what he did in the provinces, but within a fortnight he was back in Paris, and having joined himself to other thieves, he made a nearly successful attempt to rob the bank at Poissy. Laying a sum of two thousand francs in gold upon the counter, he asked for a bill on Toulouse, and adroitly seized the key of the safe. Cognard's demeanour did not please the cashier, and the bill was refused. Then Cognard brusquely repocketed his money, and, still keeping the key, made off. He was followed by cries of "Stop, thief!" but he got away with all his comrades but one. This was the man with whom he lodged, and the police, having obliged him to lead them to his domicile, forced an entrance into Cognard's room, where they found a whole armoury of weapons, a number of disguises, wigs, false whiskers and moustachios. It was generally believed that these were to be worn in a grand attack about to be made upon the _diligence_ from Toulouse. Cognard remained at large for some little time, but a close watch was set upon his movements, and he was eventually arrested by Vidocq, although he stoutly defended himself, and wounded one of the police-officers with his pistol. When brought to trial he was in due course condemned, and sentenced to _travaux forcés_ for life.

MAJOR SEMPLE.

Among our own compatriots Major Semple, _alias_ Lisle, has been handed down as a champion swindler in his time, and he was certainly convicted of frauds and thefts often enough to entitle him to a foremost place in criminal records. But he could not have been wholly bad, for his offences may be largely traced to ill

luck. The man was wanting in perseverance, steadiness, moral sense; he succeeded in nothing, stuck to nothing long, and in the end became a frank _vaurien_, a low-class adventurer, put to all sorts of shifts to live. In his early days he had served with the colours, not without distinction; had borne a commission and taken part in the American War of Independence, in which he was wounded and made prisoner. When, after his release, he was retired on a pension, he married a lady of good family with some means. What afterwards befell him we do not know, but he was a widower, or separated, when he became associated with Miss Chudleigh, afterwards famous as the Duchess of Kingston, in her expedition to St. Petersburg, where she set up a brandy distillery. It was probably through her good offices that he was introduced to Prince Potemkin, through whom he was appointed captain in a Russian regiment, with which he made several campaigns. He was on the high road to rank and honour; but in 1784 his roving disposition, and a certain discontent at his prolonged exile, led him to resign his place and return to England, where he was soon without resources, and lapsed into crime.

The first offence with which he was charged was the theft of a postchaise which he hired and appropriated. His defence was that he had only committed a breach of contract, but, as he had sold the article, it was called felony, and he was convicted of a crime. His sentence was seven years' transportation; but at this time he still had friends, and some influential personages obtained a commutation of his punishment. After a short stay in the hulks at Woolwich, awaiting transfer to Botany Bay, he was pardoned on condition that he left the country forthwith. This took him again to France, just then in the throes of the Revolution, and he became actively concerned with Pétion, Roland, and others in the events of that epoch. He was present at the king's trial, but was soon afterwards denounced to the Committee of Public Safety as a spy, and with difficulty escaped the guillotine. Once more this soldier of fortune returned to his old profession, and joined the allied armies now operating on the frontier against the French republic. He was engaged in several important actions, and always distinguished himself in the field.

Yet within a year or two the waters had again closed over him. He left the Austrian army in a hurry, having been placed under arrest at Augsburg; why, exactly, we do not know, presumably for some shady conduct, the consequences of which he must have evaded, for he got back to London, and was soon in serious trouble. He must have fallen into great destitution, or he would not have been taken into custody for so sorry an offence as obtaining a shirt and a few yards of calico on false pretences. In the "Reminiscences" of Henry Angelo about this date (1795) a side-light is thrown upon him and the petty devices he practised to get a meal. He had become a confirmed cadger, and had introduced himself to Angelo on the pretence of learning to fence. "Semple always stuck close to us," writes Angelo, "took care to follow us home to our door, and, walking in, stopped till dinner was placed on the table, when I said, 'Captain' (no assumed major then), 'will you take your dinner with us?' Though he always pretended to have an engagement, he obligingly put it off, and did us the honour to stop. In the evening, if we were going to Vauxhall, or elsewhere, he was sure to make one, and would have made our house his lodging if I had not told him that all our beds were engaged except my father's, and that room was always kept locked in his absence. Our sponging companion continued these intrusions for about three months, when suddenly he disappeared without paying for his instruction or anything else. To write of his various swindling cheats, so well known, would be needless."

The calico fraud ended in another sentence of transportation for seven years, and again interest was made to spare him the penalty, but this time without avail. He was shipped off, but on the voyage out escaped convict life for a time. He was concerned with some of his felon comrades in a mutiny on board the convict ship, and the authorities, to be well rid of them, sent them, twenty-eight in number, adrift in the Pacific in an open boat. They reached South America in safety, and, passing themselves off as a shipwrecked crew, were well received by the Spaniards. Semple was put forward as the leader, and described as a Dutch officer of rank, thus gaining courteous treatment. He must have been assisted to return to Europe, for he is next met with at Lisbon, where his real character and condition came out, and he was arrested at the request of the British Minister, who had him conveyed to Gibraltar. He was still seemingly a free agent on the Rock, and misused his liberty to enter into some mutinous conspiracy afoot in the garrison, for which he was arrested and sent off to Tangier. Next year an order was issued to capture and send him home to England, whence he was passed on a second time to the Antipodes.

Semple survived to return again to England and to his old ways. For some time he made a precarious living as a begging-letter writer, and the same diarist, Angelo, preserves two specimens of Semple's correspondence. One letter, however, is an impudent attempt to take Angelo to task for daring first to cut him, then to expose him to the ridicule of others. "This is not the sort of conduct I expect," said Semple, "from a man bred in the first societies, and to which, however innocent you think it, I cannot, must not submit.... Do not, I request you, again expose yourself...." The outrage and the protest were both forgotten when, nine years later, he wrote to Angelo, pleading that the "sad urgency" of his situation "cannot be described. I am at this hour without a fire (in February) and without a shirt.... Let me pray you to accord me a little assistance, a few shillings." Angelo records that he "sent the poor devil a crown in answer to his letter, which was most probably a tissue of falsehoods designed to create sympathy."