Old Bailey Proceedings:
Old Bailey Proceedings: Accounts of Criminal Trials
6th April 1785
394.
GEORGE
MORLEY
proceedingsdefend
was indicted for
escaping from the hulks
on the 28th day of June 1783
WILLIAM
GREGG
< no role >
sworn.
I have known the prisoner four years, I knew him on board the Justitia, he escaped the first time; I knew him there the second time, he escaped the second time, the 28th of June 1783.
JOHN
FLETCHER
< no role >
sworn.
I took charge of the prisoner, I saw him in the counter.
Court. Is there any body that saw him at large? - None here.
Are you sure that was the man that was delivered to you? - Yes.
(The record of his former conviction read and examined by the Court.)
Prisoner. I cannot disown the charge of being guilty, the reason of my making my escape, was the ill treatment I received after my first escape.
Court. What ill usuage did you receive? - I was run over across my loins, I am lame, I was always struck without a cause, when I tried to do the utmost of my endeavour, and I hope the merciful Jury will take it into consideration, and send me to any other place: the allowance is but two pints of barley water, from three in the morning, till six in the afternoon, and there is half a brown loaf, and half an ox cheek for six hearty young men, and the ballast that I heaved up, weighs a ton weight, and is fit for a horse to do, and I am entirely a cripple now, and an object; I have twenty people to prove that there are a pair of irons for me to wear, and nobody else, and the expression came from Mr. Marshall's maid, that I should not live a month when I returned; if I had money I could send for the people.
Court. If you had any complaint to make for being ill treated, there is a regular course for you to take, it is no excuse for escaping.
GUILTY
,
Death
.
Tried by the first London Jury before Mr. Justice NARES.