JOHN HATFIELD, who acquired the appellation of the Keswick Impostor, and whose extraordinary villany excited universal hatred, was born in 1759, at Mortram, in Cheshire, of low parentage, but possessing great natural abilities. His face was handsome, his person genteel, his eyes blue, and his complexion fair.

After some domestic depredations—for in his early days he betrayed an iniquitous disposition—he quitted his family, and was employed as traveller to a linen-draper in the north of England. In the course of this service, he became acquainted with a young woman, who was nursed, and resided at a farmer's house in the neighbourhood of his employer. She had been, in her earlier life, taught to consider the people with whom she lived as her parents. Remote from the gaieties and follies of polished life, she was unacquainted with the allurements of fashion, and considered her domestic duties as the only object of her consideration. When this deserving girl had arrived at a certain age, the honest farmer explained to her the secret of her birth; he told her, that, notwithstanding she had always considered him as her parent, he was, in fact, only her poor guardian; and that she was the natural daughter of Lord Robert Manners, who intended to give her £1000, provided she married with his approbation.

This discovery soon reached the ears of Hatfield; he immediately paid his respects at the farmer's, and having represented himself as a young man of considerable expectations in the wholesale linen business, his visits were not discountenanced. The farmer, however, thought it incumbent on him to acquaint his lordship with a proposal made to him by Hatfield, that he would marry the young woman, if her relations were satisfied with their union, but on no other terms. This had so much the appearance of an honourable and prudent intention, that his lordship, on being made acquainted with the circumstances, desired to see the lover. He accordingly paid his respects to the noble and unsuspecting parent, who, conceiving the young man to be what he represented himself, gave his consent at the first interview; and, the day after the marriage took place, presented the bridegroom with a draft on his banker for £1,500. This took place about 1771 or 1772.

Shortly after the receipt of his lordship's bounty, Hatfield set off for London; hired a small phÆton; was perpetually at the coffee-houses in Covent Garden; described himself to whatever company he chanced to meet, as a near relation of the Rutland family; vaunted of his parks and hounds; but as great liars have seldom good memories, he so varied in his descriptive figures, that he acquired the appellation of Lying Hatfield.

The marriage portion now exhausted, he retreated from London, and was scarcely heard of for about ten years, when he again visited the metropolis, having left his wife, with three daughters, to depend on the precarious charity of her relations. Happily she did not long survive; and the author of her calamities, during his stay in London, soon experienced calamity himself, having been arrested, and committed to King's Bench prison, for a debt amounting to the sum of £160. Several unfortunate gentlemen, then confined in the same place, had been of his parties when he flourished in Covent Garden, and perceiving him in great poverty, frequently invited him to dinner; yet such was his unaccountable disposition, that notwithstanding he knew there were people present who were thoroughly acquainted with his character, still he would continue to describe his Yorkshire park, his estate in Rutlandshire, settled upon his wife, and generally wind up the whole with observing how vexatious it was to be confined at the suit of a paltry tradesman for so insignificant a sum, at the very moment when he had thirty men employed in cutting a piece of water near the family mansion in Yorkshire.

At the time Hatfield became a prisoner in the King's Bench, the unfortunate Valentine Morris, formerly governor of St. Vincent's, was confined in the same place. This gentleman was frequently visited by a clergyman of the most benevolent and humane disposition. Hatfield soon directed his attention to this good man, and one day earnestly invited to attend him to his chamber; after some preliminary apologies, he implored the worthy pastor never to disclose what he was going to communicate. The divine assured him the whole should remain in his bosom. "Then," said Hatfield, "you see before you a man nearly allied to the house of Rutland, and possessed of estates (here followed the old story of the Yorkshire park, the Rutlandshire property, &c., &c.,); yet notwithstanding all this wealth, continued he, I am detained in this wretched place for the insignificant sum of £160. But the truth is, Sir, I would not have my situation known to any man in the world but my worthy relative, his Grace of Rutland. Indeed, I would rather remain a captive for ever. If you would have the goodness to pay your respects to this worthy nobleman, and frankly describe how matters are, he will at once send me the money by you; and this mighty business will not only be instantly settled, but I shall have the satisfaction of introducing you to a connection which may be attended with happy consequences."

The honest clergyman readily undertook the commission; paid his respects to the Duke, and pathetically described the unfortunate situation of his amiable relative. His Grace of Rutland, not recollecting at the moment such a name as Hatfield, expressed his astonishment at the application. This reduced the worthy divine to a very awkward situation, and he faltered in his speech, when he began making an apology; which the Duke perceiving, he very kindly observed, that he believed the whole was some idle tale of an impostor, for that he never knew any person of the name mentioned, although he had some faint recollection of hearing Lord Robert Manners, his relation, say that he had married a natural daughter of his to a tradesman in the north of England, and whose name he believed was Hatfield.

The Reverend was so confounded that he immediately retired and proceeded to the prison, where he gave the impostor, in the presence of Mr. Morris, a most severe lecture. But the appearance of this venerable man, as his friend, had the effect which Hatfield expected; for the Duke sent to inquire if he was the man that married the natural daughter of Lord Robert Manners, and, being satisfied as to the fact, despatched a messenger with £200, and had him released.

In 1784, his Grace of Rutland was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and shortly after his arrival in Dublin, Hatfield made his appearance in that city. He immediately, on his landing, engaged a suite of rooms at a hotel in College Green, and represented himself as nearly allied to the Viceroy, but that he could not appear at the castle until his horses, servants, and carriages were arrived, which he ordered, before leaving England, to be shipped at Liverpool. The easy and familiar manner in which he addressed the master of the hotel, perfectly satisfied him that he had a man of consequence in his house, and matters were arranged accordingly. This being adjusted, Hatfield soon found his way to Lucas's coffee-house, a place which people of a certain rank generally frequent; and, it being a new scene, the Yorkshire park, the Rutlandshire estate, and the connection with the Rutland family, stood their ground very well for about a month.

At the expiration of this time, the bill at the hotel amounted to £60 and upwards. The landlord became importunate, and after expressing his astonishment at the non-arrival of Mr. Hatfield's domestics, etc., requested he might be permitted to send in his bill. This did not in the least confuse Hatfield; he immediately told the master of the hotel, that very unfortunately his agent, who received the rents of his estates in the north of England, was then in Ireland, and held a public employment; he lamented that his agent was not then in Dublin, but he had the pleasure to know his stay in the country would not exceed three days. This satisfied the landlord; and at the expiration of the three days, he called upon the gentleman whose name Hatfield had given him, and presented the account. Here followed another scene of confusion and surprise. The supposed agent of the Yorkshire estate very frankly told the man who delivered the bill, that he had no other knowledge of the person who sent him than what common report furnished him with, that his general character in London was that of a romantic simpleton whose plausibilities had imposed on several people, and plunged himself into repeated difficulties.

The landlord retired, highly thankful for the information, and immediately arrested his guest who was lodged in the prison of the Marshalsea. Hatfield had scarcely seated himself in his new lodgings, when he visited the jailor's wife in her apartment, and in a whisper, requested of her not to tell any person that she had in her custody a near relation of the then Viceroy. The woman, astonished at the discovery, immediately showed him into the best apartment in the prison, had a table provided, and she, her husband, and Hatfield, constantly dined together, for nearly three weeks, in the utmost harmony and good humour.

During this time he had petitioned the Duke for another supply, who, apprehensive that the fellow might continue his impositions in Dublin, released him, on condition of his immediately quitting Ireland; and his grace sent a servant, who conducted him on board the packet that sailed the next tide for Holyhead.

In 1792, he came to Scarbro', introduced himself to the acquaintance of several persons of distinction in that neighbourhood, and insinuated that he was, by the interest of the Duke of Rutland, soon to be one of the representatives in parliament for the town of Scarbro'. After several weeks' stay at the principal inn, his imposture was detected by his inability to pay the bill. Soon after his arrival in London, he was arrested for this debt, and thrown into prison. He had been eight years and a half in confinement, when a Miss Nation, of Devonshire, to whom he had become known, paid his debts, took him from prison, and gave him her hand in marriage.

Soon after he was liberated, he had the good fortune to prevail with some highly respectable merchants in Devonshire to take him into partnership with them; and, with a clergyman to accept his drafts to a large amount. He made upon this foundation a splendid appearance in London; and, before the general election, even proceeded to canvass the rotten burgh of Queenborough. Suspicions in the meantime arose, in regard to his character, and the state of his fortune. He retired from the indignation of his creditors, and was declared a bankrupt, in order to bring his villanies to light. Thus, having left behind his second wife and two infant children at Tiverton, he visited other places; and, at length, in July, 1802, arrived at the Queen's Head in Keswick, in a handsome travelling carriage, but without any servant, where he assumed the name of the Hon. Alexander Augustus Hope, brother of the Earl of Hopetoun, M.P., for Linlithgow.

From Keswick, as his head-quarters, he made excursions in every direction amongst the neighbouring valleys; meeting, generally, a good deal of respect and attention, partly on account of his handsome equipage, and still more from his visiting cards, which designated him as "the Honourable Alexander Augustus Hope." Some persons had discernment enough to doubt of this; for his breeding and deportment, though showy, had a tinge of vulgarity about it; he was grossly ungrammatical in his ordinary conversation. He received letters under this assumed name—which might be through collusion with accomplices—but he himself continually franked letters by that name. That being a capital offence, not only a forgery, but (as a forgery on the post-office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody presumed to question his pretensions any longer; and henceforward, he went to all places with the consideration attached to an earl's brother. All doors flew open at his approach; boats, boatmen, nets, and the most unlimited sporting privileges, were placed at the disposal of the "Honourable" gentleman; and the hospitality of the whole country taxed itself to offer a suitable reception to the patrician Scotchman.

Nine miles from Keswick, by the nearest route, lies the lake of Buttermere. Its margin, which is overhung by some of the loftiest and steepest of Cumbrian mountains, exhibits on either side few traces of human neighbourhood; the level area, where the hills recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild, pastoral character, or almost savage; the waters of the lake are deep and sullen; and the barrier mountains, by excluding the sun for much of its daily course, strengthen the gloomy impressions. At the foot of this lake (that is, at the end where its waters issue), lie a few unornamented fields, through which rolls a little brook-like river, connecting it with the larger lake of Crummock; and at the edge of this little domain, upon the roadside, stands a cluster of cottages, so small and few, that, in the richer tracts of the islands, they would scarcely be complimented with the name of hamlet. One of these, the principal, belonged to an independent proprietor, called, in the local dialect, a "Statesman;" and more, perhaps, for the sake of gathering any little local news, than with much view to pecuniary profit at that era, this cottage offered the accommodations of an inn to traveller and his horse.

Rare, however, must have been the mounted traveller in those days, unless visiting Buttermere for itself, for the road led to no further habitations of man, with the exception of some four or five pastoral cabins, equally humble, in Gatesgarth dale. Hither, however, in an evil hour for the peace of this little brotherhood of shepherds, came the cruel spoiler from Keswick, and directed his steps to the once happy cottage of poor Mary, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, an old couple, who kept the inn, and had, by their industry, gained a little property. She was the only daughter, and probably her name had never been known to the public, but for the account given of her by the author of A Fortnight's Ramble to the Lakes in Westmorland, Lancashire, and Cumberland. His errand was to witness or share in char-fishing; for in Derwentwater (the lake of Keswick) no char is found, which breeds only in the deeper waters, such as Windermere, Crummock, Buttermere, &c.

Hatfield now became acquainted with an Irish gentleman, an M.P., who had been resident with his family some months at Keswick. With this gentleman, and under his immediate protection, there was likewise a young lady of family and fortune, and of great personal attractions. One of the means which Hatfield used to introduce himself to this respectable family was the following:—Understanding that the gentleman had been a military man, he took an army list from his pocket, and pointed to his assumed name, the Honourable Alexander Augustus Hope, lieutenant-colonel of the 14th regiment of foot. This new acquaintance daily gained strength; and he shortly paid his addresses to the daughter of the above gentleman, and obtained her consent. The wedding clothes were bought; but previously to the wedding-day being fixed, she insisted that the pretended Colonel Hope should introduce the subject formally to her friends. He now pretended to write letters; and, while waiting for the answers, proposed to employ that time in a trip to Lord Hopetoun's seat, &c.

From this time he played a double game; his visits to Keswick became frequent, and his suit to the young lady assiduous and fervent. Still, however, both at Keswick and Buttermere, he was somewhat shy of appearing in public. He was sure to be engaged in a fishing expedition on the day on which any company was expected at the public house at Buttermere; and he never attended the church at Keswick but once.

Finding his schemes baffled to obtain this young lady and her fortune, he now applied himself wholly to gain possession of Mary Robinson, who was a fine young woman of eighteen, and acted as waiter. In a situation so solitary, the stranger had unlimited facilities for enjoying her company, and recommending himself to her favour. Among the neighbours he made the most minute inquiries into every circumstance relating to her and her family. Doubts about his pretensions never arose in so simple a place as this; they were over-ruled before they could well have arisen, by the opinion now general in Keswick, that he really was what he pretended to be; and thus, with little demur, except in the shape of a few natural words of parting anger from a defeated or rejected rustic admirer, the young woman gave her hand in marriage to the showy and unprincipled stranger. He procured a licence, and they were married in the church of Lorton, on the 2nd of October, 1802. A romantic account of the circumstance found its way almost immediately into the newspapers. It thus fell under the notice of various individuals in Scotland, who knew that Colonel Hope, who was said to have married the flower of Buttermere, had been abroad the whole summer, and was now residing in Vienna. Mr. Charles Hope, then Lord Justice Clerk, afterwards President of the Court of Session (a son-in-law of the Earl of Hopetoun), made the fact known, and prompted inquiries which led to the detection of the imposture.

On the day previous to his marriage, Hatfield wrote to Mr. Mansfield, informing him, that he was under the necessity of being absent for ten days on a journey into Scotland, and sent him a draft for thirty pounds, drawn on Mr. Crumpt, of Liverpool, desired him to cash it, and pay some small debts in Keswick with it, and send him over the balance, as he feared he might be short of cash on the road. This Mr. Mansfield immediately did, and sent him ten guineas in addition to the balance. On the Saturday, Wood, the landlord of the Queen's Head, returned from Lorton with the public intelligence, that Colonel Hope had married the Beauty of Buttermere. As it was clear, whoever he was, that he had acted unworthily and dishonourably, Mr. Mansfield's suspicions were of course awakened. He instantly remitted the draft to Mr. Crumpt, who immediately accepted it. Mr. Mansfield wrote to the Earl of Hopetoun. Before the answer arrived, the pretended honourable returned with his wife to Buttermere. He went only as far as Longtown, when he received two letters, seemed much troubled that some friends whom he had expected had not arrived there, stayed three days, and then told his wife that he would again go back to Buttermere.

From this she was seized with fears and suspicions. They returned, however, and their return was made known at Keswick. The late Mr. Harding, the barrister, and a Welsh judge, passing through Keswick, heard of this impostor, and sent his servant over to Buttermere with a note to the supposed Colonel Hope, who observed, "that it was a mistake, and that it was for a brother of his." However, he sent for four horses, and came over to Keswick; drew another draft on Mr. Crumpt for twenty pounds, which the landlord at the Queen's Head had the courage to cash. Of this sum he immediately sent the ten guineas to Mr. Mansfield, who came and introduced him to the judge, as his old friend Colonel Hope. But he made a blank denial that he had ever assumed the name. He had said his name was Hope, but not that he was the honourable member for Linlithgow, &c., &c.; and one who had been his frequent intimate at Buttermere gave evidence to the same purpose.

In spite, however, of his impudent assertions, and those of his associate, the evidence against him was decisive. A warrant was given by Sir Frederick Vane on the clear proof of his having forged and received several franks as the member for Linlithgow; and he was committed to the care of a constable, but allowed to fish on the lake. Having, however, found means to escape, he took refuge for a few days on board a sloop off Ravenglass, and then went in the coach to Ulverston, and was afterwards seen at a hotel in Chester. In the meantime the following advertisement, setting forth his person and manners, was in the public prints:—

At the fourth examination of the impostor, on the 27th of December, this letter was read aloud by the clerk, in the open court. To quote from a chronicle of the time:—"The simplicity of this letter, which, though it breathes the soft murmur of complaint, is free from all virulence, excited in the breast of every person present an emotion of pity and respect for the unmerited sorrows of a female, who has in this whole matter manifested a delicacy of sentiment, and nobleness of mind, infinitely beyond her sphere of education. The feelings of Hatfield could not be enviable; yet he exhibited no symptom of contrition; and when remanded for further examination, retired with the most impenetrable composure."

He was then dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, fustian breeches, and boots, and wore his hair tied behind. His appearance was respectable, though quite in dishabille. The Duke of Cumberland, and several other gentlemen, were present at his examination; in the course of which the following letter was produced:—

"Buttermere, Oct. 1, 1802.

"Dear Sir,—I have this day received Mr. Firkman's kind letter from Manchester, promising me the happiness of seeing you both in about ten days, which will indeed give me great pleasure; and you can, too, be of very valuable service to me at this place, particulars of which, when we meet, though I shall probably write to you again in a few days. The chief purpose for which I write this, is to desire you will be so good as to accept a bill for me, dated Buttermere, the 1st of October, at ten days, and I will either give you cash for it here, or remit to you in time, whichever way you please to say. It is drawn in favour of Nathaniel Montgomery More, Esq. Be pleased to present my best respects to your lady; and say, I hope, ere the winter elapses, to pay her my personal respects; for if you will manage so as to pass a little time with me in Scotland, I will promise to make Liverpool in my way to London. With the truest esteem, I am, Dear Sir, yours ever,

A. Hope."

"Keswick, October the 1st, 1802.
John Crumpt, Esq., Liverpool.
Free, A. Hope."