Who that has read Harrison Ainsworth's story of the "Manchester Rebels" can fail to remember the vivid picture he has drawn of the ferment into which the whilom Puritan town was thrown when, on the morning of the 28th November, 1745, a recruiting sergeant, with a drummer boy and a Scotch lassie, crossed the old Salford bridge into Manchester, passed along Cateaton Street and the Millgate, to the Market Cross, and after proclaiming "King James the Third," began beating up for recruits for "The yellow-haired Laddie," who on the following day joined them with the main body of the rebel clans; of the rejoicings and festivities, the illuminations and the fireworks; of the enthusiasm of the Jacobite ladies, who sat up all night at Mr. Byrom's at the Cross making white cockades, and the joyous excitement of John Byrom's gossiping daughter, "Beppy" Byrom, who, as she confesses, got completely "fuddled" with drinking the Prince's health in champagne after having had the honour of kissing his hand; when the orange plumes paled before the blaze of tartan in which female Manchester had arrayed itself, and Colonel Townley laboured with unwearying zeal in mustering and enrolling a Manchester regiment, and Parson Coppock and the irrepressible Tom Syddall exhorted their fellow townsmen in the name of their God to enlist in the service of their rightful sovereign. And who that has read Shenstone's pathetic ballad, "Jemmy Dawson," that tale

but has "heaved a sigh" at the touching episode connected with Lancashire's share in the rebellion which it records?

But for Mickle's wonderfully woven web of truth and fiction,

and the sorrows of Amy Robsart would never have excited special interest; and had not Shenstone, with the same marvellous gift of nature, commemorated in imperishable verse the sad fate of the plighted fair one of Captain Dawson, our interest and our sympathy with the victim of that revolting tragedy might never have been awakened, and the name even of the amiable and unfortunate subject of the stanzas have become forgotten.

But who, it may be asked, was "Jemmy Dawson," where was his abode, and what was the name of the hapless maid whose fortunes were so sadly linked with his own? Mr. Robert Chambers, in his History of the Rebellion of '45, says:

James Dawson, the son of a Gentleman of Lancashire, was attached to a young Lady of good family and fortune, when some youthful excesses induced him to run away from College and join the insurgents. Had he obtained the Royal Mercy or been acquitted, the day of his enlargement was to have been that of his marriage. When it was ascertained that he was to suffer death, the inconsolable young lady determined to witness the execution, and she accordingly followed the sledges in a hackney-coach, accompanied by a Gentleman nearly related to her and one female friend. She got near enough to see all the dreadful preparations without betraying any extravagant emotions; she also succeeded in restraining her feelings during the progress of the bloody tragedy; but when all was over, and the shouts of the multitude rang in her ears, she drew her head back again into the coach and crying, "My dear! I follow thee—I follow thee! Sweet Jesus receive both our souls together!" fell upon the neck of her companion and expired in the very moment she was speaking.

The information thus given is of the scantiest nature, and, meagre as it is, it is inaccurate in some details. Of the family of [Pg 399] [Pg 400] [Pg 401] "Jemmy Dawson" unfortunately but few particulars can be gleaned, but the little we know is sufficiently interesting to make us long to know more. Of the lady to whom he was betrothed we know absolutely nothing, and her name even has never been satisfactorily established. In the "Legends of Lancashire" (p. 159) it is stated, though on what authority does not appear, that her name was Katherine Norton, that she was an orphan, and that her parents had been of illustrious rank. "She had travelled," it is said, "with a maiden aunt, and as they were residing for a few weeks in the vicinity of Cambridge, she had met with young Dawson, and thus commenced an ardent attachment between them."

The Dawsons, who were a family of some note in Manchester, came originally from Yorkshire, where, at Barnsley, towards the close of the seventeenth century, was residing James Dawson, who is described as a trader, a phrase that had a different significance a couple of centuries ago than it has now, a trader then being equal in social status to the merchant or manufacturer of the present day. The trader of Barnsley in due time took to himself a wife in the person of Jane Wolstenholme, of Hopwood, near Middleton, and to this worthy couple was born on the 5th March, 1695-6, a son and heir, William Dawson, who, after he had attained to man's estate, settled in Manchester, where he practised as an apothecary, and was known to his neighbours as Dr. Dawson. He was successful in his profession, and eventually became the owner of a considerable real estate, including a house at Barnsley, which he had probably inherited from his father, and another called "The Cottage," in Manchester; the latter a dwelling-house with gardens and pleasure grounds attached, occupying the site of the present Concert Hall—then a pleasant suburb of the town, to which we shall have occasion hereafter more particularly to refer. Dr. Dawson appears also to have had in the later years of his life a town residence near the top of the present King Street, a fashionable quarter, where some of the clergy of the "old church" had located themselves, and which was then known as St. James's Square, a name that was abandoned when the Hanoverian sovereigns had finally asserted their prerogative against the claims of the Jacobite Pretender; the two squares—St. James's and St. Ann's—being memorials of a conflict which is now but a matter of history.

William Dawson, the apothecary, married for his first wife Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Mr. Richard Allen, a gentleman residing at Redivales, near Bury, the representative of a family of somewhat more than local fame, claiming descent from the stock of the same name seated at Rossal, in Lancashire, of which house was the well known Cardinal Allen, the apologist of Sir William Stanley's perfidy and treason in surrendering Deventer to the King of Spain, and a branch of which was located in Salford, their home being the quaint old black and white gabled building still standing in Greengate, and for many years past occupied as a tavern, and bearing the sign of the "Bull's Head." This match brought the young apothecary in close alliance with some of the best families in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Dawson's aunt, Dorothy Allen, had married the wealthy draper of Kersall, and she was, therefore, own cousin to his sons, Edward Byrom the younger, and John Byrom, the amiable and gifted poet and strong, though prudent, partisan of the Jacobite cause. Her great-grandmother was the wife of the Rev. Isaac Allen, Rector of Prestwich, a staunch Churchman and Royalist, who, for refusing to take the Covenant, was turned out of his living during the Cromwellian period, but reinstated shortly after the Restoration in 1660.

The children of William Dawson, by his first wife, Elizabeth Allen, were James, the hero of Shenstone's ballad, of whom anon; William, who was educated for the law and entered at Lincoln's Inn, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. In 1737, the year in which his eldest son entered at the university, Mr. Dawson had the misfortune to lose his wife, her death occurring on the 3rd of May, at the age of forty-one. Some time afterwards he married for his second wife Mary, the eldest daughter of William Greenwood, of Liversage Hall, previously of Middlewood Hall, near Barnsley, and the widow of Joseph Greenwood, of Leeds; but by this lady, who survived him nearly twenty years, and died January 25, 1782, he had no children.

James Dawson, the eldest son, the rebel captain, who was born about the year 1717, would, in all probability, receive his early education at the Grammar School of his native town, where Thomas Coppock, the pseudo Bishop of Carlisle, was also a pupil. In 1737, being then twenty years of age, he proceeded to Cambridge, where, on the 21st October, he was admitted to St. John's College, the register describing him as:—

Jocobus Dawson, Lancastriensis filius natu major Gulielmi Dawson pharmacopolÆ Mancunii natus et literis institutus apud Salford in eodem Comitatu sub Magistro Clayton, admissus pensionarius minor Tutore et fide Jussore Magistro Wrigley, Oct. 21, 1737, anno Ætatis 20^mo.

The "Magistro Clayton" referred to was doubtless the Rev. John Clayton, of the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, an ardent Jacobite, who preached in the church and prayed openly in the street in Salford for Charles Edward at the time of his visit to Manchester, and whose appearance in the pulpit of St. Ann's in the interval between the death of one rector and the appointment of another caused so much dissatisfaction to the Hanoverian worshippers that, as Miss Byrom in her diary tells us, some of them "went out of church because he preached." The story related by Chambers and others that young Dawson had been induced to run away from his college, fearing that he might be expelled on account of some youthful excesses, and that after leaving Cambridge he joined the ranks of the young Pretender, does not appear to rest on any reliable foundation. There is extant a letter written by the Registrar of the University of Cambridge, dated 24th October, 1833, which states that "the only document concerning him in the University Records is his signature on matriculation, which took place on the 17th of December, 1737, when he was matriculated as a pensioner. He wrote a bold hand. He never took a degree, nor does he appear to have been subjected to any punishment for irregularity in the University Court held by the Vice-chancellor."

A century had wrought a mighty change in the political sentiments of the people of Manchester. When the great struggle between Charles the First and his Parliament began, led by the eloquence of Warden Heyricke, they took sides against the King, but they quickly changed their opinions, and when Charles's son, the "Merry Monarch," was restored to the crown they were jubilant, and in the exuberance of their joy caused the conduit to flow with wine and the gutters to swell with strong beer. The sons of those men held by the political opinions of their fathers, and were, for the most part, ardent supporters of the hereditary claims of the House of Stuart. There were two factions in the town—Whigs and Tories, or Hanoverians and Jacobites as they were more commonly called, the latter being by far the more numerous and influential. They met at their respective taverns—the Hanoverians at the "Angel" in the Market Street Lane, and the Jacobites at "John Shaw's" and the "Bull's Head" in the Market Place—drank punch, a beverage for which they seem to have had a special partiality, and toasted the King, and denounced the Pretender with a mental reservation as to

Thirty years previously the town had been stirred to its inmost depths by the claims the first Pretender had advanced. Many of the sympathisers of '15 were still alive, and the old spirit of strife, though it might have slumbered, was still strong. James Dawson's kinsman, Dr. Byrom, who was then in the heyday of his popularity, was warmly attached to the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and was accounted the laureate of the party; his Jacobitism was, however, under the control of a cautious possessor, and in proclaiming his political faith he was sufficiently prudent to avoid imperilling either his personal or his family interests. He nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence over his fellow townsmen, and largely helped to fan the flame of disaffection. A wit, a scholar, and a poet, his playful epigrams and clever jeux d'esprit caused his society to be sought after by both parties, and linked him in close intimacy, if not, indeed, in close friendship, with men whose political creeds were at variance with his own. Byrom's versatile powers and refined and courteous demeanour acted as a charm, and enabled him, if not to turn Hanoverians into Jacobites, at least to bias their practice and take the sting out of their Whiggism.

Brought within the range of his seductive influence, we can scarcely wonder that Byrom's relative, young Dawson, then fresh from college, impressionable, impulsive, and enthusiastic, should have imbibed his Jacobite principles. The time was one of political excitement. England was in a state of agitation, and the rumours which had reached Manchester of the successful rising in the North sufficed to stir the fire of youthful enthusiasm and inspire devotion to the Pretender's cause. The young Chevalier was in the field at the head of the Highland clans; France had promised substantial support, not because France had any particular liking for the Stuarts, but because she was not unwilling to pay off some old scores by finding occupation for her traditional foe; Sir John Cope had been beaten at Prestonpans, and the victorious Charles Edward was then at Carlisle on his way south. Francis Townley, a scion of an old Lancashire family, who had figured at the Court of Louis XV. and seen service and earned distinction abroad, was entrusted with a colonel's commission from the French King; the commission authorised him to raise forces on behalf of the Prince, and with that object he repaired to Manchester, the reputed stronghold of the Jacobite party, to beat up for recruits; the town was excited, the bolder spirits were jubilant and eager in their desire to don the white cockade, some money was raised and more was promised but never paid, and what is known to history as the "Manchester Regiment" was enrolled. In that regiment James Dawson was honoured with a captaincy; what that captaincy cost him we shall hereafter see.

Saturday, the 29th of November, 1745, was an eventful day for Manchester, and one the townsmen had cause long to remember, for it was that on which the young Chevalier, Prince Charles Edward, made his appearance, after having taken Lancaster, Preston, and Wigan, on his progress from the North. About ten o'clock in the morning the main body of his army entered the town; regiment after regiment, with their glittering firelocks, their tartan sashes, and gay and picturesque dresses, marched over the Old Bridge and into St. Ann's-square, then lately built, where they halted. It was an inauspicious moment, for at the precise time the remains of the first rector of St. Ann's, the Rev. Joseph Hoole, were being committed to the grave. As the men entered the square, the warlike notes of the bagpipes were instantly hushed, and, with instinctive reverence for the dead, the officers drew near the churchyard, unbonneted, and joined devoutly in the service while the coffin was being lowered to its final resting-place. It was an ominous incident, and seemed premonitory of the fate that was shortly to overtake so many of those assembled. As the historian of St Ann's observes:—"White cockade and black scarf were at one in the presence of death. Many a white cockade was laid low ere a month was gone."

Scarcely was the mournful scene ended than Prince Charles himself, dressed in Highland garb—the Stuart plaid belted with a blue sash, and wearing a light wig with a blue bonnet, in which was fixed a white rose, entered the town amid the applauding acclamations of the people. As he passed through Salford on his way, Parson Clayton, then one of the chaplains of the Collegiate Church, and previously young Dawson's instructor at the Grammar School, dropped on his knees, and in fervent tones prayed that the enterprise might be successful, and that the divine blessing would rest upon the Prince's head. Colonel Townley had made previous arrangements for his reception, and on his arrival he was conducted to his quarters at the house of Mr. Dickenson,[66] a residence in Market Street Lane, thenceforward dignified with the name of "The Palace," a name still perpetuated in Palace Buildings, which mark the site. The head-quarters of the officers were fixed at the "Bull's Head," in the Market Place, then the principal inn in the town, and Lord George Murray, the Prince's secretary, stationed himself at the Dog Inn, in Deansgate, for the purpose of distributing the French King's commissions to officers who were willing to purchase. In the course of the day "His Majesty King James the Third" was proclaimed at the Market Cross, poor James Waller, of Ridgefield, a loyal subject of the House of Brunswick, who was content with monarchy as it stood, being compelled to pocket his political principles, and become the medium of communication between Prince and people, by conveying the demands of the rebel army to his fellow-townsmen for the payment of all the money they had collected for the taxes; and in the evening bonfires were lit, the streets were illuminated, drums beat, pipes played, and the bells rang loud peals from the Old Church steeple in honour of the event. No pains were spared to fan the flame of enthusiasm. Receptions were held by the Prince, and Jacobite sympathisers of both sexes, wearing tartan favours, thronged the house of Mr. Dickenson, anxious to be presented and to have the honour of kissing the Prince's hand. Recruiting, meanwhile, was carried on with energy; the Manchester Regiment was enrolled, and by the Chevalier's orders Colonel Francis Townley, who had joined the forces at Preston, was nominated commander; Thomas Coppock, the son of a Manchester tailor, residing in the Old Millgate, and a quondam companion of James Dawson, who had lately graduated at Brasenose, Oxford, where he had been an exhibitioner from Hugh Oldham's Grammar School, was appointed chaplain; Tom Syddall, the son of a peruke-maker, who had been hanged and his head fixed on the Market Cross for the share he had in destroying the Cross Street meeting-house in 1715, and who, from the hour he had seen his father's exposed and insulted countenance, had conceived an implacable hatred for Dissenters, Whigs, and all the Hanoverian race, was made adjutant; and James Dawson was one of the first to be enrolled as captain.

Coppock, dressed in full canonicals, accompanied a drummer through the town, exhorting the people to take up arms in the Stuart cause, and his efforts were ably seconded by Dr. Deacon,[67] the minister of a non-juring congregation assembling in Fennel Street, whose three sons, on the advice of the father, and with his prayers and blessings, were among the earliest to obtain commissions; but the number recruited through their efforts fell far short of their expectations, not more than three hundred men being added to the strength of the rebel army, and of those comparatively few were resident in the town. The people were noisy and enthusiastic enough, but they were not sufficiently ardent to risk their lives and property in the chivalrous defence of the antiquated doctrine of the divine right of kings. The reason may not be far to seek. Manchester men had thriven upon their manufacture of fustians and dimities, and become a comparatively wealthy community—they had something to lose; their interests were bound up with more peaceful pursuits; insurrection and civil war do not generally conduce to the prosperity of trade, and hence they had little fondness for fighting.

The day which followed the Prince's arrival was a great day for the Jacobites. It was Sunday, and St. Andrew's day withal. The bells rang out from the old church tower; the streets were filled with Highland soldiers; Colonel Townley's Manchester Regiment mustered in the churchyard, the men in their blue and white cockades gathering round their flag, which bore on one side the inscription "Church and Country," and on the other "Liberty and Property." Never did the ancient fane itself present a brighter or more animated appearance; the nave was crowded with armed men, whose gaily-coloured attire and glittering claymores, targets, and other accoutrements produced a striking effect. The townspeople occupied the side aisles, and such a display of tartan had never before been witnessed; everybody wore Stuart favours, and the ladies were ablaze with tartan ribbons, shaws, and furbelows. The Prince occupied the warden's seat in the choir, his retinue being accommodated in the stalls close by. Warden Peploe, a staunch Whig, but lacking the spirit of his father, who, thirty years before, when the insurgents occupied Preston, had stood before the Pretender's soldiery and prayed for King George and the House of Brunswick,[68] had consulted his safety by withdrawing from the town. Young Parson Coppock, the chaplain of the Manchester Regiment, supplied his place, and preached from the text, "The Lord is King; the earth may be glad thereof" (Psalm xcvii., v. 1); and from the same pulpit whence, a century before, Warden Heyricke, on his "drum ecclesiastic," had stirred the hearts of the Manchester people by his trumpet-tongued sermons, and roused them into active resistance to the Stuart King and the "Papistical malignants" who had gained possession of him, was now only heard a mild oration larded with flattering eulogies of his Popish descendant.

When the service was concluded, the Manchester Regiment was inspected by the Prince, and on the following day, with the rest of the rebel army, they set forward on their march southwards, advancing in two divisions by different routes towards Macclesfield, which had been fixed as the limit of the first day's march. At Cheadle Ford, where the bridge now bestrides the Mersey, a temporary bridge, formed of the trunks and branches of poplar trees, was constructed for the horse and artillery to pass over, and here the Prince, with two regiments, crossed, buoyant with hope and full of energy. On reaching the opposite bank he was welcomed by a number of the Cheshire gentry, who had come out to meet him; with them was the venerable Mrs. Skyring, of whom Lord Mahon relates the following affecting story ("Forty-Five," p. 84):—"As a child, she had been lifted up in her mother's arms to view the happy landing at Dover of Charles the Second. Her father, an old Cavalier, had afterwards to undergo, not merely neglect, but oppression from that thankless monarch; still, however, he and his wife continued devoted to the Royal cause, and their daughter grew up as devoted as they. After the expulsion of the Stuarts all her thoughts, her hopes, her prayers, were directed to another restoration. Ever afterwards she had, with rigid punctuality, laid aside one-half of her yearly income to remit for the exiled family abroad, concealing only the name of the giver, which she said was of no importance to them, and might give them pain if they remembered the unkind treatment she had formerly received. She had now parted with her jewels, her plate, and every little article she possessed, the price of which she laid in a purse at the feet of Prince Charles, while straining her dim eyes to gaze on his features, and pressing his hand to her shrivelled lips, she exclaimed with affectionate rapture, 'Lord! now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace!'" It is added that she did not survive the shock when, a few days afterwards, she was told of the retreat. The ancient lady, who is represented as somewhat irreverently employing the sacred words of the Nunc Dimittis, may be a pretty object to contemplate through the haze of a century or more, but the story Lord Mahon so pathetically relates is of doubtful origin, and should be received with caution.

On reaching Macclesfield the two divisions of the Prince's army were united, and the Manchester men were drawn up in the churchyard, when arms were distributed to those who had not previously received them. The rebel forces met with little encouragement in the town, and the next day, after having searched Adlington Hall and some other houses of note in the neighbourhood, and taken what arms they could find, they continued their march by way of Congleton and Leek to Derby, which town was reached on December 4th, having, incredible as it may appear, met with little or no opposition on the way. Of the subsequent movements of the Manchester Regiment we need not say much; the record of its doings is part of the country's history. Some who joined may have been led by a love of adventure, but others were influenced by higher considerations. Sincere and enthusiastic in their support of the exiled dynasty, they were willing to forfeit their lives for their Prince, and the forfeit, as we shall see, was rigorously enacted. Their progress was as disastrous as it was brief. Hearing, while at Derby, that the Duke of Cumberland, with an army of veterans, was in the neighbourhood, and distrusting the skill of their own officers, they beat a retreat northwards, carrying with them whatever in the way of booty they could lay their hands on. On the 9th December the advanced guard reached Manchester, where, instead of meeting with the welcome they had received ten short days before, they were assailed by a shower of stones from the mob; the regiment raised by Captain Townley was broken up, and many of the men dispersed, but Captain Dawson, with Coppock, Syddall, the three Deacons, and several other of the more resolute supporters of the Prince, determined upon sharing his fortunes, and pushed on with him to Carlisle, hotly pursued by the Duke of Cumberland. In opposition to the advice of Lord George Murray, it was determined that a garrison should be left in the border city. There was at the time a gloomy anticipation of the fate awaiting those who should remain, yet none hesitated to make the almost certain sacrifice; Colonel Townley volunteered for the desperate service, and was accordingly made governor of the city; with him were Captain Dawson, Adjutant Syddall, the Deacons, Coppock, who had been dubbed Bishop of Carlisle, and the remnant of the Manchester Regiment, one hundred and twenty strong, with two hundred and seventy of the Highlanders and Lowland Scots, and a handful of French officers and privates. Soon after the Prince's departure the Duke of Cumberland, with Marshal Wade, appeared before the city, and summoned the garrison to surrender; after a brief resistance they were obliged to yield on the hard conditions that, instead of being put to the sword, they should be reserved for the King's pleasure. Coppock, after being imprisoned for some time, was executed at Gallows Green, Harrowby, about a mile south of Carlisle, meeting his death, as did his companions in arms, with firmness to the last, and expressing his belief in the justice of the cause he had embraced. The other officers, twenty in number, were conveyed in waggons under a strong guard to London. Great efforts had been made to inflame the minds of the populace against them by representing them all as Papists, who, if they had succeeded, would have roasted the Duke of Cumberland to death, burned the bishops, and destroyed all heretics—men, women, and children; and on their arrival in the Metropolis they were led in a sort of triumph through the streets, where the greatest indignation was offered them by the excited throng. As they had served under commissions from the French King, they expected to have been treated as ordinary prisoners of war, and that they would be regularly exchanged. Their fate, however, was far otherwise. Imprisoned first in the cells of Newgate, and afterwards in the New Prison in Southwark, they passed thence to the scaffold. The head of Syddall was sent to Manchester and fixed on a spike in front of the Exchange, near where that of his father had been fixed thirty years before. Captain Thomas Deacon was treated in like manner, and it is recorded of his father, the nonjuring divine, that he never afterwards passed the spot where the mutilated head of his son had been exposed without reverently raising his hat as a token of respect. A local poet has embalmed the memory of these Manchester martyrs in the following quaint lines:—

It is with the fate of Captain Dawson, however, that we are more immediately concerned. It had been determined that the full vengeance of the law should fall upon the unfortunate victims belonging to the Manchester Regiment, and those who were in Newgate were, after a lapse of six months, ordered to prepare for trial previous to their removal to the prison of Southwark. Dawson, as previously stated, had while at Cambridge been betrothed to a young lady, a Miss Katherine Norton, it is said. She appears to have engaged all his thoughts, and it is stated that during his confinement he employed himself in writing verses on his unhappy fate.

The trials commenced on the 16th July, 1746, in the Courthouse at St. Margaret's Hill, before the High Commissioners appointed for the purpose. Townley, the colonel of the regiment, was the first arraigned. His behaviour during the trial was firm and undaunted, and when sentence of death was pronounced he was not in the least discomposed, nor did his countenance undergo any change of colour. The trials lasted three days, and the whole of the prisoners arraigned were found guilty. James Dawson was indicted for high treason (committed 18th November, 1745, five days before the taking of Carlisle by the rebels), and accused by witnesses for the prosecution of "having appeared as captain, at review, at Macclesfield;" "beaten up for volunteers at Derby;" "been at the head of company, at Penrith and other places;" "and also been one of the rebel garrison taken at Carlisle on the 30th December, 1745." He, like the others, was found guilty and sentenced to death, which was ordered to take place at Kennington on the 30th July, along with eight other officers of the Manchester Regiment. In the interval between his condemnation and his execution he employed himself in preparing a written declaration of the motives and sentiments which had influenced him in joining the standard of the Pretender, a copy of which, as made and signed by himself, we give herewith:—

Blessed are they that suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake, for theirs is ye kingdom of Heaven.—Mat. ye 5 and 10.

Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen,

I am come to this place (and it's with cheerfulness and resignation I say it) to lay down my Life in defence of my King, and in support of the liberties and properties of you his natural-born subjects, and blessed be the will of God, who (unworthy as I am) has deign'd to look upon me as no unfit Instrument of executing his Divine Pleasure. I am now on the very last scene of life, and shall in a very few minutes launch into eternity; I therefore solemnly declare, as I shall answer it at the awful and impartial Tribunal before which I must shortly appear, that I firmly believe, and in my conscience am persuaded, that James the 3rd is my only true, lawful, and indisputable Sovereign; that the present Possessor of this Crown and Kingdom is a usurper; that my taking up arms against him was so far from being a crime that it was my indispensible and bounden duty; if I had ten thousand lives, I ought sooner to devote them all to his and my Country's service than to see Right overpowered by Oppression, or Rebellion prevailing over Justice.

I die, my dear Friends, in the fellowship and communion of the Church of England, and in perfect love and charity with all men. I humbly ask pardon of all those whom I have in any shape, or in any manner, either injured, affronted, or offended, as I do from the bottom of my heart forgive all my Enemies, Persecutors, and Slanderers, and in an especial manner Mr. Maddock,[69] who has not only sworn away mine but several other innocent persons' lives (an unchristian-like return for relieving and supporting him when destitute of almost every necessary of life); but this I mention not to upbraid him, God forbid I should. No, my dear Countrymen, I only beg that this, his fatal unhappy delusion, may be a lively and instructive warning both to you and posterity, never to add cruelty to injustice, or to injure your Benefactors only for having partaken of their benefits. And I likewise here solemnly declare that I sincerely forgive the ... [illegible] of the Counsel, the partiality of my Judges, and the misguided zeal of my Jury.—"Lay not, O God, my blood to their charge, neither let this my murder rise up against them. Forgive them, Oh! my Father, for they not know what they do."

And now, Oh! my God and merciful Father, having thus addressed the Throne of Grace for mine Enemies, let me now supplicate thy mercy for my poor unworthy self. I now with humility prostrate myself before thee, and beseech thee of thine infinite goodness, to deign to forgive me all my sins, negligences, and ignorances; excuse the frailties and infirmities of my nature, and pardon every levity, excess, and indecency which I have committed against thy Divine Majesty; plead thou my cause, Oh, my sweet Saviour; Oh! let not the transgressions of my youth, or the faults which I have been betrayed into, either through fear, forgetfulness, or surprise, be alleged against me at the Great Day of Judgment. Let that precious blood which was spilt at thy most bitter death on the Cross be a sweet-smelling sacrifice to turn away thy wrath from thy servant, who is not only now persecuted, but going to die for truth and righteousness' sake. In proportion to the humility of my desires, and the purity of my intention, heighten, Oh, Christ, my reward hereafter. Into thy hands I commend my soul; vouchsafe to save all those whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood, and make me to be remembered with thy Saints in glory everlasting. Amen.

If we could close the narrative of Manchester's share in the dynastic contest of '45 without reference to the afflicting details of the barbarities the victors deemed it necessary to perpetrate we should not have necessarily to excite the indignation of our readers against atrocities for the commission of which neither passion nor party zeal can furnish even the shadow of an excuse. The 30th of July was the day on which Captain Dawson and the four officers of the Manchester Regiment were to be subjected to the hideous penalties the law had awarded for their active partisanship of the exiled Stuarts—a day not less of shame than of triumph to the ruling powers, and one constituting in itself a very black page in the annals of the country. On that day there was to be enacted a scene such as England had happily not witnessed for thirty years or more. When the Manchester men surrendered at Carlisle they were told that they would be reserved for the King's pleasure—their fate is a dismal memorial of his tender mercies. Indifferent to the dishonour he was bringing upon the nation, and unmindful of the odium that must attach to his name, the Elector of Hanover looked upon rebellion as a crime that could only be dealt with in a spirit of revenge, and by the perpetration of cruelties so exceptionally revolting that they could not be repeated without greater danger to the throne than the insurrectionary feeling they were intended to crush. On the morning of the day named the whole of the condemned men were bound on three hurdles, and in this ignominious manner dragged from the new gaol at Southwark to the place of execution on Kennington Common, escorted by a strong party of soldiers. A gallows had been previously erected, and near it were the hideous adjuncts of all executions for treason—a pile of faggots and a block on which was laid the executioner's knife. On their arrival the victims were unbound and transferred from the hurdles to a cart placed under the "fatal tree," and at the same time the fire was lit, the faggots blazing up and crackling, before the doomed men's eyes. Having spent some time in their devotions, they severally delivered the declarations which they had written to the sheriff, the cart was withdrawn, and they were launched into eternity, all dying calm and composed. At the end of five minutes after suspension—before life was extinct, and while the body was yet quivering—Captain Townley was cut down, stripped, and placed on the block, when the hangman with his cleaver severed his head from the body, and then took out his heart and bowels and cast them into the fire. Captain Dawson underwent the same barbarous treatment; the others in succession shared his fate; and when the heart of the last was thrown into the fire the grim finisher of the law exclaimed, "God save King George!" the assembled crowd answering with a loud shout.

Connected with this melancholy exhibition an incident is recorded that has a more enduring interest even than the catastrophe itself. Among the spectators of the tragic scene was the plighted fair one of Captain Dawson. When all hope of the royal clemency was at an end the inconsolable young lady, impelled by frenzy and despair, determined upon following her betrothed to the place of execution and witnessing the dreadful spectacle that was to be enacted. Accompanied by a relative she, with heroic fortitude, followed the sledges in a hackney coach, beheld the preparations that were being made, watched her lover mount the gallows, and saw his lifeless body cut down and placed upon the block to be mutilated, without betraying any extravagant emotion, but when the executioner flung his victim's heart into the flames the sight was more than human nature could sustain. Withdrawing her gaze, she leaned back in the carriage, breathed his name, and was no more. Shenstone has made the incident the theme of a ballad which has alike immortalised its hero and its author. The following version, which differs slightly from some of the printed copies, is from Percy's "Reliques":—

Doubts have been entertained as to the genuineness of the story which Shenstone has narrated with such simple tenderness and pathos, and a belief expressed that for some of the more tragic details he has had recourse to the poet's licence. But apart from the circumstance that the incident commemorated has been a tradition in each of the three branches of the Dawson family, and accepted as an unimpeachable fact, there is extant sufficient contemporary evidence to remove any misgivings as to its authenticity. "Seldom shall you hear a tale so sad, so tender, and," as the poet adds, "so true." Shenstone, "whose mind," as has been said, "was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active," was content to take the event of his song from a narrative first published in the Parrot of August 2, 1746, three days after the "dismal scene" recorded. It is there stated that, "On the young lady being informed that Mr. Dawson was to be executed, not all the persuasions of her kindred could prevent her from going to the place of execution. She accordingly followed the sledge in a hackney coach, accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her and a female friend. Having arrived at the place of execution, she got near enough to see the fire kindled that was to consume him, and all the other dreadful preparations, without betraying any of those emotions her friends apprehended. But when all was over, and she found he was no more, she drew her head back in the coach, and ejaculating, 'My dear, I follow thee! Lord Jesus, receive our souls together!' fell on the neck of her companion, and expired the very moment she had done speaking. Most excessive grief," the narrative adds, "which the force of her resolution had kept smothered within her breast, is thought to have put a stop to the vital motion, and suffocated at once all the animal spirits." The story is copied from the Parrot into the Whitehall Evening Post of August 7th, 1746, and the remark appended that, "upon inquiry, every circumstance was literally true."

It has been repeatedly stated, though incorrectly, that, after the execution, the head of Captain Dawson, with those of Syddall and one of the Deacons, was sent down to Manchester and spiked upon the old Exchange. Concerning the final disposition of the relics of poor mortality which were so long left to moulder in the sun and rain—the memorials of a barbarous and unchristian revenge—the following communication was some years ago addressed to Mr. Proctor, the author of "Memorials of Manchester Streets," and which, though somewhat lengthy, we venture to transcribe:—

I was dining some years ago, with the late Dr. S. L. (S. A.?) Bardsley. When the cloth was removed, the conversation took a more narrative character than is usual. Many personal recollections were told, and at length one of the guests incidentally mentioned the traditions of Manchester at the time of the Jacobite disturbances. Upon this our host observed how singular it was that the authorities of that day had never discovered the persons who had removed from the Manchester Exchange the heads of Jemmy Dawson (the hero of Shenstone's ballad) and the two deacons which had been exposed there, after their execution, as participators in the Jacobite troubles. He added that he was the only person living who could then solve the mystery. He went on to say, that many years previously (I forget the exact date) [1828] he was in attendance upon one Miss Hale (Miss Frances Hall?) who lived in King Street, and who had been a great partisan of Charles Edward. The old lady, who was then about ninety years of age, and believed herself to be dying, as was in fact the case, dismissed all her attendants from the room except the doctor; and having ascertained from him that she had not many hours to live, told him that her brother, who was then dead, was the person who had removed the heads in question, and that they were then buried in the garden at the back of the house in which she was living. She concluded by making him promise, that when she was gone, he would have them taken up and placed in consecrated ground.

I need hardly add that Dr. Bardsley strictly fulfilled her wishes. Three skulls were found in the garden, as she had stated, and they were placed, as I understand, in St. Ann's churchyard. This is the more probable as there are now tombs of the Deacons to be found there.

This note introduces us to a family that for a century or more occupied a prominent position in the society of Manchester, and the members of which were in each generation distinguished alike for their public spirit and private worth. Richard Edward Hall, who resided in an old half-timbered house in Deansgate, at the corner of Bridge-street, and afterwards in Hulme, where he died September 13th, 1793, at the age of ninety, was an eminent surgeon at the time of the Pretender's visit, the friend of John Byrom[70] and Dr. Dawson, and an ardent Jacobite withal. Two of his sons, Edward Hall and Richard Hall, adopted the father's profession, and were surgeons to the Infirmary, and it must have been one of them who removed the rebel heads from the Exchange. The survivors of the family were their two sisters, Frances and Elizabeth Hall, who remained unmarried, and died at an advanced age, the last-named in 1826, at the age of eighty, and Miss Frances Hall, June 4th, 1828, aged eighty-four. These two ladies, after their father's death, resided, with the other members of the family, in a house near the top of King Street, at the point where Spring Gardens has lately been carried through; their home was a large old-fashioned dwelling of stately exterior, with a spacious garden extending in rear to Chancery Lane, and a clump of tall trees, in which a colony of rooks had established themselves. The rookery remained within the recollection of the present generation, and only disappeared when garden and greensward were taken possession of by the builder, and the tumultuous occupants became but a memory of the past. When Prince Charles Edward passed through the town in 1745 Frances Hall was a child in arms, and had in all probability been held up to view the gay cavalcade; her brother Edward was then a youth of fourteen, and, inheriting his father's attachment to the exiled race, it is easy to understand his desire to remove from their ignominious position, the ghastly relics of those whose lives had been sacrificed for their devotion to the Stuart cause. The Halls were as wealthy as they were prominent, and when Miss Frances Hall died in 1828 she left by her will no less a sum than £44,000 to the Royal Infirmary, House of Recovery, Lying-in Hospital, Ladies' Jubilee School, and other charities in her native town. She is buried in the Derby chapel within the Cathedral, where a monument by Chantrey was erected to her memory in 1834, which has since been removed to the Derby chapel.

It is stated in the communication we have quoted that three heads were removed from the Exchange—those of Jemmy Dawson and the two Deacons—but this is clearly an error. Dawson's head was not exposed in Manchester, and there is no record of more than two being placed upon the Exchange—those of Adjutant Syddall and Captain Thomas Theodorus Deacon. In the constable's accounts for the year the cost of placing them is thus recorded:—

1746: Expenses tending the Sheriff this morning for Syddall's and
Deacon's heads put up. 0 1 6

And it is worthy of note that when the Exchange was pulled down in 1792 the two iron rods on which they had been spiked remained fixed in one of the stones.

The statements that have come down to us respecting the disposal of the heads of the unhappy Jacobites are singularly vague and conflicting. Baines adopts the oft-repeated statement that the head of Colonel Townley, with that of Captain Fletcher, another officer of the Manchester Regiment, was fixed on Temple Bar, the "City Golgotha" as it came to be called; but this statement, so far as Townley is concerned, is incorrect, that part of his sentence having, at the intercession of friends, been remitted, and an undertaker at Pancras allowed to take charge of his corpse, by whom it was buried. There were, however, two heads exposed on the Bar; one of them was Captain Fletcher's, and there is good reason to believe that the other was that of Captain Dawson. Walpole, writing to Montague, August 15, 1746, says:—"I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look." For several weeks people flocked to the revolting exhibition, which afforded to many a savage pleasure, and a print, published at the time, gives a view of Temple Bar with the heads spiked on the top, and the following doggrel lines beneath:—

Dr. Johnson relates the impression which the sight of these trunkless heads made upon him. "I remember," he says, "once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. While he surveyed Poet's Corner, I said to him—

When we got to the Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered—

Goldsmith's rejoinder is so charmingly witty that we make no apology for repeating it. After this we have little mention of these relics of the victims of Hanoverian vengeance—the lips that love had kissed, the cheeks that children had patted were left to blacken and rot until the 31st of March, 1772, when one of the heads was blown down, and shortly afterwards the remaining one was also swept down by a stormy gust; the cruel-looking spikes, however, remained until the beginning of the present century, when they were removed, and since then the Bar itself, with its ponderous gates—black, weather-worn, and dilapidated—successively a protection, an ornament, and an obstruction, have disappeared, and is now only remembered as belonging to the past.

The sun of the Stuarts went down with the rout and slaughter of the rebel army at Culloden. On that memorable 16th of April, 1746, a dynastic contest of fifty-seven years was conclusively ended in less than fifty-seven minutes; the visions of thrones and sceptres vanished, the hopes and aspirations of the youthful adventurer were blighted, and he who, one short hour before, had been a nominal king, was reduced to the condition of a luckless and forlorn outcast, shunned by every one except those who sought his destruction. Though the friends of the exiled house adhered to their mystically significant toasts, drank "The King over the water," and sang "The King shall enjoy his own again," Jacobitism as a principle, may from that time be said to have waned, and to have become extinct as a profession of faith with the death of Charles Edward in 1788; for though the Prince's younger brother, Cardinal York, issued a medal bearing his name as "Henricus Nonus Dei Gratia Rex," with the meek addition, "Haud desideriis Hominum, sed voluntate Dei," his assumption of the regal title excited little interest or feeling among the English people. The Jacobites had a firm belief in the right divine of kings, and viewed the case of the Stuarts as that of a family deprived of its rights by unjust means. Influenced by that belief, their conduct in seeking to affect a restoration of the dynasty was both logical and generous. The effort they made in 1745 was in many respects a brilliant one, but it was out of time; the House of Brunswick had then become firmly seated upon the throne, and there was little chance of effecting its overthrow. From the first the enterprise was hopeless; the country gentlemen sympathised with it, but the great mass of the people were indifferent and had certainly no attachment or prejudice in favour of the House of Stuart. But while we may condemn an attempt dictated by youth and presumption, and conducted without art or resolution, we cannot but admire the heroic efforts, and pity the sufferings of those engaged in it.

Though the hope of a restoration of the exiled family was finally extinguished, the bitterness of party feeling long continued to manifest itself in Manchester, where political and religious excitement was maintained at fever heat by the two contending factions. The partisans of the House of Brunswick had regained the ascendancy; inflamed with the sense of victory, they made an ostentatious parade of their loyalty, and in their exultation treated their opponents with every contumely, accounting Jacobites, Tories, and Non-jurors as the equivalent of Jews, Infidels, and Heretics. The local magistrates were energetic in the discharge of their office, and as severe as they were energetic, everyone whose Hanoverian sympathies were not of the most pronounced character being compelled by them to take the oath of allegiance to the reigning sovereign. But the fiercest feuds must some time come to an end, for society cannot continue in a state of perpetual antagonism; if party principles were maintained, party feeling gradually subsided, and King de facto men and partisans of the Pretender eventually laid aside their differences and settled down to the calm enjoyment of social intercourse and the ordinary amenities of civilised life.

With the suppression of the rebellion and the renewal of active business life we may leave the story of the "'forty-five," with all its painful memories, to note some few particulars respecting the family of the luckless Jemmy Dawson.

Dr. Dawson, the father of the rebel captain, as previously stated, had his town residence in the upper part of King Street—but then known as St. James's Square—a fashionable quarter, intended, originally, to be what the name imported, a square, and a rival in stateliness and substantial dignity, to the one lower down, named after the Hanoverian Queen. In addition, he had become the owner of a house called the "Cottage," which stood in the fields near the site of the present Concert Hall—a pleasant out of-town abode, with a walled garden, orchard, and pleasure ground, contiguous to which, on the high ground called the Mount, stood an antiquated windmill that gave name to Windmill Street; Mosley Street, which commemorates the former manorial lords, and "the most elegant and retired street in the town," as Dr. Dalton afterwards described it, was then Mosley Street only in name, and the narrow alleys and streetlets leading into it had not come into existence. The lower part of the street, from the present Nicholas Street to St. Peter's Church (erected many years afterwards), was then called Dawson Street, and led directly to Mr. Dawson's house, standing within its own grounds in the open country. When the street came to be built upon, it was inhabited by some of the best families in the town, and numbered at one time among its residents Nathan Meyer Rothschild and the well-known Major Shakspeare Phillips. Mr. Dawson's family consisted, in addition to the ill-starred subject of Shenstone's ballad, of a son, William Dawson, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. In the earlier years of his married life there was residing with him a lady, the circumstances of whose life are shrouded in much mystery—the Lady Barbara Fitzroy, one of the daughters of Charles Duke of Cleveland by his second wife, Ann, daughter of Sir William Pulteney, of Misterton, in Leicestershire—a lady in whose veins coursed the blood of the Stuarts, the Duke, her father, being one of the children which Charles II. had by the notorious Lady Castlemaine, a vain and volatile beauty, whose pretty face helped to undo a nation. Lady Fitzroy had withdrawn from her own family when she took up her abode with the Dawsons, but the circumstances which led to the alienation and her being disowned by her mother are not known, and we fail to discover by what means her fortunes became identified with those of the family of "Jemmy Dawson," though, doubtless, the connection helped to strengthen his attachment to the Stuart cause. She was born February 7th, 1695-6, and died January 4th, 1734, in her 38th year. Robert Thyer, the accomplished scholar and critic, writing to John Byrom under date January 20th, 1734-5, says "My Lady Barbara Fitzroy, that lived with Mrs. Dawson, and Mrs. Mort were both buried this week. My Lady has made Mr. Dawson her heir, if he can but come at the money." Mr. Dawson did not "come at the money," and neither he nor any of his family benefited by Lady Barbara's benevolent intentions. She is buried in the choir of the cathedral, where upon her gravestone, is a brass with the inscription—

Lady Barbara Fitz Roy, Eldest Daughter of the Most Noble Charles Duke of Cleveland and Southampton. Died January 4th, 1734.

Above the inscription on a lozenge shield are the arms of Charles II., differenced with a baton sinister flanked on each side with the usual emblems of mortality, a skull, cross-bones, winged hour-glass and scythe, and a candle nearly extinguished.

Dr. Dawson died at his house in King-street, then called St. James's Street, March 20th, 1763. He is buried in the cathedral by the side of his wife (who died before her son came to his tragic end) and one of his daughters. The gravestone is inscribed—

Guls. Dawson de Mancr. Gen. ob. 20mo Mar. A.S. 1763, Æt 67. Eliz. Ux. Gul. Dawson ob 30 Maij anno salutis 1737, Ætatis suÆ 41. SarÆ filia prÆdic. obt. 7mo Maij 1725.

Mr. Dawson was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son, William Dawson, who, as previously stated, had entered at Lincoln's Inn and been called to the bar. He resided at the "Cottage" before referred to, and from the little that is known respecting him appears to have been a somewhat eccentric personage. When John Byrom's son, Edward Byrom, the banker, established himself in Quay Street and conceived the idea of founding St. John's Church, Mr. Dawson associated with him in the good work, but from some cause or other a dispute arose which led him to withdraw from the undertaking after contributing to the cost of the erection. While travelling in Italy he had purchased the picture by Annibal Carracci of "The Descent from the Cross," which he intended should grace the altar recess of St. John's, but when the misunderstanding arose the intention was abandoned, and some years after his death, when St. Peter's was erected in close proximity to his house, and became, by the attractiveness of its services, if not the carriage-way to heaven, at least the shrine to which the "fashionable idlers" and "genteel sinners" of Mosley Street and Dawson Street turned their steps one day in seven, the picture was placed there, over the communion table, where it still remains. Several years before his death he had engaged Mr. Bottomley, an engraver in the town, to inscribe the plate which he purposed having placed over his remains, and this, according to Dr. Hibbert-Ware, he kept in his room as a memento until the day of his death. Sapiens, qui, dum vivat sibi monumentum parat. He died unmarried at "the cottage, near the Mount," on Thursday, the 17th August, 1780, and was buried on the following Sunday in the grave in which forty-six years before his friend and patron Lady Barbara Fitzroy had been laid. The plate before referred to, which is placed on the lower compartment of the stone, bears the following inscription:—

Here are deposited the Remains of William Dawson, Esq., who died the 17th day of August, 1780, and in the 60th year of his Age.

He desired to be buried with the above named lady, not only to testify his gratitude to the memory of a kind benefactress: although he never reaped any of those advantages from her bounty to his family she intended.

But because his fate was similar to her's. For she was disowned by her Mother. And he was disinherited by his Father.

Above the inscription is a shield of arms and crest, but, by some unaccountable mistake, instead of the Dawson's those of the Allens of Redivales are depicted, a family from which Mr. Dawson was descended through the female line.

In Mr. Barritt's MSS. in the Chetham Library we have the following particulars respecting Mr. Dawson:—

This gentleman was buried agreeably to his request, in the following dress, ruffled shirt, and cravat, nightcap of brown fur, morning gown striped orange and white, deep crimson-coloured waistcoat and breeches, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. In his bosom was put a folded piece of white paper, which enclosed two locks of hair cut from the heads of two boys that died, for whom Mr. Dawson had a great regard; they being the children of Mr. Cooper, his steward, with whom Mr. Dawson lived, and likewise became his heir at his death.

Nothing is known of the circumstance that led to the differences between Mr. Dawson and his father; the breach, however, would seem never to have been healed, and the son, as the inscription on his grave evidences, retained an unpleasant recollection of it to the last. Mr. Dawson was a prominent figure in the Manchester society of the last century, and many were the stories that used to be told of his foibles and peculiarities. By his will he bequeathed the greater part of his property to Mr. William Cooper, the steward referred to in Barritt's MSS., and constituted him his sole executor. Mr. Cooper thus became the owner and occupier of the "Cottage," which thenceforward became commonly known as "Cooper's Cottage," a name it retained until half a century ago, when it was pulled down to make room for the present Concert Hall; and as the patronymic of its former possessor was commemorated in Dawson-street, so, in like manner, Cooper-street perpetuates the name of its subsequent owner.

In concluding our account of the Dawsons it only remains to notice one other member of the family,—Elizabeth, the younger of the two daughters of Dr. Dawson. The eldest daughter, Sarah, as we have seen, died unmarried in 1725; Elizabeth Dawson married some time before March 24, 1749, William Broome, the representative of a family which had then been settled for half a century or more at Didsbury, and the heads of which held the position of legal agents to Sir John Bland, of Hulme, and also of the Barlows, of Barlow Hall. Tradition points to this lady, "Bessy Dawson," as the one who accompanied "Jemmy Dawson's" affianced bride on the morning of the sad 30th of July, 1746, to witness the terrible tragedy to be enacted on Kennington Common, and the same authority tells us that afterwards, having formed an attachment for the handsome young lawyer of Didsbury, and failing to obtain her father's consent to the match, she eloped with him and was married clandestinely, a procedure which gave such offence to her father that he never forgave her. The first part of this statement has such an air of probability about it that we would not willingly spoil the effect by questioning its accuracy, but the story of the elopement does not appear to rest upon any reliable foundation.

Elizabeth Dawson died February, 1764. By her marriage with William Broome she had several children; the eldest, named after his father, married and had issue a daughter, Mary, his heir, who became the wife of Henry Fielding, of Didsbury, and by him had a son, Robert Fielding, who married Ann, eldest daughter of Sir John Parker Mosley, of Ancoats. The eldest son by this marriage was the Rev. Robert Mosley Fielding, rector of Bebbington, in Cheshire, who died in 1862, leaving with other issue a son—Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Fielding, of Dulas Court, Hereford, high sheriff of that county in 1864, who is the present representative of this branch of the Fieldings, as well as of the old Manchester families of Broome and Dawson. Colonel Fielding married in 1858 his second cousin, Louisa Willis, fifth daughter of Joseph Fielding, of Witton Park, formerly M.P. for Blackburn, and sister of Major-general Randle Joseph Fielding, M.P. for North Lancashire, by whom he has a numerous issue.

In thus relating the story of "Jemmy Dawson," we have endeavoured to rescue from oblivion some few particulars respecting the life and family connections of one of the most notable of the Manchester victims of Hanoverian vengeance, and one whose tragic end forms a dark page in the history of the fatal '45.

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