The Life of Mr. Richard Savage

Daniel Defoe

Charles Beckingham

The Life of Mr. Richard Savage / Who was Condemn'd with Mr. James Gregory, the last Sessions at the Old Baily, for the Murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson's Coffee-house at Charing-Cross

The Life of Mr. Richard Savage

ERHAPS no History in the World, either ancient or modern, can produce an Instance of any one Man's Life fill'd with so many calamitous Circumstances, as That of the unhappy young Gentleman, who is the melancholy Subject of the following Sheets; his Misfortunes may be said to be begun, if not strictly before he had a Being, yet, before his Birth; for when his Mother, the late Countess of M – d, was big with Child of him, she publickly declared, That the Infant then in her Womb, did not in the least appertain to her Husband, but to another noble Earl, upon which a Trial was commenced in the House of Lords, and my Lord M – d, obtained a Divorce, his Lady had her Fortune, which was very considerable, paid back to her again, with full Liberty of marrying whom she pleased, which Liberty she made use of in a very short Time, and my Lord M – d meeting her new Husband, Colonel B – t, in the Court of Request soon after, wish'd him Joy upon it, and said, he hoped my Lady M – d would make the Colonel a better Wife than she had done to him. It is very probable that this Divorce gave the Lady a great deal of Satisfaction: But her Son, being thus bastardized, could not be born, as otherwise he would have been, a Lord by Courtesy, and Heir to the Title of an English Earl, with one of the finest Estates in the Kingdom, which was afterwards, for want of Male-Issue, the Occasion of engaging two eminent Peers[1 - D. Hamilton and Lord Mohun.] in a Duel, in which they had the Misfortune to kill each other. Happy we may say it had been, as well for these Noblemen, as Mr. Savage himself, if he had either not been illegitimately begotten, or if that Illegitimacy had been prudently concealed: The being cut off from the certain Inheritance of that great Wealth and Honour, which, nothing, but his Mother's resentful Confession, could have hindered him of, would have given any other Person, when he came to Years of Maturity and Reflection, Sentiments of a quite different Nature from those which he always, with a Generosity of Temper peculiar to himself, expressed when that Affair has been mentioned to him; constantly excusing his Mother for taking any Methods, how injurious soever they may have been to himself, to be disengaged from an Husband, whose ill Treatment of her could not suffer her to live much to her Content with him.

But to give the Reader his History in as exact Order of Time as possible, we shall begin with the Day of his Birth, which was January the 10th, 1697-8. A Day, that he might very reasonably, in the Language of the despairing Job, have repented his ever seeing, when he considered, as he had too frequently the bitterest Occasions to do, what an almost uninterrupted Train of Miseries it had introduced him into. The Reader may easily imagine, that an Affair of this extraordinary Kind, among Persons of that high Rank, did not a little employ the Conversation and Scandal of the Town, for which Reason, the Lady resolving to move out of her Sight, and if possible, by that, out of her Remembrance, him, who was innocently the Cause of her Reproach, committed him to the Care of a poor Woman, with Orders to breed him up as her own, and in a Manner suitable to her Condition, withal, laying a strict Injunction upon her, never to let him come to the Knowledge of his real Parents. The Nurse was faithful to the Trust reposed in her, at the same Time not neglecting to do her Duty to the Infant in a homely Manner, agreeable to the Disposition of a well-meaning ordinary Person, and her scanty Allowance from his Mother's Relations; for she did not appear in the Affair herself, but her Mother, my Lady Mason, whether at her Daughter's Desire, or prompted by her own natural Compassion, I shall not pretend to determine, transacted every Thing with the N