DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70301#0061
BICHARD PATCH.
45
the officers of the excise. As nothing can be more precari-
ous than the success of persons engaged in this illegitimate
pursuit, so the good fortune of the father of Richard Patch
at length forsook him ; he was apprehended, condemned in
heavy penalties, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprison-
ment in the new goal at Exeter. At the expiration of his
confinement he did not quit the prison, where he accepted the
situation of turnkey. In this office he died, leaving several
children, the eldest of whom was the unhappy subject of
this narrative.
Richard Patch, who seems to have received but little edu-
cation, was bound apprentice to a butcher at Ebmere, a vil-
lage notorious for the depravity and immorality of its inhab’-
tants. The liberality with which his father supplied him in.
early youth with money, is said to have produced a disposition
to indolence, riot, and dissipation. On the death of his father
the estate already mentioned, descended to Patch, who now
quitted his trade and commenced farmer, uniting with his pa-
trimony a small farm which he rented. Thus situated, he
passed some year s, till a quarrel with the rector of the parish,
and a refusal on his part to pay tythes, involved him in a law-
suit, and an action in the court of exchequer. Alarmed at
the consequences which must inevitably have followed, he
quitted his native county in the spring of 1803, and repaired
to London.
At this period his sister lived in the service of Mr. Blight,
ship-broker, of Rotherhithe, with whom also a brother, who
had been bred a baker, was engaged as a kind of overseer or
superintendant. To these relatives, as was natural, his first
visit was paid on his arrival in the metropolis, and it was pro-
bably their good conduct that procured him admittance into
the service of the same master. He had not been long set-
tled in it before his brother quitted Mr. Blight; he had been
disappointed in an attempt to set up for himself in the busi-
ness to which he had been brought up j and this mortifica*
45
the officers of the excise. As nothing can be more precari-
ous than the success of persons engaged in this illegitimate
pursuit, so the good fortune of the father of Richard Patch
at length forsook him ; he was apprehended, condemned in
heavy penalties, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprison-
ment in the new goal at Exeter. At the expiration of his
confinement he did not quit the prison, where he accepted the
situation of turnkey. In this office he died, leaving several
children, the eldest of whom was the unhappy subject of
this narrative.
Richard Patch, who seems to have received but little edu-
cation, was bound apprentice to a butcher at Ebmere, a vil-
lage notorious for the depravity and immorality of its inhab’-
tants. The liberality with which his father supplied him in.
early youth with money, is said to have produced a disposition
to indolence, riot, and dissipation. On the death of his father
the estate already mentioned, descended to Patch, who now
quitted his trade and commenced farmer, uniting with his pa-
trimony a small farm which he rented. Thus situated, he
passed some year s, till a quarrel with the rector of the parish,
and a refusal on his part to pay tythes, involved him in a law-
suit, and an action in the court of exchequer. Alarmed at
the consequences which must inevitably have followed, he
quitted his native county in the spring of 1803, and repaired
to London.
At this period his sister lived in the service of Mr. Blight,
ship-broker, of Rotherhithe, with whom also a brother, who
had been bred a baker, was engaged as a kind of overseer or
superintendant. To these relatives, as was natural, his first
visit was paid on his arrival in the metropolis, and it was pro-
bably their good conduct that procured him admittance into
the service of the same master. He had not been long set-
tled in it before his brother quitted Mr. Blight; he had been
disappointed in an attempt to set up for himself in the busi-
ness to which he had been brought up j and this mortifica*