Preston Fight by W. Harrison Ainsworth

Fortunately no excesses were committed by the soldiers, all license being forbidden on pain of death.

The plunderers commenced with the shops of the goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewellers, where they expected to find the greatest quantity of valuables.

These shops were all shut up, but were quickly broken open, and stripped of their contents-plate, watches, rings, and chains being carried off.

From this booty alone the soldiers obtained several hundred pounds.

They next entered all the best private houses in Church-street and Fishergate, breaking open closets and chests, and abstracting all the plate and valuables they could find.

While one set of plunderers were thus engaged, others were similarly employed in different parts of the town.

Everywhere the houses were ransacked, and no portable article was left behind.

Not till a late hour in the day, when they had carried off all they could, did the soldiers desist from the work.

Great was the indignation of the inhabitants at this treatment, but they did not dare to resist.

However, there were no cases of intoxication, for the men were prevented by the sergeants and corporals from breaking open the cellars.

But it was a woeful day for Preston, and such as its inhabitants never thought to experience. Wills’s severity caused him to be held in universal detestation.

General Carpenter did not remain long in the town. Finding it inconveniently crowded, he set out for Wigan, immediately after the surrender, with the regiments under his command.

None of his men, therefore, shared in the plunder-nor would he have allowed them to share in it.

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XVI

Captain Shaftoe is shot

Preston might well be full. Without counting the Government troops, fifteen hundred and fifty prisoners of all ranks were detained within the town.

Some few escapes took place, and amongst those who got off was Tom Syddall. Unfortunately, he was afterwards captured.

After a few days’ detention, General Forster, Lord Derwentwater, Lord Widdrington, Brigadier Mackintosh, the Scottish lords and chiefs, with the leading Northumbrian officers, were sent under a strong guard to Wigan on the way to London.

Other less important prisoners were sent to Lancaster, Chester, and Liverpool, and confined in the jails of those towns.

Six insurgent officers were detained at Preston, and subsequently tried by court-martial for desertion and taking up arms against the king.

These were Lord Charles Murray, Captain Dalziel, Major Nairn, Captain Philip Lockhart, Ensign Erskine, and Captain Shaftoe. The lives of the two first were spared, but the others were condemned to be shot next day.

As Captain Shaftoe was a great favourite in Preston, his sentence caused profound grief, and application was made for a reprieve, but General Wills refused to grant it unless Shaftoe would acknowledge that he had been guilty of rebellion, and sue for mercy from King George.

Captain Shaftoe, however, absolutely refused, declaring he had simply done his duty, and would not renounce King James, even if a pardon were offered him.

Next morning, at an early hour, the rebel officers were taken by a party of foot soldiers to a field below the church. Among the spectators, were some young women, whose distressed condition touched the hearts of all who beheld them.

A few moments were spent by the rebel officers in preparation. After they had embraced, and bade each other farewell, Major Nairn came forward, and begged of the officer in command that his eyes might not be bandaged, and that he himself might give the order to the men to fire.

Neither request was accorded.

Not till he had laid Major Nairn in his coffin, with his own hands, would Captain Lockhart submit to his fate, and when all was over, he was cared for as anxiously as his friend.

Only one was left.

As the spectators beheld the tall handsome figure standing erect before them an irrepressible murmur arose.

Looking around, Shaftoe at once discovered the young women, and as his eye settled upon one of them he called out:

“Do not forget.”

A white kerchief was waved in reply.

A proud smile lighted up his handsome countenance when his eyes were bound, and his last words, distinctly heard by all were:

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