"Sam": or The history of mystery./ By C. W. Webber.

" SAM: " OR, THE HISTORY OF MYSTERY.
his servant, in which station I continued until I was sixteen,
and, being a great proficient in horsemanship, was taken as
an assistant to the riding-master of the troops, and in the
year 1761, was made sergeant of dragoons; but the peace
coming the year after, I was disbanded. Being bred to no
profession, I took up with a woman who kept a gin-shop in a
blind alley, near the Coal Quay; but the house being searched
for stolen goods, and my dosy taken to Newgate, I thought it
most prudent to decamp. Accordingly I set off for the North,
and arrived at Drogheda, where, in a few months after, I
married the daughter of an exciseman, by whom I had
three sons.
About the year 1772, we removed to Newry, where I commenced the profession of a scow-banker, which is that of
enticing the mechanics and country people to ship themselves
for America; they are sold or obliged to serve a term of years
for their passage. I embarked at Newry in the ship Needham, for New York, and arrived at that port the 4th day of
August, 1774, with some indented servants I kidnapped in
Ireland; but these were liberated in New York on account of
the bad usage they received from me during the passage. In
that city I followed the profession of breaking horses, and
teaching ladies and gentlemen to ride, but rendering myself
obnoxious to the citizens in their infant struggle for freedom,
I was obliged to fly on board the Asia man-of-war, and from
thence to Boston, where my own opposition to the measures
pursued by the Americans in support of their rights, was the
first thing that recommended me to the notice of General
Gage, and when the war commenced I was appointed Provost
Marshal to the royal army, which placed me in a situation to
wreak my vengeance on the Americans. I shudder to think
of the murders 1 have been accessory to, both with and without orders from Government, especially while in New Yorkduring which time there were more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different churches, by stopping their
rations, which I sold.
There were also two hundred and seventy-five American
prisoners and obnoxious persons executed, out of all which
number there were only about one dozen public executions,
which chiefly consisted of British and Hessian deserters. The
mode for private executions was thus conducted: A guard
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