James Hackman
James Hackman (baptized 13 December 1752, hanged 19 April 1779), briefly Rector of Wiveton in Norfolk, was the man who murdered Martha Ray, singer and mistress of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.
[1] In 1772, Hackman was purchased a commission as an ensign in the 68th Regiment of Foot,[2] and in 1776 was promoted lieutenant,[3] but by early 1777 he had resigned from the army[4] to become a cleric.
[1][5] In about 1775, while he was a serving army officer, Hackman visited Lord Sandwich's house at Hinchingbrooke and met his host's mistress, Martha Ray.
[1] She was "a lady of an elegant person, great sweetness of manners, and of a remarkable judgement and execution in vocal and instrumental music"[6] who had lived with Lord Sandwich as his wife since the age of seventeen and had given birth to nine of his children.
[1] On 7 April 1779, a few weeks after his ordination as a priest of the Church of England, Hackman followed Martha Ray to Covent Garden,[7] where she had gone to watch a performance of Isaac Bickerstaffe's comic opera Love in a Village with her friend and fellow singer Caterina Galli.
[1] Suspecting that Ray had a new lover, when Hackman saw her in the theatre with William Hanger, 3rd Baron Coleraine, he left, fetched two pistols, and waited in the nearby Bedford Coffee House in Covent Garden.
As they came out of the passage into the Covent Garden playhouse and were two steps from the carriage, he heard the report of a pistol, while Miss Ray was still holding his right arm with her left hand.
He beat himself violently over the head with his pistols, and desired somebody would kill him.Anderson said she had identified Hackman in Tothill Fields Bridewell the next day and she did so again in court, pointing to the prisoner.
When Blandy came to the corner by the Red Lion, the door was shut, and he was then asked to take the prisoner back to the Shakspeare tavern, where Mr Mahon was.
[10] Dennis O'Bryan, a surgeon, gave evidence that he had examined Miss Ray's body at the Shakspeare tavern on the night of the murder.
Hackman gave evidence for himself, reading a prepared statement to the court, which was probably written by the lawyer and writer James Boswell, who although not professionally engaged was closely associated with the defence.
He said:[10][12] I stand here this day the most wretched of human beings, and confess myself criminal in a high degree; yet while I acknowledge with shame and repentance, that my determination against my own life was formal and complete, I protest, with that regard to truth which becomes my situation, that the will to destroy her who was ever dearer to me than life, was never mine till a momentary phrensy overcame me, and induced me to commit the deed I now deplore.
I have no wish to avoid the punishment which the laws of my country appoint for my crime; but being already too unhappy to feel a punishment in death, or a satisfaction in life, I submit myself with penitence and patience to the disposal and judgement of Almighty God, and to the consequences of this enquiry into my conduct and intention.Hackman's defence counsel submitted to the court that Hackman was insane and that the killing of Martha Ray was unpremeditated, as shown by the letter to her found on him.
Craven street, in the Strand", was read into the record:[10] My dear Frederick, When this reaches you I shall be no more, but do not let my unhappy fate distress you too much; I have strove against it as long as possible, but it now overpowers me.
I owe Mr. Knight, of Gosport, 100 ℓ. for which he has the writings of my houses; but I hope in God, when they are sold, and all other matters collected, there will be nearly enough to settle our account.
if it should ever be in your power to do her any act of friendship, remember your faithful friend, J. Hackman.Mr Justice Blackstone, presiding at the trial, summed up the case against Hackman.
[1] In a newspaper report of the trial, Hackman was described as five feet nine inches tall, "very genteely made, and of a most polite Address".
[14] After the trial, James Boswell told Frederick Booth that Hackman had behaved "with Decency, Propriety, and in such a Manner as to interest everyone present".
[16] At Tyburn, "Hackman... behaved with great fortitude; no appearances of fear were to be perceived, but very evident signs of contrition and repentance".
Pamphlets and poems were written on the occasion, and the crime was long the common topic of conversation.Horace Walpole remarked that the murder fascinated much of London during April 1779.
Not long before, Sandwich and Martha Ray had found themselves fleeing from Admiralty House, where a mob was rioting against the government and in particular against what it saw as the mistreatment of Admiral Keppel.
[19] The affair inspired Sir Herbert Croft's epistolary novel Love and Madness (1780), an imagined correspondence between Hackman and Martha Ray.
He is represented as a man of sensibility suffering from an extreme case of unrequited love who descends into suicidal and homicidal despair, even to the point that the reader is invited to identify with Hackman rather than with his victim.
[21] Boswell himself (who had visited Hackman in prison) wrote that the case showed "the dreadful effects that the passion of Love may produce".
[24] In The Luck of Barry Lyndon, Thackeray has his protagonist describe having met Hackman 'at one of Mrs Cornely's balls, at Carlisle House, Soho'.
