The Power of Conscience
Exemplified in the Genuine and Extraordinary Confession of Thomas Bedworth
9781465648471
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
THOMAS BEDWORTH was born in the year 1764, in the parish of Bloxidge, Staffordshire. His parents were of honest reputation and industrious habits, and could well afford to instil into his mind the principles of a good education; but to this he was obstinately averse, and they not being firm in their purpose, he successfully opposed every attempt that was made to furnish him with that knowledge of good and evil, without which he fell a sacrifice to the consequences of sensual indulgence, and expiated a crime, conceived in jealousy and stimulated by intoxication, on the scaffold of Newgate. Arriving at the age of fourteen years, he was placed as an apprentice in the town of Walsall, in Staffordshire, near Birmingham, to learn, with a respectable tradesman there, the art of bridle, bit, and stirrup making. In the year 1782, his father having died, and the term of his apprenticeship being expired, he went to Birmingham, where he was employed a considerable time. Being of an unsettled disposition, however, he left that place, and went to London, where he soon afterwards obtained employment in the manufactory of Mr. Rowley, of Prince’s Street, Drury Lane, where he remained until the year 1795. At this period, and during his residence in London, Thomas Bedworth was united in marriage, to Mary, the daughter ofMr. Bainer, a respectable tradesman in St. Anne’s, Soho, but, again becoming restless in his mind, he left London, and having gone a distance into the country, he, in an unguarded moment, enlisted into the Fifeshire Fencibles, then commanded by Colonel James Durham. With this regiment, he visited most parts of Ireland and Scotland, as well as this country, but finally left the regiment in 1803. In the course of this period his wife continued with him, and they had three children. After Bedworth’s discharge from the army, he left his wife with his friends, at Walsall, and went to Birmingham, whither, however, she followed him. In a short time, Bedworth went to London, in search of work, and entreated his wife to remain in the country, and there await his success. She consented, and he had not arrived many days in town, when he obtained employment from Mr. Birch, of Rupert Street, Haymarket. Here, however, he had not long been engaged, when, unfortunately for Bedworth, his employer failed, and he immediately formed the resolution of going to sea. In the year 1804 he entered the Navy, and in the course of his service suffered many hardships, and was in several severe and celebrated engagements with the enemy. But, however the last sanguinary act of his checquered life may have stained his character, he had at least the reputation of being a good seaman, and it was also his pride, at the moment of his narrating these facts, that he had faithfully performed his duty to his country. He continued in the service until the year 1813, and at that period received his discharge, and was made an out-pensioner of Greenwich Hospital.
