Now, my press license was given to me so I could show London that the government is just, God loves us all, and bad people – criminals – are redeemable, or are dispatched. My Accounts of James Morneau and those hanged with him that day strayed far from those purposes. They inspired Susan to such a level of energy in love that I wistfully regretted never having witnessed it before.
The Aldermen had rather a different reaction, in particular to the bit where “James Morneau” exhorts his fellow poor to obtain money, property and status by any Means.
They called me to Old Bailey so they might warn me – well, so one of them might warn me – to get back on the straight and narrow. I promised him I would, and then I did not. The next hanging day was three months after James Morneau, and there were at least four James Morneaus hung that day – pitiful souls condemned by a Morneau-like injustice. The number of them seemed to grow along with the number of Susan’s comrades. In sum eighteen souls departed. No-one could have made five of the eighteen out to be sympathetic characters, and another five were rich as Lazarus’ foil: and so in an outright apostasy to my career and license, I did not write Accounts of any of those ten.
I, Susan and her friends spent weeks before the executions “researching” the remaining eight condemned, where my “advance” work might normally have started three days before the hangings. As I say, the ranks of Susan’s “friends” had swelled, which made Susan very happy, and Susan made me very happy on account of it.
If James Morneau & al. had swelled the ranks of Susan’s like-minded friends, my eight Accounts that next hanging day