July 25, 2023 • 33 mins
Opposition to the British crown began years before the battles of the American Revolutionary War broke out in the Thirteen Colonies, and that opposition took many forms, like riots and boycotts. A Scotsman named James Aitken sympathized with the rebels, and stood by them by setting British dockyards on fire – if the Royal Navy didn't have any ships, then England couldn't go to war with the colonies, he believed. Let's talk about who James was, and how he wanted to be an American hero.
Executive Producers: Maria Trimarchi and Holly Frey
Producer & Editor: Casby Bias
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The American Revolution was a political movement and war between
Great Britain and its thirteen American colonies. It began with
the passage of the Stamp Act in seventeen sixty five
and ended with the ratification of the United States Bill
of Rights in seventeen ninety one. The military piece of
the revolution, the American War for Independence, began in seventeen
(00:36):
seventy five with the Battles of Lexington and Conquered and
ended when the British surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown
in seventeen eighty one. Opposition to the British crown began
years before battles broke out, and it took many forms.
Colonists boycotted British goods, They refused to pay taxes, They
rioted the Taxation Acts. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party,
(00:59):
and the entire Tolerable Acts were main drivers of this insurrection,
and a Scotsman named James Aikin sympathized with the rebellion
by setting British dockyards on fire. If the Royal Navy
didn't have any ships. Then England couldn't go to war
with the colonies. Right, Let's talk about who James was
and how he wanted to be a hero. Welcome to Criminalia.
(01:21):
I'm Maria Tremarky and.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm Holly Frye. James eight Kin was born in Edinburgh, Scotland,
on September twenty eighth, seventeen fifty two. He was the
eighth of twelve children born to George and Magdalen eight Kin.
George was a smith. Blacksmith or white smith were not sure,
but his story tells us he did work with medals
(01:43):
and probably soft types of metals, things along the lines
of ten. He died young in the late seventeen fifties,
when James was still just a boy. Magdalen was unable
to support her family and James was admitted to a
charity school set up by Scottish old smith and philanthropist
George Harriet. Harriet had no heirs when he died, and
(02:05):
he left the bulk of his estate to establish what
was first known as George Harriet's Hospital when it opened
in sixteen fifty nine. A charitable school was commonly known
as a hospital at the time. And the one George
established was built for quote fatherless bairns, that's fatherless children
living in Edinburgh. The school was known for its top
(02:27):
notch education, and it was considered a relatively strict but
impressive institution. The days combined what's been described as a
demanding study schedule with religious devotions. Some reports suggest students
worked from seven am until eight pm. Was some time
provided for what was called innocent diversions, such as spending
(02:49):
time with friends.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
While at Harriet, James was provided in an apprenticeship opportunity
in a trade. His trade was house painting. Unfortunately, though
there was not much work in the city for those
in that trade at that time, the market was saturated
and the demand was shrinking to make a living, he
left Edinburgh. In his memoir, which historians consider factual yet
(03:13):
likely embellished, James stated that after that bad luck, he
tried to join the army as a commissioned officer. That plan,
for whatever reason, did not work out. He instead moved
to London, where he collected so much a debt he
left the city to escape it. This also appears to
be the time in James's life when he turns to crime.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
His first known crime was highway robbery, and he was
at least initially successful robbing coaches and carriages. It did
not take long, though, before wanted posters describing him started circulating.
That's a little more attention than a highway robber wants.
Looking to get out of town, James considered getting out
(03:56):
of the country. Actually, he decided to emigrate to America,
to the Colonies, which were gaining momentum toward their war
against British rule. Too poor to pay his own way,
he signed himself into an indenture for twenty four pounds
to be paid in cash or service. That indenture was
(04:16):
sold to a man in Virginia, but James never had
any intention of working it off.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Soon after arriving in the Colonies, he was on the move,
first north through Maryland and eventually to New York via Philadelphia.
In his memoir, James claimed he headed toward Boston when
he heard about the riots and the Boston Tea Party.
Boston was a hot bed of revolutionary activity. The Boston Massacre,
for instance, occurred in seventeen seventy. The Boston Tea Party,
(04:45):
which James claimed to have been present for, happened in
seventeen seventy three, though many now famous events were unfolding
while James was in America. Historians believed James's plan to
go to Boston may have been an exaggerated story. We
can't actually be sure if he ever made it to Massachusetts.
The historical record leaves us without any detail about his
(05:06):
activities wall in the colonies. James later claimed to have
traveled extensively along the Atlantic coast, and stated in his
memoir that during these travels he encountered revolutionary rhetoric, But
he also claimed to have been mistaken for a patriot
and harassed by British troops when he found out that
Britain was sending more military power to quell the colonists.
(05:26):
According to his own account, his first response was not
to take up arms, but to return to England. He
had a growing sympathy for the patriot cause, and he
was likely at this time already concocting an alarming plan
to help their effort.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
After what was probably about two years abroad, in May
of seventeen seventy five, James arrived in Liverpool and he
was flat broke. He got some money quickly by signing
up with an army recruiter, but he deserted the thirty
second Army Regiment after getting his signing bonus.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He next traveled to Birmingham, where he did some legit
painting work, but he later admitted he found the quote
honest work to be boring, so he robbed, burgled, and
ran the army recruitment scam again. James was also known
as James Hill, John Hill, James Hind, as well as
James Boswell and John Boswell. He used a lot of
(06:25):
aliases in his work as a petty thief. After his
painting apprenticeship, James was also known as John the Painter.
With cash in his pockets, he left for London. He
spent four months feaving around the city and it's here
where he, in his own words, quote got into connection
with some women of the town. Also fearing authorities were
(06:46):
on to his criminal acts, James fled London for Cambridge.
He robbed his way through several other counties before he
joined up with an army regiment in Colchester. This time
he stayed hidden in the ranks for a few months,
strategically conceive himself from anyone looking to arrest him for
his collection of petty crimes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor, and when we return, we'll talk about the
details of James's plan to commit arson in British naval
dockyards in support of the American Revolutionary War.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Welcome back to Criminalia. James has never been known for
his life of petty crime. He's actually nearly lost to
history except for this one thing.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
As the military conflict of the American Revolution was heating up,
in support of the Patriots, James set fire to the
Royal Navy dockyards of Portsmouth and Bristol. Patriots, who were
also known as Whigs, were colonists who rejected British rule.
Famous names here would include George Washington and John Adams.
(08:04):
The rebellion stemmed from several things and was based in
at a very high level, the rejection of the ideas
of a monarchy and aristocracy. Loyalists also known as Tories,
on the other hand, were colonists who remained loyal to
the English king, King George the Third, and they made
up approximately fifteen percent of the population across all thirteen colonies,
(08:26):
although some historians put that number a bit higher. James
believed that if he destroyed strategic British ports, he would
hamstring the Royal Navy, and if the Royal Navy was incapacitated,
then he believed General George Washington's Continental Army could and
would win the war. Jessica Warner, author of John the Painter,
(08:49):
The First Modern Terrorist, writes that James also tried to
enlist prominent Americans, including Benjamin Franklin, to support his plan.
He claimed to be an abe at what he called
the American Congress, and he wanted a hero's welcome in America.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Exactly when James hatched his plan to commit acts of
sabotage in Royal dockyards in support of the War of
American Independence is not clear. Most reports suggest he sought
and had a meeting in Paris with Silas Dean, an
American politician, diplomat, and supporter of American independence. He was
a prominent member of the Continental Congress in the early
(09:29):
days of the American Revolution and was in Paris to
secure a military and political alliance with France. Upon meeting Dean,
James laid out his elaborate plan. He explained that his
strategy included a campaign of arson against British dockyards up
and down the coast, plus additional attacks of Arson elsewhere
as necessary to help create confusion.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
James thought this meeting went great, and he returned from
their engagement with a few pounds in cash, a passport
in the name of the King of France, a contact
in London, and Arson on his personal agenda. Dean's recollection
of their meetings suggests that while he thought James had
little chance of success and told him so, he was
(10:15):
struck by the plot. He would later defend himself, saying,
quote regard me equally criminal with the actor.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Author Jessica Warner writes she believes James's Arson plans likely
originated from his reading of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a
forty seven page pamphlet written in seventeen seventy five famously
advocating for American independence from Britain. This would have been
fresh at the time James left the colonies. The question
of motive remains unanswered, although it sounds like more than
(10:46):
a few things likely factored into his decisions. Some historians
have suggested that James's motivation wasn't to win a war,
but rather to escape what he saw as his inconsequential life.
A victory against the Royal Navy on behalf of the Americans,
he believed would give him recognition and maybe even a
hefty reward or a commission in the Continental Army. He
(11:09):
would be important a hero.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We mentioned that Dean gave James a contact in London,
and we don't know for certain who it was, but
it may have been American physician Edward Bancroft, who, unknown
to Dean, was not just an American spy but a
double agent. This is speculated, but the things line up
to suggest that this really is the pretty likely candidate.
(11:35):
At Dean's urging. It's believed that James did meet with
Bancroft in London and did disclose at least some of
his plans. Bancroft, however, was not struck by the plot.
He was horrified, fearing that Bancroft might turn him in
for treachery, James left the city.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
James was bolstered, though, by the notion that he had
diplomatic backing of not just Silas Deans, but also the
Continental Congress. That Dean represented his first act of terror,
as author Jessica Warner describes it, on behalf of American
Patriots was to burn royal dockyards, beginning with the Portsmouth Dockyard.
(12:14):
He believed one smartly planned act of arson there would
destroy Harbard ships, as well as the dockyards and hemp
walks that were used to build and refit the fleet.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
James used his background as a painter while preparing for
this crime, specifically the painter's technique of grinding pigments in
defined powders. He used that technique to produce readily ignited
charcoal powder to start the fires with time to escape
before personal injury. He had put together a device that
looked like a candle in a tin box, because that's
(12:50):
what it was. The wick of this candle served as
a makeshift timed fuse, and he filled the base of
the box with another painter's tool, highly flammable turpentine. The
idea was that when the wick burned down to the
level of the liquid, it would cause an explosion. After
James's landlady caught him testing his homemade fuses, he was
(13:13):
evicted from his lodgings. James moved into a different boarding
house on the edge of town, and then he got
right back to work. Perhaps a bit more discreetly this time.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
As told to us in James's confession and similarly in
his memoir, it was on December fifth, seventeen seventy six,
when he arrived in Portsmouth and began his reconnaissance. He'd
take legitimate jobs painting the buildings at the dockyards that
he was casing as to not look suspicious. He described
the night of December sixth, when he sneaked into the
(13:44):
dockyard and set up one of his devices in a warehouse.
It was the hemp House, a large structure more than
one thousand feet long. What he'd planned to use is
tinder turned out to be damp, and he'd spent so
much time trying to ignite the fire that he found
himself locked inside the building late that night. His rescuer,
hearing James pounding on the door for help, believed his
(14:06):
bluff of innocently wanting to see what was inside the
night was a failure, and James returned to his lodging
at Missus Boxell's boarding house.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
The next day, December seventh, James returned to the dockyard.
This time he went instead to the rope house, where
he had also hidden other combustibles. At about four o'clock
in the afternoon, a fire broke out and it consumed
the entire warehouse. That fire burned for six hours, and
as a safety precaution, a ship carrying gunpowder in the
(14:38):
port was put out to sea. Initially, no one, including
Admiralty investigators, was sure if this fire was accidental or
if it was intentional. Royal dockyards at this time were
full of wooden ships and wooden buildings and gunpowder, so
accidents could and often did happen.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
We are going to take a break forward from our sponsors.
When we're back, we will talk about James's arrest, his
alleged confession, and his day at the gallows.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how James was
probably caught and the day of his execution.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
On those two nights in December, James fled the Portsmouth
dockyard in such a hurry that he left behind evidence
that would eventually be his downfall. A month later, on
January fifth, three men working in the hemp house discovered
suspicious items, including a box containing combustible materials and a candle.
Investigation led authorities to one of James's aliases James Hill,
(15:55):
who it was reported had been seen walking around the dockyard. Later,
witnesses reconstructing the scene described seeing him in a state
of agitation. The full extent of James's arson plan included
destroying five dockyards, but as we'll see, he didn't make
it beyond two. The Bristol dockyard followed Portsmith, and some
(16:16):
reports suggest James did successfully start a fire on a
merchantman trading ship, but that it took very little damage.
He also followed through on his plan to start small
fires around the city in an effort to make it
seem like several people were involved in this sabotage. Not
much damage came of that either.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Panic increased when James's original failed incendiary was discovered in
the hemp warehouse in Portsmouth, and the fires popping up
in Bristol also made people anxious. They realized that there
was a saboteur among them, an arsonist. The Admiralty posted
a one thousand pound reward for the arsonist's capture. Warnings
(16:58):
were raised at ports throughout Britain, and in Portsmouth, a
patrol was set around the docks and through the town
every night from five pm until seven am. Bristol two
was on high alert and guards were posted at every port.
The Bow Street Runners, considered London's first professional police force,
were called in papers printed sensational tabloid news stories about
(17:21):
arson at the dockyards.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Wrote Bristol's member of Parliament, the political philosopher Edmund Burke, quote,
I have not the least doubt that the late fires
have been the effects of premeditated malice. The King's daily
briefings from his ministers included all sorts of information like
uprisings regarding the colonies and James's arson attacks in the
(17:45):
Royal dockyards. The Crown offered a reward for information leading
to the offender's capture, and we've seen the amount is
pretty consistently reported to have been around two thousand pounds plus.
A Treason Act aimed at the American colonies and rushed
through Parliament in February of seventeen seventy seven, was used
(18:05):
to authorize legal detention of any suspects without habeas corpus
protection at His Majesty's will. Habeas corpus in eighteenth century
England gave legal protection from arbitrary detention and unlawful imprisonment,
just as it functions in Article one, section nine of
the United States Constitution. It's not used to determine a
(18:27):
person's guilt or innocence. Its protection against illegal imprisonment.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
With the public frightened that fire setters were roaming their cities,
authorities were eager to catch and convict James to settle
the population. There are two different versions of how James
was caught. The first goes like this, A jailer in
the town of Odium noticed a man loitering, a man
(18:52):
who fit the description of the unknown scotsman who was
assumed responsible for the recent blazes. James, in this story
was apprehended not in Bristol, where he was lodging, but
in Odium, on the street where he was recognized.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The second version contains a little more detail and goes
like this, James, short on funds, attempted another theft. He
may or may not have been trying to pay for
travel to Paris, that's unclear. His target was a businessman
named low and Lowe was a man who'd been keeping
up with the news. He knew about the dockyard fires
(19:29):
and was familiar with the description of the suspect. It
had been published in Fielding's Hue and Cry, an English
newspaper that listed details of crimes committed around England with
descriptions of the offenders. After Lowe's wife mentioned seeing someone
who looked as though he was casing their shop, red
flags went up for low With the aid of the
(19:50):
Odium town jailer, a man named Dolby, the men apprehended James.
He was taken into custody by a King's messenger that's
a courier of diplomatic death documents with powers to enforce
the law. In both versions, the person or persons who
caught James got cheated in the deal. No one paid
out reward money, claiming the prosecution's case relied on charges
(20:13):
related to the crimes committed before any rewards were posted,
so I guess thanks anywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Once he was jailed, James admitted to burglary, but other
than his pleading guilty to burglary, which wasn't the plea
that officials were after. Authorities were unsuccessful at extracting any
information from or evidence against James while he was jailed
in Odium, so they transferred him to the new prison
in Clerkenwell, where the government, thanks to the American painter
(20:44):
and expatriot John Baldwin got the confession they wanted about
the dockyards. Authorities hoped that Baldwin and James knew each
other just because James had spent time in America, and
that maybe there were still crimes to be told. They
put the two men in a room together, and as
it turns out, they did not know each other. They
(21:05):
used Baldwin to manipulate James, though, and it did not
take long before James started chatting, and things went so
well that he asked the artists to visit him again
in prison, and they started to see each other pretty regularly.
James was completely unaware that his new friend was actually
there on behalf of the crown to tease out a confession,
(21:27):
and eventually James started to confide in him. He told
him about his meeting with Silas Dean, his Arson plot,
and how he had carried out part of the mission
he thought he was entrusted with before he was arrested.
His confession to Baldwin strengthened the case against him, as
he exposed pretty much the entire plot. I think we
(21:49):
can all agree that this confession is dubious in nature,
but it was good enough for the courts to try him.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
According to Warners, James wasn't the quote mad man they
all called him. He was a lonely man, she writes.
Quote he asked complete strangers to drink with him because
he was lonely, and loneliness overrode his reason. His invitations
always came too quickly, and his conversation and his manner
always just a little awe. In the days leading up
(22:21):
to the trial, it's reported that James began to reconcile
to his punishment and agreed to dictate his stories slash
confession to a publisher who promised he'd get James moved
to better prison conditions.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
James's memoir included this confession, which historians have referred to
as his quote unlikely last words. So this is the
confession quote, good people, I am now going to suffer
for a crime, the heinousness of which deserves a more
severe punishment than what is going to be inflicted. My
life has been long forfeited by the innumerable felonies I
(22:58):
have formerly committed. But I hope God, in his great mercy,
will forgive me, and I hope the public whom I
have much injured, will carry their resentment no further, but
forgive me as I forgive all the world, and pray
for me that I may have forgiveness. Above I have
made a faithful confession of every transaction of my life
(23:20):
from my infancy to the present time, particularly the malicious
intention I had of destroying all the dockyards in this kingdom.
I die with no enmity in my heart to His
Majesty and Government, but wish the Ministry success in all
their undertakings, and I hope my untimely end will be
warning to all persons not to commit the like atrocious offense.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
His trial, held at Winchester, was not for burglary or
for treasonous acts against the Crown. He was tried only
for the crime of arson at the rope house in
His Majesty's dockyard in Portsmouth. He was found guilty after
just one day in court, and as set under the
Dockyard's Protection Act of seventeen seventy two, his offense carried
(24:07):
the death penalty. The Dockyard's Protection Act was passed by
Parliament to protect royal dockyards and ships from arson attacks,
and there was only one legal case that actually ever
used this act, and that's James. On March seventh, seventeen
seventy seven, he was convicted for arson and sentenced to
(24:27):
death by hanging.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
The night after his conviction, James confessed his guilt of
the fire at Portsmouth, as well as small fires that
he had ignited around Bristol. He confessed that he also
tried to ignite barrels of oil as well as pitch
and tar on the wharf, hoping that the fire would
float on the water and burn the ships anchored there.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
On March tenth, his sentence was carried out. Authorities decided
James should be executed in full view of the damage
he'd done. Dockyard rigor and rope makers erected the sixty
four foot some say sixty seven foot gallows at the
dockyard gate. Whether sixty four or sixty seven feet, it
was one of the tallest gallows in history, and that's
(25:13):
because it was specially made from the Mizzen mast taken
from the HMS ARETHUSA. The day of his death, reported
as looking quote disheveled, James was paraded around the wharf
in a wagon, stopping at the Commissioner's house to confess
his crime.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
As many as twenty thousand people gathered to watch his execution,
including most of the residents of Portsmouth as well as
many from surrounding towns. His acts of arson had truly
struck terror into their lives, wrote the Newgate Calendar, a
publication that knew of him by his alias John Hill quote,
so dangerous an individual to the Kingdom as this man
(25:52):
perhaps never existed, and whose confession and repentance can hardly
soften the abhorrence felt on the contump of the extent
of his crimes. The Newgate Calendar was a record of crimes,
testimonies and executions, a record that's very detailed, but a
detailed mix of fact and the sensational stories that people
(26:15):
liked to read in the papers.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Just before one o'clock, James, who it's easy to forget
was just in his early twenties at this time, met
his death, and it's reported his body was terribly treated.
His corpse was taken to Pitch House Jetty in Portsmouth,
where it was coated with coal tar pitch and placed
in a human shaped iron cage. Taken then to Fort Blockhouse.
(26:41):
Authorities suspended the cage from gallows there. This was known
as gibbeting. He'd be seen by all who entered the
Portsmouth harbor for years. Gibbeting was pretty common at that time.
The remains of convicted criminals were often placed in this
type of device to intentionally allow the body to hang
after execution. Later, it's been suggested that James's body was
(27:05):
perhaps secretly buried by Royal engineers when they were conducting
renovations in that area.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
According to a report in The Maryland Journey dated Tuesday
April eighth, seventeen seventy seven, so about a month after
James's execution, quote Captain Robert Cochrane in the armed Brigantine
Notre Dame lately arrived at Charleston, South Carolina with a
valuable cargo from France. Accounts were received in France before
(27:33):
Captain Cochrane's departure of the arsenal and dockyard at Portsmouth
having been burnt in the beginning of December. The loss
is computed at two million sterling. But at the present
critical situation of Great Britain being an all appearance on
the eve of a French and Spanish war, and the
supplies of naval stores from America being discontinued, it will
(27:55):
be hard to determine what the loss may be estimated.
His story, although he is unnamed in it, made it
across the Atlantic to the colonists that he had committed
himself to helping.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
What a story of James's life.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
He's one that's so fascinating to me because he could
have been on various seasons of ours very much. His
life of petty crime offers many opportunities where he could
have been slotted and impersonators.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
He has many Yes, yeah, he's.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Got a lot of options. Listen, I'm soft hearted. And
the whole thing I keep thinking of with him is
that this is some poor dude who doesn't feel like
he has a connection to anybody, who thinks he's going
to be helpful but chooses the worst possible path for
that help. So I am calling his drink. I'm helping
(28:58):
in the way that a kid would almost be like.
But I'm helping. However, it's delicious, so that's good. And
one of the things that I was thinking about with
this was time and place. There's a really wonderful book
that I love and it's very fun read called Colonial Spirits,
which is written by I don't know if he pronounces
his last name grass or Grassy, but it's Stephen Grass
(29:21):
gr assee where it talks about a lot of the
kinds of drinks that were popular in the colonies, and
I of course kept coming back to rum punches. Rum
punch normally you make in big batches, and James didn't
get to make his big batch of fires, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Now, nor did he get to join a big batch
of troops that he could have.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
No, he didn't get to big batch anything. He wanted
a big life, but he had a little one. So
this is a drink that is inspired by rum punches,
but you could just make one for yourself or a friend.
So the I'm helping is half an ounce of dark rum,
an ounce and half of cognac, a half ounce of
(30:04):
lemon juice, and then three quarters of an ounce of syrup,
which can be a simple syrup, or I did a
vanilla syrup because I really liked the idea of a
sweeter thing like a rum punch would have like rum
punches when you would make them in big batches, would
have like pounds and pounds of sugar in them, which
(30:25):
obviously we're not gonna do with that. You will put
it all into your tin. You're shaking tin with ice.
You're gonna shake it a bunch. You are gonna do
what we call a dirty dump on this, which is
when you don't strain it because we're not doing the
water dilution that you would do with a punch, so
we're letting the ice do a little dilution. And that
also kind of helps all of those flavors mix together
(30:47):
and talk to each other and become one. So you'll
do your dirty dump, and then you're gonna top it
with a light ginger beer, like three ounces or so.
It's ridiculous, how yummy this turned out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I love when ginger beer shows up, so like right now, right.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I will do ginger beer in anything. You can't break it.
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It does sound like a good drink.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
It's so delicious. It's ridiculous. So this is one too
though that I mean, it's not like crazy heavy in
terms of ABV, but it's real easy to drink. So
I would be careful because you can make yourself a
few and then be like what happened? I have had
too many drinks to make the mocktail, which you can
have as many as you want to and not worry
(31:29):
about that. You're just gonna do some really easy substitution.
So instead of that half ounce of dark rum, you're
gonna use a spice chai tea that's probably steeped. And
then instead of the ounce and a half of cognac,
you're gonna do Apricott nectar, and then you'll make it
(31:49):
the same. If that makes it too sweet, you can
add a little more water to it to just back
it off. If you are one of those people that
doesn't like a super sweet drink, I would mix the
Apricott nectar one to one with a little bit of
water before you even add it. It just simplifies the whole process.
But that also is a very delicious I did. I
had it a tiny bit of water, but not very much.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Any of these fruit nectars that come up, I am
such a fan.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And that one's easy too, because if the mocktail, the
other thing you can do to the mocktail, if it's
a little sweet, is just add a little more ginger beer.
It's going to cut some of that sweetness anyway, and
then that just dilutes it even more. And it's great.
Listen it's very hot right now where I am.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Where I am too.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Much of North America is very sweltering at the moment.
So it's nice to have a very cold, sippable beverage
that has a little bite, a little fire to it
in the ginger part. But that's also kind and it
feels a little like a hug. We hope you feel
like you have all of the attention hugs, etc. You need.
(33:00):
You do not go down to path like James, where
you do something very foolish and dangerous and damaging to
yourself or others in the interest of getting attention. We
will be right back here next week. We can hang
out with you again with more talks of arson and drinks.
It'll be fun. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio
(33:27):
in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The American Revolution was a political movement and war between
Great Britain and its thirteen American colonies. It began with
the passage of the Stamp Act in seventeen sixty five
and ended with the ratification of the United States Bill
of Rights in seventeen ninety one. The military piece of
the revolution, the American War for Independence, began in seventeen
(00:36):
seventy five with the Battles of Lexington and Conquered and
ended when the British surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown
in seventeen eighty one. Opposition to the British crown began
years before battles broke out, and it took many forms.
Colonists boycotted British goods, They refused to pay taxes, They
rioted the Taxation Acts. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party,
(00:59):
and the entire Tolerable Acts were main drivers of this insurrection,
and a Scotsman named James Aikin sympathized with the rebellion
by setting British dockyards on fire. If the Royal Navy
didn't have any ships. Then England couldn't go to war
with the colonies. Right, Let's talk about who James was
and how he wanted to be a hero. Welcome to Criminalia.
(01:21):
I'm Maria Tremarky and.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm Holly Frye. James eight Kin was born in Edinburgh, Scotland,
on September twenty eighth, seventeen fifty two. He was the
eighth of twelve children born to George and Magdalen eight Kin.
George was a smith. Blacksmith or white smith were not sure,
but his story tells us he did work with medals
(01:43):
and probably soft types of metals, things along the lines
of ten. He died young in the late seventeen fifties,
when James was still just a boy. Magdalen was unable
to support her family and James was admitted to a
charity school set up by Scottish old smith and philanthropist
George Harriet. Harriet had no heirs when he died, and
(02:05):
he left the bulk of his estate to establish what
was first known as George Harriet's Hospital when it opened
in sixteen fifty nine. A charitable school was commonly known
as a hospital at the time. And the one George
established was built for quote fatherless bairns, that's fatherless children
living in Edinburgh. The school was known for its top
(02:27):
notch education, and it was considered a relatively strict but
impressive institution. The days combined what's been described as a
demanding study schedule with religious devotions. Some reports suggest students
worked from seven am until eight pm. Was some time
provided for what was called innocent diversions, such as spending
(02:49):
time with friends.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
While at Harriet, James was provided in an apprenticeship opportunity
in a trade. His trade was house painting. Unfortunately, though
there was not much work in the city for those
in that trade at that time, the market was saturated
and the demand was shrinking to make a living, he
left Edinburgh. In his memoir, which historians consider factual yet
(03:13):
likely embellished, James stated that after that bad luck, he
tried to join the army as a commissioned officer. That plan,
for whatever reason, did not work out. He instead moved
to London, where he collected so much a debt he
left the city to escape it. This also appears to
be the time in James's life when he turns to crime.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
His first known crime was highway robbery, and he was
at least initially successful robbing coaches and carriages. It did
not take long, though, before wanted posters describing him started circulating.
That's a little more attention than a highway robber wants.
Looking to get out of town, James considered getting out
(03:56):
of the country. Actually, he decided to emigrate to America,
to the Colonies, which were gaining momentum toward their war
against British rule. Too poor to pay his own way,
he signed himself into an indenture for twenty four pounds
to be paid in cash or service. That indenture was
(04:16):
sold to a man in Virginia, but James never had
any intention of working it off.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Soon after arriving in the Colonies, he was on the move,
first north through Maryland and eventually to New York via Philadelphia.
In his memoir, James claimed he headed toward Boston when
he heard about the riots and the Boston Tea Party.
Boston was a hot bed of revolutionary activity. The Boston Massacre,
for instance, occurred in seventeen seventy. The Boston Tea Party,
(04:45):
which James claimed to have been present for, happened in
seventeen seventy three, though many now famous events were unfolding
while James was in America. Historians believed James's plan to
go to Boston may have been an exaggerated story. We
can't actually be sure if he ever made it to Massachusetts.
The historical record leaves us without any detail about his
(05:06):
activities wall in the colonies. James later claimed to have
traveled extensively along the Atlantic coast, and stated in his
memoir that during these travels he encountered revolutionary rhetoric, But
he also claimed to have been mistaken for a patriot
and harassed by British troops when he found out that
Britain was sending more military power to quell the colonists.
(05:26):
According to his own account, his first response was not
to take up arms, but to return to England. He
had a growing sympathy for the patriot cause, and he
was likely at this time already concocting an alarming plan
to help their effort.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
After what was probably about two years abroad, in May
of seventeen seventy five, James arrived in Liverpool and he
was flat broke. He got some money quickly by signing
up with an army recruiter, but he deserted the thirty
second Army Regiment after getting his signing bonus.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He next traveled to Birmingham, where he did some legit
painting work, but he later admitted he found the quote
honest work to be boring, so he robbed, burgled, and
ran the army recruitment scam again. James was also known
as James Hill, John Hill, James Hind, as well as
James Boswell and John Boswell. He used a lot of
(06:25):
aliases in his work as a petty thief. After his
painting apprenticeship, James was also known as John the Painter.
With cash in his pockets, he left for London. He
spent four months feaving around the city and it's here
where he, in his own words, quote got into connection
with some women of the town. Also fearing authorities were
(06:46):
on to his criminal acts, James fled London for Cambridge.
He robbed his way through several other counties before he
joined up with an army regiment in Colchester. This time
he stayed hidden in the ranks for a few months,
strategically conceive himself from anyone looking to arrest him for
his collection of petty crimes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor, and when we return, we'll talk about the
details of James's plan to commit arson in British naval
dockyards in support of the American Revolutionary War.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Welcome back to Criminalia. James has never been known for
his life of petty crime. He's actually nearly lost to
history except for this one thing.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
As the military conflict of the American Revolution was heating up,
in support of the Patriots, James set fire to the
Royal Navy dockyards of Portsmouth and Bristol. Patriots, who were
also known as Whigs, were colonists who rejected British rule.
Famous names here would include George Washington and John Adams.
(08:04):
The rebellion stemmed from several things and was based in
at a very high level, the rejection of the ideas
of a monarchy and aristocracy. Loyalists also known as Tories,
on the other hand, were colonists who remained loyal to
the English king, King George the Third, and they made
up approximately fifteen percent of the population across all thirteen colonies,
(08:26):
although some historians put that number a bit higher. James
believed that if he destroyed strategic British ports, he would
hamstring the Royal Navy, and if the Royal Navy was incapacitated,
then he believed General George Washington's Continental Army could and
would win the war. Jessica Warner, author of John the Painter,
(08:49):
The First Modern Terrorist, writes that James also tried to
enlist prominent Americans, including Benjamin Franklin, to support his plan.
He claimed to be an abe at what he called
the American Congress, and he wanted a hero's welcome in America.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Exactly when James hatched his plan to commit acts of
sabotage in Royal dockyards in support of the War of
American Independence is not clear. Most reports suggest he sought
and had a meeting in Paris with Silas Dean, an
American politician, diplomat, and supporter of American independence. He was
a prominent member of the Continental Congress in the early
(09:29):
days of the American Revolution and was in Paris to
secure a military and political alliance with France. Upon meeting Dean,
James laid out his elaborate plan. He explained that his
strategy included a campaign of arson against British dockyards up
and down the coast, plus additional attacks of Arson elsewhere
as necessary to help create confusion.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
James thought this meeting went great, and he returned from
their engagement with a few pounds in cash, a passport
in the name of the King of France, a contact
in London, and Arson on his personal agenda. Dean's recollection
of their meetings suggests that while he thought James had
little chance of success and told him so, he was
(10:15):
struck by the plot. He would later defend himself, saying,
quote regard me equally criminal with the actor.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Author Jessica Warner writes she believes James's Arson plans likely
originated from his reading of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a
forty seven page pamphlet written in seventeen seventy five famously
advocating for American independence from Britain. This would have been
fresh at the time James left the colonies. The question
of motive remains unanswered, although it sounds like more than
(10:46):
a few things likely factored into his decisions. Some historians
have suggested that James's motivation wasn't to win a war,
but rather to escape what he saw as his inconsequential life.
A victory against the Royal Navy on behalf of the Americans,
he believed would give him recognition and maybe even a
hefty reward or a commission in the Continental Army. He
(11:09):
would be important a hero.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We mentioned that Dean gave James a contact in London,
and we don't know for certain who it was, but
it may have been American physician Edward Bancroft, who, unknown
to Dean, was not just an American spy but a
double agent. This is speculated, but the things line up
to suggest that this really is the pretty likely candidate.
(11:35):
At Dean's urging. It's believed that James did meet with
Bancroft in London and did disclose at least some of
his plans. Bancroft, however, was not struck by the plot.
He was horrified, fearing that Bancroft might turn him in
for treachery, James left the city.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
James was bolstered, though, by the notion that he had
diplomatic backing of not just Silas Deans, but also the
Continental Congress. That Dean represented his first act of terror,
as author Jessica Warner describes it, on behalf of American
Patriots was to burn royal dockyards, beginning with the Portsmouth Dockyard.
(12:14):
He believed one smartly planned act of arson there would
destroy Harbard ships, as well as the dockyards and hemp
walks that were used to build and refit the fleet.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
James used his background as a painter while preparing for
this crime, specifically the painter's technique of grinding pigments in
defined powders. He used that technique to produce readily ignited
charcoal powder to start the fires with time to escape
before personal injury. He had put together a device that
looked like a candle in a tin box, because that's
(12:50):
what it was. The wick of this candle served as
a makeshift timed fuse, and he filled the base of
the box with another painter's tool, highly flammable turpentine. The
idea was that when the wick burned down to the
level of the liquid, it would cause an explosion. After
James's landlady caught him testing his homemade fuses, he was
(13:13):
evicted from his lodgings. James moved into a different boarding
house on the edge of town, and then he got
right back to work. Perhaps a bit more discreetly this time.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
As told to us in James's confession and similarly in
his memoir, it was on December fifth, seventeen seventy six,
when he arrived in Portsmouth and began his reconnaissance. He'd
take legitimate jobs painting the buildings at the dockyards that
he was casing as to not look suspicious. He described
the night of December sixth, when he sneaked into the
(13:44):
dockyard and set up one of his devices in a warehouse.
It was the hemp House, a large structure more than
one thousand feet long. What he'd planned to use is
tinder turned out to be damp, and he'd spent so
much time trying to ignite the fire that he found
himself locked inside the building late that night. His rescuer,
hearing James pounding on the door for help, believed his
(14:06):
bluff of innocently wanting to see what was inside the
night was a failure, and James returned to his lodging
at Missus Boxell's boarding house.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
The next day, December seventh, James returned to the dockyard.
This time he went instead to the rope house, where
he had also hidden other combustibles. At about four o'clock
in the afternoon, a fire broke out and it consumed
the entire warehouse. That fire burned for six hours, and
as a safety precaution, a ship carrying gunpowder in the
(14:38):
port was put out to sea. Initially, no one, including
Admiralty investigators, was sure if this fire was accidental or
if it was intentional. Royal dockyards at this time were
full of wooden ships and wooden buildings and gunpowder, so
accidents could and often did happen.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
We are going to take a break forward from our sponsors.
When we're back, we will talk about James's arrest, his
alleged confession, and his day at the gallows.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how James was
probably caught and the day of his execution.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
On those two nights in December, James fled the Portsmouth
dockyard in such a hurry that he left behind evidence
that would eventually be his downfall. A month later, on
January fifth, three men working in the hemp house discovered
suspicious items, including a box containing combustible materials and a candle.
Investigation led authorities to one of James's aliases James Hill,
(15:55):
who it was reported had been seen walking around the dockyard. Later,
witnesses reconstructing the scene described seeing him in a state
of agitation. The full extent of James's arson plan included
destroying five dockyards, but as we'll see, he didn't make
it beyond two. The Bristol dockyard followed Portsmith, and some
(16:16):
reports suggest James did successfully start a fire on a
merchantman trading ship, but that it took very little damage.
He also followed through on his plan to start small
fires around the city in an effort to make it
seem like several people were involved in this sabotage. Not
much damage came of that either.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Panic increased when James's original failed incendiary was discovered in
the hemp warehouse in Portsmouth, and the fires popping up
in Bristol also made people anxious. They realized that there
was a saboteur among them, an arsonist. The Admiralty posted
a one thousand pound reward for the arsonist's capture. Warnings
(16:58):
were raised at ports throughout Britain, and in Portsmouth, a
patrol was set around the docks and through the town
every night from five pm until seven am. Bristol two
was on high alert and guards were posted at every port.
The Bow Street Runners, considered London's first professional police force,
were called in papers printed sensational tabloid news stories about
(17:21):
arson at the dockyards.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Wrote Bristol's member of Parliament, the political philosopher Edmund Burke, quote,
I have not the least doubt that the late fires
have been the effects of premeditated malice. The King's daily
briefings from his ministers included all sorts of information like
uprisings regarding the colonies and James's arson attacks in the
(17:45):
Royal dockyards. The Crown offered a reward for information leading
to the offender's capture, and we've seen the amount is
pretty consistently reported to have been around two thousand pounds plus.
A Treason Act aimed at the American colonies and rushed
through Parliament in February of seventeen seventy seven, was used
(18:05):
to authorize legal detention of any suspects without habeas corpus
protection at His Majesty's will. Habeas corpus in eighteenth century
England gave legal protection from arbitrary detention and unlawful imprisonment,
just as it functions in Article one, section nine of
the United States Constitution. It's not used to determine a
(18:27):
person's guilt or innocence. Its protection against illegal imprisonment.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
With the public frightened that fire setters were roaming their cities,
authorities were eager to catch and convict James to settle
the population. There are two different versions of how James
was caught. The first goes like this, A jailer in
the town of Odium noticed a man loitering, a man
(18:52):
who fit the description of the unknown scotsman who was
assumed responsible for the recent blazes. James, in this story
was apprehended not in Bristol, where he was lodging, but
in Odium, on the street where he was recognized.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The second version contains a little more detail and goes
like this, James, short on funds, attempted another theft. He
may or may not have been trying to pay for
travel to Paris, that's unclear. His target was a businessman
named low and Lowe was a man who'd been keeping
up with the news. He knew about the dockyard fires
(19:29):
and was familiar with the description of the suspect. It
had been published in Fielding's Hue and Cry, an English
newspaper that listed details of crimes committed around England with
descriptions of the offenders. After Lowe's wife mentioned seeing someone
who looked as though he was casing their shop, red
flags went up for low With the aid of the
(19:50):
Odium town jailer, a man named Dolby, the men apprehended James.
He was taken into custody by a King's messenger that's
a courier of diplomatic death documents with powers to enforce
the law. In both versions, the person or persons who
caught James got cheated in the deal. No one paid
out reward money, claiming the prosecution's case relied on charges
(20:13):
related to the crimes committed before any rewards were posted,
so I guess thanks anywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Once he was jailed, James admitted to burglary, but other
than his pleading guilty to burglary, which wasn't the plea
that officials were after. Authorities were unsuccessful at extracting any
information from or evidence against James while he was jailed
in Odium, so they transferred him to the new prison
in Clerkenwell, where the government, thanks to the American painter
(20:44):
and expatriot John Baldwin got the confession they wanted about
the dockyards. Authorities hoped that Baldwin and James knew each
other just because James had spent time in America, and
that maybe there were still crimes to be told. They
put the two men in a room together, and as
it turns out, they did not know each other. They
(21:05):
used Baldwin to manipulate James, though, and it did not
take long before James started chatting, and things went so
well that he asked the artists to visit him again
in prison, and they started to see each other pretty regularly.
James was completely unaware that his new friend was actually
there on behalf of the crown to tease out a confession,
(21:27):
and eventually James started to confide in him. He told
him about his meeting with Silas Dean, his Arson plot,
and how he had carried out part of the mission
he thought he was entrusted with before he was arrested.
His confession to Baldwin strengthened the case against him, as
he exposed pretty much the entire plot. I think we
(21:49):
can all agree that this confession is dubious in nature,
but it was good enough for the courts to try him.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
According to Warners, James wasn't the quote mad man they
all called him. He was a lonely man, she writes.
Quote he asked complete strangers to drink with him because
he was lonely, and loneliness overrode his reason. His invitations
always came too quickly, and his conversation and his manner
always just a little awe. In the days leading up
(22:21):
to the trial, it's reported that James began to reconcile
to his punishment and agreed to dictate his stories slash
confession to a publisher who promised he'd get James moved
to better prison conditions.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
James's memoir included this confession, which historians have referred to
as his quote unlikely last words. So this is the
confession quote, good people, I am now going to suffer
for a crime, the heinousness of which deserves a more
severe punishment than what is going to be inflicted. My
life has been long forfeited by the innumerable felonies I
(22:58):
have formerly committed. But I hope God, in his great mercy,
will forgive me, and I hope the public whom I
have much injured, will carry their resentment no further, but
forgive me as I forgive all the world, and pray
for me that I may have forgiveness. Above I have
made a faithful confession of every transaction of my life
(23:20):
from my infancy to the present time, particularly the malicious
intention I had of destroying all the dockyards in this kingdom.
I die with no enmity in my heart to His
Majesty and Government, but wish the Ministry success in all
their undertakings, and I hope my untimely end will be
warning to all persons not to commit the like atrocious offense.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
His trial, held at Winchester, was not for burglary or
for treasonous acts against the Crown. He was tried only
for the crime of arson at the rope house in
His Majesty's dockyard in Portsmouth. He was found guilty after
just one day in court, and as set under the
Dockyard's Protection Act of seventeen seventy two, his offense carried
(24:07):
the death penalty. The Dockyard's Protection Act was passed by
Parliament to protect royal dockyards and ships from arson attacks,
and there was only one legal case that actually ever
used this act, and that's James. On March seventh, seventeen
seventy seven, he was convicted for arson and sentenced to
(24:27):
death by hanging.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
The night after his conviction, James confessed his guilt of
the fire at Portsmouth, as well as small fires that
he had ignited around Bristol. He confessed that he also
tried to ignite barrels of oil as well as pitch
and tar on the wharf, hoping that the fire would
float on the water and burn the ships anchored there.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
On March tenth, his sentence was carried out. Authorities decided
James should be executed in full view of the damage
he'd done. Dockyard rigor and rope makers erected the sixty
four foot some say sixty seven foot gallows at the
dockyard gate. Whether sixty four or sixty seven feet, it
was one of the tallest gallows in history, and that's
(25:13):
because it was specially made from the Mizzen mast taken
from the HMS ARETHUSA. The day of his death, reported
as looking quote disheveled, James was paraded around the wharf
in a wagon, stopping at the Commissioner's house to confess
his crime.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
As many as twenty thousand people gathered to watch his execution,
including most of the residents of Portsmouth as well as
many from surrounding towns. His acts of arson had truly
struck terror into their lives, wrote the Newgate Calendar, a
publication that knew of him by his alias John Hill quote,
so dangerous an individual to the Kingdom as this man
(25:52):
perhaps never existed, and whose confession and repentance can hardly
soften the abhorrence felt on the contump of the extent
of his crimes. The Newgate Calendar was a record of crimes,
testimonies and executions, a record that's very detailed, but a
detailed mix of fact and the sensational stories that people
(26:15):
liked to read in the papers.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Just before one o'clock, James, who it's easy to forget
was just in his early twenties at this time, met
his death, and it's reported his body was terribly treated.
His corpse was taken to Pitch House Jetty in Portsmouth,
where it was coated with coal tar pitch and placed
in a human shaped iron cage. Taken then to Fort Blockhouse.
(26:41):
Authorities suspended the cage from gallows there. This was known
as gibbeting. He'd be seen by all who entered the
Portsmouth harbor for years. Gibbeting was pretty common at that time.
The remains of convicted criminals were often placed in this
type of device to intentionally allow the body to hang
after execution. Later, it's been suggested that James's body was
(27:05):
perhaps secretly buried by Royal engineers when they were conducting
renovations in that area.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
According to a report in The Maryland Journey dated Tuesday
April eighth, seventeen seventy seven, so about a month after
James's execution, quote Captain Robert Cochrane in the armed Brigantine
Notre Dame lately arrived at Charleston, South Carolina with a
valuable cargo from France. Accounts were received in France before
(27:33):
Captain Cochrane's departure of the arsenal and dockyard at Portsmouth
having been burnt in the beginning of December. The loss
is computed at two million sterling. But at the present
critical situation of Great Britain being an all appearance on
the eve of a French and Spanish war, and the
supplies of naval stores from America being discontinued, it will
(27:55):
be hard to determine what the loss may be estimated.
His story, although he is unnamed in it, made it
across the Atlantic to the colonists that he had committed
himself to helping.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
What a story of James's life.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
He's one that's so fascinating to me because he could
have been on various seasons of ours very much. His
life of petty crime offers many opportunities where he could
have been slotted and impersonators.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
He has many Yes, yeah, he's.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Got a lot of options. Listen, I'm soft hearted. And
the whole thing I keep thinking of with him is
that this is some poor dude who doesn't feel like
he has a connection to anybody, who thinks he's going
to be helpful but chooses the worst possible path for
that help. So I am calling his drink. I'm helping
(28:58):
in the way that a kid would almost be like.
But I'm helping. However, it's delicious, so that's good. And
one of the things that I was thinking about with
this was time and place. There's a really wonderful book
that I love and it's very fun read called Colonial Spirits,
which is written by I don't know if he pronounces
his last name grass or Grassy, but it's Stephen Grass
(29:21):
gr assee where it talks about a lot of the
kinds of drinks that were popular in the colonies, and
I of course kept coming back to rum punches. Rum
punch normally you make in big batches, and James didn't
get to make his big batch of fires, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Now, nor did he get to join a big batch
of troops that he could have.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
No, he didn't get to big batch anything. He wanted
a big life, but he had a little one. So
this is a drink that is inspired by rum punches,
but you could just make one for yourself or a friend.
So the I'm helping is half an ounce of dark rum,
an ounce and half of cognac, a half ounce of
(30:04):
lemon juice, and then three quarters of an ounce of syrup,
which can be a simple syrup, or I did a
vanilla syrup because I really liked the idea of a
sweeter thing like a rum punch would have like rum
punches when you would make them in big batches, would
have like pounds and pounds of sugar in them, which
(30:25):
obviously we're not gonna do with that. You will put
it all into your tin. You're shaking tin with ice.
You're gonna shake it a bunch. You are gonna do
what we call a dirty dump on this, which is
when you don't strain it because we're not doing the
water dilution that you would do with a punch, so
we're letting the ice do a little dilution. And that
also kind of helps all of those flavors mix together
(30:47):
and talk to each other and become one. So you'll
do your dirty dump, and then you're gonna top it
with a light ginger beer, like three ounces or so.
It's ridiculous, how yummy this turned out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I love when ginger beer shows up, so like right now, right.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I will do ginger beer in anything. You can't break it.
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It does sound like a good drink.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
It's so delicious. It's ridiculous. So this is one too
though that I mean, it's not like crazy heavy in
terms of ABV, but it's real easy to drink. So
I would be careful because you can make yourself a
few and then be like what happened? I have had
too many drinks to make the mocktail, which you can
have as many as you want to and not worry
(31:29):
about that. You're just gonna do some really easy substitution.
So instead of that half ounce of dark rum, you're
gonna use a spice chai tea that's probably steeped. And
then instead of the ounce and a half of cognac,
you're gonna do Apricott nectar, and then you'll make it
(31:49):
the same. If that makes it too sweet, you can
add a little more water to it to just back
it off. If you are one of those people that
doesn't like a super sweet drink, I would mix the
Apricott nectar one to one with a little bit of
water before you even add it. It just simplifies the whole process.
But that also is a very delicious I did. I
had it a tiny bit of water, but not very much.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Any of these fruit nectars that come up, I am
such a fan.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And that one's easy too, because if the mocktail, the
other thing you can do to the mocktail, if it's
a little sweet, is just add a little more ginger beer.
It's going to cut some of that sweetness anyway, and
then that just dilutes it even more. And it's great.
Listen it's very hot right now where I am.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Where I am too.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Much of North America is very sweltering at the moment.
So it's nice to have a very cold, sippable beverage
that has a little bite, a little fire to it
in the ginger part. But that's also kind and it
feels a little like a hug. We hope you feel
like you have all of the attention hugs, etc. You need.
(33:00):
You do not go down to path like James, where
you do something very foolish and dangerous and damaging to
yourself or others in the interest of getting attention. We
will be right back here next week. We can hang
out with you again with more talks of arson and drinks.
It'll be fun. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio
(33:27):
in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!