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James George SEMPLE LISLE (1759-1815) Scottish adventurer and confidence trickster.
Autograph letter signed, 2pp., 8vo, dated 28th October 1813, to an unidentified gentleman. He commences his letter ‘To induce a trespass so unauthorized, on the bounds prescribed by decorum, requires you will readilly believe, circumstances so painful that, when I should depict them, I feel with regret all the fallacy of my power, but pursued by my luckless fate I have no alternative’ and continues to explain that he is very shortly to leave for Germany with the hope that ‘my perfect knowledge of the theatre of war, the various armies, and the language, may secure me employment, and thus I may yet rescue myself from the horror of ultimately being indebted for the rites of sepulchre, to the prized hand of parochial charity’, further adding that he has secured a free passage from Yarmouth, ‘yet in want of means to defray expenses unavoidable, I dare Sir, humbly entreat from your humanity & very mite - at such a crisis every solitary shilling is a treasure and my heart will be grateful for just what you can give, without knowing you have given, some of your friends have assisted, and since it will contribute to rescue from ruin, a man crushed by his own imprudence, a mind nobly liberal like yours will not deny me’. In concluding Semple Lisle adds that he will ‘send early this evening for the honor of your reply’ which he hopes will be left sealed with his servant, and asks his correspondent to ‘accept my apologies and suffer me to add (such is my distress in this moment) that even some silver will be an invaluable present’. A remarkable letter in which Semple Lisle, previously repeatedly arrested for obtaining goods by false pretences and for defrauding tradesmen and sentenced to seven years’ transportation, as well as a spell in Newgate prison, begs his correspondent for financial aid. In 1814, the year following the present letter, Semple Lisle was again sentenced to transportation in a fraud case for food, although was pardoned by the Prince Regent. He undertook to go to Morocco and died in Lisbon in 1815.
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