THE HANGING OF JAMES NEHEMIAH TAYLOR, 1809

ANON   Sunday, 30 May 2021

Hello - I think you'll find that Thomas Ashton was not a boy under fourteen but rather sixteen or seventeen when he had intercourse with surgeon Taylor. Ashton was also charged with a crime and would certainly have been punished if he had not succeeded in escaping before his court-martial.

See footnote 23 of “ ‘A natural passion?’ The 1810 reflections of a Yorkshire farmer on homosexuality”, Eamonn O’Keeffe, Historical Research, Volume 94, Issue 263, February 2021, Pages 181–190, doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htaa037

"According to research by Alan Miller based on Admiralty records, Thomas Ashton was a cotton spinner from Stockport who enlisted in the Royal Marines in December 1807, aged fifteen. He was also arrested for participating in anal sex in Taylor’s cabin but escaped from custody when the ship was moored in St. John’s harbour, Newfoundland in October 1809. See The Pink Paper, 30 Sept.–6 Oct. 1989, pp. 12–13."