City of Vice

London, my city.

It was a monstrous place.

Commerce and trade had made it that way

and filled its ever expanding streets with the rural poor.

It had also spawned organized criminal gangs looking to stake a claim.

The most notorious of these rejoiced in the title of the "Royal Family".

Our Bow Street runners had arrested their leader, Mr Jones,

and flung him in jail believing this would leave his gang decapitated.

THE WESTMINSTER GATEHOUSE

Who the devil is that?

You want a girl? She's pretty.

- She a virgin? - Do you think I'd offer her to you if she was a virgin?

But she's a good lass. Come on, sir, unless you'd rather be fucking your own prisoners.

- Can she go around seven? - She's been known to provide for a whole platoon.

Why didn't you say?

Come on, give me your keys.

Come on. Come on, lads.

Shit.

This war had begun after I had made my proposal to Parliament to remedy this growing evil.

I had turned my attention from my celebrated works of fiction and accepted the post of magistrate of Westminster.

And with my brother John, blind since youth, I had resolved to create a new organization that would bring law and order.

London was in need of a police force.

The Royal Family performed their most audacious jail break from the Westminster Gatehouse on January 20th,

and reclaimed their leader, the infamous Mr Jones.

Just strolled in and took him.

- Two of my men are serious wounded. - Fatally, by any chance?

And then disappeared into thin air?

- We were overwhelmed, sir. - And is it your custom to open the Gatehouse to any fuckster

who passes by and requests it? - As I said, Mr Fielding, they forced the gates.

I'll look to my men. - Yes, cretin!

- Every arse wipe will be laughing at us. - Let us be discreet. We have to find him before Lord Newcastle

and Parliament find out we've lost him. - It were a difficult enough task to find him last time.

We had previously lured Mr Jones into our trap in Mayfair,

but he wouldn't be so easy to fool again.

Back in Seven Dials, he would think himself impregnable.

Now, gentlemen, to the rats' nest.

They won't surrender him easily.

So, unlike those bastard prison guards, let us not underestimate them.

Vigilance and co-ordination will be essential. - Hence the costumes.

I didn't know this work would involve me acting, Mr Fielding. - No, no, that's very good, Mr Pentlow, you've got the part.

Oh, and we scuff our shoes and abandon our wigs.

- We? Henry? - Well, Mr Pentlow will protect me.

- No, don't be absurd, it's too dangerous. - I need Mr Pentlow for the work itself, sir.

Mr Welch, I cannot command you to do something I would not do myself.

- Henry, be sensible, Henry. - There!

Complete transformation!

Most of London's criminal gangs retreated to this unchartered labyrinth

around Seven Dials on the frontier of Covent Garden.

SEVEN DIALS

They called it "the Rookeries" presumably in reference to its network of thieves' nests.

Watch out for yourselves.

It was certainly filled to bursting.

When Saunders Welch had attempted to perform a census here,

he found in two small houses no less than 70 people

abandoned by society and with little respect for the law.

Move away. Move away.

See, Mr Fielding, why you must stay here.

Or your brother will boil my cods for supper.

The ad hoc housing did not follow the grand plans initiated since the Great Fire.

There was no building code here.

It was a far cry from the stout colonnades of the Covent Garden piazza.

Mr Fielding, I must insist.

You can insist all you like.

Fucking hell!

Look out!

Stay here, it's dangerous.

- My safety is not the issue. - Please just stay there. I'll help.

I can't hold it, man.

Where's Fielding?

Mr Fielding! Mr Fielding!

Sir! Mr Fielding!

Mr Fielding!

Mr Magistrate himself!

We were all so distracted, Mr Fielding.

I saw at least two dead.

Like a battlefield from some godforsaken foreign war.

My fault. I shouldn't have took my eyes off him.

We searched for him in the rubble, but...

We must assume they have him, gentlemen.

They're well known, this Royal Family.

Scour the Dials for informants. Every footpad, every beggar.

Someone will know where they nest. Go, go.

On my life, we will find your brother, sir.

His pig head is to blame.

He shouldn't have been there.

He was always a hopeless actor.

What will they do to him, Mr Welch?

Will they send him back to us one limb at a time, to demonstrate our impotence?

Seven Dials was a place forsaken by God and the law.

Few in the judiciary knew or cared what went on here...

..where infant mortality was among the highest in England.

Where 20 people a week died of starvation...

and where those children who did survive

could only do so by mimicking the villains who bred them.

Sit down.

Sit down!

Slice the fucking head off, slow.

Hello.

If I'm harmed, Mr Jones...

hell will break loose!

I'm already sentenced to be hanged.

Have you some greater hell than that?

Well, kill me if that's your plan.

Don't we want us to kill him?

Who are we to argue?

Maybe he doesn't deserve it...

..yet.

What do you think, Patrick?

Dunno, Tom. What's the right punishment for a magistrate?

That's a good question.

That is a very good question.

Oh, God!

See, Your Worship, what happens to people when you've done with them.

This is the third house this week to come down.

I'll get something for the pain.

Shall I go and see how much the good magistrate's brother will pay?

Come on, Tom.

I showed I can take care of myself.

Yeah.

Look at you, you big dangerous criminal.

Be quick.

And while we wait, Mr Fielding, for your brother to name your price...

..let's see if...you deserve to die.

A little trial for the Magistrate of Westminster and Middlesex.

What do you say?

You can speak up for yourself, and I'll be your prosecutor.

Aye aye! Anything?

Right, check yourself back down there and you go down there, and we keep looking, yes?

Saunders Welch had been high constable of Holborn for six years

and had an extensive network of informants.

To be beyond this long reach was truly to be lost.

How much money do you suppose they'll want?

Surely your friends in Parliament will offer assistance if...

if the request is unreasonable.

He was always the boy adventurer...

..looking for the next quaff of excitement.

Leaving others to worry for his safety.

You know I was always more conscious of the dangers around us.

Funny really.

Mr Welch?

So far, no word of any kind, sir.

You must be exhausted.

Would you like me to arrange for some supper?

Thank you, Mrs Fielding.

A little food might assist me.

You've got to appreciate the irony, Mr Fielding, even if you can't, right now, enjoy it.

Irony?

I'm Tom Jones.

Your most celebrated creation.

My creation was neither rapist, nor murderer.

Happily enough, I'm not a foundling.

Loved my father very much, so I did.

He was hanged for thieving a pig.

And I won't find that I'm the nephew of some rich Squire,

nor marry his daughter, nor inherit acres of his land.

I see someone has recounted you the plot.

No...he reads fucking voraciously.

Like a fucking priest!

"Is it that some natures delight in evil, as others are thought to delight in virtue?"

That's you. Book one, chapter ten.

Why is it you're good and I'm evil?

Perhaps your father, the thief, was spawned by the Devil.

He taught me to read, my father.

Maybe I could have been a scholar.

It's a waste of breath, Tom, your little game.

So...

..case for the prosecution.

You have a world of misfortune to describe...

..a veil of bloody tears to walk through,

and it doesn't matter to you that what you say is the truth?

That's not true.

Your compters...

..your sponging houses, your jails, your gallows, your runners.

All in the service of justice?

The truth is, Mr Fielding,

that your profession is keeping the rich safe from the rest of us.

And you should be at liberty to enter people's houses,

plunder their property, violate their children...unimpeached?

Justice! Is this justice?

A sick girl is not a counter-argument to cupidity.

Damn your fine words, Mr Magistrate.

This girl is my sister.

And she has a name.

I'm looking for the Magistrate, Mr Fielding.

What would you want with Mr Fielding?

I'm here to make terms for his brother.

Is my brother safe?

For now, sir.

What ransom do you demand?

Nice place.

Let's say a hundred guineas.

Well...

that may take some time.

We can wait.

Good.

Well, patience is a virtue.

At least you have one.

Don't be thinking you can fuck us, Mr Fielding.

We're the fucking Royal Family.

Am I making myself understood?