 This is Part 4, Vol. 1, of the new and complete Newgate Calendar, read by Roy Schreiber. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Account of Richard Thornhill, Esquire, who is tried for the murder of Subchomli Deering in a duel and found guilty of manslaughter. Subchomli Deering and Mr. Thornhill were intimate acquaintance, and had dined together on the 7th of April, 1711, in the company with several other gentlemen. At the toy, at Hampton Court, where a quarrel arose, which occasioned the unhappy catastrophe that afterwards happened. During the quarrel, Subchomli struck Mr. Thornhill, and a scuffle ensuing, the wane-scot of the room broke down, and Thornhill falling, the others stamped on him, and beat out some of his teeth. The company now interposing, Subchomli, convinced he had acted improperly, declared that he was willing to ask pardon. But Mr. Thornhill said that asking pardon was not proper retaliation for the injury he had received, adding, quote, Subchomli, you know where to find me, unquote. Soon after this, the company broke up, and the prisoners went home in different coaches, without any further steps being taken towards their reconciliation. On the 9th of April, Subchomli went to the coffee-house at Kensington, and asked for Mr. Thornhill, who, not being there, he went to his lodgings, and the servant showed him to the dining-room, to which he ascended with abrasive pistols in his hands, and soon afterwards, Mr. Thornhill coming to him, asked him if he would drink tea, but he declined, but drank a glass of small beer. After this the gentlemen ordered a hackney-coach, in which they went to what Tothill feels, and there advanced towards each other in a resolute manner, and fired their pistols almost at the same moment. Subchomli, being mortally wounded, fell to the ground, and Mr. Thornhill, after lamenting the unhappy catastrophe, was going away, when a person stopped him, told him he had been guilty of murder, and took him before a justice of the peace who committed him to prison. On the 18th of May 1711 Richard Thornhill Esquire was indicted at the old Bailey Sessions for the murder. In the course of the trial the above recited facts were proved, and a letter was produced, of which the following is a copy. Quote, April 8, 1711, Sir, I shall be able to go abroad tomorrow morning, and desire you will give me a meeting with your sword and pistols, which I insist on. The worthy gentleman who brings you this will concert with you the time and place. I think Tothill feels will do well. Hyde Park will not, as this time of the year, being full of company. I am your humble servant, Richard Thornhill." Mr. Thornhill's servant swore that he believed this letter to be his master's handwriting, but Mr. Thornhill hoped the jury would not pay any regard to this testimony, as the boy had acknowledged in court that he never saw him right. Mr. Thornhill called several witnesses to prove how ill he had been used by Sir Chomley, that he had languished some time of the wounds he had received, during which he could take no other sustenance than liquids, and that his life was in imminent danger. Several persons of distinction testified that Mr. Thornhill was of a peaceable disposition, and that, on the contrary, the deceased was a remarkably quarrelsome temper. On behalf of Mr. Thornhill it was further deposed that Sir Chomley, being asked if he came by his hurt through unfair usage, he replied, quote, no. Poor Thornhill, I am sorry for him. This misfortune was my own fault, of my own seeking. I heartily forgive him, and desire you all to take notice of it, that it may be of some service to him, and that one misfortune may not occasion another." The jury acquitted Mr. Thornhill of murder, but found him guilty of manslaughter, in consequence of which he was burnt in the hand. A count of Elizabeth Mason, who has hanged Tyburn for poisoning her mistress. Elizabeth Mason was born at Melton, Moebury and Leicestershire, and while very young was conveyed by her friends to Sutton, near Peterborough, in Northamptonshire. From Wentz, at age seven years, she was brought to London by Mrs. Scoles, who told her she was her godmother, and with this lady and her sister, Mrs. Chowell, she lived till she was apprehended for the commission of the crime for which her life paid the forfeit. This girl, who was employed in household work, having conceived an idea that she should possess the fortune of her mistresses on their death, came to the horrid resolution of removing them by poison. On Thursday, in Easter week, Mason being sent of an errand, she went to a drug shop where she bought a quantity of yellow arsenic on the pretense that it was to kill rats. On the following morning she mixed this poison with some coffee of which Mrs. Scoles drank, and afterwards, finding herself extremely ill, said her end was approaching, and expired the next day in great agonies. Mrs. Chowell, receiving no injury from that little coffee she drank, the girl determined to renew her attempt to poison her, in consequence of which she again went to the same shop about a fortnight afterwards, and bought a second quantity of arsenic which she put into some water-grewl prepared for Mrs. Chowell's breakfast on the following morning. As it happened, that-grewl was too hot. The lady put it aside some time to cool, during which time most of the arsenic sunk to the bottom. Having drank some of it, she found herself very ill, and observing the sentiment at the bottom of the basin, she sent for her apothecary, who gave her a large quantity of oil to drink by the help of which the poison was expelled. Several suspicions now arising against Elizabeth Mason. She was taken into custody, and being carried before two justices of the peace on the thirtieth of April, she confessed the whole of her guilt, in consequence of which she was committed to Newgate. On the sixth of June, 1712, she was indicted for the murder of Jane Scoles by mixing yellow arsenic with her coffee, and pleading guilty to the indictment she received sentence of death. The consequence of which she was executed at Tibern on the eighteenth of June, 1712. While she lay under sentence of death, the ordinary of Newgate asked if she had any lover or other person who had tempted her to the commission of the crime, to which she answered in the negative, but owned that she had frequently defrauded her mistresses of money, and then told lies to conceal the depredations of which she had been guilty. At the time for execution she warned other young people to be aware of crime similar to those which had brought her to that fatal end, and confessed the justice of the sentence which made her a public example. Count of Richard Towne, who was executed for defrauding his creditors under a commission of bankruptcy. In September, 1712, Richard Towne was indicted at the Old Bailey for withdrawing himself from his creditors after a commission of bankrupt issued against him, and for removing and fraudulently carrying away fifteen tons of tallow, valued at four hundred pounds, and four hundred pounds in money, with his debt-books and books of account, with intention to defraud his creditors. Having pleaded not guilty to the indictment, the Council informed the jury that the act of Parliament had expressly declared that, quote, if any person, being a bankrupt, after the month of April 1707, did fraudulently conceal, embezzle, or make away with goods or money to the value of twenty pounds, he should be deemed guilty of a felony. A number of witnesses were now called to prove his being a regular trader, and to make it appear that he had committed an act of bankruptcy. But the principle of these was Mr. Hodgson, who deposed that being sent after the prisoner by the commissioners of bankrupt, he apprehended him at Sandwich, and searching him by virtue of his warrant, found in his pocket twenty guineas in gold, and about five pounds, seven shillings and sixpence in silver, and that he had three gold rings on his fingers, that he took from him the gold, and five pounds in silver, and left him the odd silver. One had intended to sail in a ship which was bound to Amsterdam, but being too late, he went on board the packet boat to Ostend, but being taken seasick, he went to the side of the vessel, and stooping down, dropped eight hundred guineas which were in two bags between his coat and his waistcoat into the sea. A storm rising at sea, the packet boat was driven back and obliged to put into Sandwich, and consequence of which town was apprehended by Hodgson as above mentioned. When town was examined before the commissioners, he acknowledged that he had ordered Thomas Norris to carry off his books of account, plate, and papers of value, and likewise to convey a large quantity of tallow which he supposed was by then arrived in Holland. Now the council for town insisted that as Norris was joint agent with him, the active one was the active both, and he could not legally be convicted till the other, who was then abroad, could be apprehended and tried with him. But in order to frustrate this argument it was proved that town had shipped off large quantities of goods on his own account, besides the circumstance of his being taken at Sandwich by Mr. Hodgson, with more than twenty pounds of his creditors' money in his possession, was a sufficient proof of his guilt. Wherefore the jury did not hesitate on his case, and he received sentence of death. This unhappy man was a native of the county of Oxford, and for some time had carried on a considerable business as a tallow chandler with great reputation, but it appears to evidence that he had formed a design of defrauding his creditors, because, at the time of his upsconding, he had considerable property and funds and was otherwise in good circumstances. Before his conviction he was indulged with a chamber to himself in the press-yard, but after sentence was passed on him he was put into the condemned hole with the other prisoners, but here he catched a violent cold which brought on deafness, a disorder to which he had been subject. Wherefore, on complaining of this circumstance, he was removed to his former apartments. While under sentence of death he refused to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, declaring that a person whom he had relieved and preserved from ruin had occasioned his destruction. He attended the devotions of the place, declared that he forgave his enemies, and begged that God would likewise forgive them. He was executed at Tibern on the 23rd of December, 1712, being exactly forty-one years of age on that day, a circumstance that remarked to the ordinary on his way to the fatal tree. Mr. Towne was the first person who suffered on the act which made it a felony for a bankrupt to conceal the value of twenty pounds or upwards. It is the fate of many an honest man to become bankrupt, and it is but too common for the unfeeling world to brand all bankrupts with the general name of villain. But, we hope, for the honor of human nature that this name is not deserved once where it is applied a thousand times. It has been the misfortune of some of the worthiest men we have ever known to become bankrupts. On the contrary, many of the most contemptible of the human race have been successful traders, and in the language of the city have been, quote, good men, unquote. Undoubtedly there have been fraudulent bankruptcies, but comparatively speaking we believe very few. We have not many instances of traders flourishing in a great degree after a bankruptcy. And what man would wish, if it were in his power, to meet the public contempt and derision for the sake of embezzling a few paltry hundred pounds, and this too at the hazard of his life? With regard to the particular instance before us, we see a strong proof of the wisdom and justice of providence in preventing this offender from making his escape in the first place, by the ship being sailed, and in the second by the packet boat being obliged to put back through stress of weather. Hence let all who are tempted to commit crimes of a similar or any other nature learn that they can never escape the sight of a just God who ruleth the world in righteousness. Account of Richard Noble, attorney at law, who suffered for the murder of John Sayer Esquire, with some particulars of the amours of Mr. Noble and Mrs. Sayer. There is something so singular in the case before us, that the reader will be glad to have the particulars of an affair that made much noise in the world at the time it happened, and will be remembered the future ages. John Sayer Esquire was possessed of about a thousand pounds a year, and was lord of the manner of Bizzledon in Buckinghamshire. He does not appear to have been a man of any great abilities, but was remarkable for his good nature and inoffensive disposition. In 1699 he married Mary, the daughter of Admiral Neville, a woman of a agreeable person and brilliant wit, but of such an abandoned disposition as to be a disgrace to her sex. Soon after this wedding Colonel Salisbury married the Admiral's widow, but there was such a vicious similarity in conduct of the mother and daughter that the two husbands had early occasion to be disgusted with the choice they had made. Mr. Sayer's nuptials had not been celebrated many days before his bride took the liberty of kicking him, and hinted that she would procure a lover with whom she might enjoy those pleasures not to be found with her husband. Sayer, who was distractedly fond of her, bore this treatment with patience, and at the end of a twelfth month she bear him a daughter, which soon died. But he became still more fond of her after she had made him a father, and was continually loading her with presents. Mr. Sayer now took a house on Lyle Street Lester Fields, kept a coach, and did everything which he thought might gratify his wife. But so far from being influenced by this generous conduct she declared that she would never again admit him to her bed. Irritated by this treatment he went amongst the women of the town. In consequence whereof he contracted a disorder that obliged him to have the advice of a surgeon. And his wife, suspecting what had happened, he made no scruple to acknowledge the fact, and avowed the occasion of it. His health, however, was soon re-established, on which his wife voluntarily admitted him to her bed. But the consequence was that both the parties were soon afterwards indisposed. As the surgeon who had attended Mr. Sayer was a man of character, and professed himself ready to swear to the perfection of his cure, it was shrewdly suspected that the lady, having contracted the disorder, had given it to her husband in order to criminate him in the opinion of his friends. However this be, she effected to be greatly disgusted, again forbade him her bed, and consoled herself with the company of a colonel in the army. At time she behaved with more compliance to her husband, who had, after a while, the honor of being deemed father of another child of which she was delivered. And after this circumstance she indulged herself in still greater liberties than before, her mother, who was almost constantly with her, encouraging her in the shameful prostitution of manners. At length a scheme was concerted, which would probably have ended in the destruction of Mr. Sayer and Colonel Salisbury, if it had not been happily prevented by the prudence of the latter. The colonel taking an opportunity to represent to Mrs. Sayer the ill consequences that must attend her infidelity to her husband, she immediately attacked him with the most outrageous language, and insulted him to such a degree that he threw the remains of a dish of tea at her. The mother and daughter immediately laid hold of this circumstance to inflame the passions of Mr. Sayer, whom they at length prevailed on to demand satisfaction of the colonel. The challenge is said to have been written by Mrs. Sayer, and when the colonel received it he conjectured that it was a plan concerted between the ladies to get rid of their husbands. However he obeyed the summons, and going in a coach with Mr. Sayer towards Montague House, he addressed him as follows, quote, son, Sayer, let us come to a right understanding of this business. It is well known that I am a swordsman, and I should be very far from getting any honour by killing you. But to come nearer the point in hand thou shouldest know, Jack, for all the world knows, that thy wife and mine are both whores. They want to get rid of us at once. If thou shouldest drop, they'll have me hanged for it after, end, quote. There was so much of obvious truth in this remark that Mr. Sayer immediately felt its force, and the gentlemen drove home together to the great mortification of the ladies. Soon after this affair Mrs. Sayer went to her house in Buckeumshire, where an intimacy took place between her and the curate of the parish, and there a moor was conducted with so little reserve that all the servants saw that the parson had more influence in the house than the master. Mrs. Sayer, coming to London, was soon followed by the young clergyman, who was seized with the smallpox which cost him his life. When he found that there was no hope of his recovery, he sent to Mr. Sayer, earnestly requesting to see him. But Mrs. Sayer, who judged what he wanted, said her mother had not had the smallpox, and such a visit might cost her her life. Before she insisted that her husband should not go, and the passive man tabily submitted to this injunction, though his wife daily sent a footman to inquire after the clergyman, who died without being visited by Mr. Sayer. This gentleman had not been long dead before his place was supplied by an officer of the guards. But he was soon dismissed in favour of a man of great distinction who presented her with some valuable china, which he pretended was one at Astrop Wells. About this time Mr. Sayer found his affairs considerably deranged by his wife's extravagance, on which a gentleman recommended to him Mr. Richard Noble, an attorney, as a man capable of being very serviceable to him. Noble was the son of a man who kept a very reputable coffee house at Boff. His parents lived in great credit, and his mother was so virtuous a woman that when Noble afterwards went to her house with Mrs. Sayer in a coach and six, she shut the door against him. Noble had been well educated and articleed to an attorney of eminence at New Inn, in which she afterwards took chambers for himself. But he had not been in any considerable degree of practice when he was introduced to Mr. Sayer. Noble had not been long acquainted with the family before he became too intimate with Mrs. Sayer, and, if reports said true, with her mother likewise. However, these two abandoned women had other matters in prospect besides mere gallantry, and considering Noble as a man of business as well as a lover, they concerted a scheme to deprive Mr. Sayer of a considerable part of his estate. The unhappy gentleman, being perpetually teased by the women, at length consented to execute a deed of separation in which he assigned some lands in Buckhamshire to the amount of a hundred and fifty pounds a year to his wife, exclusive of fifty pounds a year for pin-money. And by this deed he likewise covenanted that Mrs. Sayer might live with whom she pleased, and that he would never molest any person on account of harboring her. Mr. Sayer was even so weak as to sign this deed without having a counsel of his own to examine it. Not long after Mrs. Sayer was delivered of a child at Bath, but that her husband might not take alarm at this circumstance, Noble sent him a letter, acquainting him that was to be pricked down for high share of Buckhamshire, and Mrs. Salisbury had urged him to go to Holland to be out of the way, and supplied him with some money on the occasion. It does not seem probable that Sayer had any suspicion of Noble's criminal intercourse with his wife. For the night before he set out he presented him with a pair of saddle-pistols and furniture worth forty pounds. Soon after he was gone Mrs. Sayer is made, speaking of the danger her master might be in at sea. The abandoned woman said, quote, she should be sorry, his man James, a poor innocent fellow, should come to any harm, but she should be glad, and earnestly wished, that Mr. Sayer might sink to the bottom of the sea, and that the bottom of the ship might come out, end quote. Not long after Mr. Sayer was gone abroad, Noble began to give himself heirs of greater consequence than he had hitherto done. He was solicitor in a case in the court of Chancery in which Mr. Sayer was plaintive, and having obtained a decree he obliged the trustees nominated in the marriage articles to relinquish, and assumed the authority of a sole trustee. Mr. Sayer remained in Holland near a year, during which Noble publicly cohabited with his wife, and when her husband returned she refused to live with him, but having first robbed him of above two thousand pounds in ex-checker bills and other effects, she went to private lodgings with Noble, soon after which she was delivered of another child. After Mrs. Sayer had thus alubed from her husband, he caused an advertisement to be inserted in the newspapers of which the following is a copy, quote, whereas Mary, the wife of John Sayer, Esquire, late of Lyle Street, St. Anne's, went away from her dwelling-house on or about the twenty-third of May last, in company with Elizabeth Neville, sister to the said Mary, and hath carried away near a thousand pounds in money, besides other things of considerable value, it is supposed to go by some other name. He desires all tradesmen and others not to give her any credit, for that he will not pay the same, end quote. While Mrs. Sayer cohabited with Noble, he was constantly supplied with money, but he was not her only associate at that time for, during his occasional absence, she gratified herself with the company of other lovers. Noble now procured an order from the Court of Chancery to make Mr. Sayer in execution for four hundred pounds at the suit of Mrs. Salisbury, the consequence of a judgment confessed by him, for form's sake, to protect his goods from his creditors while he was in Holland. Mr. Sayer declared that the real debt was not more than seventy pounds, though artful management and legal expenses had swelled it to the above-mentioned sum. Hereupon Sayer took refuge within the rules of the fleet prison, and exhibited his bills in Chancery for relief against these suits, and the deed of separation which he obtained. But before he had an opportunity of suing out judgment against Noble, the vengeance of heaven overtook that abandoned villain. Mrs. Sayer, finding herself liable to be exposed by the advertisement her husband had caused to be inserted in the newspapers, she, with her mother and Noble, took lodgings in the Mint Southwick, which was at that time a place of refuge for great numbers of persons of desperate circumstances and abandoned dispositions. Mr. Sayer was now informed that his wife had taken lodgings in the Mint, on which he wrote several letters to her, promising that he would forgive all her crimes if she would return to her duty, but she treated his letters with as much contempt as she had done his person. Hereupon he determined to seize on her by force, presuming that he should recover some of his effects if he could get her into his custody. He therefore obtained the warrant of a justice of the peace, and taking with him two constables and six assistants, went to the house of George Twyford in the Mint, the constables intimating that they had a warrant to search for a suspected person, for it had been thought that they were bailiffs, their lives would have been in danger. Having entered the house, they went to a back room where Noble, Mrs. Sayer, and Mrs. Salisbury were at dinner, but the door was no sooner opened than Noble drew his sword and, stabbing Sayer in the left breast, he died on the spot. The constables immediately apprehended the murderer and the two women, but the latter was so abandoned that while the peace officers were conveying them to the house of a magistrate, they did little else than lament the fate of Noble. As it appeared as if the mob would rise from an apprehension that the prisoners were debtors, a constable was directed to carry the bloody sword before them in testimony that murder had been committed, which produced the wish-for effect by keeping perfect peace. The prisoners begged to send for counsel, which being granted Noble was committed for trial after an examination of two hours, but the counsel urged so many arguments in favor of the women that it was ten o'clock at night before they were committed. Soon afterwards this unworthy mother and daughter applied to the court of King's bench to be admitted to bail, but this favor was refused them. The coroner's inquest, having viewed Mr. Sayer's body, it was removed to his lodgings within the rules of the fleet in order for internment, and three days afterwards they gave a verdict, finding Noble guilty of willful murder and the two women of having aided and assisted him in that murder. On the evening of March 12, 1713, they were put to the bar at Kingston in Surrey, and having been arraigned on several indictments, and pleaded not guilty, were told to prepare for their trials by six o'clock on the following morning. Being brought down for trial at the appointed time, they moved the court that their trials might be deferred till the afternoon on the plea that some material witnesses were absent, but the court not believing their allegations refused to comply with their request. It was imagined that this motion to put off their trials was founded in the expectation that when the business at the bar was dispatched many of the jurymen might go home so that when the prisoners had made their challenges there might not be a number left sufficient to try them, by which they might escape till the next assizes. They hoped some circumstances would happen in their favor. The trial being ordered to come on, Mr. Noble and Mrs. Salisbury each challenged twenty of the jury, and Mrs. Sehr challenged thirty-five. All persons indicted for felony have a right to challenge twenty jurors, and those indicted for petty treason thirty-five. This may be done without alleging any cause. So that it was owing to the great number of juries summoned by the sheriff that the ends of public justice were not for the present defeated. It will be unnecessary to recite the particulars of the evidence given on the trial, because those who have read the preceding narrative must be well apprised of its nature. Suffice it to say that the crime of murder was clearly proved against Noble. However, his counsel urged that some of the persons who broke into the house might have murdered Mr. Sehr, or if they had not, the provocation he had received might be such as would warrant the jury to bring him in guilty of man's daughter only. As the court had sat from six in the morning till one o'clock the next morning the jury were indulged with some refreshment before they left the bar, and after being out nine hours they gave their verdict that Mr. Noble was guilty, and Mrs. Salisbury and Mrs. Sehr were not guilty. When Mr. Noble was brought to the bar to receive sentence he made a speech of which the following is a copy. Quote, M'Lord, I am soon to appear and render an account of my sins to God Almighty. If your lordship should think me guilty of those crimes I have been accused with, and convicted of, by my jury, I am then sure your lordship will think that I stand in need of such a reparation, such a humiliation for my great offenses, such an abhorrence of my past life, to give me hopes of a future one, that I am not without hopes that it will be a motive of your lordship's goodness that after you have judged and sentenced my body to execution you will charitably assist me with a little time for the preservation of my soul. If I had nothing to answer for, but killing Mr. Sehr was precedent malice, I should have no need to address myself to your lordship in this manner. It is now too late to take advantage by denying it to your lordship, and too near my end to disemble it before God. I know, my lord, the danger, the hell that I should plunge myself headlong into. I know I shall soon answer for the truth I am now about to say before a higher tribunal and a more discerning judge than your lordship, which is only in heaven. That I did not take the advantage to kill Mr. Sehr by a thought or apprehension that I could do it under the umbrage of the law, or with impunity, and nothing was more distant from my thoughts than to remove him out of the world to enjoy his wife as was suggested without molestation. Nor could any one have greater reluctance or remorse from the time of the fact to the hour of my trial than I have had, though the prosecutors reported to the contrary, for which I heartily forgive them. My counsel obliged me to say on my trial that I had heard Mr. Sehr's voice before he broke open the door. I told him, as well as your lordship, that I did not know it was him till he was breaking in at the door, and then, not before, was my sword drawn and the wound given. Which wound, Dr. Garth informed me, was so slight that it was a thousand to one that he died of it. When I gave the wound I insensibly quitted the sword, by which means I left myself open for him to have done what was proved he attempted, and was so likely for him to have affected, visit, to have stabbed me, which are the circumstances that manifest the greatness of my surprise. When I heard the company run up the stairs I was alarmed and in fear, the landlord telling me, instantly thereupon, that the house was beset, either for me or himself, and added to my confusion, I then never thought or intended to do mischief. But first bolted the four door, and then bolted and padlocked the back door, which was glazed, and began to fasten the shutters belonging to it, designing only to screen myself from the violence of the tumult. When he broke open the door, and not till then I perceived and knew he was present, and his former threats and attempts, which I so fully proved on my trial, and could have proved much fuller had not Mrs. Salisbury's evidence been taking from me, made me fear, so great, and the apprehension of my danger so near, that what I did was the natural motion of self-defense, and was too sudden to be the result of precedent malice. Then I solemnly declare, that I did not hear or know from twifled the landlord, or otherwise, that any constable attended the deceased till after the misfortune happened. It was my misfortune that what I said as to hearing the disease voice was turned to my disadvantage by the counsel against me, and that I was not entitled to any assistance of counsel to enforce the evidence given for me, or to remark upon the evidence given against me, which I don't doubt would have fully satisfied your lordship and the jury that what happened was more my misfortune than any design or intention. If I had been able, under the concern, to remark upon the evidence against me, that Mr. Sare was but the tenth part of a minute in breaking open the door, it could not then well be supposed by the jury that I was preparing myself or putting myself in order to do mischief, which are the acts of forethought and consideration which require much more time than as pretended I could have had from the time I discovered Mr. Sare. For even from his entry into the house to the time of the accident did not amount, as I am informed, to more than the space of three minutes. But I did not discover him before the door gave way. I wish it had been my good fortune that the jury had applied that to me which your lordship remarked in favor of the ladies, that the matter was so very sudden, so very accidental and unexpected, that it was impossible to be a contrivance and confederacy, and unlikely that they could have come to a resolution in so short a time. I don't remember your lordship distinguished my case as to that particular to be different from theirs, nor was there room for it. For it is impossible for your lordship to believe that I had dreamt of Mr. Sare's coming there at that time, but on the contrary, I fully proved to your lordship that I went there upon another matter that was lawful and beneficial to the deceased, and that I had no more time to think or to contrive than the ladies had to agree or consent. If anything could be construed favorably on the behalf of such an unfortunate wretch as myself, I think the design I had some time before began, and was about finishing that day, might have taken away all suspicion of malice against Mr. Sare. Must it be thought, my lord, that I only am such a sinner that I cannot repent and make reparations to the persons I have injured? It was denied, but I strongly solicited a reconciliation between Mr. Sare and his lady, and if this had tended to procure me an easier access to Mr. Sare, it would have been such a matter of aggravation to me that it could not have escaped the remark of counsel against me, nor the sharpness of the prosecutors present in court. With both I transacted, and to both I appealed, particularly to Mr. Nott, to whom, but the day before the accident, I manifested my desire of having them live together again, and therefore, my lord, it should be presumed that I labored to be reconciled to, and not to revenge myself on Mr. Sare. Your lordship, I hope, will observe so much in my favor, that it was not so far from being a clear fact in opinion of the jury, that they sat up all night, and believing there was no malice at that time, told your lordship they intended, and were inclined to find it manslaughter, and doubting the legality of the warrant to find it special. I hope this will touch your lordship's heart so far, as not to think me so ill a man as to deserve what the best Christians are taught to pray against, a sudden death. I confess I am unprepared, the hopes of my being able to make a legal defense, and my endeavors therein having taken up my time which I wish I had better employed. I beg leave to assure your lordship upon the words of a dying man that as none of the indirect practices to get or suppress evidence were proved upon me, so they never sprang from me, and I can safely say that my blood in a great measure will lie at their door that did, because it drew me under ill imputation of defending myself by subordination of perjury. I would be willing to do my duty towards my neighbor as well as God before I die. I have many papers and concerns by reason of my profession, of my clients in my hands, and who will suffer if they are not put in some order, and nothing but these two considerations could make life desirable under this heavy load of irons and the relentless remorse of conscience for my sins. A short reprieve for these purposes I hope will be agreeable to your lordship's humanity and Christian virtue, whereupon your lordship's name will be blessed with my last breath for giving me an opportunity of making peace with my conscience and God Almighty. The last request that Noble Maid was granted. He was allowed some time to settle his spiritual and temporal concerns, and at length was executed at Kingston, on the 28th of March, 1713, exhibiting marks of genuine repentance. With regard to the women, they were no sooner acquitted than they set out for London, taking one of the turn keys with them to protect them from the assaults of the populace who were incensed in the highest degree at the singular enormity of their crimes. Little need be added by way of reflection to this long and interesting narrative. Those who do not see and abhor the extreme wickedness of these abandoned women are not likely to be influenced by any arguments we can use. The situation of Mr. Sare is pitiable in a high degree. He was distractedly fond of a woman who despised him, and who despised everything that bore the semblance of virtue. The fate of Noble was no other than that that he merited by a long and obstinate perseverance in a course of vice and in gratitude. His baseness is almost unexampled. We hope the force of the following advice of the wise King Solomon will be felt by all our readers. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into the way of evil men. Avoid it. Pass not by it. Turn from it. Pass away. For they sleep not, except that they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. End quote. This is the end of part four, volume one of the new and complete Newgate calendar. This is part five, volume one of the new and complete Newgate calendar read by Roy Schreiber. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Particulars respecting the lords and other persons who were tried on account of the Rebedion in the year 1715 When, in pursuance of the act of settlement, King George I succeeded the throne of these realms, the Earl of Mar, a Scottish nobleman who had been deeply concerned with Queen Anne's Tory ministry, was deprived of all the places he had held under government. In revenge for which he retired to Scotland and mediated a scheme to dethrone the king and overturn the constitution. Being assured of the assistance of a number of Highlanders, he communicated his plan to some nobleman in Scotland and the north of England who joined him in sending an invitation to the pretender to invade these kingdoms, and they also dispatched three men to London to endeavour to enlist soldiers for the pretender's service. The names of these men were Robert Whitty, Felix O'Hara, and Joseph Sullivan. And though the business in which they engaged was of the most dangerous nature, they continued it for some time, but were at length apprehended, brought to trial, and being convicted were executed at Tyburn on the 28th of May, 1715. Robert Whitty was born in Ireland, and having enlisted as a soldier when young served in an English regiment in Spain, where, being wounded, he was brought to England and received the bounty of Chelsea College as an out-pensioner. Felix O'Hara, who was about twenty-nine years of age, was likewise an Irishman, and having lived some time in Dublin as a waiter at a tavern, he saved some money and entered into business for himself. But that not answering, as he would have wished, he came to London. Joseph Sullivan was a native of Munster in Ireland, and about the same age as O'Hara. He had for some time served in the Irish brigades, but, obtaining his discharge, he came to England, and was thought a fit agent to engage in the business which cost him and his companions their lives. These men denied, at the time of their trial, that they had been guilty of any crime, and even at the place of execution they attempted to defend their conduct. They all died professing the Roman Catholic religion. Hence, let us learn to abhor the pernicious doctrines of that church which could encourage subjects in the wish to dethrone their lawful sovereign. And may we be taught the force of the instruction, Fear God and Honor the King. We will now continue the narrative of which this is but the introduction. The Earl of Marr had resolved to keep his proceedings an absolute secret. But it is almost impossible for transactions of this nature to remain so. And information of what had passed, having been transmitted to the court, the King went to the house on the 20th of July, 1715, and having sent for the Commons informed both houses of Parliament that he had received authentic intelligence of an intention informed by the pretender to invade his kingdoms, and that he was apprehensive he had but too many of betters in this country. Wherefore, that the ends of public justice might be speedily obtained, the King requested that the habeas corpus act might be suspended till the Rebedion should be in an end. Accordingly the legislature suspended the set act, and in consequence of which several suspected persons were taken into custody. The militia was now raised in different parts of the kingdom, the guards were encamped in Hyde Park, and a number of ships were ordered to guard the coasts and other proper steps taken for public security. The Earl of Marr was by this time at the head of three thousand men with whom he marched from town to town in Scotland, proclaiming the pretender by the title of James III. Some of the soldiers in the Castle of Edinburgh, having been bribed to assist some of the Earl of Marr's men in getting over the walls by means of rope ladders, they were dispatched to surprise the castle. But Lord Justice Clark was so much on his guard that this scheme was frustrated, and some of the parties concerned in it suffered death. She grinned by this circumstance, and hearing that the French King was just then dead, many of the rebels were for abandoning their enterprise through the arrival of the pretender. But this intention did not take place, for on the 6th of October, 1715, Thomas Foster Esquire, member of Parliament for Northumberland, set up the pretender's standard in that county, and being joined by several noblemen and gentlemen, they made an attempt to seize Newcastle, but did not succeed. They were afterwards joined by a body of the Scottish at Kelso, and, after marching to different places, they came to Preston in Lancashire. In the meantime, Generals Carpenter and Wills marched into the north. But finding the rebels gone southward, they went to Preston, which placed the rebels intended to defend against the King's forces, whom they for some time annoyed by firing from the windows of the houses. But at length the royal troops were victorious, and after the loss of only about a hundred and fifty men. It is uncertain how many rebels were killed, but the number of prisoners was about fifteen hundred, among whom were the Earl of Derwent Water and Lord Widrington. These two were English peers, the rest Scottish. The earls of Needsdale, Wynton, Carnwyth, Viscount Kenmure, and Lord Naren. The common soldiers among the rebels were imprisoned at Liverpool, and other places in that neighbourhood. But the above mentioned noblemen, with other persons above the common rank to the number of near three hundred, were brought to London. They arrived at Highgate on the fourteenth of November, where they were met by a party of the footguards, and their arms being tied back with cords, their horses were led each by a grenadier, and in this ignominious manner they were conducted to the metropolis, when the noblemen were committed to the tower and the rest to Newgate. In the meantime a number of the Scottish rebels had marched to Perth, where they proclaimed the pretender, and consequence of which John Duke of Argyll, who had been commissioned to raise forces, marched against and came up with them at Sheriffmure near Dumblane, on the very day of the other engagement. And the Rebedion would have been crushed, but that some of the Duke's troops ran away on first fire, and got to Stirling about seven miles from the field of battle. However, the Duke obtained a partial victory by forcing the enemy lines with his dragoons. The Earl of Mar retired to Perth on the following day, proposing to cross the fourth, with a view to join the rebels in England. But a fleet lying opposite Edinburgh prevented this design from being carried into execution. About this period Sir John McKenzie, having fortified the town of Inverness for the pretender, Lord Lovett at the head of his tenants drove him from that place. A circumstance of great importance to the royal cause, as a communication was thereby opened between the Highlands and the Fourth of Scotland, and the Earl of Seaforth and the Marcus of Hunley laid down their arms, and consequence of the Earl of Sutherland having armed his tenants in support of government. The rebels now went into winter quarters at Perth and the Duke of Argyle at Stirling, and the pretender, having landed at Peterhead with six attendants only, met his friends at Perth on the 22nd of December, and on the ninth of the following month made a public entry into the Palace of Scone, and assuming the dignity of a sovereign prince issued a proclamation for his coronation and another for assembling the States. But this farce continued for only a very short time. For General Coggin, arriving with six thousand Dutch forces to the aid of the Duke of Argyle about the end of January, the latter marched toward Perth, but the rebels fled as soon as they heard he was advancing. For a while they had expectation of aid from France, in the hope of which the pretender and his adherents went to Dundee and thence to Montrose, but after waiting a while and no aid arriving they began to despair. And as the king's troops pursued them, the common men dispersed to their own habitations, and the pretender, with the Earl of Mar and some others of his principal adherents, embarked on board a ship in the harbor of Montrose, and were soon landed in France after having narrowly escaped an English fleet which lay on the coast of Scotland through the extreme darkness of the night in which they embarked. The disturbances in the north being thus at an end, both houses of parliament combined to show their loyalty to their sovereign and regard to the public welfare. Mr. Foster was expelled from the House of Commons, who unanimously agreed to impeach the seven lords which was accordingly done. These unhappy noblemen were informed of what had passed, and the Earl Cooper, Lord High Chancellor, being appointed Lord High Steward on the occasion, all the lords pleaded guilty to the indictment, except the Earl of Wynton. But they offered such pleas and extenuation of their crimes as they thought might induce the King to extend his royal mercy to them, and the Earl of Durwent Water hinted that the proceedings of the House of Commons in the impeachment was out of the ordinary course of law. In consequence of their having pleaded guilty, proclamation was made for silence, and the Lord High Steward passed sentence of death on them, prefacing the solemn sentence with the following affecting speech. For that end to levy a bloody and destructive war against his majesty in order to dispose and murder him, and in levying war accordingly, and proclaiming a pretender to his crown to be King of these realms. Which impeachment, though one of your lordships in the introduction to his plea, supposes to be out of the ordinary and common course of law and justice, is yet as much a course of proceeding according to the common law as any other whatsoever. If you had been indicted, the indictment must have been removed, and brought before the House of Lords, the Parliament sitting. In that case you had, tis true, been accused only by the grand jury of one country. In the present, the whole body of the Commons of Great Britain, by their representatives, are your accusers. And this circumstance is very observable, to exclude all possible supposition of hardship as to the method of proceeding against you, that, however, all great assemblies are apt to differ on other points, you were impeached by the unanimous opinion of the House of Commons not one contradicting. They found themselves, it seems, so much concerned in the preservation of his most truly sacred majesty and the Protestant succession, the very life and soul of these kingdoms, that they could not omit the first opportunity of taking their proper part in order to so signal and necessary an act of his majesty's justice. And thus the whole body politic of this free kingdom has, in a manner, rose up in its own defence, for the punishment of those crimes which it was rightly apprehended had a direct tendency to the everlasting dissolution of it. To this impeachment you have severally pleaded and acknowledged yourselves guilty of the high treason therein contained. Your pleas are accompanied with some variety of matter to mitigate your offences and to obtain mercy, part of which, as some of the circumstances said to have attended your surrender, seeming to be offered rather as an argument only for mercy than anything in mitigation of your preceding guilt, is not proper for me to take notice of, but, as to the other part, which is meant to extenuate the crimes of which you are convicted, it is fit I should take this occasion to make some observations to your lordships upon it, to the end that the judgment to be given against you may clearly appear to be just and righteous as well as legal, and that you may not remain under any fatal error in respect of a greater judicature by reflecting with less horror and remorse on the guilt you have contracted than it really deserves. It is alleged, by some of your lordships, that you engaged in this rebellion without previous concert or deliberation and without suitable preparation of men, horses, and arms. If this should be supposedly true on some of your lordships veering it, I desire you to consider that as it exempts you from the circumstance of contriving this treason, so it very much aggravates your guilt in that part you have undoubtedly borne in the execution of it. For it shows that your inclination to rebel were so well known, which could only be from a continued series of your words and actions, that the contrivers of that horrid design depended upon you, and therein judged rightly, that your zeal to engage in this treason was so strong as to carry you into it on the least warning, and the very first invitation, that you would not excuse yourselves by want of preparation as you might have done, and that rather than not have share in the rebellion you would plunge yourself into it almost naked and unprovided for such an enterprise, in short, that your men, horses, and arms were not so well prepared as they might and would have been on longer warning but your minds were. It is also alleged, as an extenuation of your crimes, that no cruel or harsh action, I suppose, is meant no rapine or plunder or worse, had been committed by you. This may, in part only, be true, but then your lordships will, at the same time consider that having laid waste attract of land bears but a little portion in point of guilt, compared with that crime of which you stand convicted, an open attempt to destroy the best of kings, to ruin the whole fabric and raise the very foundations of a government, the best suited of any in the world to perfect the happiness and support the dignity of human nature. The former offense causes but a mischief that is soon recovered, and is usually pretty much confined. The latter, had it succeeded, must have brought a lasting and universal destruction on the whole kingdom. Besides, much of this was owing to accident, and your march was so hastily, partly to avoid the kings' troops, and partly from a vain hope to stir up insurrections in all the counties you passed through, that you had no time to spread devastation without deviating from your main and, as I have observed, much worse design. Father, it is very surprising that any concern in this rebellion should lay there engaging in it on governments doing a necessary and an unusual act in like cases for its preservation. The giving orders to confine such as were most likely to join in that treason. It is hard to believe that any one should rebel merely to avoid being restrained from rebelling, or that a gentle confinement would not much better have suited a crazy state of health than the fatigues and inconvenience of such a long and hasty march in the depth of winter. Your lordship's rising in arms, therefore, has much more justified the prudence and fitness of those orders than those orders will in any wise serve to mitigate your treason. Alas! Happy had it been for all your lordships had you fallen under so indulgent a restraint. When your lordships shall, in good earnest, apply yourselves to think impartially on your case, surely you will not yourselves believe that it is possible, in the nature of the thing, to be engaged and continue so long engaged in such a difficult and laborious enterprise through rashness, surprise, and invertency, or that had the attack at Preston been less sudden, and consequently the rebels better prepared to receive it, your lordships had been reduced the sooner, and with less, if not without any, bloodshed. No, my lords, these and such like are artful colorings proceeding from minds filled with expectation of continuing in this world and not from such as are preparing for their defense before a tribunal where the thoughts of the heart and the true springs and causes of actions must be laid open. And now, my lords, having thus removed some false colors you have used to assist you yet further in that necessary work of thinking on your great offenses as you ought, I proceed to touch upon several circumstances that seem greatly to aggravate your crime, and which will deserve your most serious consideration. The divine virtues tis one of your lordship's own epithets, which all the world as well as your lordships acknowledge to be in his majesty, and which you now, they claim to, ought certainly to have withheld your hands from endeavoring to depose, to destroy, to murder that most excellent prince. So the impeachment speaks, and so the law construes your actions. And this is not only true of the notion of law, but almost always so in the deed and reason. Tis a trite, but a very true remark, that there are very few hours between kings being reduced under the power of pretenders to their crown and their graves. Had you succeeded, his majesty's case would, I fear, have hardly been an exception to the general rule, since tis highly improbable that flight should have saved any of that illustrious and valent family. Tis a further aggravation of your crime, that his majesty, whom your lordships would have dethroned, affected not the crown by force, or by arts of ambition, but succeeded peacefully and legally to it. An honor to cease of her late majesty without issue became undoubtedly the next in course of dissent capable of succeeding to the crown by law and constitution of this kingdom, as it stood declared some years before the crown was expressly limited to the house of Hanover. This right was acknowledged, and the dissent of the crown limited or confirmed, accordingly, by the whole legislature in two successive reigns, and more than once in the latter, which your lordships accomplices are very far from allowing, would bias the nation to that side. How could it then enter into the heart of man to think that private persons might with a good conscience endeavor to subvert such a settlement, by running to tumultuary arms, and by intoxicating the dregs of the people with contrary opinions and groundless slanders, or that God's providence would ever prosper such wicked, such ruinous attempts? Especially if, in the next place, it be considered that the most fertile inventions on the side of the Rebedion have not been able to assign the least shadow of a grievance as the cause of it. To such poor shifts have they been reduced on this head that for want of better colors it has been objected in a solemn manner by your lordships associates, to His Majesty's government that His people do not enjoy the fruits of peace, as our neighbors have done, since the last war? Thus they first rob us of our peace, and then abrade us that we have it not. It is a monstrous Rebedion that can find no fault with the government it invades, but what is the effect of the Rebedion itself? Your lordships will likewise do well to consider what an additional burden your treason has made necessary on the people of this kingdom, who wanted and were about to enjoy some respite. To this end, it is well known that all new or increase of taxes were the last year carefully avoided, and His Majesty was contented to have no more forces than were just sufficient to attend His person and to shut the gates of a few garrisons. But what His Majesty thus did for the ease and quiet of His people you most ungratefully turned to His disadvantage, by taking encouragement from Thence to endanger His and His kingdom's safety and to bring oppression on your fellow subjects. Your lordships observe I avoid expiating on the miseries of a civil war, a very large and copious subject. I shall but barely suggest to you, on that head, that whatever those calamities may happen to be, in the present case all who are at any time or in any place, partakers in the Rebedion, especially persons of figure and distinction, are in some degree responsible for them. And therefore your lordships must not hold yourselves quite clear from the guilt of those barbarities which have been lately committed by such as are engaged in the same treason with you, and not yet perfectly reduced in burning the habitations of their countrymen and thereby exposing many thousands to cold and hunger in this rigorous season. I must be so just to such of your lordships as profess the religion of the Church of Rome, that you had one temptation, and that a great one, to engage you in this treason, which the others had not, in that it was evident success on your part must forever have established popery in this kingdom, and that probably you could never have again so fair an opportunity. But then, good God, how must those Protestants be covered with confusion who entered into the same measures without so much as capitulating for their religion, that ever I could find from any examination I have seen or heard, or so much as requiring much less obtaining a frail promise that it should be preserved or even tolerated? It is my duty to exhort your lordships thus to think of the aggravations as well as the mitigations, if there be any, of your offenses, and if I could have the least hopes that the prejudices of habit and education would not be too strong for the most earnest and charitable entreaties, I would beg you would not rely any longer on those directors of your conscience by whose conduct you have very probably been led into this miserable condition, but that your lordships would be assisted by some of those pious and learned-and-divines of the Church of England, who have constantly borne the infallible mark of sincere Christians, universal charity. And now, my lords, nothing remains but that I pronounce upon you, and I am sorry that it falls to my lot to do it, that terrible sentence of the law, which must be the same that is usually given against the meanest offender in the like kind. The most ignominious and painful parts of it are usually remitted by the grace of the crown, to persons of your equality, but the law, in this case, being deaf to all distinctions of persons, requires I should pronounce, and accordingly it is adjudged by this court, that you, James Earl of Derwentwater, William Lord Woodrington, William Earl of Neathsdale, Robert Earl of Carnwith, William Viscount Kenmure, and William Lord Naren, and every of you, return to the prison of the Tower from whence you came, and from thence you must be drawn to the place of execution. When you come there you must be hanged by the neck, but not till you be dead, for you must be cut down alive, and then your bowels must be taken out, and burnt before your faces, and then your heads must be severed from your bodies, and your bodies divided each into four quarters, and these must be at the king's disposal, and God Almighty be merciful to your souls. After sentence thus passed the lords were remanded back to the Tower, and on the 18th of February orders were sent to the lieutenant of the Tower, and the sheriffs for their execution, and great solicitations were made in favor of them, which did not only reach the court, but came down to the two houses of Parliament, and petitions were delivered in both, which being backed by some occasion debates, that in the House of Commons arose no higher than to occasion a motion for adjournment, thereby to prevent any further to position there. But the matter in the House of Peers was carried on with more success, where their petitions were delivered and spoke to, and it was carried by nine or ten voices, that the same should be received in red, and the question was put whether the king had the power to reprieve in case of impeachment, which being carried in the affirmative, a motion was made to address his Majesty to desire him to grant a reprieve to the lords under sentence. But the movers thereof only obtained this clause, visit, quote, to reprieve such of the condemned lords as deserve his mercy, and that the time of the respite should be left to his Majesty's discretion, end, quote, to which address his Majesty replied, quote, that to this and other occasions he would do what he thought most consistent with the dignity of the crown and the safety of his people, end, quote. The great parties they had made, as was said, by means of money, and also by the rash expressions too common in the mouths of many of their friends, as if the government did not dare to execute them, did not a little contribute to the hastening of their execution. For on the same day the address was presented, the twenty-third of February, it was resolved in council that the Earl of Derwent Water and Lord Kinmure should be beheaded, and the Earl of Neathdale, apprehending he should be included in the warrant, made his escape the evening before, in a woman's riding-hood supposed to have been conveyed to him by his mother on a visit. In the morning of the twenty-fourth of February, three detachments of life-guards went from Whitehall to Tower Hill, and having taken their stations round the scaffold the two lords were brought from the Tower at ten o'clock, and being received by the sheriffs at the bar were conducted to the transport office on Tower Hill, and at the expiration of an hour the Earl of Derwent Water sent word that he was ready, on which Sir John Fryer, one of the sheriffs, walked before him to the scaffold, and when there told him he might have what time he pleased to prepare himself for death. His lordship desired to read a paper which he had written, the substance of which was that he was sorry for having pleaded guilty, that he acknowledged no king but James III, for whom he had an invadiable affection, and that these kingdoms would never be happy till the ancient constitution was restored, and he wished his death might contribute to that desirable end. His lordship professed the dire Roman Catholic, and in the post-script to his speech said, quote, if that prince who now governs had given me life I should have thought myself obliged never more to have taken up arms against him, end, quote. Sir John Fryer, desiring to have the paper, he said he had sent a copy of it to his friends, and then delivered it. He then read some prayers out of two small books and kneeled down to try how the block would fit his neck. This being done, he had again recourse to his devotions, and having told the executioner that he forgave him, and likewise forgave all his enemies, he directed him to strike when he should repeat the words, sweet Jesus, the third time. He then kneeled down and said, sweet Jesus, receive my spirit, sweet Jesus, be merciful to me, sweet Jesus! And appeared to be proceeding in his prayer when his head was struck off at one blow, and the executioner, taking it up, exhibited it at the four corners of the scaffold, saying, Behold the head of a traitor! God save King George! The body was now wrapped in a black bays, and being carried to a coach was delivered to the friends of the deceased, and the scaffold, having been cleared, fresh bays put on the block, and sawed us strewed, that none of the blood might appear, Lord Ken Muir, was conducted to the scaffold. His lordship was a Protestant, and was attended by two clergymen, but he declined saying much, telling one of them that he had prudential reasons for not delivering his sentiments, which was supposed to arise from his regard to Lord Carnwith, who was his brother-in-law, and was then interceding for the royal mercy, and as his talking, in the way that Lord Derwood Water had done, might be supposed to injure his lordship with those most likely to serve him. Lord Ken Muir, having finished his devotions, declared that he forgave the executioner to whom he made a present of eight guineas. He was attended by a surgeon, who drew his finger over that part of the neck where the blow was to be struck, and, being executed as Lord Derwood Water had been, his body was delivered to the care of an undertaker. George, Earl of Wynton, not having pleaded guilty with the other lords, was brought to his trial on the fifteenth of March, when the principal matter urged in his favour was that he had surrendered at Preston in consequence of a promise from General Willis to grant him his life, in answer to which it was sworn that no promise of mercy was made but that the rebels surrendered at discretion. The Earl of Wynton, having left his house with fourteen or fifteen of his servants well mounted and armed, his joining Earl Carnwith and Lord Ken Muir, his proceeding with the rebels through the various stages of their march, and his surrendering with the rest, were circumstances fully proved, notwithstanding which his counsel moved in a rest of judgment. But the plea on which this motion was founded, being thought insufficient, his peers unanimously found him guilty, and then the Lord High Steward pronounced sentence on him, having addressed him in the following forcible terms. Earl of Wynton, I have acquainted you that your peers have found you guilty, that is, in terms of the law, convicted you of high treason, whereof you stand impeached. After your lordship has moved in a rest of judgment, and their lordships have disallowed that motion, their next step is to proceed to judgment. The melancholy part I am to bear in pronouncing that judgment upon you. Since it is his Majesty's pleasure to appoint me to that office, I do to fleece submit to it, far, very far, from taking any satisfaction in it. Till conviction your lordship has been spoken to without the least prejudice or supposition of your guilt, but now it must be taken for granted that your lordship is guilty of the high treason whereof you stand impeached. My lord, this your crime is the greatest known to the law of this kingdom, or any other country whatsoever, and it is the blackest and most odious species of that crime, a conspiracy and attempt manifested by an open rebellion, to depose and murder that sacred person who sustains and his Majesty of the whole, and from whom, as from a fountain of warmth and glory, are dispersed all honors, all the dignity of the state, indeed the lasting and operative life and vigor of the laws, which plainly subsist by a due administration of the executive power, so that attempting this precious life is really striking at the most noble part, the seat of life, and the spring of all motion in this government, and may therefore properly be called a design to murder not only the king, but also the body politic of this kingdom, and this is most inevitably true in your lordship's case, considering that success in your treason must infallibly have established popery, and that never fails to bring with it a civil as well as ecclesiastic tyranny, which is quite another sort of constitution than that of this kingdom, and cannot take place till the present is annihilated. This, your crime, so I must call it, is the more aggravated in that where it proceeds so far as to take arms openly, and to make an offensive war against lawful authority it is generally, as in your case, complicated with the horrid end, crying sin of murdering many who are not only innocent but meritorious, and if pity be due, as I admit, it is to some degree, to such a suffer for their own crimes, it must be admitted a much greater share of compassion is owing to them who have lost their lives merely by the crimes of other men. As many as have done so in the late Rebedion, so many murders have they to answer for who promoted it, and your lordship in examining your conscience will be under a great delusion if you look on those who fell at Preston, Dunblane, or elsewhere, on the side of the laws, and defence of settled order in government as slain in lawful war, even judging of this matter by the law of nations. Alas, my lord, your crime of high treason is yet made redder by shedding a great deal of the best blood in the kingdom. I include in this expression the brave common soldiers as well as those gallant and heroic officers who continued faithful to death in defence of the laws. For sure but little blood can be better than that which is shed while it is warm in the cause of true religion and the liberties of its native country. I believe it, notwithstanding the unfair arts and industry used, to stir up a pernicious excess of commissuration towards such as have fallen by the sword of justice, few, if compared with the number of good subjects murdered from doors and windows at Preston only. The life of one honest loyal subject is more precious in the eye of God and all considering men than the lives of many rebels and patricides. This puts me in mind to observe to your lordship that there is another malignity in your lordship's crime, open rebedum, which consists in this, that it is always sure of doing hurt to a government in one respect though it be defeated. I will not say it does so on the whole matter, for if the offence is too notorious to be let pass unobserved by any connivance, then is government reduced to this dilemma. If it be not punished, the state is endangered by suffering examples to appear, that it may be attacked with impunity. If it be punished, they who are publicly or privately favourers of the treason, and perhaps some out of mere folly, raise undeserved clamours of cruelty against those in power, or the lowest their malice flies is to make unseasonable, unlimited, and injudicious economies upon mercy and forgiveness, things rightly used certainly of the greatest excellence. And this proceeding it must be admitted does harm with silly and undistinguishing people, so that the rebels have the satisfaction of thinking they hurt the government a little even by their fall. The only but true consolation every wise government has in such a case, after it has tempered justice with mercy in such proportion as sound discretion directs, having always a care for the public safety above all things, is this, that such like seeds of unreasonable discontents take root on very shallow soil only, and that therefore, after they have made a weak shoot, they soon wither and come to nothing. It is well your lordship has given an opportunity of doing the government right on the subject of your surrender at Preston. How confidently had it been given out by the faction that the surrender was made on assurance, at least hopes, insinuated of pardon, whereas the truth appears to be that the fear was the only motive to it. The evil day was deferred, and the rebels rightly depended. Fewer would die at last by measures they elected than if they had stood an assault. They were awed by the experienced courage, discipline, and steadfastness of the king's troops, and by the superior genius and spirit of his Majesty's commander over those rebels. So that in truth they were never flattered with any other terms than to surrender as rebels and traitors, their lives only to be spared till his Majesty's pleasure be known. It was indeed a debt due those brave commanders and soldiers, to whom their king and country, or more they can be well expressed, that their victory should be vindicated to the present and future ages from untrue detraction and kept from being sullied by the tongues of rebels and their accomplices when their arms could no longer hinder it. It is hard to leave the subject without shortly observing that this engine which sets the world on fire, a lying tongue, has been of prodigious use to the party of the rebels, not only since and during the rebellion, but before while it was forming and the rebels preparing for it. False facts, false hopes, false characters have been the greater half of the scheme they set out with and yet seem to depend upon. It has been rightly observed your Lordship's answer does not so much as insist with any clearness on that which only could excuse your being taken in open rebellion. That is, you was forced into it, remained so under force, and would have escaped from it but could not. If you had so insisted, it had been clearly proved that that had not been true. For your Lordship was active and forward in many instances, and so considerable in military capacity among your fellow soldiers as to command a squadron. These and other particulars have been observed by the managers of the House of Commons, and therefore I shall not pursue them further but to conclude this introduction to the sentence by exhorting your Lordship with perfect charity and much earnestness to consider that now the time has come when the veil of partiality should be taken from your eyes. It must be so, for you come to die, and that your Lordship should henceforward think with clearness and indifference, if possible, which must produce in you a hearty detestation of the high crime you have committed and being a Protestant. Be very likely to make you a sincere penitent. For you are having engaged in a design that must have destroyed the holy religion you profess had a taken effect. Nothing now remains but that I pronounce upon you that sentence which law ordains, and which sufficiently shows what thoughts your ancestors had of the crime of which your Lordship is now convicted. Visit that you, George, Earl of Witten, and etc. Soon after passing the sentence, the earls of Witten and Neathsdale found means to escape out of the tower, and Messers Foster and Macintosh escaped from Newgate. But it was supposed that motives of mercy and tenderness in the Prince of Wales afterwards, George II, favored the escape of all these gentlemen. This Rebedian occasioned the untimely death of many other persons. Five were executed at Manchester, six at Wigan, eleven at Preston, but a considerable number were brought to London, and being arraigned in the court of Exchequer, most of them pleaded guilty and suffered the utmost rigor of the law. The end of part five, volume one of the new and complete Newgate calendar.