majesty King George, in order to place a Popish Pretender on his throne. 'It is very surprising that one so young in years should attempt so wicked an enterprise; and it is more amazing that you should still thus defend and justify it, and not only think that there is no harm in it, but that the action, if committed, would have been meritorious. 'It was reasonable to think that you had received those impressions which incited you to this undertaking from some of those false and malicious libels which have been industriously dispersed, to delude unwary readers, and to alienate the minds of his majesty's subjects; and it appears to be so from your own confession, that you had imbibed your principles from sermons and pamphlets, which make you think King George an usurper, and the Pretender your lawful king. 6 Consider, unhappy young man, whether you may not be in an error; and what I now suggest to you is not to reproach you, or to aggravate your crime, but proceeds from compassion, and with a regard to your further consideration before you go out of the world; that you may be convinced of your error, and retract it. The notions you entertain are contrary to the sense of the nation; who found by experience that their religion, their laws, and liberties, were in imminent danger from a Popish prince; and therefore they rescued themselves from that danger, and excluded Papists for the future from the crown, and settled it on his majesty and his heirs, being Protestants; which has been confirmed by many parliaments, and the nation feels the good effects of so happy an establishment. 'It seems strange that you should hint at a passage in St. Paul for your justification. If he exhorted the Christians to submit to the Roman emperors, even though they should be tyrants, how comes it that you, a private youth, should not only judge of the title of kings, in opposition to the sense of so many parliaments; but that you should think yourself authorized to murder a prince in peaceable possession of the throne, and by whom his subjects are protected in the enjoy. ment of all their rights and privileges, and of every thing that is dear and valuable to mankind ? He • You mention in your papers as if you must expect the most cruel tortures. No, unfortunate youth, the king you will not own uses no cruel tortures to his subjects. is king according to the laws of the land, and by them he governs : and as you have transgressed those laws in the highest degree, the public justice requires that you should submit to the sentence ordained for such an offender; which is― 'That you be led from hence to the place from whence you came; from thence you are to be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, and there you are to be hanged by the neck; and, being alive, to be cut down, your bowels to be taken out of your belly, and there burnt, you being alive: your head is to be cut off, and your body to be divided into four quarters; and your head and quarters to be disposed of as his majesty shall think fit. And God Almighty have mercy on your soul.' After sentence was passed, Sheppard confessed that the reading some sermons, and other pamphlets, had induced him to think that it would be a meritorious act to kill the king; and that he was convinced he was the agent destined by Providence to accomplish the deed.-The Ordinary of Newgate told him that THE MARQUIS DE PALEOTTI, EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS SERVANT. THIS rash man was the head of a noble family in Italy, and, like Colonel Hamilton, was brought to a disgraceful death, through the vice of gaming, with all the aggravated horrors of suffering in a strange country; thus doubly disgracing the honours of his house. Ferdinando Marquis de Paleotti VOL. I. was born at Bologna, in Italy, and in the reign of Queen Anne was a colonel in the Imperial army. The cause of his coming to England arose from the following circumstance:-The Duke of Shrewsbury, being at Rome in the latter end of King William's reign, fell in love with, and paid his addresses to, the 8 sister of Paleotti; and the lady following the Duke to Augsburgh in Germany, they were there married, after she had first renounced the Roman Catholic religion. The duchess residing with her husband in England, and the marquis having quitted the Imperial army on the peace of Utrecht, he came to this country to see his sister. Being fond of an extravagant course of life, and attached to gaming, he soon ran in debt for considerable sums. His sister paid his debts for some time, till she found it would be a burdensome and endless task. Though she declined to assist him as usual, he continued his former course of life till he was imprisoned for debt; but his sister privately procured his liberty, and he was discharged without knowing who had conferred the favour on him. After his enlargement, he adopted his old plan of extravagance; and, being one day walking in the street, he directed his servant, an Italian, to go and borrow some money. The servant, having met with frequent denials, declined going: on which the Marquis drew his sword, and killed him on the spot. Being instantly apprehended, he was committed to prison, tried at the next sessions, and, being convicted on full evidence, he received sentence of death. The Duke of Shrewsbury being dead, and his duchess having little interest or acquaintance in England, it appears as if no endeavours were used to save the marquis, who suffered at Tyburn on the 17th of March, 1718. Italian pride had taken deep root in the mind of this man. He declared it to be disgraceful to this country to put a nobleman to death, like a common malefactor, for killing his servant; and lamented that our churches, as in Italy, did not afford a sanctuary for murderers. Englishmen, however, are thankful that neither of this marquis's desires prevail in their country, where the law makes no distinction in offend. ers. To his last moment this pride of aristocracy was predominant in his mind. He petitioned the sheriffs that his body should not be defiled by touching the unhappy Englishmen doomed to suffer with him, and that he might die before them, and alone. The sheriffs, in courtesy to a stranger, granted this request, and thus, in his last struggle, he maintained the superiority of his rank.— Vain man! of what avail were his titles in the presence of the Almighty? JOHN PRICE, COMMONLY CALLED JACK KETCH, EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF ELIZABETH WHITE. WHEN We commenced our labours among the musty records of criminal convictions, little did we imagine that we should find the public executioner, vulgarly called Jack Ketch, to have been himself suspended on that fatal tree to which he had tied up such a number of sinners. Here have we the fullest proof of the hardness of heart created by repeatedly witnessing executions. The dreadful fate attending those who had died by his hands, their sufferings of mind, confessions and exhortations to the spectators to be warned by their example against the violation of the law, it seems, had no effect on Jack Ketch. The callous wretch who, in the year 1718, filled this office, was named John Price. He was born in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, London, of reputable parents; his father having been in the service of his country, but unfortunately blown up at the demolish. ing of Tangier. From her loss, the widow was reduced to poverty, which rendered her unable of giving an education to her orphan children but she succeeded in putting John apprentice to a dealer in rags; a business by which he might have earned an honest livelihood. When he had served two years of his apprenticeship his master died, and soon after he ran away from his mistress. and got employment in the loading of waggons with rags for other dealers. He then went to sea, and served with credit, on board different ships in the royal navy, for the space of eighteen years; but at length was paid off and discharged from further service. The office of public executioner becoming vacant, it was given to Price, who, but for his extravagance, might have long continued in it, and subsisted on its dreadfully-earned wages. On returning from an execution, in the cart which had delivered some criminals into his hands, he was arrested in Holborn for debt, which he discharged, in part, with the wages he had that day earned, and the remainder from the produce of three suits of clothes, which he had taken from the bodies of the executed men. Not long afterwards he was lodged in the Marshalsea prison for other debts, and there remained for want of bail; in consequence whereof, being unable to attend his business at the next sessions of the Old Bailey, one William Marvel was appointed in his stead. Having continued some time longer in the Marshalsea, he and a fellow-prisoner broke a hole in the wall, through which they made their escape; and soon after this Price committed the horrid murder for which his life paid the forfeit. John Price was indicted at the Old Bailey on the 24th of April, 1718, for the murder of Elizabeth, the wife of William White, on the 13th of the preceding month. In the course of the evidence it appeared that Price met the deceased near ten at night in Moorfields, and attempted to ravish her; but the poor woman (who was the wife of a watchman, and sold gingerbread in the streets) doing all in her power to resist his villainous attacks, he beat her so cruelly that streams of blood issued from her eyes and mouth, one of her arms was broken, some of her teeth knocked out, her head bruised in a most dreadful manner, one of her eyes forced from the socket; and he otherwise so ill treated her that the language of decency cannot describe it. Some persons, hearing the cries of the unhappy creature, repaired to the spot, took Price into custody, and lodged him in the watch-house; then conveyed the woman to a house, where a surgeon and nurse were sent for to attend her. Being unable to speak, she answered the nurse's questions by signs, and in that manner described what had happened to her. having languished four days. She died, after The prisoner, on his trial, denied being guilty of the fact; and said that, as he was crossing Moorfields, he found something lying in his way; that he kicked at it, but discovered that it was a woman: he lifted her up, but she could not stand on her legs; and he said that he was taken into custody while he was thus employed. This defence, however, could not be credited, from what some former evidences had sworn; and the jury did not hesitate to find him guilty. After sentence of death was passed on him, he abandoned himself to the drinking of spirituous liquors to such a degree as rendered him totally incapable of all the exercises of de. votion. He obstinately denied the fact till the day of his execution, when he confessed that he had been guilty of it; but said that the crime was perpetrated when he was in a state of intoxication. He was executed in Bunhill-fields, on the 31st of May, 1718, and, in his last moments, begged the prayers of the multitude, and hoped they would take warning by his untimely end. He was afterwards hung in chains near Holloway. One would imagine that the dreadful scenes of calamity to which this man had been witness, if they had not taught him humanity, would at least have given him wisdom enough not to have perpetrated a crime that must necessarily bring him to a similarly fatal end to what he had so often seen of others: but perhaps his profession tended rather to harden his mind than otherwise. The murder of which Price was guilty appears to have been one of the most barbarous and unprovoked we ever remember to have read of: and his pretence that he was drunk when he perpetrated it was no sort of excuse, since drunkeness itself is a crime, and one which frequently leads to the commission of others. The lesson to be learnt from the fate of this man is to moderate our passions of every kind, and to live by the rules of temperance and sobriety. We are told, from the best authority, that 'hands that shed innocent blood are an abomination to the Lord.' LIEUTENANT EDWARD BIRD, EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF SAMUEL LOXTON. MR. Bird was born at Windsor, in Berkshire, and descended of respectable parents, who, having first sent him to Westminster School, then removed him to Eton College. When he had finished his studies, he was sent to make the tour of France and Italy, and, on his return to England, was honoured with the commission of a lieutenant in a regiment of horse. Before he had been long in the army, he began to associate with abandoned company of both sexes, which finally led to the commission of the crime which cost him his life. On the 10th of January, 1719, he was indicted at the Old Bailey, for the murder of Samuel Loxton. It appeared on his trial that he had taken a woman of the town to a house of ill fame in Silver Street, where Loxton was a waiter. Early in the morning he ordered a bath to be got ready ;* but Loxton, being busy, sent another waiter, at whom Bird, in a fit of passion, made several passes with his sword, which he avoided by holding the door in his hand; but the prisoner ran after him, threw him down stairs, and broke some of his ribs. On this the master and mistress of the house, and Loxton, went into the room, and attempted to appease him; but Bird, enraged that the bath had not been prepared the moment he ordered it, seized his sword, which lay by the bed-side, and, stabbing Loxton, he fell backwards, and died immediately; on which the offender was taken into In those days this description of houses was generally provided with hot baths; a very necessary stew after such debauches, and hence called Bagnios. In modern times uncleanliness of this nature takes its due course. |