48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. vn. 



of being known, in a magistrate's house, to have taken part 

 in an outbreak which had totally failed. They had thought 

 that by Monday or Tuesday the house would be in their 

 hands and our relative positions reversed, and, indeed, 

 it would have been hard to find a house more indefensible 

 against a disciplined mob than ours. Along two sides 

 of the house (plate I.), ran a broad colonnade of Bath stone, 

 supported by pillars so wide and so placed that in many 

 cases men ascending by ladders put against them, would 

 have been greatly or entirely protected from the discharge 

 of fire-arms from the windows ; and the broad flat sur- 

 face of the top of the colonnade, 10 feet in width, by 

 about 120 feet in length, would have made an admirable 

 mustering ground for scores of men, from which to carry 

 on their unpleasant attacks in conjunction with their allies 

 below. This however we were spared. 



The trial of Frost and the other leaders followed speedily 

 by special Commission at Monmouth. It began in the 

 following December and ended in January (1840), with 

 a verdict of guilty of High Treason ; and sentence of 

 death according to the treason penalties of the time was 

 pronounced by Lord Chief Justice Tindal as follows : 

 " That you, John Frost, and you, Zephaniah Williams, and 

 you, William Jones, be taken hence to the place from which 

 you came, and be thence drawn on a hurdle to the 

 place of execution, and that each of you be there hanged by 

 the neck until you be dead, and that afterwards the head 

 of each of you shall be severed from his body, and the 

 body of each, divided into four quarters, shall be disposed of 

 as Her Majesty shall think fit, and may Almighty God 

 have mercy on your souls." A recommendation to mercy, 

 which was mercifully attended to, was added on behalf of 

 the five least guilty men. The possibility of the horrors 

 of the details of the treason penalties (though much 

 mitigated from those of former days on account of their 

 being carried out on the dead body of the offender) 

 created consternation through the district, and the remem- 

 brance has remained with me to this day. However, 

 the capital sentence on Frost and his two special associates 

 was commuted to transportation for life, an act of grace 

 coincident with those extended on the marriage of our late 

 Queen of glorious memory. 



Only the above disjointed reminiscences of trouble have 

 remained in my mind through the sixty years which have 

 since elapsed, but the rising was so planned that, if it had 



