By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 



205 



had helped him to several pints of water, which he drank in the 

 night-time ; the expected agonies of such a death having set him on 

 fire, and parched him with thirst. 



" On my going to his chamber, he appeared [after some little 



discourse and consolation] composed. He readily went up to 



chapel and joined in the necessary devotions, received the holy com- 

 munion with apparent attention, seriousness, and decency. 



" After which a proper book of devotions was put into his hands, 

 together with his Prayer-book ; and he was desired to meditate on 

 the most comfortable articles of our precious faith, and to pray for the 

 graces most necessary for a dying person, as the most proper support 

 and employment, all the way to the place of execution. 



" After all the usual and proper offices of devotion and adminis- 

 tration had been performed for him in the chapel, he desired I would 

 abide with him some time in his chamber [after we had parted and 

 taken leave in the chapel.] By this perhaps he partly intended to 

 favour his hope of a reprieve. While these minutes were spent in 

 private prayer, he was repeatedly sent for, and obliged at last to go 

 down and have his irons knocked off, in order to be put in the cart. 



This was not done till about half an hour after nine ; an hour 



later than usual. 



" In the way, it is said, he appeared sometimes reading and some- 

 times meditating in a quiet posture, without any emotion of body 

 or mind till he came to the place of execution, when he appeared on 

 his knees in the cart. Soon after his arrival there, by some un- 

 accountable accident, whether of words spoken, or a paper appearing 

 to be handed about, the word a reprieve was cried, caught, and re- 

 peated by some part of the surrounding multitude, till the belief 

 prevailed for a minute or two, that he was reprieved, so far that 

 some distant spectators went away directly and reported it in town, 

 where I heard it after my return, and was obliged to explain and 

 confute it. 



" Meantime the poor man continued [apparently unconcerned and 

 regardless of the outcry] on his knees, for which the executioner 

 had given him an unusual liberty, by relaxing the rope on this ru- 

 mour of a reprieve while the spectators imagined he was returning 



YOL. XXI. — NO. LXII. P 



