LETTERS. 71 
cution of Louis the Sixteenth, Royalty had 
been declared to be abolished for ever ; and it 
happened, that the 20th of September, 1792, 
the very day on which poor Heywood wrote 
the above admirable letter, was styled the 
first day of the French republic. The state 
of the times, therefore, tended to mark the 
crime imputed to him with a yet deeper dye. 
Nor could the sufferer be ignorant of some 
then recent cases, short of murder, in which, 
amidst extenuating circumstances, and con- 
sequent appeals to mercy, the law had been 
allowed to run its course, and the capital 
sentence to pass into full effect. 
His amiable sister Nessy, anxious to see 
him, and to be of use, resolved to accept 
the invitation given by a friend of her family, 
Mr. A. Graham, and to make her way up 
to London, where he resided. This gentle- 
man had been a purser in the navy, and was 
afterwards a valuable police magistrate in 
London. On the 3d of October, 1792, we 
find Nessy arrived at Liverpool from the 
Isle of Man, and writing thus to her mother 
and family : 
" We did not arrive here till noon this 
