84 FAMILY REJOICINGS. 
execution ; and that, from the accounts he had 
received, the example seemed to have made a 
salutary impression on the minds of all the 
ships' companies present. 
The following words were used by Mr. Hey- 
wood, when Captain Montague had read to 
him his Majesty's free and unconditional pardon, 
on the 27th of October: 
" SIR, When the sentence of the law was 
passed upon me, I received it, I trust, as became 
a man; and if it had been carried into execution, 
I should have met my fate, I hope, in a manner 
becoming a Christian^ Your admonition cannot 
fail to make a lasting impression upon my mind. 
I receive with gratitude my sovereign's mercy, 
for which my future life shall be faithfully de- 
voted to his service." 
The pardon was a source of unspeakable de- 
light to his family, especially to his sister Nessy, 
whose peace of mind had been broken by the 
terror of losing him by an ignominious death, 
and whose joy, on hearing of his pardon, was, 
perhaps, more difficult to bear than her previous 
grief had been : 
"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first." 
She had written to her mother and sisters on 
the 26th, inclosing a statement of the pardon 
having been transmitted to Portsmouth. In 
this letter she said, "O blessed hour! Little 
did I think, my beloved friends, when I closed 
my letter this morning, that before night I should 
be out of my senses with joy. This moment, 
this ecstatic moment, brought the inclosed. 
