DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0071
EXTRAORDINARY MURDER. 55
pleased to respite the execution of the sentence for a
month ; at the expiration of which he obtained another
respite till farther orders.
This time he spent chiefly in fruitless applications to
persons in power for a pardon, manifesting little sense of
the crime of which he was convicted, and often saying it
was doubly hard to suffer on the evidence of a brother,
for a crime committed so many years before. A day or
two previous to his execution, he solemnly denied many
atrocious things which common report laid to his charge,
and said to a person, “ My friend, my brother Charles
was tried at Derby twenty years ago, and acquitted,—my
dear sister Nanny forswearing herself at that time to save
his life, which you see was preserved to hang me.”—He
told the clergyman who attended him, “ that he forgave
all his enemies, even his brother Charles ; but that at the
day of judgment, if God Almighty should ask him how
his brother Charles behaved, he would not give him a
good character.” He was exactly 74 years old the day he
died, being executed on his birth-day. This he men-
tioned several times after the order for his execution was
signed, saying, he always used to have plum-pudding on
his birth-day, and would again, if he could obtain another
reprieve.
Hewas of such a penurious disposition, that it is said
he never did one generous action in the whole course of
his life. Notwithstanding his licentious conduct, his
father left him all his real estate, having some time before
his death given all his personal estate by a deed of gift to
Charles. The father died on a couch in the kitchen, and
had at the time about twelve guineas in his pocket, which
undoubtedly belonged to Charles. William, however,
took the cash out of the pocket of his deceased parent,
and would not part with it till Charles promised to pay
the
pleased to respite the execution of the sentence for a
month ; at the expiration of which he obtained another
respite till farther orders.
This time he spent chiefly in fruitless applications to
persons in power for a pardon, manifesting little sense of
the crime of which he was convicted, and often saying it
was doubly hard to suffer on the evidence of a brother,
for a crime committed so many years before. A day or
two previous to his execution, he solemnly denied many
atrocious things which common report laid to his charge,
and said to a person, “ My friend, my brother Charles
was tried at Derby twenty years ago, and acquitted,—my
dear sister Nanny forswearing herself at that time to save
his life, which you see was preserved to hang me.”—He
told the clergyman who attended him, “ that he forgave
all his enemies, even his brother Charles ; but that at the
day of judgment, if God Almighty should ask him how
his brother Charles behaved, he would not give him a
good character.” He was exactly 74 years old the day he
died, being executed on his birth-day. This he men-
tioned several times after the order for his execution was
signed, saying, he always used to have plum-pudding on
his birth-day, and would again, if he could obtain another
reprieve.
Hewas of such a penurious disposition, that it is said
he never did one generous action in the whole course of
his life. Notwithstanding his licentious conduct, his
father left him all his real estate, having some time before
his death given all his personal estate by a deed of gift to
Charles. The father died on a couch in the kitchen, and
had at the time about twelve guineas in his pocket, which
undoubtedly belonged to Charles. William, however,
took the cash out of the pocket of his deceased parent,
and would not part with it till Charles promised to pay
the