Part 31

Thistlewood followed, with his eyes fixed, as it were, in abstract thought, and apparently lost to his situation. A vacant and unmeaning stare pervaded his countenance, which seemed unmoved by the devotions of the pious Ordinary.

Tidd walked next, and although somewhat affected by his situation, his manner was collected, manly, and unaffectedly firm.

Ings came next, and was laughing without reserve, and used every forced effort to subdue the better feelings of nature, which might remind him of his awful situation; his conduct was more like a delirium of fear than an effect of courage.

Brunt, in fixed and hardened obduracy of mind, next advanced, and with a sullen and morose air of indifference surveyed the officers who were conducting him to his fate.

The unhappy Davidson came last, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, praying most devoutly; and the officers of the gaol closed the mournful procession.

On their arrival at the Lodge, from which the Debtors’-door leads to the scaffold, a moment’s pause took place, while the dreadful paraphernalia of death were adjusted without. Thistlewood, who stood first, clasped his lips, and with a frown surveyed, from the door-way in which he stood, the awful preparations for his fate.

The Under-Sheriff, at this period stepped into the road from the Governor’s house, to ascertain how far the preparations had proceeded. Every thing seemed to be completely arranged. A party of the Horse-Guards seemed about to pass the barrier beyond which they had previously been stationed, but they did not persevere, in consequence of the difficulty of penetrating the crowd.

The persons who had previously retired from the front of the prison now (at twenty minutes before eight) returned to their old places on the top of it. This, with other circumstances just particularized, announced that the culprits were about to be conducted to the scaffold.

The re-appearance of the executioner, and the solemn sound of the bell, removed all doubt on the subject. Every one felt that the awful moment was at hand; and the assembled thousands stood uncovered in silent, breathless, expectation.

Those opposite the prison saw in the next moment the procession from the interior of it reach the door through which the culprits were to pass to expiate their crimes with their blood.

The Ordinary ascended the platform, and at a quarter before eight Thistlewood made his appearance on the scaffold. His step faultered a little as he mounted the platform, and his countenance was somewhat flushed and disordered on being conducted to the extremity of the drop. His deportment was firm, and he looked round at the multitude with perfect calmness. He had an orange in his hand. On the cap being placed on his head, he desired that it might not be put over his eyes. While the executioner was putting the rope round his neck, a person from the top of the houses exclaimed, “Good Almighty bless you.” Thistlewood nodded. The Reverend Mr. Cotton, by whom he was preceded, endeavoured to obtain his attention; but he shook his head, and said, “No, no.” He looked round repeatedly, as expecting to recognise some one in the crowd, and appeared rather disconcerted at observing the distance to which the populace were removed.

Some of those to whom the face of Thistlewood was not familiar, imagined that he gave proofs of the fear of death upon the scaffold, but in this supposition they were much mistaken. At the moment that he has been heard uttering his dangerous politics in safety, and declaring his determination to stand or fall by them, the expression of his features was the same; and Thistlewood with the rope round his neck was the same Thistlewood that appeared so conspicuous at Smithfield.

Mr. Cotton approached him while the executioner was making his awful arrangements, and spoke to him upon the subject of his thoughts of hereafter. Thistlewood shook his head, and said he required no earthly help upon that subject. He then sucked his orange, and, looking down at the officers who were collected about the scaffold, said, in a firm voice, “I have but a few moments to live, and I hope the world will be convinced that I have been sincere in my endeavours, and that I die a friend to liberty.”

The figure of the miserable man, which naturally was not good, had undergone a change for the worse: in consequence of the pressure of the rope with which his arms were fastened behind, his shoulders were raised to a degree that closely approached deformity. The executioner having placed the cap upon his head, and fastened the rope round the beam, looked towards the Sheriff as a signal that his duties towards Thistlewood were completed.

While the executioner was performing his last offices without to this wretched man, the scene within the Lodge was almost beyond the power of description. The dreadful obduracy of Brunt and Ings filled with horror the small assemblage of persons among whom they stood.

Ings, with a hardihood almost indescribable, sucked an orange, with which Sheriff Parkins had provided him, as well as all the other prisoners, and sung, or rather screamed, in a discordant voice, “Oh! give me death or liberty!” Brunt rejoined, “Aye, to be sure. It is better to die free, than to live slaves!”

A gentleman in the Lodge admonished them to consider their approaching fate, and to recollect the existence of a Deity, into whose supreme presence a few minutes would usher them.

Brunt exclaimed, “I know there is a God!” and Ings added, “Yes, to be sure; and I hope he will be more merciful to us than they are here.”

Tidd, who had stood in silence, was now summoned to the scaffold. He shook hands with all but Davidson, who had separated himself from the rest.

Ings again seized Tidd’s hand at the moment he was going out, and exclaimed, with a burst of laughter, “Give us your hand! Good-bye!”

A tear stood in Tidd’s eye, and his lips involuntarily muttered, “My wife and----!”

Ings proceeded--“Come my old cock-o’-wax, keep up your spirits; it all will be over soon.”

Tidd immediately squeezed his hand, and ran towards the stairs leading to the scaffold. In his hurry, his foot caught the bottom step, and he stumbled. He recovered himself, however, in an instant, and rushed upon the scaffold, where he was immediately received with three cheers from the crowd, in which he made a slight effort to join.

The applause was evidently occasioned by the bold and fearless manner in which the wretched man advanced to his station. He turned to the crowd who were upon Snow-hill, and bowed to them. He then looked down upon the coffins and smiled, and turning round to the people who were collected in the Old-Bailey towards Ludgate-hill, bowed to them. Several voices were again heard, and some in the crowd expressed their admiration of Tidd’s conduct.

The rope having been put round his neck, he told the executioner that the knot would be better on the right than on the left side, and that the pain of dying might be diminished by the change. He then assisted the executioner, and turned round his head several times for the purpose of fitting the rope to his neck. He afterwards familiarly nodded to some one whom he recognised at a window, with an air of cheerfulness. He also desired that the cap might not be put over his eyes, but said nothing more. He likewise had an orange in his hand, which he continued to suck most heartily. He soon became perfectly calm, and remained so till the last moment of his life.

In the interim, Davidson, who had not yet come out, leaned with his back against a dresser in the lodge, and continued with his hands clasped, praying in the most fervent manner, and calling with unfeigned and unreserved piety for the intervention of the Redeemer. Brunt and Ings, however, persevered in the same hardihood that they had manifested throughout, and continued venting their thoughts in unreserved ejaculations.

A humane individual who stood by remonstrated with Brunt again, and besought him to ask pardon of God.

Brunt, with a fierce and savage air, surveyed his adviser contemptuously, and exclaimed, “What have I done? I have done nothing! What should I ask pardon for?” The stranger rejoined, “So you say, Brunt; but if you have ever injured any man, or done any thing which your conscience tells you is wrong, ask pardon of God, penitently and sincerely, and you will, I have no doubt, obtain mercy.”--Brunt replied, “I die with a perfectly clear conscience. I have made my peace with God, and I never injured no man.” The stranger proceeded, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!” Brunt surveyed his humane adviser again, and muttered, “My mind is made up.”

“Well done, Brunt!” exclaimed Ings, and was again proceeding to sing,

“Oh give me death or liberty,”

when he was summoned to the scaffold. He turned to Brunt, and, with a smile on his countenance, shook hands with him, and prepared to go. While the hatch was opening, he exclaimed, with a loud voice, “Remember me to King George the IVth; God bless him, and may he have a long reign.” He now recollected that he had some clothes left behind, which he requested might be given to his wife. The wretched man had thrown off the clothes in which he had been tried, and had put on an old butcher’s jacket, determining, as he said, “that Jack Ketch should have no coat of his.”

[Illustration: JAMES INGS.

THOMAS BRUNT.

_Wivell Delin^t._ _Cooper Sculp^t._]

While he stood on the edge of the steps, at the door of the gaol, he said to Davis, one of the turnkeys, “Well, Mr. Davis, I am going to find out this great secret,” and then springing upon the scaffold, exclaimed, “Good-bye! Gentlemen. Here goes the remains of an unfortunate man.”

He rushed to the platform, upon which he leaped and bounded in the most frantic manner. Then turning himself round towards Smithfield, and facing the very coffin that was soon to receive his mutilated body, he raised his pinioned hands, in the best way he could, and leaning forward with savage energy, roared out three distinct cheers to the people, in a voice of the most frightful and discordant hoarseness. But these unnatural yells of desperation, which were evidently nothing but the ravings of a disordered mind, or the ebullitions of an assumed courage, struck the majority of the vast multitude who heard them with horror.

Turning his face towards Ludgate-hill, he bowed, and cried out, “This is going to be the last remains of James Ings,” and shouted out part of the song in which the words _Death or Liberty_ are introduced. He laughed upon looking at the coffins, and said, turning his back to them, “I’ll turn my back upon death!--Is this the gallows they always use? Those coffins are for us, I suppose.”

Tidd, who stood next to him, and had the moment before been in conversation with Thistlewood, turned about, and said, “Don’t, Ings. There is no use in all this noise. We can die without making a noise.” Ings was silent for a few moments; but as the executioner approached him with the rope, he called out, “Do it well--pull it tight!”

When the executioner threw the rope round the beam, he said, “Give me a better fall; the others won’t have fall enough.” When the man put him on the cap, Ings said, “I have got a cap of my own; put it over this night-cap, and I’ll thank you.” The executioner proceeded to do so; but Ings said, “It will do when we are going off: let me see as long as I can.” He then pushed the cap from his eyes. The others had raised the caps from their eyes. “Here I go, James Ings!” said he, “and let it be known that I die an enemy to all tyrants. Ah ha! I see a good many of my friends are on the houses.”

Again Tidd turned round to Ings, and, as it appeared, at the suggestion of Thistlewood, requested that he would not continue the noise. Ings laughed and remained silent for a few minutes.

Mr. Cotton approached Tidd and Ings, but they turned away from him. Ings smiled at his interference, but Tidd turned round to Thistlewood and spoke a few words, in which he seemed to complain of the inclination of the Ordinary to break in upon their last moments.

Thistlewood now said to Tidd, “We shall soon know the last grand secret.”

Brunt, who, after the departure of Ings, stood by himself within the porch of the prison, having no companion of his own principles to encourage him, (as Davidson stood far away from him,) muttered something about the injustice of his fate. The persons around him repeatedly entreated him to alter his religious creed, during the last few moments left, and to believe in the Saviour of the world. Still immutable--still hardened in iniquity--he listened not to the remonstrances of sincere friends, who besought him, for his wife’s sake, and for the sake of his son, to ask the protection of the Redeemer for them; but he appeared tired of these friendly importunities, and wished to ascend the scaffold next.

Davidson, however, was summoned before him, and with a composed countenance and a firm step he passed by his former companion in guilt to his fate, without noticing him.

Brunt now appeared considerably irritated. “What,” he exclaimed, “am I to be the last? Why is this? They can have my blood but once, and why am I to be kept to the last? But I suppose they are afraid I should say something to the people, because I spoke my mind on the trial. However, I don’t care.”

Davidson walked up the platform with a firm and steady step, but with all that respectful humility becoming the condition to which he had reduced himself. He bowed to the crowd, and instantly joined Mr. Cotton in prayer. He seemed inattentive to every thing but the journey he was about to take, and his lips moved in prayer until he was no longer able to speak. He made no request to have his eyes uncovered, but was evidently preparing himself for bidding an eternal adieu to a world of which he had ceased to be an inhabitant.

Brunt was the last summoned to the fatal platform, and he rushed upon it with impetuosity. Some of the people cheered him, which evidently gratified and pleased him. It brought a sort of grin on his countenance, which remained till his death. But his aspect “belied his utterance.” Externally he appeared to have shrunk more from his fate than any one of his wretched companions; his cheeks had sunk extremely, giving a degree of ghostly prominence to a forehead, cheek-bones, and chin, naturally very much protruded, and his colour was of a livid paleness; but the eyes of the man sent forth from their deep recesses glances of distressing keenness; his lips were firmly compressed together; not a tear trickled down his cheeks; there was no quaking of the members. To use an expressive phrase of his speech on receiving sentence, “he went through with the business.” “What,” said he, “soldiers! What do they do here? I see nothing but a military government will do for this country, unless there are a good many such as we are. I see a good many of my friends round about.”

While the rope was being adjusted, he looked towards St. Sepulchre’s Church, and perceiving, or affecting to perceive, some one with whom he had been acquainted, he nodded several times, and then made an inclination of the head towards the coffins, as if in derision of the awful display. His conduct was marked by the same irrational levity to the last. When his handkerchief was taken off, the stiffener fell out, and he kicked it away, saying, “I shan’t want you any more.”

His last act was to take a pinch of snuff from a paper which he held in his hand. He stooped to put it to his nose, and this he was only able to effect by pushing up the night-cap which hung over his face. He also threw off his shoes.

The executioner was now proceeding to adjust the ropes, and to pull the caps over the faces of the wretched men. A voice from the crowd again called out, “God bless you, Thistlewood!” Thistlewood looked towards the place from which it issued, and slightly inclined his head. He then said a few words in a whisper to Tidd, and awaited his fate in silence.

Brunt refused altogether to speak with Mr. Cotton upon the subject of the next world, and declared that he had done all he thought necessary for the place to which he was going. He appeared disposed to address the crowd, but they were at too great a distance, and the executioner was quick at his work.

The cap was first drawn over the face of Thistlewood, and his cravat was bound over his eyes. He stooped gently while the man tied it, and appeared to direct him as to the way in which he wished it done.

When the executioner came to Ings, the unhappy man said, “Now, old gentleman, finish me tidily. Tie the handkerchief tight over my eyes. Pull the rope tighter; it may slip.”

When the handkerchief was tied over his eyes, he cried out, “I hope, Mr. Cotton, you will give me a good character!” and commenced swinging about in his hand an old night-cap in the most careless manner.

Tidd’s lips were in motion just before he was turned off, as if in prayer. Davidson was in the most fervent prayer, and seemed to feel his situation with a becoming spirit. He firmly pressed the hand of the Rev. Mr. Cotton.

The executioner having completed the details of his awful duty, by placing the criminals in a proper situation upon the trap-door, walked down the ladder, and left Mr. Cotton alone upon the scaffold. The Reverend Gentleman standing closer to Davidson than to any of the rest, began to read those awful sentences which have sounded last in the ears of so many unhappy men. Suddenly the platform fell, and the agonies of death were exhibited to the view of the crowd in their most terrific form.

Thistlewood struggled slightly for a few minutes, but each effort was more faint than that which preceded; and the body soon turned round slowly, as if upon the motion of the hand of death.

Tidd, whose size gave cause to suppose that he would “pass” with little comparative pain, scarcely moved after the fall. The struggles of Ings were great. The assistants of the executioner pulled his legs with all their might; and even then the reluctance of the soul to part from its native seat was to be observed in the vehement efforts of every part of the body. Davidson, after three or four heaves, became motionless; but Brunt suffered extremely, and considerable exertions were made by the executioners and others to shorten his agonies, by pulling and hanging upon his legs. However, in the course of five minutes all was still.

THE DECAPITATION.

Exactly half an hour after they had been turned off, the order was given to cut the bodies down. The executioner immediately ascended the scaffold, and drew the legs of the sufferers up, and placed the dead men, who were still suspended, in a sitting position, with their feet towards Ludgate-hill. This being done, the trap-door was again put up, and the platform restored to its original state. The executioner proceeded to cut Thistlewood down; and, with the aid of an assistant, lifted the body into the first coffin, laying it on the back, and placing the head over the end of the coffin, so as to bring the neck on the edge of the block. The rope was then drawn from the neck, and the cap was removed from the face.

The last convulsions of expiring life had thrown a purple hue over the countenance, which gave it a most ghastly and appalling appearance; but no violent distortion of feature had taken place. An axe was placed on the scaffold, but this was not used.

When the rope had been removed, and the coat and waistcoat forced down, so as to leave the neck exposed, a person wearing a black mask, which extended to his mouth, over which a coloured handkerchief was tied, and his hat slouched down, so as to conceal part of the mask, and attired in a blue jacket and dark-grey trowsers, mounted the scaffold with a small knife in his hand, similar to what is used by surgeons in amputation, and, advancing to the coffin, proceeded to sever the head from the body.

[Illustration: THE EXECUTION OF THE CATO STREET CONSPIRATORS May 1, 1820.]

When the crowd perceived the knife applied to the throat of Thistlewood, they raised a shout, in which exclamations of horror and of reproach were mingled. The tumult seemed to disconcert the person in the mask for the moment; but, upon the whole, he performed the operation with dexterity; and, having handed the head to the assistant executioner, who waited to receive it, he immediately retired, pursued by the hootings of the mob.

The assistant executioner, holding the head by the hair over the forehead, exhibited it from the side of the scaffold nearest Newgate-street. A person attended on the scaffold, who dictated to the executioner what he was to say; and he exclaimed with a loud voice--“This is the head of Arthur Thistlewood, the traitor!” A thrilling sensation was produced on the spectators by the display of this ghastly object, and the hissings and hootings of part of the mob were vehemently renewed.

The same ceremony was repeated in front of the scaffold, and on the side nearest Ludgate-street. The head was then placed at the foot of the coffin; while the body, before lifted up to bring the neck on the block, was forced lower down, and, this done, the head was again put in its proper place, at the upper end of the coffin, which was left open.

The block was then moved by the hangman, and placed at the head of the second coffin. The cap and rope were removed from the face and neck of Tidd. The same livid hue which overspread the countenance of Thistlewood was perceptible.

The coat and waistcoat being pulled down, the masked executioner again came forward. He was received with groans, and cries of “Shoot that ---- murderer;” “Bring out Edwards,” _&c._ He seemed less disconcerted than at first, and performed the operation with great expedition, and, having handed the head to the person who had before received that of Thistlewood, he retired amidst yells and execrations.

The assistant executioner then advanced to the side of the scaffold, from which the former head was first exhibited, holding the head between both hands by the cheeks, the forehead of Tidd being bald, and exclaiming, “This is the head of Richard Tidd, the traitor.” The same words were also repeated from the other two sides of the scaffold, and the head was then deposited with the body in the second coffin.