IIITwo miles offshore, a short time out of Spirito Sanctu, and making good way for Rio de Janeiro, her destination, a Portuguese brigantine of fair size and speed was destined to be the choicest prize a gang of New England pirates were to pick up within a thousand-mile cruise. She was to Quelch what theQuedagh Merchanthad been to Captain Kidd, the crown and climax of his piratical career.Everything aboard that brigantine was as merry as a wedding bell, as the old saying goes. Besides the crew she had two beautiful and charming passengers, ladies of local importance journeying to Rio on any one of the many errands which attract ladies to the neighboring centers of fashion, whether in France, the East Indies or upon the coast of Brazil. One may imagine how pleasantly the balmy evenings sped away with song and music and the inevitable dance.And down those watery ways were drawing nigh a brig and tender manned by foreigners, who, could they have visioned the contents of the Portuguese treasure-chest, would have been beside themselves with anticipation.It was all so easy. The boat of theCharleswith ten men pulled over to the Portuguese when they had brought him to a stop. Probably the Portuguese had no idea he was being pirated; he may even have tossed a rope ladder over the bulwarks to assist his enemies aboard.Over the sides of the pirate ships lounged the New Englanders, casually watching the progress of the robbery. They speculated that here was probably another load of sugar and molasses and coffee. Another dreary job of stevedoring was promised. After all, this pirate business was pretty slow work; meanly paid drudgery it had been for the most part, certainly not worth risking a fellow’s neck.Somebody wigwagged vehemently from the Portuguese. Quelch dropped into the tender’s boat to investigate. There were no sounds of fighting; no clamor of struggle; but something material was going on.He climbed the side of the Portuguese without meeting resistance, was seen to walk about her deck in a deliberate way, then came back over the side and got into his boat, carrying, however, two sacks heavy enough to bring out the cords of his forearms.In each of those sacks were fifty pounds’ weight of gold dust!Frenzy flamed from theCharlesto the tender. Men leaped and danced and shouted; and the round, thick rum jar passed merrily from hand to hand. Their fortunes were made!Yo-ho-ho, for a pirate’s life!So good-natured were the sea bandits that they treated the two Portuguese ladies with urbane consideration and the despoiled crew with tolerance. They kept them all on theCharlesthat night, and with the coming of morning restored them to their ship and bade them be off.Three days later the quartermaster, the carpenter and the captain, composing a committee on division of profits, ordered a pair of scales set up on the quarter-deck, from which each man had weighed out to him his share of the fascinating dust. Added to that was a neat little bonus of good, hard-ringing Portuguese gold coins, forty-five hundred dollars’ worth of which were gathered in from this very profitable find.Rich with the plucking of the gold bird, theCharlesand her tender ran rapidly from the stage and stopped nowhere until they were abreast the south end of the Brazilian coast and in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro.Quelch was about ready to call it a day. The big scoop had been made, and by this time the coast must have been getting a little warm for him. The alarm was certainly raised; for in the last ship he attacked—a Portuguese two-hundred-tonner carrying hides and other merchandise—he met with his first real fight. This ship did not stop at Quelch’s summoning round shot but crowded on sail and made haste to get away, thus showing that Captain Bastian, her master,had had warning of the character of the New England brig and her tender.After chasing her for two days the pirates pulled up with her, and the Portuguese, after a sharp trading of shot, gave in. When the pirates gained her deck there was some altercation with Captain Bastian, who was shot down and his body heaved overboard. In the reminiscence of this incident there were several of the rascals who claimed the honor of shooting Bastian, but after a quarrel which nearly came to fighting, Cooper Scudamore—a minor ringleader, it seems—was conceded to be the hero of that black job.The captors took off hides, tallow and beef and then left the Portuguese. They were ready for home now, and the little tender which had journeyed a thousand miles with them was dismantled and set adrift to float upon some Brazilian beach. TheCharlesswung round and drove northward for Boston, home and—not mother. The end of February, 1704, was when they struck off from the Rio Region, concluding just about three months of active piracy, perhaps three and a half.It surely looked reckless for Quelch to come back to Boston with the good merchants’ brig and with no trophies in his hold of England’s enemies but shamefully of England’s ally, Portugal. It was as reckless as it looked; but mere recklessness never bothered John Quelch.Perhaps the yarn that Anthony Holding and he had spun together gave him a confidence thathe would not otherwise have had. It was a plausible thing. All hands were to say that Captain Plowman had died naturally, true only in part; that thereafter while cruising for Frenchmen according to Plowman’s commission, now executed by Quelch, they beat down as far as Brazil way.Here they met with coast Indians who told them that a rich Portuguese brig had been recently wrecked in those parts, from which the Indians had obtained great treasure, of which the gold dust and doubloons on theCharleswere a part, having been given to Quelch and his men by the pleasant natives, who had little notion of the worth of those things.There was more than a good chance that the gang could have got away with this story. Nobody could have checked them up, and the incident in itself was not so utterly improbable; a circumstance like thatmighthappen in those far-off seas.The trouble for Quelch was that he carried informers with him all the time and brought them back with him to Boston. Pimer and Clifford and the one or two other loyal men were only waiting their time. And Quelch knew it.Off the Bermudas, coming home, Quelch called for a journal Pimer was known to be keeping and tore from it five or six leaves containing a record of the various piracies from St. Augustine to Rio. Quelch probably calculated that fearfor their own safety would keep all hands quiet when they reached Boston.He was wrong. TheCharleswas not long docked after her far-flung cruise when Quelch and a number of the seamen were arrested and the ship appropriated. There can be little question that Pimer and Clifford or one of them hurried to the governor and informed.The jig was up. Anthony Holding, the evil genius of the adventure, shrewdly packed up his portion of the plunder and fled without waiting for what he no doubt foresaw as inevitable and imminent, the approach of the officers of the law.Not so with Quelch. No back-alley dodging for him. With all the circumstances of a business man in lawful enterprise he went to the shop of one of the leading jewelers of Boston and there melted down a quantity of Portuguese gold and silver coins. May have been fooling with the jeweler’s crucibles when the rough hand of the officer thumped his shoulder.Captain Kidd was the last of the colonial pirates to be sent home to England for trial. After that the Government authorized such proceedings to be had in the colonies themselves, for the expense of dragging the accused and the witnesses across the Atlantic was too much. On June 13, 1704, Quelch and a group of his pirates were tried for murder and piracy at a “Court of Admiralty held at Boston, in her Majesty’s Provinceof the Massachusetts-Bay in New England, in America.”Mr. Attorney General of the province, assisted by eminent queen’s counselors, carried the prosecution; the defense was borne by the accused themselves with the help of a Mr. Menzies, a lawyer appointed by the court to assist them “in any matters of law.” It will be remembered that in those times a defendant in a criminal action was not allowed a lawyer for the purpose of ascertaining the facts of the case but merely to advise on matters of legal practice, whose only job in most cases was to assure the accused that what was being done to them was all according to law.The indictment was on nine articles or counts, beginning with the death of Captain Plowman and ending with the taking of the Bastian ship off Rio. The death of Plowman was made the fact of the murder charge.Pimer, Clifford and a fellow named Parrot turned queen’s evidence. The feeling of contempt which one seems to have for an informer can not be extended to these men; for their action here was quite consistent with their attitude from the beginning, which, as we have seen, had not been hidden even from the pirates. They never approved the deeds done or pretended they did. These are not your ordinary informers.We have to take off our hats to lawyer Menzies. He put up a fine fight. He showed himself unafraid of court or council and stuck to hisclients when more politic lawyers would have eased off. Really he beat the prosecution.It was this way. The commission to this court of admiralty was issued under an act of parliament which provided that its proceedings should be according to what was called the civil law, which was a different procedure from that of ordinary criminal courts, being originally from the old Roman law. Now, by the civil law, in a trial for piracy an accomplice could not be a witness against the accused; and Pimer, Clifford and Parrot were technically accomplices. Menzies had chapter and book for it, too.Mr. Attorney General floundered back on an act of Henry the Eighth, but if Menzies had had a modern court his point would have stuck. Not that this is a modern principle of law; but a modern court under the same rules as this old court would have held with Menzies. The president of the council, the provincial council constituting this court of admiralty, hemmed and hawed and fudged by.Menzies was both a lawyer and a man, but he really had no court to try his case in. All the council could see was a case of piracy, and away with technicalities. That would be all right, of course, if technicalities did not exist for the protection of the innocent. Quelch was guilty, no doubt, according to the gossip blowing about Boston, but innocent so far as the court in its particular province was concerned.Quelch didn’t say much. If he had he would not have done himself much good. It is fair to say on behalf of the court that though it erred in admitting Pimer, Clifford and Parrot as witnesses, there was a fair showing of other proof which went to help the State’s case, though that does not exonerate the court from the use of improper procedure in the particular which has been shown.“Guilty,” said the council. Cæsar-Pompey and the other negroes were discharged along with the handful of men who showed they had sailed under a sort of compulsion.Twenty men, including Quelch, were sentenced to die; and of these, six were hanged on “Charles River, Boston side, June 30, 1704.” They were John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore (the cooper who boasted of shooting Captain Bastian), John Miller, Erasmus Peterson and Peter Roach (the automaton). The record is silent as to the fate of the remaining fourteen; possibly their sentences were commuted.The end of the matter is best told by one who saw it.“On Friday, the 30th of June, 1704, pursuant to orders in the death warrant, the aforesaid pirates were guarded from the prison in Boston, by forty musketeers, constables of the town, the provost-marshal and his officers, with two ministers,who took great pains to prepare them for the last article of their lives. Being allowed to walk on foot through the town, to Scarlet’s wharf, where the silver oar being carried before them, they went by water to the place of execution, being crowded and thronged on all sides with multitudes of spectators.“At the place of execution, they then severally spoke as follows,viz.:“1.Captain John Quelch.The last words he spoke to one of the ministers at his going up the stage, were, ‘I am not afraid of death; I am not afraid of the gallows; but I am afraid of what follows; I am afraid of a great God and a judgment to come.’“But he afterwards seemed to brave it out too much against that fear; also when on the stage, first he pulled off his hat, and bowed to the spectators, and not concerned, nor behaving himself so much like a dying man as some would have done. The ministers had, in the way to his execution, much desired him to glorify God at his death, by bearing a due testimony against the sins that had ruined him, and for the ways of religion which he had much neglected. Yet now being called upon to speak what he had to say, it was but thus much, ‘Gentlemen, it is but little I have to speak; what I have to say is this, I desire to be informed for what I am here; I am condemned only upon circumstances; I forgive all the world, so the Lord be merciful to my soul.’“When Lambert was warning the spectators to beware of bad company Quelch joining said,‘They should also take care how they brought money into New England, to be hanged for it.’“2.John Lambert.He appeared much hardened, and pleaded much on his innocency; he desired all men to beware of bad company; he seemed in great agony near his execution; he called much and frequently on Christ for pardon of sin, that God Almighty would save his innocent soul; he desired to forgive all the world; his last words were: ‘Lord forgive my soul. Oh, receive me into eternity. Blessed name of Christ, receive my soul!’“3.Christopher Scudamore.He appeared very penitent since his condemnation; was very diligent to improve his time going to and at the place of execution.“4.John Miller.He seemed much concerned, and complained of a great burden of sins to answer for; expressing often, ‘Lord, what shall I do to be saved?’“5.Erasmus Peterson.He cried of injustice done him, and said, ‘It is very hard for so many men’s lives to be taken away for a little gold.’ He often said, ‘His peace was made with God, and his soul would be with God,’ yet extreme hard to forgive those he said had wronged him; he told the executioner he was a strong man and prayed to be put out of misery as soon as possible.“6.Peter Roach(the automaton). He seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at all.“Francis Kingwas also brought to the place of execution, but reprieved.”Many men have many minds. A little circumstance will bring a sense of moral responsibility to one man; another would seem to awaken to the fact of morality only by some such final catastrophe as the grim gallows.
Two miles offshore, a short time out of Spirito Sanctu, and making good way for Rio de Janeiro, her destination, a Portuguese brigantine of fair size and speed was destined to be the choicest prize a gang of New England pirates were to pick up within a thousand-mile cruise. She was to Quelch what theQuedagh Merchanthad been to Captain Kidd, the crown and climax of his piratical career.
Everything aboard that brigantine was as merry as a wedding bell, as the old saying goes. Besides the crew she had two beautiful and charming passengers, ladies of local importance journeying to Rio on any one of the many errands which attract ladies to the neighboring centers of fashion, whether in France, the East Indies or upon the coast of Brazil. One may imagine how pleasantly the balmy evenings sped away with song and music and the inevitable dance.
And down those watery ways were drawing nigh a brig and tender manned by foreigners, who, could they have visioned the contents of the Portuguese treasure-chest, would have been beside themselves with anticipation.
It was all so easy. The boat of theCharleswith ten men pulled over to the Portuguese when they had brought him to a stop. Probably the Portuguese had no idea he was being pirated; he may even have tossed a rope ladder over the bulwarks to assist his enemies aboard.
Over the sides of the pirate ships lounged the New Englanders, casually watching the progress of the robbery. They speculated that here was probably another load of sugar and molasses and coffee. Another dreary job of stevedoring was promised. After all, this pirate business was pretty slow work; meanly paid drudgery it had been for the most part, certainly not worth risking a fellow’s neck.
Somebody wigwagged vehemently from the Portuguese. Quelch dropped into the tender’s boat to investigate. There were no sounds of fighting; no clamor of struggle; but something material was going on.
He climbed the side of the Portuguese without meeting resistance, was seen to walk about her deck in a deliberate way, then came back over the side and got into his boat, carrying, however, two sacks heavy enough to bring out the cords of his forearms.
In each of those sacks were fifty pounds’ weight of gold dust!
Frenzy flamed from theCharlesto the tender. Men leaped and danced and shouted; and the round, thick rum jar passed merrily from hand to hand. Their fortunes were made!
Yo-ho-ho, for a pirate’s life!
So good-natured were the sea bandits that they treated the two Portuguese ladies with urbane consideration and the despoiled crew with tolerance. They kept them all on theCharlesthat night, and with the coming of morning restored them to their ship and bade them be off.
Three days later the quartermaster, the carpenter and the captain, composing a committee on division of profits, ordered a pair of scales set up on the quarter-deck, from which each man had weighed out to him his share of the fascinating dust. Added to that was a neat little bonus of good, hard-ringing Portuguese gold coins, forty-five hundred dollars’ worth of which were gathered in from this very profitable find.
Rich with the plucking of the gold bird, theCharlesand her tender ran rapidly from the stage and stopped nowhere until they were abreast the south end of the Brazilian coast and in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro.
Quelch was about ready to call it a day. The big scoop had been made, and by this time the coast must have been getting a little warm for him. The alarm was certainly raised; for in the last ship he attacked—a Portuguese two-hundred-tonner carrying hides and other merchandise—he met with his first real fight. This ship did not stop at Quelch’s summoning round shot but crowded on sail and made haste to get away, thus showing that Captain Bastian, her master,had had warning of the character of the New England brig and her tender.
After chasing her for two days the pirates pulled up with her, and the Portuguese, after a sharp trading of shot, gave in. When the pirates gained her deck there was some altercation with Captain Bastian, who was shot down and his body heaved overboard. In the reminiscence of this incident there were several of the rascals who claimed the honor of shooting Bastian, but after a quarrel which nearly came to fighting, Cooper Scudamore—a minor ringleader, it seems—was conceded to be the hero of that black job.
The captors took off hides, tallow and beef and then left the Portuguese. They were ready for home now, and the little tender which had journeyed a thousand miles with them was dismantled and set adrift to float upon some Brazilian beach. TheCharlesswung round and drove northward for Boston, home and—not mother. The end of February, 1704, was when they struck off from the Rio Region, concluding just about three months of active piracy, perhaps three and a half.
It surely looked reckless for Quelch to come back to Boston with the good merchants’ brig and with no trophies in his hold of England’s enemies but shamefully of England’s ally, Portugal. It was as reckless as it looked; but mere recklessness never bothered John Quelch.
Perhaps the yarn that Anthony Holding and he had spun together gave him a confidence thathe would not otherwise have had. It was a plausible thing. All hands were to say that Captain Plowman had died naturally, true only in part; that thereafter while cruising for Frenchmen according to Plowman’s commission, now executed by Quelch, they beat down as far as Brazil way.
Here they met with coast Indians who told them that a rich Portuguese brig had been recently wrecked in those parts, from which the Indians had obtained great treasure, of which the gold dust and doubloons on theCharleswere a part, having been given to Quelch and his men by the pleasant natives, who had little notion of the worth of those things.
There was more than a good chance that the gang could have got away with this story. Nobody could have checked them up, and the incident in itself was not so utterly improbable; a circumstance like thatmighthappen in those far-off seas.
The trouble for Quelch was that he carried informers with him all the time and brought them back with him to Boston. Pimer and Clifford and the one or two other loyal men were only waiting their time. And Quelch knew it.
Off the Bermudas, coming home, Quelch called for a journal Pimer was known to be keeping and tore from it five or six leaves containing a record of the various piracies from St. Augustine to Rio. Quelch probably calculated that fearfor their own safety would keep all hands quiet when they reached Boston.
He was wrong. TheCharleswas not long docked after her far-flung cruise when Quelch and a number of the seamen were arrested and the ship appropriated. There can be little question that Pimer and Clifford or one of them hurried to the governor and informed.
The jig was up. Anthony Holding, the evil genius of the adventure, shrewdly packed up his portion of the plunder and fled without waiting for what he no doubt foresaw as inevitable and imminent, the approach of the officers of the law.
Not so with Quelch. No back-alley dodging for him. With all the circumstances of a business man in lawful enterprise he went to the shop of one of the leading jewelers of Boston and there melted down a quantity of Portuguese gold and silver coins. May have been fooling with the jeweler’s crucibles when the rough hand of the officer thumped his shoulder.
Captain Kidd was the last of the colonial pirates to be sent home to England for trial. After that the Government authorized such proceedings to be had in the colonies themselves, for the expense of dragging the accused and the witnesses across the Atlantic was too much. On June 13, 1704, Quelch and a group of his pirates were tried for murder and piracy at a “Court of Admiralty held at Boston, in her Majesty’s Provinceof the Massachusetts-Bay in New England, in America.”
Mr. Attorney General of the province, assisted by eminent queen’s counselors, carried the prosecution; the defense was borne by the accused themselves with the help of a Mr. Menzies, a lawyer appointed by the court to assist them “in any matters of law.” It will be remembered that in those times a defendant in a criminal action was not allowed a lawyer for the purpose of ascertaining the facts of the case but merely to advise on matters of legal practice, whose only job in most cases was to assure the accused that what was being done to them was all according to law.
The indictment was on nine articles or counts, beginning with the death of Captain Plowman and ending with the taking of the Bastian ship off Rio. The death of Plowman was made the fact of the murder charge.
Pimer, Clifford and a fellow named Parrot turned queen’s evidence. The feeling of contempt which one seems to have for an informer can not be extended to these men; for their action here was quite consistent with their attitude from the beginning, which, as we have seen, had not been hidden even from the pirates. They never approved the deeds done or pretended they did. These are not your ordinary informers.
We have to take off our hats to lawyer Menzies. He put up a fine fight. He showed himself unafraid of court or council and stuck to hisclients when more politic lawyers would have eased off. Really he beat the prosecution.
It was this way. The commission to this court of admiralty was issued under an act of parliament which provided that its proceedings should be according to what was called the civil law, which was a different procedure from that of ordinary criminal courts, being originally from the old Roman law. Now, by the civil law, in a trial for piracy an accomplice could not be a witness against the accused; and Pimer, Clifford and Parrot were technically accomplices. Menzies had chapter and book for it, too.
Mr. Attorney General floundered back on an act of Henry the Eighth, but if Menzies had had a modern court his point would have stuck. Not that this is a modern principle of law; but a modern court under the same rules as this old court would have held with Menzies. The president of the council, the provincial council constituting this court of admiralty, hemmed and hawed and fudged by.
Menzies was both a lawyer and a man, but he really had no court to try his case in. All the council could see was a case of piracy, and away with technicalities. That would be all right, of course, if technicalities did not exist for the protection of the innocent. Quelch was guilty, no doubt, according to the gossip blowing about Boston, but innocent so far as the court in its particular province was concerned.
Quelch didn’t say much. If he had he would not have done himself much good. It is fair to say on behalf of the court that though it erred in admitting Pimer, Clifford and Parrot as witnesses, there was a fair showing of other proof which went to help the State’s case, though that does not exonerate the court from the use of improper procedure in the particular which has been shown.
“Guilty,” said the council. Cæsar-Pompey and the other negroes were discharged along with the handful of men who showed they had sailed under a sort of compulsion.
Twenty men, including Quelch, were sentenced to die; and of these, six were hanged on “Charles River, Boston side, June 30, 1704.” They were John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore (the cooper who boasted of shooting Captain Bastian), John Miller, Erasmus Peterson and Peter Roach (the automaton). The record is silent as to the fate of the remaining fourteen; possibly their sentences were commuted.
The end of the matter is best told by one who saw it.
“On Friday, the 30th of June, 1704, pursuant to orders in the death warrant, the aforesaid pirates were guarded from the prison in Boston, by forty musketeers, constables of the town, the provost-marshal and his officers, with two ministers,who took great pains to prepare them for the last article of their lives. Being allowed to walk on foot through the town, to Scarlet’s wharf, where the silver oar being carried before them, they went by water to the place of execution, being crowded and thronged on all sides with multitudes of spectators.“At the place of execution, they then severally spoke as follows,viz.:“1.Captain John Quelch.The last words he spoke to one of the ministers at his going up the stage, were, ‘I am not afraid of death; I am not afraid of the gallows; but I am afraid of what follows; I am afraid of a great God and a judgment to come.’“But he afterwards seemed to brave it out too much against that fear; also when on the stage, first he pulled off his hat, and bowed to the spectators, and not concerned, nor behaving himself so much like a dying man as some would have done. The ministers had, in the way to his execution, much desired him to glorify God at his death, by bearing a due testimony against the sins that had ruined him, and for the ways of religion which he had much neglected. Yet now being called upon to speak what he had to say, it was but thus much, ‘Gentlemen, it is but little I have to speak; what I have to say is this, I desire to be informed for what I am here; I am condemned only upon circumstances; I forgive all the world, so the Lord be merciful to my soul.’“When Lambert was warning the spectators to beware of bad company Quelch joining said,‘They should also take care how they brought money into New England, to be hanged for it.’“2.John Lambert.He appeared much hardened, and pleaded much on his innocency; he desired all men to beware of bad company; he seemed in great agony near his execution; he called much and frequently on Christ for pardon of sin, that God Almighty would save his innocent soul; he desired to forgive all the world; his last words were: ‘Lord forgive my soul. Oh, receive me into eternity. Blessed name of Christ, receive my soul!’“3.Christopher Scudamore.He appeared very penitent since his condemnation; was very diligent to improve his time going to and at the place of execution.“4.John Miller.He seemed much concerned, and complained of a great burden of sins to answer for; expressing often, ‘Lord, what shall I do to be saved?’“5.Erasmus Peterson.He cried of injustice done him, and said, ‘It is very hard for so many men’s lives to be taken away for a little gold.’ He often said, ‘His peace was made with God, and his soul would be with God,’ yet extreme hard to forgive those he said had wronged him; he told the executioner he was a strong man and prayed to be put out of misery as soon as possible.“6.Peter Roach(the automaton). He seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at all.“Francis Kingwas also brought to the place of execution, but reprieved.”
“On Friday, the 30th of June, 1704, pursuant to orders in the death warrant, the aforesaid pirates were guarded from the prison in Boston, by forty musketeers, constables of the town, the provost-marshal and his officers, with two ministers,who took great pains to prepare them for the last article of their lives. Being allowed to walk on foot through the town, to Scarlet’s wharf, where the silver oar being carried before them, they went by water to the place of execution, being crowded and thronged on all sides with multitudes of spectators.
“At the place of execution, they then severally spoke as follows,viz.:
“1.Captain John Quelch.The last words he spoke to one of the ministers at his going up the stage, were, ‘I am not afraid of death; I am not afraid of the gallows; but I am afraid of what follows; I am afraid of a great God and a judgment to come.’
“But he afterwards seemed to brave it out too much against that fear; also when on the stage, first he pulled off his hat, and bowed to the spectators, and not concerned, nor behaving himself so much like a dying man as some would have done. The ministers had, in the way to his execution, much desired him to glorify God at his death, by bearing a due testimony against the sins that had ruined him, and for the ways of religion which he had much neglected. Yet now being called upon to speak what he had to say, it was but thus much, ‘Gentlemen, it is but little I have to speak; what I have to say is this, I desire to be informed for what I am here; I am condemned only upon circumstances; I forgive all the world, so the Lord be merciful to my soul.’
“When Lambert was warning the spectators to beware of bad company Quelch joining said,‘They should also take care how they brought money into New England, to be hanged for it.’
“2.John Lambert.He appeared much hardened, and pleaded much on his innocency; he desired all men to beware of bad company; he seemed in great agony near his execution; he called much and frequently on Christ for pardon of sin, that God Almighty would save his innocent soul; he desired to forgive all the world; his last words were: ‘Lord forgive my soul. Oh, receive me into eternity. Blessed name of Christ, receive my soul!’
“3.Christopher Scudamore.He appeared very penitent since his condemnation; was very diligent to improve his time going to and at the place of execution.
“4.John Miller.He seemed much concerned, and complained of a great burden of sins to answer for; expressing often, ‘Lord, what shall I do to be saved?’
“5.Erasmus Peterson.He cried of injustice done him, and said, ‘It is very hard for so many men’s lives to be taken away for a little gold.’ He often said, ‘His peace was made with God, and his soul would be with God,’ yet extreme hard to forgive those he said had wronged him; he told the executioner he was a strong man and prayed to be put out of misery as soon as possible.
“6.Peter Roach(the automaton). He seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at all.
“Francis Kingwas also brought to the place of execution, but reprieved.”
Many men have many minds. A little circumstance will bring a sense of moral responsibility to one man; another would seem to awaken to the fact of morality only by some such final catastrophe as the grim gallows.