lodged in prison if she did not immediately quit the town.

Leaving the house, the unhappy creature fainted in the street, and was soon surrounded by a number of females, who insulted her with every term of reproach.

When she recovered her senses she went to a public house, where she intended to have lodged; but the landlady threatening to send for the beadle, she was obliged to quit the house.

In the interim. Mr. Smythee came to his own house, and, after being compelled to listen to the reproaches of his wife on the infidelity of his conduct, he went out, and desired a person to call on the young woman, and appoint her to meet him at a place without the town.

The unfortunate girl met him accordingly. What passed between them it is impossible to know; but on the following day she was found with her throat cut, and a bloody knife lying by her. Smythee ab. sconding, it was generally supposed that he had been the murderer; and, on his return to Poole about a month afterwards, he was taken into custody, and lodged in the county gaol.

In his defence, at his trial, he urged that the reason of his absence from his family was a quarrel with his wife, in consequence of the unhappy discovery that had been made by the deceased: but, as he could bring no proof of his being absent from the spot when the murder was committed, no doubt remained of his guilt: he was therefore capitally convicted, and sentenced to die.

After conviction he was visited by several clergymen, who exerted themselves to impress him with a due sense of his awful situation. He freely acknowledged the great guilt he had incurred in the seduction of the unhappy girl; but stea dily denied being guilty of the mur

der to the last moment of his life. As the period for its termination advanced he became still more resigned, acknowledged the many errors of his life, and confessed himself worthy to undergo the rigour of the law.

He walked to the place of exe. cution amidst an immense surrounding multitude, and, having ascended the cart, addressed the populace, advising them to refrain from yielding to the first impulses of temptation, as they would wish to be preserved from the violation of the Divine laws. After the usual devotions, he drew his cap over his face, and saying, 'To thee, O Lord, I resign my soul,' he was launched into eternity at Dorchester, on the 12th of April, 1741.

Thus ended the life of a man who might have lived happy in himself, and an useful member of society; but his submission to an ungenerous passion rendered him obnoxious to the violated laws of God and his country, and finally brought him to condign and exemplary punishment.

It does not clearly appear, from the narrative before us, whether Mr. Smythee was or was not guilty of the murder for which he suffered; but the presumptions are very strong against him. Be this as it may, there is nothing uncharitable in saying that the man who has been deliberately guilty of the wilful seduction of a harmless woman cannot be punished too severely, even by an exertion of the utmost rigour of the law.

Character is dearer to a woman than life; and it is a pity we have not a statute to punish the seducer as a murderer. In the mean time, however, he is acutely afflicted by the tormenting pangs of his guilty conscience, which must severely reprobate his conduct, and raise a hell in his own mind.

SIR JOHN DINELY GOODERE SUCceeded his father, Sir Edward, in the possession of an estate of three thousand pounds a year, situated near Evesham, in Worcestershire.

His brother Samuel, the subject of this narrative, was bred to the sea, and advanced to the rank of captain of a man of war.

Sir John married the daughter of a merchant, and received twenty thousand pounds as a marriage portion; but mutual unhappiness was the consequence of this connexion : the husband was brutal in his manners, and the wife, perhaps, not strictly observant of the sacred vow she had taken; for she was too often visited by Sir Robert Jasen; and, after frequent recriminations between the married pair, Sir John

VOL. I.

brought an action in the Court of Common Pleas for criminal conversation, and five hundred pounds damages were awarded by the jury.

Sir John's next step was to indict his lady for a conspiracy; and, a conviction following, she was fined, and imprisoned one year in the King's Bench. He likewise petitioned for a divorce; but the matter being heard in the House of Lords, his petition was thrown out.

Sir John having no children, Captain Samuel Goodere formed very sanguine expectations of possessing the estate; but, finding that the brother had docked the entail in favour of his sister's children, the captain sought the most diabolical means of revenge for the supposed injury.

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While the captain's vessel lay in the port of Bristol, Sir John went to that city on business; and, being engaged to dine with an attorney, named Smith, the captain prevailed on the latter to permit him to make one of their company, under pretence of being reconciled to his brother: Mr.Smith consented, and, using his good offices to accommodate the difference, a sincere reconciliation appeared to have taken place.

This visit was made on the 10th of January, 1741, and the captain, having previously concerted his measures, brought some sailors on shore with him, and left them at a public house, in waiting to seize the baronet in the evening.

Accordingly, when the company broke up, Captain Goodere at tended his brother through the streets, and, when they came opposite the public house, the seamen ran out, seized Sir John, and conveyed him to a boat that had been appointed to wait for his reception. Some persons who were witnesses to this outrage would have rescued the unfortunate gentleman; but the captain telling them that he was a deserter, and the darkness of the evening preventing them from judging the contrary by his appearance, this violation of the law was permitted to pass unobstructed.

As soon as the devoted victim was in the boat, he said to his brother, "I know you have an intention to murder me; and, if you are ready to do it, let me beg that it may be done here, without giving yourself the trouble to take me on board :' to which the captain said, 'No, brother, I am going to pevent your rotting on land; but, however, I would have you make your peace with God this night.'

Sir John, being put on board, applied to the seamen for help: but the captain put a stop to any efforts

As they could not strangle him with the handkerchief, the captain gave them a cord, with which Mahony dispatched him, while White held his hands, and trod on his stomach. The captain now retired to his cabin; and, the murder being committed, the perpetrators of it went to him, and told him the job was done;' on which he gave them money, and bade them seek their safety in flight.

The attorney with whom the brothers had dined having heard of the commission of a murder, and knowing of the former animosity of the captain to his brother, immediately conjectured who it was that had fallen a sacrifice; on which he went to the mayor of Bristol, who issued his warrant to the water-bailiff, and he, going on board, found that the lieutenant and cooper had prudently confined the captain to his cabin.

The offender, being brought on shore, was committed to Newgate; and Mahony and White, being taken in a few hours afterwards, were lodged in the same prison.

At the sessions held at Bristol on the 26th of March, 1741, these offenders were brought to trial; and, being convicted on the fullest evidence, received sentence of death.

After conviction, Mahony be

haved in the most hardened manner imaginable; and, when the gaolers were putting irons on him, said he should not regard dying on the following day, if he could be attended by a priest, to whom he might confess his sins. This man and White were both Irishmen, and Roman Catholics.

Captain Goodere's time, after conviction, was spent chiefly in writing letters to persons of rank, to make interest to save his life; and his wife and daughter presented a petition to the king: but all endeavours of this kind proving ineffectual, he employed a man to hire some colliers to rescue him on his way to the fatal tree; which circumstance transpiring, the sheriff took care to have a proper guard to carry the law into effectual execution.

Capt. Goodere's wife and daughter, dressed in deep mourning, took a solemn leave of him on the day before his death. He went in a mourning-coach to the place of execution, to which his accomplices were conveyed in a cart.

They were hanged near the Hot Wells, Bristol, on the 20th of April, 1741, within view of the place where the ship lay when the murder was committed.

Along with them suffered a woman, named Jane Williams (for the murder of her bastard child), who had been brought up in such a wretched state of ignorance, that she knew not, until instructed by the clergyman who attended her dying moments, that there is a God:

'And that there is, all Nature cries aloud.'

THIS malefactor appears to have been descended of honest parents, at Wells, in Somersetshire, who gave him such an education as might qualify him for any ordinary rank of life.

Being unwilling to remain in the country, he came to London, and lived some time with a corn-chan dler; and, after a continuation in this service, he married, and had several children: but, not living happily with his wife, articles of separation were executed between them.

After this he married another woman, by whom he had one child, and who visited him after his being in custody for the murder.

At the sessions held at the Old Bailey, in August, 1741, he was indicted for the murder of John Penny, gentleman, and, pleading guilty, received sentence of death.

Mr. Penny had chambers in Cle

ment's Inn, and Hall had lived with him seven years before he com mitted the murder; nor had he formed any design of being guilty of that horrid deed till within about a month of its perpetration: but, having kept more company than his circumstances could afford, he had involved himself in difficulties, which made him resolve to murder and rob his master.

On the 7th of June, 1741, he intoxicated himself with liquor, and then determined to carry his design into execution. Mr. Penny coming home between eleven and twelve at night, Hall assisted in undressing him in the dining-room; and, while he was walking towards the bed, the villain followed him with a stick, which he had concealed for the purpose, and struck him with such force that he never spoke afterwards; continuing his blows on the

head till the sufferer was apparently dead.

Willing, however, to be certain of completing the horrid tragedy, and to avoid detection, he went into the dining-room, and, stripping himself naked, took a small fruitknife belonging to his master, and, returning to the chamber, cut his throat with it, holding his neck over the chamber-pot. Mr. Penny bled very freely; for, when the blood was mixed with a small quantity of water, it almost filled the pot five times; and three of the pots, thus mixed, the murderer threw into the sink, and two into the coalhole. He then took his master's waistcoat, which was lined with duffil, and bound it round his neck, to suck up the remainder of the blood.

This being done, he took the body on his shoulders, carried it to the necessary, and threw it in headforemost; then flying back immediately to the chambers, under the most dreadful apprehensions of mind, he took his master's coat, bloody shirt, the stick that he had knocked him down with, and some rags which he had used in wiping up the blood, and, running a second time naked to the necessary-house, threw them in at a hole on the opposite side of it.

The body being thus disposed of, he stole about thirty-six guineas from his master's pocket and writing-desk; and such was the confusion of his mind, that he likewise took some franks, sealing-wax, and other articles for which he had no use, employing the remainder of the night in washing and rubbing the rooms with cloths; but, finding it no easy matter to get out the blood, he sent for the laundress in the morning to wash them again, telling her that his master's nose had bled over-night.

On the following day the guilty wretch strolled from place to place, unable to find rest for a moment any where; and all his thoughts being engaged in concealing the murder, which he hoped was effectually done, from the place where he had secreted the body.

On the Friday following, he went to Mr. Wooton, his master's nephew, on a pretence of inquiring for Mr. Penny, who, he said, had quitted the chambers two days before, and gone somewhere by water; so that he was afraid some accident had happened to him.

Mr. Wooton was so particular in his inquiries after his uncle that Hall was exceedingly terrified at his questions, and knew not what answer to make to them. After this the criminal went twice every day to Mr. Wooton, to inquire after his master, for ten days, living all the while in a torment of mind that is not to be described.

So wretched was he, that, find. ing it impossible to sleep in the chambers, he got his wife to come and be with him, and they lay in Mr. Penny's bed; but still sleep was a stranger to him.

At length Mr. Wooton had Hall taken into custody, on a violent suspicion that he had murdered his uncle. On his first examination before a magistrate, he steadily avowed his innocence; but, being committed to Newgate, he attempted an escape: this, however, was prevented; and, a few days after. wards, he confessed his guilt before some relations of the deceased.

We have already mentioned that he pleaded guilty on his trial; and have now to add that, after sentence was passed on him, he was exceedingly contrite and penitent, and confessed his guilt in letters to his friends.

On the day before his death he