that success in your treason must infallibly have established Popery, and that never fails to bring with it a civil, aswell as ecclesiastical, tyranny; which is quite another sort of constitution than that of this kingdom, and cannot take place till the present is annihilated. "This your crime (so I must call it) is the more aggravated, in that, where it proceeds so far as to take arms openly, and to make an offensive war against lawful authority, it is generally (as in your case) complicated with the horrid and crying sin of murdering many who are not only innocent but meritorious; and, if pity be due (as I admit it is in some degree) to such as suffer for their own crimes, it must be admitted a much greater share of compassion is owing to them who have lost their lives merely by the crimes of other men. 'As many as have so done in the late rebellion, so many murders have they to answer for who promoted it; and your lordship, in examining your conscience, will be under a great delusion, if you look at those that fell at Preston, Dumblain, or elsewhere, on the side of the laws, and defence of settled order and government, as slain in open lawful battle, even judging of this matter by the law of nations. 'Alas! my Lord, your crime of high treason is yet made redder by. shedding a great deal of the best blood in the kingdom; I include in this expression the brave common soldiers, as well as those gallant and heroic officers, who continued faithfal to death, in defence of the laws; for sure but little blood can be better than that which is shed while it is warm in the cause of the true religion, and the liberties of its native country. 'I believe it, notwithstanding the unfair arts and industry used to stir up a pernicious excess of commisscration toward such as have fallen by the sword of justice (few if compared with the numbers of good subjects murdered from doors and windows at Preston only), the life of one honest loyal subject is more precious in the eye of God, and all considering men, than the lives of many rebels and parricides. "This puts me in mind to observe to your Lordship, that there is another malignity in your Lordship's crime (open rebellion), which consists in this, that it is always sure of doing hurt to a government, in one respect, though it be defeated; (I will not say it does so on the whole matter.) For, if the offence is too notorious to be let pass unobserved, by any connivance, then is government reduced to this dilemma: if it be not punished, the state is endangered by suffering examples to appear that it may be attacked with impunity; if it be punished, they who are publicly or privately favourers of the treason (and perhaps some out of mere folly) raise undeserved clamours of cruelty against those in power; or the lowest their malice flies is to make unseasonable, unlimited, and injudicious encomiums upon mercy and forgiveness (things, rightly used, certainly of the greatest excellence). "And this proceeding, it must be admitted, does harm, with silly and undistinguishing people. So that the rebels have the satisfaction of thinking they hurt the government a little even by their fall. The only, but true, consolation every wise government has, in such a case (after it has tempered justice with mercy, in such proportion as sound discretion directs, having always a care of the public safety above all things), is this: that such like seeds of unreasonable discon tents take root on very shallow soil only; and that therefore, after they have made a weak shoot, they soon wither and come to nothing. It is well your lordship has given an opportunity of doing the government right, on the subject of your surrender at Preston. "How confidently had it been given out by the faction, that the surrender was made on assurances, at least hopes, insinuated of pardon. Whereas the truth appears to be, that fear was the only motive to it: the evil day was deferred; and the rebels rightly depended fewer would die at last by the measures they elected than if they had stood an assault. They were awed by the experienced courage, discipline, and steadiness of the king's troops, and by the superior genius and spirit of his majesty's commanders, over those of the rebels: so that, in truth, they were never flattered with any other terms than to surrender as rebels and traitors; their lives only to be spared till his majesty's pleasure should be known. 'It was indeed a debt due to those brave commanders and soldiers (to whom their king and country owe more than can be well expressed) that their victory should be vindicated, to the present and future ages, from untrue detraction, and kept from being sullied by the tongues of rebels and their accomplices, when their arms could no longer hinder it. Tis hard to leave this subject without shortly observing, that this engine which sets the world on fire, a lying tongue, has been of prodigious use to the party of the rebels, not only since and during the rebellion, but before, while it was forming, and the rebels preparing for it. False facts, false hopes, and false characters, have been the greater half of the scheme they set out with, and yet seemed to depend upon. It has been rightly observed, your lordship's answer does not so much as insist, with any clearness, on that which only could excuse your being taken in open rebellion: that is, you was forced into it, remained so under a force, and would have escaped from it, but could not. 'If you had so insisted, it has been clearly proved that that had not been true; for your lordship was active and forward in many instances, and so considerable in military capacity among your fel. low-soldiers, as to command a squadron. These, and other particulars, have been observed by the managers of the House of Commons, and therefore I shall not pursue them further, but conclude this introduction to the sentence, by exhorting your lordship, with perfect charity and much earnestness, to consider that now the time is come when the veil of partiality should be taken from your eyes (it must be so when you come to die), and that your lordship should henceforward think with clearness and indifference(if possible), which must produce in you a hearty detestation of the crime you have committed; and, being a Protestant, be very likely to make you a sincere penitent, for your having engaged in a design that must have destroyed the holy religion you profess, had it taken cffect. 'Nothing now remains but that I pronounce upon you that sentence which the law ordains, and which sufficiently shows what thoughts our ancestors had of the crime of which your lordship is now convicted, viz. That you George Earl of Winton,' &c. Soon after the passing this sentence, the Earls of Winton and This criminal was born in the use and sustenance, not to be county of Berwick, in Scotland, abused. It is a judicious observaand, having been educated by his tion of the ingenious authors of the parents according to the strictly Spectator, that If a man commits religious plan prevailing in that murder when he is drunk, he must country, he was bound apprentice be hanged for it when he is sober.' to a sea-faring person at Berwick; It is no excuse for any one to say and, when he was out of his time, he was guilty of a crime when he entered on board a ship in the drunk, because drunkenness itself royal navy, and in this station ac- is a crime; and what he may deem quired the character of an expert an excuse is only an aggravation of and valiant seaman. his offence; since it is acknowledgHaving served Queen Anne during that he has been guilty of two ing several engagements in the Me- crimes instead of one. diterranean and other seas, he returned to England, with Sparks, who was his shipmate, on whom he committed the murder we have mentioned. After conviction, it was a difficult matter to make Douglas sensible of the enormity of the crime that he had committed; for he supposed that, as he was drunk when he perpetrated the fact, he ought to be considered in the same light as a man who was a lunatic. This unhappy malefactor suffered at Tyburn, on the 27th of Oct. 1714. From his fate and sentiments we may learn the following useful instructions. We see that drunkenness is a crime of a very high nature, since it may lead to the commission of the highest. If this man had not been in a state of intoxication, he would probably never have been guilty of murder. We should remember that the bounties of Providence were sent for our The conclusion to be drawn from this sad story is, that temperance is a capital virtue; and that drunkenness, as it debauches the understanding, reduces a man below the level of the beasts that perish.' The offender before us acknowledged, in his last moments, that it was but the forerunner of other crimes: and, as what happened to him may be the case with others, as drunkenness produces quarrels, and quarrels lead to murder, we hope the case of this unhappy man will impress on the minds of our readers the great importance of temperance and sobriety. We see that Douglas had received a very religious education; yet even this was inadequate to preserve him from the fatal effects of a casual intoxication! When men drink too much, and in consequence thereof assault and wound their companions, we may say, in the words of the poet, that 'Death is in the bowl.' ROBERT WHITTY, FELIX O'HARA, & JOSEPH SULLIVAN, EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON. WHEN the Earl of Mar and other Scotch noblemen planned the rebellion of 1715, they sent these three men to London, for the purpose of endeavouring to enlist soldiers for the Pretender's service; and, though the business in which they were en gaged was of the most dangerous nature, yet they continued it for some time; but were at length apprehended, brought to trial, and, being convicted, were executed at Tuburn, on the 28th of May, 1715. Robert Whitty was born in Ire land, and, having enlisted for a soldier when young, served in an English regiment in Spain, where being wounded, he was brought to England, and received the bounty of Chelsea College as an out-pen sioner. Felix O'Hara, who was about twenty-nine years of age, was likewise an Irishman, and, having lived some time in Dublin as a waiter at a tavern, he saved some money, and entered into business for himself; but, that not answering as he could have wished, he came to London. Joseph Sullivan was a native of Munster, in Ireland, and about the same age as O'Hara. He had for some time served in the Irish brigades, but, obtaining his discharge, he came to England, and was thought a fit agent to engage in the business which cost him and his companions their lives. These men denied, at the time of their trial, that they had been guilty of any crime; and even at the place of execution they attempted to defend their conduct. They all died professing the Roman Catholic religion. JOHN GORDON, WILLIAM KERR, & JOHN DORRELL, EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON. ALL the particulars we have been able to learn respecting these men are as follow. They had all of them served as officers in the army during the wars in the reign of Queen Anne, but they were zealous friends to the cause of the Pretender. Having learnt that the rebels had got as far as Lancashire, they appear to have been animated with the hope that success would attend the enterprise; whereupon they held several meetings at a public house in Shoe Lane, London, where they agreed to set off for different parts of the country, to enlist some men to promote the undertaking; and they bound themselves to each other by the most solemn oaths to keep their transactions secret. But they defeated the effects of these oaths almost the moment they took them; for they met so often, and were so careless of what they said, that they were heard by persons who listened at the door of their room; in consequence of which information was given, and they were taken into custody, tried, and, being convicted on full evidence, were hanged and quartered at Tyburn, on the 7th of Dec. 1715. They were the first persons that suffered on account of the rebellion, professed themselves Roman Catholics, and died denying the justice of the sentence against them. COLONEL HENRY OXBURGH, EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON. HENRY Oxburgh, Esq. the son of a man of considerable property in Lancashire, having been educated in the most rigid principles of the Roman Catholic religion, was sent abroad, while a youth, into the service of France, in which he acquired the character of a brave and gallant officer. At the close of the war he returned to England to see his friends; and, finding that the rebels were advancing southwards, he raised a regiment, with which he joined the main army before it reached Pres ton. Colonel Oxburgh was the man who ordered the rebels to fire on the royal troops; and, if his opi 1 |