His commitment to Newgate was immediately made out, and he was conducted to that prison under the escort of eight soldiers, with fixed bayonets, whose whole efforts were necessary to protect him from the violence of the mob. A Mr. Mercer visiting Mrs. Hayes in prison, she begged him to go to Billings and urge him to confess the whole truth, as no advantage, she said, could be expected to arise from a denial of that which was too clearly proved to admit of denial; and he being carried before Justice Lambert again, gave an account precisely concurring with that of Wood. Mrs. Springate, whose innocence was now distinctly proved, was set at liberty.
At the trial Wood and Billings confessed themselves guilty of the crime alleged against them; but Mrs. Hayes, flattering herself that as she had said nothing, she had a chance of escape, put herself upon her trial; but the jury found her guilty. The prisoners being afterwards brought to the bar to receive sentence, Mrs. Hayes entreated that she might not be burned, according to the then law of petty treason, alleging that she was not guilty, as she did not strike the fatal blow; but she was informed by the court that the sentence awarded by the law could not be dispensed with.
After conviction the behaviour of Wood was uncommonly penitent and devout; but while in the condemned hold he was seized with a violent fever, and, being attended by a clergyman to assist him in his devotions, he said he was ready to suffer death, under every mark of ignominy, as some atonement for the atrocious crime he had committed; but he died in prison, and thus defeated the final execution of the law. Billings behaved with apparent sincerity, acknowledging the justice of his sentence, and saying that no punishment could be commensurate with the crime of which he had been guilty. The behaviour of Mrs. Hayes was somewhat similar to her former conduct. Having an intention to destroy herself, she procured a phial of strong poison, which was casually tasted by a woman who was confined with her, and her design thereby discovered and frustrated. On the day of her death she received the sacrament, and was drawn on a sledge to the place of execution. Billings was executed in the usual manner, and hung in chains, not far from the pond in which Mr. Hayes’s body was found, in Marylebone Fields; but when the wretched woman had finished her devotions, in pursuance of her sentence an iron chain put round her body, with which she was fixed to a stake near the gallows. On those occasions, when women were burned for petty treason, it was customary to strangle them, by means of a rope passed round the neck, and pulled by the executioner, so that they were dead before the flames reached the body. But this woman was literally burned alive; for the executioner letting go the rope sooner than usual, in consequence of the flames reaching his hands, the fire burned fiercely round her, and the spectators beheld her pushing away the faggots, while she rent the air with her cries and lamentations. Other faggots were instantly thrown on her; but she survived amidst the flames for a considerable time, and her body was not perfectly reduced to ashes in less than three hours[5]. These malefactors suffered at Tyburn, May 9, 1726.
MARGARET DIXON.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THE case of this criminal is more remarkable for her resuscitation after her execution, than for the circumstances attending the offence of which she was convicted.
The culprit was the daughter of poor parents living at Musselburgh, about five miles from Edinburgh, a place almost entirely inhabited by fishermen and persons employed in the manufacture of salt. When she reached the age of womanhood, she was married, but her husband, who was a fisherman, being impressed, he was carried off to sea. Deprived of her lawful protector, she formed an illicit connexion with another man; and it was for the murder of the offspring of this acquaintance that she was eventually sentenced to undergo the severest penalty of the law. It appears that she was remarked to be pregnant, and was accused by her neighbours of the fact, but she steadily denied her guilt. At length the body of a newly-born infant was found near the place of her residence, and as there was no way of accounting for its existence, except that suggested by the pregnancy of Mrs. Dixon, she was taken into custody, and being tried was found guilty and ordered for execution.
After her condemnation she behaved in the most penitent manner, confessed that she had been guilty of many sins, and even owned that she had departed from the line of duty to her husband; but she constantly and steadily denied that she had murdered her child, or had even formed an idea of so horrid a crime. She owned that the fear of being exposed to the ridicule of her neighbours had tempted her to deny that she was pregnant; and she said that, being suddenly seized with the pains of child-birth, she was unable to procure the assistance of her neighbours; and that a state of insensibility ensued, so that it was impossible she should know what became of the infant.
At the place of execution she persisted in her protestations of innocence, and Jack Ketch having performed his office, the body hung the usual time, and was then cut down and delivered to the friends of the deceased. By them it was put into a coffin, and sent in a cart to be buried at her native place; but the weather being sultry, the persons who had it in their care stopped to drink at a village called Peppermill, about two miles from Edinburgh. While they were refreshing themselves, one of them perceived the lid of the coffin move, and uncovering it, the woman sat upright, to the infinite alarm of the spectators. The mystery being soon explained; a fellow, who was present, had sufficient sagacity to bleed her; and in the course of the ensuing day she was sufficiently recovered to be able to walk home to her old residence at Musselburgh.
By the Scottish law, not only was she released by the execution from the consequences of the crime of which she had been found guilty, but from the bonds of matrimony also; but her husband having by this time returned from sea, he was publicly re-married to his old wife, within a few days after she had been hanged. A suit was subsequently brought by the Lord Advocate against the sheriff for omitting to perform his office; but as it turned out that the escape of the convict was not owing to any neglect on his part, but to some peculiar formation of the neck of the woman, the prosecution was abandoned.
The date of this transaction was the month of November, 1728; and the subject of this most remarkable escape was living in the year 1753, when it is due to her to state that she still persisted in her declarations of innocence.
JOHN GOW AND OTHERS.
EXECUTED FOR PIRACY.
THE principal in this list of offenders was named John Gow, and was a native of one of the Orkney Islands. Having chosen a seafaring life, he was appointed second mate of a vessel going to Santa Cruz. Some complaints having been made before the vessel quitted port, of the insufficiency of the provisions given to the men, the captain took little notice of them; and it was not until he had quitted the shore some days, that he learned, too late, the mistake of which he had been guilty. The feelings of discontent which had been already exhibited were soon fanned into a flame, and at length it became necessary for the captain, chief mate, and surgeon to arm themselves. Gow, whose duties as second mate also included those of gunner, was ordered to clean the small-arms necessary for this purpose; but being a party to a conspiracy, which existed among his shipmates to seize the vessel, he communicated the order to his fellows, and it was determined to put their project into execution forthwith. Between nine and ten o’clock at night, the signal was given, and the conspirators going to the cabins of the chief mate, surgeon, and supercargo, cut their throats while they were asleep. The captain ran on deck to ascertain the cause of a noise which he heard, and was immediately seized, and, although he made a desperate resistance, was despatched in as short a time as his unfortunate brother officers had been. The bodies of the murdered men were then thrown overboard, and Gow was selected as the new captain. Assembling his associates on deck, their determination to commence pirates was soon formed; and some of the seamen who had hesitated to become parties to the diabolical murders of their officers, were forced to join the crew in their piratical proceedings on pain of death. A fellow named Williams, of a most brutal disposition, was chosen as lieutenant; and the name of the vessel, which had been the George Galley,