Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present dayLanaghan, Mrs.
History
Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day
Lanaghan, Mrs.
Antigua -- Description and travel; Antigua -- History
post of the gallows, their right hands first struck off, and then
their heads. The heads, after being dipped in pitch, were stuck
upon spikes, and the hands nailed under them, while their bodies
were carried down to the water’s edge, and there burned in a
lime-kiln. This, I think, was the last time decapitation was
practised in Antigua, although in former years that mode of
execution was very frequent; it may be said, perhaps, that it is
more dreadful to the sight than pain to the culprit, for a
skilful executioner at one stroke would sever the head from the
body; but I must say I am very happy that now no whitened skull
or distorted features are likely to meet my sight in an evening
walk.
The next most remarkable murder committed in Antigua was one in
which a young man of good extraction was the unfortunate victim.
About the year 1800, Mr. Adam Ogilvie, son to Sir John Ogilvie,
arrived in Antigua, to take charge of his father’s property in
that island. Young Ogilvie was in the spring of life, for he had
not numbered more than twenty years, and all things glittered
around him, and presented to his eye a fair and pleasing
prospect. But, alas! for man “nought ministers delight but what
the glowing passions can engage;” drawn by that alluring goddess,
Pleasure, who hides beneath a smiling mask her haggard and
distorted visage, Mr. Ogilvie was led into a train of debauchery,
and, among other excesses, formed an illicit connexion with a
female named Molly belonging to the property. To this female
might justly be applied the hackneyed sentence, “Frailty, thy
name is woman!” for during this intercourse with her master, she
proved _enceinte_ by one of the servants, a boy of the name of
“Martin;” and fearing a disclosure of her infamy, and not willing
to give up her favoured suitor, she, in conjunction with him and
two other slaves upon the property, planned the murder of her
unfortunate master. During the residence of Mr. Ogilvie upon the
estate, he thought proper to have some of the negroes punished
for various offences committed by them, among whom were the
accomplices of Martin and Molly, and this was one cause of their
so readily joining them in their diabolical scheme.
On the night chosen for the execution of their design, Mr.
Ogilvie retired early to-bed, and soon tasted that sweet restorer
—balmy sleep. His murderers, after waiting a sufficient time to
assure themselves of the fact, proceeded in a body to his
apartment, attended by the wicked, heartless Molly, bearing a
candle and lanthorn in her hand, for the purpose of giving light
to the men while in performance of their demoniacal office of
strangling Mr. Ogilvie. Upon gaining the bedside of their
sleeping victim, who, unconscious of his fate, perhaps some
“Fantastic measure trod o’er fairy fields,”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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