Edward Tooll, executed on Finchley Common, Feb., 1700, and afterwards hung in chains.--Michael Von Berghem, and another, executed at the Hartshorne Brewery, June, 1700, and hung in chains, between Mile End and Bow.--William Elby, executed at Fulham, in the town, Aug., 1707, and hung in chains there.--Hermann Brian, executed in St. James’s Street, near St. James’s House, Oct., 1707, and hung in chains at Acton Gravel Pits.--Richard Keele, and William Lowther, executed on Clerkenwell Green, 1713, conveyed to Holloway, and there hung in chains.--John Tomkins, executed at Tyburn, Feb., 1717, with fourteen other malefactors, and hung in chains.--Joseph Still, executed on Stamford Hill Road, and hung in chains in the Kingsland Road.--John Price, executed in Bunhill Fields, and hung in chains near Holloway, 1717.[47] Chapter VI. It will be recollected that one of the most interesting of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, “The Pirate,” is founded upon a case of piracy in the Orkneys, in 1725.[48] The captain, John Gow, and his crew, were secured, with much courage and address, by a patriotic inhabitant, James Fea, and the prisoners were prosecuted by the High Court of Admiralty. The remarkable part of this affair was that, on Gow “standing mute,” that is, refusing to plead, the judge ordered that he should be brought to the bar and his thumbs squeezed by two men with a whipcord until it broke; that it should be doubled, and then trebled, and that the operators should pull with their whole strength. This discipline Gow endured with much fortitude, but when he had seen the preparations for pressing him to death--the _peine forte et dure_,--until he died, or pleaded, his courage gave way,--few men, especially bad ones, can look unflinchingly into the dark valley,--and he said he would not have given so much trouble if he could have been assured of not being hung in chains. He was convicted, hung, and gibbeted in the chains he so much dreaded. Apropos of the _peine forte et dure_, in March, 1674, a man living at Cannock was arraigned at the Stafford Assizes for the murder of his father, mother, and wife. He refused to plead, but was adjudged guilty. For his contumacy he was sentenced to undergo the _peine forte et dure_, or, in other words to be pressed to death. This was carried out, as appears from a picture in the Salt Library at Stafford, showing the unhappy wretch lying on the floor, with a board on his chest covered with a number of heavy weights.[49] This must have been a more dreadful agony, while it lasted, than the “little ease” or the “rack.” The severity of the latter engine is sufficiently attested by the signatures of Guy Fawkes before and after that ordeal.[50] In 1726 Mrs. Catherine Hayes was burnt alive, doubtless for high or petit treason.[51]