MADAM,--The personal favour which your Majesty has been so graciously pleased to confer on me, in allowing the present dedication,--thus implying a confidence in the probable nature of the work,--will not, I trust, be found to have been misused by me, should your Majesty hereafter honour the volume by perusal. In thus being the medium through which the pleadings of a class of society, so far removed from the sympathy of mankind, approach the throne of your Majesty, may I be permitted to take this opportunity of expressing what is responded to by every feeling heart in your Majesty’s dominions,--a respectful appreciation of the mildness and clemency which have pervaded the administration of the laws during the present merciful reign. With sincere prayers for the happiness of your Majesty, I have the honour to be, MADAM, Your Majesty’s Most humble and faithful Servant and subject, P. HESKETH FLEETWOOD. ROSSALL HALL, _Lancashire_. PREFACE. “To be, or not to be--that is the question.” That is indeed the question we are about to consider,--BEING or DEATH; a short sentence, but of unequalled importance. Yet how little does the demise of a fellow-man dwell on the human mind, unless the ties of kindred, or any peculiarity of circumstance by which the event may happen to be encircled, impart to it adventitious interest. A newspaper paragraph entitled “Awful and sudden death” may for a moment arrest our attention; but it is the “awful and sudden,” not the actual transit, which attracts the fancy. Perchance, also, it may be printed in rather a larger type than the adjoining paragraph, or we may expect to find some exciting detail of the facts of the case; but the awful Reality, the earthly ending of the being, immortal though it is to be, elicits little sympathy, and the wearied eye turns to some other news. The dying _speech_ of the malefactor arrests our attention; the dead _speaker_ of it is unregarded as a lump of clay. Who that amidst the excitement of a crowded court of justice has turned his thoughts within himself, and divesting the scene of all the panoply of pomp which surrounds him, has reflected on the moral effect to be the result of the sentence of death _if executed_, but has felt his sympathy rather awakened in favour of the culprit, and confessed to himself how inefficient the gibbet is when viewed (according to its intended purpose) as the roadside guidepost, by which other earthly travellers, who might be disposed to stray, should be warned of a pathway to be avoided. Alas! the body on the gibbet is but like the scarecrow in the field of grain,--little heeded by its brethren in plumage, scarcely noticed by aught save the vacant gape of curiosity; it dangles for a time, and is remembered no more!