General,--See His Majesty betimes, tell him from me that Daniel Cox, condemned to die at noon, is innocent, and get him a reprieve. O Barrington, come to your lost comrade. The bearer will tell you where I am. I cannot. EDWARD COWEN. "Send a man you can trust to Windsor with that, and take me to my most welcome death." A trusty officer was despatched to Windsor, and in about an hour Cowen was lodged in Newgate. All that night Bradbury labored to save the man that was condemned to die. He knocked up the sheriff of Middlesex, and told him all. "Don't come to me," said the sheriff; "go to the minister." He rode to the minister's house. The minister was up. His wife gave a ball--windows blaring, shadows dancing--musics--lights. Night turned into day. Bradbury knocked. The door flew open, and revealed a line of bedezined footmen, dotted at intervals Up the stairs. "I must see my lord. Life or death. I'm an officer from Bow Street." "You can't see my lord. Ha is entertaining the Prootian Ambassador and his sweet." "I must see him, or an innocent man will die to-morrow. Tell him so. Here's a guinea." "Is there? Step aside here." He waited in torments till the message went through the gamut of lackeys, and got, more or less mutilated, to the minister. He detached a buffet, who proposed to Mr. Bradbury to call at the Do-little office in Westminster next morning. "No," said Bradbury, "I don't leave the house till I see him. Innocent blood shall not be spilled for want of a word in time." The buffer retired, and in came a duffer who said the occasion was not convenient. "Ay, but it is," said Bradbury, "and if my lord is not here in five minutes, I'll go up-stairs and tell my tale before them all, and see if they are all hair-dressers' dummies, without heart or conscience or sense." In five minutes in came a gentleman, with an order on his breast, and said, "You are a Bow Street officer?" "Yes, my lord." "Name?" "Bradbury." "You say the man condemned to die to-morrow is innocent?" "Yes, my lord." "How do you know?" "Just taken the real culprit." "When is the other to suffer?" "Twelve to-morrow." "Seems short time. Humph! Will you be good enough to take a line to the sheriff? Formal message to-morrow." The actual message ran:-- "Delay execution of Cox till we hear from Windsor. Bearer will give reasons." With this Bradbury hurried away, not to the sheriff, but to the prison, and infected the jailor and the chaplain and all the turnkeys, with pity for the condemned, and the spirit of delay. Bradbury breakfasted, and washed his face, and off to the sheriff. Sheriff was gone out. Bradbury hunted him from pillar to post, and could find him nowhere. He was at last obliged to go and wait for him at Newgate. He arrived at the stroke of twelve to superintend the execution. Bradbury put the minister's note into his hand.