Recollections of Windsor Prison;: Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious ReflectionReynolds, John, of Vermont
History
Recollections of Windsor Prison;: Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection
Reynolds, John, of Vermont
Vermont State Prison
As soon as Mr. Hewlet died, complaint was entered to the Grand Jury
against Godfrey and an indictment for murder found against him.
Immediately after this was done, the keepers and guard began to
torment him with the most unfeeling allusions to his anticipated
death. They insulted his sufferings--told him that they should soon
see him on the gallows--and exulted above measure when they could
kindle his worst feelings, and draw from him an angry expression. This
was the theme of their cruel tongues continually, and I here affirm,
without fear of contradiction, that greater outrage was never
practiced on the feelings of a criminal by a mean and unprincipled
mob, than Godfrey endured from those who had been placed over him as
guards, and who were under a solemn oath to treat all the prisoners
with kindness and humanity.
Nor was this feeling and disposition to torment a degraded sufferer,
confined to the petty servants of the prison; it marked the conduct of
all, and even the highest officers of the Institution seemed to take
an infernal satisfaction in creating terrors to harass his mind. At
one time they would dwell on the _certainty_ that he would be _hung_,
and at another inform him that his gallows should be erected over the
large gate of the prison-yard, and so high that all the prisoners and
all the village might see him. Surrounded by such fiends incarnate, he
groaned away his dreadful hours till the time arrived for his trial.
There were many individuals who felt an interest in the issue of this
trial, and who had serious doubts as to his being guilty of murder.
Among these were Messrs. Hutchinson and Marsh, who volunteered their
services as his counsel. They defended him with a zeal and eloquence
which did them honor. But the die was cast against him, and he was
condemned to suffer as a murderer. It was the opinion of some that he
would be found guilty of only manslaughter, and then his sentence
would be imprisonment for a great number of years or for life. This
was mentioned to him, as a source of comfort, by his friends, but he
always spoke of returning to the prison with the utmost horror. "No,"
said he, "not the prison, but the gallows,--if I cannot have liberty,
give me death,--I would rather die than go back to prison for six
months."
It is said that adversity is woman's hour--that female loveliness
shines brightest in the dark. I have no doubt that this is always the
case; in the present instance I know it was. Godfrey had a wife, and
the best man on earth never deserved a better one. With a fortitude
that affliction could not for a moment weaken, she hung around his
sorrows, and flew with angel swiftness to relieve his burdened soul.
She went to the governor and obtained a short reprieve for her
condemned husband; and his counsel interposed and obtained for him
another trial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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