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
And here I should like to submit the question, whether, with this
knowledge in his possession, the Warden acted right in letting these
four men out of their room? Ought he not to have kept them in till the
other prisoners had got to their work, and then told them that their
plan was known, and that it was too late to make the attempt? Had he
done this, he would have been commended, and one of the most unhappy
events would have been prevented. If it is a true principle of law,
that he, who not only does not _prevent_, but virtually affords
facilities for the commission of a _crime_, is in some degree guilty
of that crime, then I will leave the Warden of the prison to answer
for the death of Fane.
In the morning, they were let out, and they went forward like madmen
to their fatal project. A lad of about seventeen was on the wall as
guard. Prepared for the event, he watched them as they advanced with
their plank, and placed it against the wall, but made no attempt to
fire. The first that went up were the Higginses and Plumley; Fane was
in another part of the yard after a small ladder, which he broke in
removing it from its place. Finding that the ladder was broken, and
that their other means were insufficient, they retired from the wall,
abandoned the attempt, and went behind the chapel. No shot was
discharged at either of _them_; but when Fane, who had not yet been at
the wall, ran up that way, before he got within three rods of it, the
guard levelled his musket at his head, as deliberately as if he were
going to shoot at game, and dropped him lifeless on the ground. The
ball passed through his temple, and a buck shot through his cheek; the
blood gushed out of his head in a large stream, and ran down on the
ground nearly a rod.
It has always appeared strange to me, that the guard did not fire on
one of the others, but reserved his death-shot for Fane. He was asked
this question once, and also why he fired _at all_, and his answer
was, that Fane was throwing stones at him, one of which, he said, hit
him on the cheek. This however, was not true: I saw Fane from the time
he came out of his room till he fell dead, and I saw him throw
nothing. Indeed he _could not_ have thrown any thing, for as he lay in
death, he had firmly clenched in one hand, the chain which he had cut
from his leg, and in the other, the knife which he had used as a saw
in cutting it. These I saw in his hands the minute he fell, and I know
that, with them, he could not have thrown a stone or any thing else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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