Smuggling & Smugglers in Sussex: The Genuine History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of Mr. William Galley a Custom-house Officer, and Mr. Daniel Chater, a Shoemaker, by Fourteen Notorious Smugglers, with the Trials and Execution of Seven of the Criminals at Chichester, 1748-9Anonymous
History
Smuggling & Smugglers in Sussex: The Genuine History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of Mr. William Galley a Custom-house Officer, and Mr. Daniel Chater, a Shoemaker, by Fourteen Notorious Smugglers, with the Trials and Execution of Seven of the Criminals at Chichester, 1748-9
Anonymous
Crime -- England -- History; Smuggling -- England -- Sussex -- History
“Ye three Holy Kings,
Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar,
Pray for us now, and in the hour of death.
These papers have touched the three heads of the Holy
Kings at Cologne.
They are to preserve travellers from accidents on the road, headaches,
falling sickness, fevers, witchcraft, all kinds of mischief and sudden
death.”
The body of William Carter was hung in chains in the Portsmouth road,
near Rake, in Sussex; the body of Benjamin Tapner on Rook’s Hill, near
Chichester; and the bodies of John Cobby and John Hammond upon the sea
coast, near a place called Selsea Bill, in Sussex, where they were seen
at a great distance, both east and west.
The bodies of the Mills’s, father and son, having neither friend or
relation to take them away, were thrown into a hole, dug for that
purpose, very near the gallows, into which was likewise thrown the
body of Jackson. Just by is erected a stone having the following
inscription, viz.:--
“Near this place was buried the body of William Jackson, a
proscribed smuggler, who upon a special commission of Oyer
and Terminer, held at Chichester, on the 16th day of January,
1748–9, was with William Carter, attainted for the murder
of William Galley, a custom-house officer; and who likewise
was, together with Benjamin Tapner, John Cobby, John Hammond,
Richard Mills the elder, and Richard Mills, the younger, his
son, attainted for the murder of Daniel Chater; but dying in
a few hours after sentence of death was pronounced upon him,
he thereby escaped the punishment which the heinousness of his
complicated crimes deserved, and which was the next day most
justly inflicted upon his accomplices.
“As a memorial to posterity, and a warning to this and
succeeding generations,
“This stone is erected
“A.D. 1749.”
Having now given an account of the behaviour of these seven bloody
criminals, as occurred to the three clergymen who attended them after
their receiving sentence of death, and who signed their names to the
same; we shall now insert the account of their behaviour from the time
of their being brought to Chichester gaol, to their execution, which
account was taken by two persons who constantly attended on them, and
is what occurred at the times the clergymen before-mentioned were not
present; and are inserted to make this account complete.
The seven prisoners that were condemned, together with William
Combleach the gardener, committed on suspicion of being concerned in
the murder of Daniel Chater, were brought from Horsham gaol, in one
waggon under a strong guard of soldiers, to Chichester, on Friday the
13th January, 1748–9.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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