The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
But something awaited him far worse, and which, had he known, would have
made his heart tremble, hard and wicked as it was. Next morning the
prisoners, consisting of some hundreds, were taken down into a yard, and
ranked in companies of twenty each. In a few minutes, John Richardson,
the police officer from Scotland, made his appearance, accompanied by
the two jailors and turnkey; a terrific sight to Haggart! He passed
through all the ranks, and the second time stopped, and taking Haggart's
hand, said, "Do you know me, David?" He again attempted to escape by the
assumption of the Irish brogue, but it was of no avail. He was too well
known, and being taken to the condemned cell, he was there loaded with
irons, and subsequently carried off to Scotland. An iron belt was fixed
round his waist, with his wrists pinioned to each side of it; a chain
passed from the front of the belt, and joined the centre of a chain,
each end of which was padlocked round his ancles, and a chain passed
from each wrist to each ancle. In this dreadful (but by his own hardened
and daring conduct necessary) state of torture and confinement, he was
conducted to Dumfries. The officers treated him with the utmost
tenderness and humanity, but he obstinately kept up his pretended
ignorance for a considerable time.
On their approach towards Dumfries, which was in the dark, there were
many thousands of people on the road, many of them with torches in their
hands, waiting his arrival; and at the jail it was scarcely possible to
get him out of the coach for the multitude, all crowding for a sight of
Haggart, the murderer. Some discovered sorrow, and some terror; but
whose could equal his own? He plunged through them all, rattling his
chains, and making a great show of courage, but he afterwards owned that
his heart was shaken at the thought of poor Morrin. As he went up the
stairs to the cells, he had to pass the very spot where he struck him;
"and oh!" confessed the guilty murderer, "it was like fire to my feet!"
After remaining at Dumfries three weeks, where the greater part of his
Irish irons were removed, he was carried to Edinburgh, to be tried for
the murder, with which he stood charged. He was immediately found guilty
upon satisfactory evidence, and ordered for execution. During the next
fortnight he exhibited the utmost indifference for his condition; but at
length he was brought to a just sense of the manifold wickednesses of
which he had been guilty; and he declared on the morning of his
execution that he would not wish to escape, if the prison doors were
open, as his death was the only atonement he could make in this world
for his violations of the laws of God and man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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