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)
Early on the morning of his execution, Haggart joined earnestly in
devotional exercise with his ministerial attendant. After the chaplain
of the jail had prayed, one of the officers of justice appeared, and
requested all strangers to retire, as he had something to communicate to
the unhappy prisoner. Haggart immediately exclaimed, in a hurried tone,
"Oh! I suppose it is the executioner." His firmness for a moment
abandoned him, and he walked rapidly across the cell with his arms
folded, and with deep despair strongly painted on his countenance. He
speedily, however, regained his composure; and when the executioner did
appear, at once allowed his arms to be bound. He was then removed to a
hall in the lower part of the lock-up-house, where he was received by
two of the clergymen of Edinburgh and the magistrates. After prayers the
procession proceeded to the scaffold. The conduct of the unfortunate
youth there was in the highest degree becoming. While the beneficial
influence of religion was apparent in his whole demeanour, his natural
firmness of character never for a moment forsook him. He kneeled down,
and uttered an earnest prayer; and after addressing a few words of deep
and anxious exhortation to the great multitude by whom he was
surrounded, he met his fate with the same intrepidity which
distinguished all the actions of his short, but guilty and eventful
life, having just completed his twentieth year. He was executed at
Edinburgh, July the 18th, 1821.
Haggart, after his condemnation, wrote the history of his short and
wicked life, which was subsequently published for the benefit of his
father, who he requested might receive any profit arising from it, for
the purpose of educating his younger brothers and sisters. The foregoing
particulars are taken from this singular auto-biography, which evinced a
strong, though uncultivated mind, which, if it had been directed to
laudable pursuits, could not have failed to place the writer in an
honorable station in society.
DANIEL DOODY, JOHN CUSSEN, _alias_ WALSH, JAMES LEAHY, MAURICE LEAHY,
WILLIAM DOODY, DAVID LEAHY, DANIEL RIEDY, WILLIAM COSTELLO, AND WALTER
FITZMAURICE, _alias_ CAPTAIN ROCK,
CONVICTED OF ABDUCTION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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