"Think not that I have any hope of mercy or pardon here. You have taught me how to hope for both hereafter. You have shown me much mercy and pity here, and the Lord reward you and my dear master for your unmerited compassion to your wretched servant! You have fortified my mind with the riches of consolation in that religion which I hope will be poured with tenfold increase into your own heart, and give you that peace you are so anxious I should possess. It grieves me to see my fellow-prisoners so unprepared for the fate which awaits them. Oh, that they had such friends as I have had! Oh, that they had been partakers of the same consolation as myself! And now, dearest lady, I have only to request your mention of me in your prayers. Bless you, my dear madam! God bless you and your dear children, and may they live to be a blessing to your old age! Give my kind thanks to all those friends who may ever inquire about me. And now, dearest lady, pardon the errors of this letter, as you have done all the graver faults of your ever grateful and now happier servant, "MARGARET CATCHPOLE. "To MRS. COBBOLD, St. Margaret's Green, Ipswich." Margaret, with several other prisoners, departed for Bury assizes in the prisoners' van, which started at six o'clock on the 9th of August, 1797, under the care of Mr. Ripshaw, the gaoler, and arrived at that place about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The town was in a bustle, and the prisoners were received into the borough gaol that day an hour or so previously to their trial--a day of anxiety to many, but by too many spent in revelry and folly. The various witnesses crowded into the town. The inns were filled on the 8th. Expectation was alive and active; and the bustle of preparing for business created a stir throughout that town, which at other times is the most silent, the coldest, and the dullest place in England. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 9: The writer of these pages, one of the sons of that excellent woman, was born on the 9th of September following.] CHAPTER XXIII TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION TO DEATH There are few things that appear in greater and more painful contrast than the general rejoicing which attends the assizes of a country town, and the solemn and awful purposes for which those assizes are held. It may be said, that it is matter of rejoicing when justice is about to be administered; and that honest people have a right to be glad when the wicked are about to be punished. But there is great difference between a reasonable show of rejoicing, and the overflowings of pomp and parade, levity and folly.