“A number of witnesses came forward, and the proofs were so strong that the jury without hesitation found the prisoner guilty. “It was remarked as a singularity that he happened to be tried and sentenced by his namesake, Sir George Caulfeild, at that time Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, which office he resigned in the summer of the year 1760. “After sentence Caulfield confessed the fact. It came that Hickey had been in the West Indies two and twenty years, but falling into a bad state of health, he was returning to his native country (Ireland) bringing with him some money his industry had acquired. The vessel on board which he took his passage was, by stress of weather, driven into Minehead. He there met with Frederick Caulfield, an Irish sailor, who was poor and much distressed for clothes and common necessaries. Hickey compassionating his poverty, and finding he was his countryman, relieved his wants, and an intimacy commenced between them. They agreed to go to Ireland together; and it was remarked on their passage that Caulfield spoke contemptuously, and often said it was a pity that such a puny fellow as Hickey should have money, and he himself without a shilling. They landed at Waterford, at which place they stayed some days, Caulfield being all the time supported by Hickey, who bought some clothes for him. The assizes being held in the town during that time, it was afterwards recollected that they were both at the Court-house, and attended the whole of a trial of a shoemaker who was convicted of the murder of his wife. But this made no impression on the hardened mind of Caulfield, for the very next day he perpetrated the same crime on the road between Waterford and Carrick-on-Suir, near which town Hickey’s relations lived. “He walked to the gallows with firm step and undaunted countenance. He spoke to the multitude who surrounded him, and in the course of his address mentioned that he had been bred at a charter-school, from which he was taken as an apprenticed servant by William Izod, Esq., of the county of Kilkenny. From this position he ran away on being corrected for some faults, and had been absent from Ireland six years. He confessed also that he had several times intended to murder Hickey on the road from Waterford to Portlaw, which, though in general not a road much frequented, yet people at that time continually coming in sight, prevented him. “Being frustrated in all his schemes, the sudden and total disappointment threw him probably into an indifference for life. Some tempers are so stubborn and rugged that nothing can affect them, but immediate sensation. If to this be united the darkest ignorance, death to such characters will hardly seem terrible, because they can form no conception of what it is, and still less of the consequences that may follow.”