Martha Ray bore several children to the Earl. One of them, Basil Montagu, is in our days remembered, if at all, by a savage snarl of Carlyle at the man and his parentage (“Reminiscences,” i. 224), “considerably a humbug if you probed too strictly.” Basil has already been mentioned in this book as the founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge upon the Punishment of Death. By his numerous writings on this subject he did perhaps more than any other man to bring home to the public the frightful cruelty of our criminal law. He may at least be credited with sincerity in this matter. On one occasion, in 1801, he posted through the night to Huntingdon, arriving with a respite just in time to save the lives of two men. Lord Sandwich gave to the world a thing and its name. He was an inveterate gambler, and, in order that he might continue this diversion uninterruptedly, he caused to be served to him thin slices of meat placed between bread. Hence the “sandwich,” known to all civilised men. =1779.= _August 25._ Four malefactors were carried to Tyburn for execution, and had been tied up for near twenty minutes when a report was spread that a reprieve was come to Newgate for one of them. They were all untied and left in the cart while one of the sheriffs went to Lord Weymouth to learn the truth. No reprieve having been granted, the execution took place at near one o’clock. =1779.= _October 27._ Isabella Condon, condemned for coining, was at Tyburn first strangled, and then burnt. =1780.= _April 12._ A man was executed at Tyburn for robbing the house of Jeremiah Bentham. This was the father of Jeremy Bentham. One wonders whether this execution directed his thoughts to the question of capital punishment. =1781.= _July 27._ Francis Henry de la Motte, executed at Tyburn for giving to the French Government information as to the movement of British ships. The sentence was in the usual form for high treason, that he should be hanged “but not till you are dead,” but he was allowed to hang for nearly an hour. The head was severed from the body, four incisions made in the body, and part of the entrails thrown into a fire. Then the body was delivered to an undertaker, and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard. =1783.= _August 29._ William Wynne Ryland executed at Tyburn for forgery. Ryland was an engraver of repute in the manner of Bartolozzi. He is the subject of a careful study, perhaps too sympathetic, by Mr. Bleackley, in his “Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold,” 1905. =1783.= _November 7._ On this day took place the last execution at Tyburn. The occasion requires us to give in full the account, not otherwise particularly interesting. It is quoted from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_:—