Page:Life, strange voyages, and uncommon adventures of Ambrose Gwinett.pdf/8

8 to the town of Deal, and there to be hanged before the innkeeper’s door where I had committed the murder; after which I was to be hung in chains within a little way of my brother’s house.

Nothing could have supported me under this dreadful condemnation, but a consciousness of my not being guilty of the crime for which I was to suffer. My friends now began to consider my declaration of innocence as persisting in falsehood, to the perdition of my soul; many of them discontinued their inquiries after me; and those few that still came to visit me, only came to urge me to confession; but I was resolved I would never die with a lie of that kind in my mouth.

The Monday was now arrived before the fatal day, when an end was to be put to my miseries. I was called down into the court of the prison, but I own I was not a little shocked, when I found it was to be measured off for the irons in which I was to be hung after execution. A fellow-prisoner appeared before me in the same woful plight, (he had robbed the mail) and the smith was measuring him when I came down; while the goaler, with as much calmness, as if he had been ordering a pair of stays for his daughter, was giving directions in what manner the irons should be made, so as to support the man, who was remarkably heavy and corpulent.

Between this and the day of my execution, I spent my time alone in prayer and meditation. At length Wednesday morning came, and about six o’clock I was put into the cart; but sure, such a day of wind, rain and thunder, never blew out of the heavens: it pursued us all the way; and when we arrived at Deal, it became so violent, that the sheriff and his officers, who had not a dry stitch