Page:Life, strange voyages, and uncommon adventures of Ambrose Gwinett.pdf/9

Rh stitch upon them, could scarce fit their horses: for my own part, my mind (God help me) was with long agitation become so unfeeling, that I was in a manner insensible to every object about me. I however, heard the sheriff whisper the executioner to make what dispatch he could, without the least emotion, and suffered him to tuck me up like a log of wood, unconscious of what he was doing.

I can give no account of what I felt while I was hanging, something for a little time appeared about me like a blaze of fire; nor do I know how long I hung: no doubt but the violence of the weather favoured me greatly to that circumstance. What I am now going to tell you, I learned from my brother, which was, that after having hung about half an hour, the sheriff’s officers all went off, and I was cut down by the executioner; but when he came to put the irons upon me, it was found a mistake had been made, and that the irons of the other man, which were much too large for me, had been sent instead of mine. This they remedied as well as they could, by stuffing rags between my body and the loops that surrounded it; after which I was taken, according my sentence, to the place appointed, and hung upon a gibbet which was ready prepared.

The cloth over my face being but slightly tied, and suffering no pressure from the irons, which stood a great way from it, was, I suppose, soon dispatched by the wind, which was still rather violent, and probably its blowing on my bareface expedited my recovery; certain it is, that in this tremendous situation I came to myself.

It was, no doubt, a very great blessing, that I did not immediately return so perfectly to my senses