Page:Life and unparalleled voyages and adventures of Ambrose Gwinnett (1).pdf/9

 I was brought to trial, and circumstances appearing strongly against me, I received sentence to be carried in a cart, the Wednesday fortnight following, 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 of my brother's house.

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

The Monday before the fatal day now arrivcd, when an cnd was to be put to my miseries. I was called down into the court of the prison; but I confess I was not a little shocked when I found it was to be measured for the irons in which I was to he hanged 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 gaoler, with as much calmness as if he had been ordering a pair of stays to 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 meditation and prayer. At length, Wednesday morning came, and about six o'clock I was put into the cart; but surc 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 thread about them, could scarcely sit on their horses. For my own part, my