When The Poor Wretch
Was Brought In, He Was Greatly Emaciated And Almost Famished.
But on proper
restoratives being administered, he was so far recovered by the 24th,
as to be able to stand his trial, when he pleaded Guilty to the robbery
with which he stood charged, and received sentence of death.
In the course
of repeated examinations it plainly appeared, he was an utter stranger
to the place where the cattle might be, and was in no shape concerned
in having driven them off.
Samuel Peyton, convict, for having on the evening of the King's birth-day
broke open an officer's marquee, with an intent to commit robbery,
of which he was fully convicted, had sentence of death passed on him
at the same time as Corbet; and on the following day they were both executed,
confessing the justness of their fate, and imploring the forgiveness of those
whom they had injured. Peyton, at the time of his suffering, was but twenty
years of age, the greatest part of which had been invariably passed in the
commission of crimes, that at length terminated in his ignominious end.
The following letter, written by a fellow convict to the sufferer's unhappy
mother, I shall make no apology for presenting to the reader; it affords
a melancholy proof, that not the ignorant and untaught only have provoked
the justice of their country to banish them to this remote region.
Sydney Cove, Port Jackson,
New South Wales, 24th June, 1788.
"My dear and honoured mother!
"With a heart oppressed by the keenest sense of anguish,
and too much agitated by the idea of my very melancholy
condition, to express my own sentiments, I have prevailed
on the goodness of a commiserating friend, to do me the
last sad office of acquainting you with the dreadful fate
that awaits me.
"My dear mother! with what agony of soul do I dedicate the
few last moments of my life, to bid you an eternal adieu!
my doom being irrevocably fixed, and ere this hour to-morrow
I shall have quitted this vale of wretchedness, to enter
into an unknown and endless eternity. I will not distress
your tender maternal feelings by any long comment on the
cause of my present misfortune. Let it therefore suffice
to say, that impelled by that strong propensity to evil,
which neither the virtuous precepts nor example of the best
of parents could eradicate, I have at length fallen an unhappy,
though just, victim to my own follies.
"Too late I regret my inattention to your admonitions,
and feel myself sensibly affected by the remembrance of
the many anxious moments you have passed on my account.
For these, and all my, other transgressions, however great,
I supplicate the Divine forgiveness; and encouraged by the
promises of that Saviour who died for us all, I trust to
receive that mercy in the world to come, which my offences
have deprived me of all hope, or expectation of, in this.
The affliction which this will cost you, I hope the Almighty
will enable you to bear.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 36 of 47
Words from 18559 to 19073
of 24415
