EARL FERRERS EXECUTED.

On the fifth day of May, his body being demanded by the sheriffs at the Tower-gate, in consequence of a writ under the great seal of England, directed to the lieutenant of the Tower, his lordship desired permission to go in his own landau; and appeared gaily dressed in a light coloured suit of clothes, embroidered with silver. He was attended in the landau by one of the sheriffs, and the chaplain of the Tower, followed by the chariots of the sheriffs, a mourning coach and six, filled with his friends, and a hearse for the conveyance of his body. He was guarded by a posse of constables, and a party of horse grenadiers, and a detachment of infantry; and in this manner the procession moved from the Tower, through an infinite concourse of people, to Tyburn, where the gallows, and the scaffold erected under it, appeared covered with black baize. The earl behaved with great composure to Mr. sheriff Vaillant, who attended him in the landau: he observed that the gaiety of his apparel might seem odd on such an occasion, but that he had particular reasons for wearing that suit of clothes; he took notice of the vast multitude which crowded round him, brought thither, he supposed, by curiosity to see a nobleman hanged: he told the sheriff he had applied to the king by letter, that he might be permitted to die in the Tower, where the earl of Essex, one of his ancestors, had been beheaded in the reign of queen Elizabeth; an application which, he said, he had made with the more confidence, as he had the honour to quarter part of his majesty’s arms. He expressed some displeasure at being executed as a common felon, exposed to the eyes of such a multitude. The chaplain who had never been admitted to him before, hinting that some account of his lordship’s sentiments on religion would be expected by the public, he made answer that he did not think himself accountable to the public for his private sentiments; that he had always adored one God, the creator of the universe; and with respect to any particular opinions of his own, he had never propagated them, or endeavoured to make proselytes, because he thought it was criminal to disturb the established religion of his country, as lord Bolingbroke had done by the publication of his writings. He added, that the great number of sects, and the multiplication of religious disputes, had almost banished morality. With regard to the crime for which he suffered, he declared that he had no malice against Mr. Johnson; and that the murder was owing to a perturbation of mind, occasioned by a variety of crosses and vexations. When he approached the place of execution, he expressed an earnest desire to see and take leave of a certain person who waited in the coach, a person for whom he entertained the most sincere regard and affection; but the sheriff prudently observing that such an interview might shock him, at a time when he had occasion for all his fortitude and recollection, he acquiesced in the justness of the remark, and delivered to him a pocket-book, a ring, and a purse, desiring they might be given to that person, whom he now declined seeing. On his arrival at Tyburn he came out of the landau, and ascended the scaffold with a firm step and undaunted countenance. He refused to join the chaplain in his devotions; but kneeling with him on black cushions, he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, which he said he had always admired; and added, with great energy, “O Lord, forgive me all my errors, pardon all my sins.” After this exercise, he presented his watch to Mr. sheriff Vaillant; thanked him and the other gentlemen for all their civilities; and signified his desire of being buried at Breden or Stanton, in Leicestershire. Finally, he gratified the executioner with a purse of money; then, the halter being adjusted to his neck, he stepped upon a little stage, erected upon springs, on the middle of the scaffold; and the cap being pulled over his eyes, the sheriff made a signal, at which the stage fell from under his feet, and he was left suspended. His body having hung an hour and five minutes, was cut down, placed in the hearse, and conveyed to the public theatre for dissection; where being opened, and lying for some days as the subject of a public lecture, at length it was carried off and privately interred. Without all doubt, this unhappy nobleman’s disposition was so dangerously mischievous, that it became necessary, for the good of society, either to confine him for life as au incorrigible lunatic, or give him up at once as a sacrifice to justice. Perhaps it might be no absurd or unreasonable regulation in the legislature, to divest all lunatics of the privilege of insanity, and, in cases of enormity, subject them to the common penalties of the law; for though, in the eye of casuistry, consciousness must enter into the constitution of guilt, the consequences of murder committed by a maniac may be as pernicious to society as those of the most criminal and deliberate assassination, and the punishment of death can be hardly deemed unjust or rigorous, when inflicted upon a mischievous being, divested of all the perceptions of reason and humanity. At any rate, as the nobility of England are raised by many illustrious distinctions above the level of plebeians, and as they are eminently distinguished from them in suffering punishment for high treason, which the law considers as the most atrocious crime that can be committed, it might not be unworthy of the notice of the legislature to deliberate whether some such pre-eminence ought not to be extended to noblemen convicted of other crimes, in order to alleviate as much as possible the disgrace of noble families which have deserved well of their country; to avoid any circumstance that may tend to diminish the lustre of the English nobility in the eyes of foreign nations; or to bring it into contempt with the common people of our own, already too licentious, and prone to abolish those distinctions which serve as the basis of decorum, order, and subordination.