me to a sentence of death, and the last would have done no
more. The next day I was carried down to receive the dreadful
sentence, and when they came to ask me what I had to say
why sentence should not pass, I stood mute a while, but
somebody that stood behind me prompted me aloud to speak
to the judges, for that they could represent things favourably
for me. This encouraged me to speak, and I told them I had
nothing to say to stop the sentence, but that I had much to say
to bespeak the mercy of the Court; that I hoped they would
allow something in such a case for the circumstances of it;
that I had broken no doors, had carried nothing off; that
nobody had lost anything; that the person whose goods they
were was pleased to say he desired mercy might be shown
(which indeed he very honestly did); that, at the worst, it was
the first offence, and that I had never been before any court
of justice before; and, in a word, I spoke with more courage
that I thought I could have done, and in such a moving tone,
and though with tears, yet not so many tears as to obstruct my
speech, that I could see it moved others to tears that heard me.
The judges sat grave and mute, gave me an easy hearing, and
time to say all that I would, but, saying neither Yes nor No to
it, pronounced the sentence of death upon me, a sentence that
was to me like death itself, which, after it was read, confounded
me. I had no more spirit left in me, I had no tongue to speak,
or eyes to look up either to God or man.
My poor governess was utterly disconsolate, and she that was
my comforter before, wanted comfort now herself; and sometimes
mourning, sometimes raging, was as much out of herself, as to
all outward appearance, as any mad woman in Bedlam. Nor
was she only disconsolate as to me, but she was struck with
horror at the sense of her own wicked life, and began to look
back upon it with a taste quite different from mine, for she
was penitent to the highest degree for her sins, as well as
sorrowful for the misfortune. She sent for a minister, too, a
serious, pious, good man, and applied herself with such
earnestness, by his assistance, to the work of a sincere repentance,
that I believe, and so did the minister too, that she was a true
penitent; and, which is still more, she was not only so for the
occasion, and at that juncture, but she continued so, as I was
informed, to the day of her death.
It is rather to be thought of than expressed what was now my
condition. I had nothing before me but present death; and as
I had no friends to assist me, or to stir for me, I expected
nothing but to find my name in the dead warrant, which was
to come down for the execution, the Friday afterwards, of five
more and myself.
In the meantime my poor distressed governess sent me a
minister, who at her request first, and at my own afterwards,
came to visit me. He exhorted me seriously to repent of all
my sins, and to dally no longer with my soul; not flattering
myself with hopes of life, which, he said, he was informed
there was no room to expect, but unfeignedly to look up to
God with my whole soul, and to cry for pardon in the name
of Jesus Christ. He backed his discourses with proper quotations
of Scripture, encouraging the greatest sinner to repent, and turn
from their evil way, and when he had done, he kneeled down
and prayed with me.
It was now that, for the first time, I felt any real signs of
repentance. I now began to look back upon my past life with
abhorrence, and having a kind of view into the other side of
time, and things of life, as I believe they do with everybody
at such a time, began to look with a different aspect, and quite