Transcription
EXECUTION. An Account of the Execution of John Stuart and Catherine Wright his Wife, for the Murder of Robert Lamont, by poison, on board of the Toward Castle Steam Boat. Wednesday, Aug. 19, John Stuart, and Catherine Wright attoned for their atrocious crimes on the scaffold. With the exception of Burke, no criminal has excited so much public detestation as the hardened villain of whom justice has now ridded society. The fate of the woman, though in a legal point of view, was equally criminal with her husband, has excited comparatively a degree of compas- sion in the breasts of those acquainted with the circumstances in which she had all along been placed with regard to Stuart. At- tached to him in an infatuated degree, she suffered every kind of abuse at his hands; and yet she continued to aet as his coadjutor, and to serve him as faithfully as if he had behaved to her with in- cessant kindness. Stuart, previous to his trial, in conjunction with the criminals amongst whom he mixed in the prison, planned, and had actually commenced operations, by which he expected to effect his escape. His intention was to murder the turnkey who wasin immediate attendance, and, after perpetrating this atrocity,to kill Mr Fisher, the lieutenant governor of the jail, in whose pos- session are the keys of the principel entrance. Luokily the scheme was discovered in time to counteract the daring operations of the prisoner. Since they received sentence of death they have been regularly visited by the Rev. Dr Gordon and the Rev. Mr Porteous, chaplain to the prison, who have been unwearied in their administrations of religious instruction and consolation. They paid most implicit at- tention to the advices and admonitions of their spiritual instructors, they conversed freely on the wickedness and enormity of their past lives, and they deeply deplored their disregard of industry and mo- rality, and their utter neglect of the holy precepts of the Gospel, which alone can insure comfort, prosperity, and respectability on this earth, and eternal felicity in the world to come. At the suggestion of the ministers, they were daily brought to- gether for a short time to hear the same exhortations, and they were- inspired with the same grounds of hope. They spent most of their time in reading the Bible and such religions books as were allowed them by the minsters, and they were by no means so brutishly igno- rant as they might be supposed to be from the enormity, of their crimes. The unhappy criminals slept little during Tuesday night in the Lock-up-house, (being previously brought from the Salton hill Jail, when, upon parting with the humane Governor and Turnkeys who had them under their charge, they expressed their utmost gratitude for the humanity and kindness with which they were treated by them.) In the morning as soon as the Clergymen were announced, they left their cells, and entered immediately and to appearance seemingly anxiously, into conversation with these worthy men, who during their confinement in the Jail, were unwearied in their pious. endeavours to bring them to a sense of the awful situation in which they were placed; and we are happy to say trial their exertions were crowned with success, for their last moments were solely taken up with enquiries after their future prospects; this alone oceupied their thoughts, while the preparations were making for their final exit,?no earthly ideas seemed at this time to engross their atten- tion. When the magistrates were announced, the executioner prepared to pinion their arms;?Stuart submitted with a degree of calm fortitude, but his frail companion shewed some signs of faint- ness at this doleful ceremony. At a few minutes after eight they left the Lock-up-house, and proceeded by Libberton's wynd to the scaffold, which was strongly guarded by a body of Police, and around which, in a compact mass, were thousands, male and female, anxiously waiting to see the last sentence of the law put into effect. Prayers were offered up to Him, who alone is able to grant repent- ance for manifold sins, and a psalm chosen for the awful occasion was sung. They were then supported to the drop, and after shaking hands, and offering up an inward prayer, Stuart dropt the signal, and thus attoned for the awful crimes of which they were guilty. John Stuart was 32 years of age, a native of Ireland, and a Blacksmith by trade. He married Catherine Wright about six years ago;?she was a native of Glasgow, and 22 years ages. During; these six years, they have chiefly subsisted on the proceeds- of their murderous and. diabolical resources.
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Date of publication:
1829 shelfmark: Ry.III.a.2(89)
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