Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 by E. Keble (Edward Keble) Chatterton
page 76 of 341 (22%)
and to be hung afterwards in chains and in ignominy, rapidly hastened
his death, and relieved the executioner of at least one portion of his
duty. He had been one of the worst smugglers in his time, and was even
a thief among thieves, for he would even steal his confederates'
goods. Between the sentence and the hour for execution a man came into
the prison to measure the seven culprits for the irons in which their
bodies were subsequently to be hung by chains. And this distressed the
men more than anything else, most of all Jackson, who presently
succumbed as stated.

Mills, senior, had gradually been drawn into the smuggling business,
though previously he had been quite a respectable man. After giving up
actual smuggling, he still allowed his house to be used as a
store-place for the contraband goods. His son, Richard, also one of
the seven, had been concerned in smuggling for years, and was a daring
fellow. John Cobby, the third of the culprits, was of a weaker
temperament, and had been brought under the influence of the
smugglers. Benjamin Tapner was especially penitent, and "hoped all
young people would take warning by his untimely fate, and keep good
company, for it was bad company had been his ruin." William Carter
complained that it was Jackson who had drawn him away from his honest
employment to go smuggling, but John Hammond was of a more obdurate
nature, and had always hated the King's officers.

According to the testimony of the Rev. John Smyth, who visited them in
gaol, all the prisoners received the Holy Communion at ten o'clock,
the morning after being sentenced to death. All the prisoners except
the two Mills admitted that they deserved the sentence, but all the
surviving six acknowledged that they forgave everybody. On January 19,
1748-9, they were executed. The two Mills were not hung in chains, but
DigitalOcean Referral Badge