ordered every common man to be instantly hung upon the boughs of trees and
elsewhere, and the officers to be committed to three separate jails in the
West of England upon a charge of high treason, for making war against the
troops of the Commonwealth, in order to depose the Protector, and with an
intent to alter the government and constitution of the country, as by the
then law established. Upon which charge they were tried, found guilty, and
sentenced by the very judges whom they had before imprisoned at Salisbury,
to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but upon petition their sentence was
mitigated by Cromwell to that of being beheaded. Colonel Hunt was sent
back after trial to be executed at this very jail, and possibly might have
been confined, if not in the same room, upon the very same spot wherein
his descendant is now writing the account of the transaction, which has
descended by tradition and written documents to him as the heir of the
family, and which written documents in proof thereof, are now in his
possession. However, be that as it may, it is therein recorded that Hunt's
two sisters, Elizabeth and Margery, came to visit him the night previous
to his execution, which was ordered to take place at day-break the next
morning. The regulations of the jail not being so strictly performed as
they are now, his sister Margery slept in his bed all night, while the
Colonel, who had dressed himself in her clothes, walked out of the prison
unperceived with his sister Elizabeth and escaped; but, as it is recorded
by himself, being a stranger in the neighbourhood, and fearful of keeping
in the high-way, he had lost himself in the night and had wandered about,
so that when day-light arrived he had not got so far from the jail but
that he heard the bell toll for his execution. At this awful period he met
a collier carrying a bag of coals upon his horse, and having ascertained
by some conversation that he had with him, that he was friendly to the
cause of the Stuarts and hostile to the Protector, he was induced to
discover himself, and to place his person and his life in his power, of
which he had no reason to repent, as the man proved faithful, and assisted