But be it payne or nat: there many suche ende.
At Newgate theyr garmentis are offred to be solde.
Theyr bodyes to the Jebet solemly ascende,
Wauynge with the wether whyle theyr necke wyl holde.
Alexander Barclay, The Ship of Fools, 1509.
Je suis persuadé que dans les treize cantons et leurs alliés, on pend moins de voleurs dans un an, que l’on ne fait à Londres dans une seule assise.—César de Saussure, Lettres et Voyages, 1725-1729.
Many cart-loads of our fellow-creatures are once in six weeks carried to slaughter.—Henry Fielding, Enquiry, etc., 1751.
The following malefactors were executed at Tyburn … John Kelly, for robbing Edward Adamson in a public street, of sixpence and one farthing.—Gentleman’s Magazine, March 7, 1783.
It is frequently said by them [the prisoners in Newgate] that the crimes of which they have been guilty are as nothing when compared with the crimes of Government towards themselves: that they have only been thieves, but that their governors have been murderers.—Mrs. Fry, 1818, quoted in Romilly’s Life, ii. 486-7.