The recollection of such unexpected kindness seemed to quite overpower the convict, and he displayed more feeling than he had done throughout.
No. 98.
PEACE’S LAST BREAKFAST ON THE MORNING OF EXECUTION.
Commencing with his daughter, he asked each separately whether there was anything either wanted to ask him or to say to him. They were too much overcome to reply to him for a while; but presently Mrs. Peace said they had plenty to say to him, but not then.
He begged of her not to break down, and reminded her that that was the last time she would have an opportunity of speaking to him on this side of the grave.
He again asked her what she wished to say, and she reminded him that when there before he promised to pray with them when they came that day. He replied, “So I will.”
The warders assisted him to kneel, and his friends knelt with him, and more than half an hour he prayed with them. He remembered each of them separately, and was especially earnest in his petitions for the little babe that his daughter had with her.
He then prayed for young Habron, and asked that his innocence might be proved; and he prayed for Habron’s father and mother.
With a choking voice, almost drowned by the sobs of his relatives, he prayed for the two men he had murdered, and for the relatives they had left behind; and, in conclusion, he prayed long and earnestly for himself that his sins might be forgiven him, and that he might meet them all in heaven.