During the interview he became utterly exhausted, and was compelled to cease from speaking altogether for a few minutes; and even when he was able to converse, it was in such a low tone that his words were almost inaudible to his friends, although they were only a few feet away from him.
Dan said he understood that his brother was going to send them all a farewell letter. Peace replied that it was his intention to do so.
He was going to write several letters, take them to the scaffold with him, and on arriving there he should seal them up and hand them to the chaplain, with the request that he would gratify him by sending them to his friends by as early a post as he could after the execution was over.
He hoped, he said, that the letters would be delivered by the same evening’s post, and then his relatives would have, before the day was over, his last thoughts about them.
The convict then went on to speak about his execution, mentioning details that made some of his relatives shudder, and all of them to grow sad.
He said: I am to die precisely at eight o’clock—so you will know when it is all over with me. After I am dead they will hold an inquest on my body, and I shall be buried, I expect about four o’clock in the afternoon.
Here he paused for a few minutes, partly because he seemed to be exhausted, and partly because he was overcome by his own feelings.
His relatives, seeing the distressed state he was in, broke down utterly, and for some little time there was nothing to be heard but their sobs.
Peace was the first to recover himself, and going on to speak of what would be done on Tuesday, he said: I shall be buried in my clothes, just as I am. They might, however, change my shirt, or something like that.
Then, again giving way and betraying more feeling than could possibly have been expected in a man who had led the life he had led, and committed the crimes to which he had confessed, he said: I shall be thrown into my grave, and there will be no service read over me; no sermon preached; nothing of that sort.