“The other was carried to a place of safe custody, there kept chained on a heap of turf, expecting his doom for three days. During this dreadful interval, a second consultation was held, and a resolution taken to dispatch him too; not a single man of thirteen who were present offering a word in his behalf.
“He was accordingly hurried to his death; and though he begged earnestly to live but one day longer, that small respite was denied him. I will not repeat every circumstance: but I cannot forbear putting you in mind of one. When the poor man was told he must die that very night, some of you advised him to say his prayers, and accordingly he did address himself to prayer.
“One would have hoped that this circumstance should have softened your hearts, and turned you from the evil purpose you were bent upon. Happy had it been for you, if you had then reflected, that God Almighty was witness to every thing that passed among you, and to all the intentions of your hearts!
“But while the man, under great distraction of thought, was recommending his soul to mercy, he was interrupted in his devotion by two of you in a manner I scarce know how to repeat.
“I hope your hearts have been long since softened to a proper degree of contrition for these things; and that you have already made a due preparation for the sentence I am now to pass upon you.
“If you have not, pray lose not one moment more. Let not company, or the habit of drinking, or the hopes of life divert you from it; for Christian charity obliges me to tell you that your time in this world will be very short.
“Nothing now remains but that I pass that sentence upon you which the Law of your Country, in conformity to the Law of God, and to the practice of all ages and nations, has already pronounced upon the crime you have been guilty of. This court doth therefore award that you, Benjamin Tapner, William Carter, John Hammond, John Cobby, Richard Mills the elder, Richard Mills the younger, and William Jackson, and each of you shall be conveyed from hence to the prison from whence you came, and from thence you shall be led to the place of execution, where you shall be severally hanged by the neck, until you shall be dead, and the Lord have mercy upon your souls.”
Having now completed the trials of these seven bloody criminals, I shall next give you the short Appendix which has been published by three of the clergymen who attended them after their conviction, and who have signed their names to the same, after which I shall give a much fuller account of their wicked lives and behaviour.
After sentence, the prisoners were carried back to Chichester gaol. The court were pleased to order them all for execution the very next day, and that the bodies of Jackson, Carter, Tapner, Cobby, and Hammond, the five principals, should be hung in chains. Accordingly, they were carried from the gaol, to a place called the Broyle, near Chichester; where, in the presence of a great number of spectators, on Thursday, the 19th day of January last, about two o’clock in the afternoon, all of them were executed, except Jackson, who died in jail, about four hours after sentence of death was pronounced upon him.