“They all, except the two Mills’s, seemed sensible of the heinous nature of the crime for which they died, and behaved as became men in their unhappy condition, more particularly Carter; but the Mills’s, father and son, appeared hardened and unaffected, both in the gaol and at the gallows, especially the son, who seemed by his behaviour, even when his rope was fixed to the gallows, to be as little moved at what he was about to suffer, as the most unconcerned spectator. However, just before the cart drove away, he and his father seemed to offer up some prayers to God.
“R. Sandham,
“Vicar of Subdeanry in Chichester.
“John Smyth,
“Curate of St. Pancras.”
As Jackson died so soon after condemnation, no other account can be given of him, than he was of Aldsworth, near Rowland’s Castle, in Hampshire, labourer, aged about 50 years; and that being very ill all the time of his trial, as he had been for a considerable time before, was shocked at the sentence of death, and the apprehensions of being hung in chains, to such a degree as hastened and brought on his death before he could pay the forfeit of his life in that ignominy to which he was most deservedly doomed, and more particularly due to him as a ringleader in the most cruel and horrid barbarities and murders.
He professed the Romish religion some years before his death, and that he died a Roman Catholic may very reasonably be presumed from a printed paper that was found carefully sewed upon a linen purse in his waistcoat pocket immediately after his death, supposed to be a popish relique, and containing the following words, viz.:—
“Sancti tres Reges
Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar,
Orate pro Nobis nunc et in Hora Mortis Nostræ.
Ces Billets ont touche aux trois Testes de S. S. Roys
a Cologne.
Ils sont pour Des Voyageurs, contre Les Malheurs de Chemins, Maux de Teste, Mal-cadaque, Fievres, Sorcellerie, toute sorte de Malefice, Morte subite.”
In English thus: