When they were all come out of the house, Jackson returned with a pistol in his hand, and asked for a belt, a strap, or string: but none of the people in the house presumed to give him either; upon which he returned to the rest of the gang, who were lifting Galley on a horse, whose legs they tied under the horse’s belly; then they lifted Chater on the same horse, and tied his legs under the horse’s belly, and then tied their four legs together.
All this time John Race was with them; but when they began to set forward, Race said, “I cannot go with you for I have never a horse,” and so stayed behind.
They had not gone above a hundred yards, before Jackson called out “Whip them, cut them, slash them, damn them”; and then all fell upon them except the person who was leading the horse, which was Steel; for the roads were so bad that they were forced to go very slow.
They whipped them till they came to Wood’s Ashes, some with long whips and some with short, lashing and cutting them over the head, face, eyes and shoulders, till the poor men, unable any longer to bear the anguish of their repeated blows, rolled from side to side, and at last fell together with their heads under the horse’s belly; in which posture every step the horse made, he struck one or the other of their heads with his feet. This happened at Wood’s Ashes, which was more than half a mile from the place where they began their whipping, and had continued it all the way thither. When their cruel tormentors saw the dismal effects of their barbarity, and that the poor creatures had fallen under it, they sat them upright again in the same position as they were before, and continued whipping them in the most cruel manner over the head, face, shoulders, and everywhere, till they came beyond Goodthorpe Dean, upwards of half a mile farther, the horse still going a very slow pace; where they both fell again as before, with their heads under the horse’s belly, and their heels up in the air.
Now they found them so weak that they could not sit upon the horse at all, upon which they separated them, and put Galley behind Steel, and Chater behind Little Sam, and then whipped Galley so severely, that the lashes coming upon Steel, he desired them to desist, crying out himself that he could not bear it, upon which they desisted accordingly. All the time they so continued to whip them, Jackson rode with a pistol cocked, and swore as they went along through Dean, if they made any noise he would blow their brains out. They then agreed to go up with them to Harris’s Well near Lady Holt Park, where they swore they would murder Galley; accordingly they took him off the horse and threatened to throw him into the well. Upon which the poor unhappy man desired them to dispatch him at once, or even throw him down the well, to put an end to his misery. “No, G—d d—n your blood,” says Jackson, “if that’s the case, we must have something more to say to you”; and then put him on a horse again, and whipped him over the Downs till he was so weak that he fell.
Was ever cruelty like this! To deny a miserable wretch, who was half dead with their blows and bruises, the wretched favour of a quick dispatch out of his tortures! Could the devil himself have furnished a more execrable invention to punish the wretched victims of his malice, than to grant them life only to prolong their torments!
Poor Galley not being able to sit on horseback any longer, Carter and Jackson took him up and laid him across the saddle, with his breast over the pommel, as a butcher does a calf, and Richards got up behind him to hold him, and after carrying him in this manner above a mile, Richards was tired of holding him, so let him down by the side of the horse; and then Carter and Jackson put him upon the grey horse that Steel had before rode upon; they set him up with his legs across the saddle, and his body over the horse’s mane; and in this posture Jackson held him on for half a mile, most of the way the poor man cried out “Barbarous usage! barbarous usage! for God’s sake shoot me through the head”; Jackson all the time squeezing his private parts.
After going on in this manner upwards of a mile, Little Harry tied Galley with a cord, and got up behind him, to hold him from falling off; and when they had gone a little way in that manner, the poor man, Galley, cried out “I fall, I fall, I fall”; and Little Harry, giving him a shove as he was falling, said, “Fall and be d——d”; upon which he fell down, and Steel said that they all thought he had broke his neck, and was dead; but it must be presumed he was buried alive, because when he was found, his hands covered his face, as if to keep the dirt out of his eyes.
Poor unhappy Galley! who can read the melancholy story of thy tragical catastrophe without shedding tears at the sorrowful relation? What variety of pains did thy body feel in every member of it, especially by thy privy parts being so used? What extremity of anguish didst thou groan under, so long as the small remains of life permitted thee to be sensible of it! And after all, to be buried while life was yet in thee, and to struggle with death even in thy wretched grave, what imagination can form to itself a scene of greater horror, or more detestable villainy? Sure thy murderers must be devils incarnate! for none but the fiends of Hell could take pleasure in the torments of two unhappy men, who had given them no offence, unless their endeavouring to serve their king and country may be deemed such. This indeed was the plea of these vile miscreants; but a very bad plea it was to support as bad a cause. But such is the depravity of human nature, that when a man once abandons himself to all manner of wickedness, he sets no bounds to his passions, his conscience is seared, every tender sentiment is lost, reason is no more, and he has nothing left him of the man but the form.
We forgot to mention in its proper place that in order to make their whipping the more severely felt, they pulled off Galley’s great coat, which was found in the road next morning all bloody.