They were both very obstinate men, and could not be brought to think that smuggling was a crime, and when asked if they did not think robbing farmer Havendon, for which they were convicted, was a crime, they said they did, and begged pardon of him for it, but that if they had not been obliged to hide themselves from their home, for fear of being apprehended as smugglers, they should never have committed robberies.
Thomas Fuller, about thirty years of age, born in Kent, at first denied the robbery for which he was to suffer, and often said it was very hard to take away the life of a man on the single testimony of one person, who was to receive a reward for so doing; but the day before his execution he was brought to a confession of the fact, and acknowledged he did commit it in the manner it was sworn at his trial.
His wife attended him at his trial, and during his condemnation, for whose misfortunes he often declared himself sorry, and said he did not value death, but that he left her to the reproaches of a censorious world; but begged for God’s sake, that nobody would reflect on her or any of her family, for none of them were ever privy to his wicked actions.
He acknowledged he had been a smuggler many years, and was as deeply concerned as most of them; but that he was not concerned in breaking open the King’s warehouse at Poole, nor in the murders of Galley and Chater; but confessed he had been a very wicked sinner.
On Saturday, the 1st day of April last, they were all taken out of Horsham gaol and carried to the gallows, where they all seemed much more composed and devout than they had been before. None of them made any confessions, only desired all the spectators to take warning by their untimely end, particularly all young people.
After they had said their prayers some time, they were all tied up to the gallows and turned out of a cart, crying to the Lord to receive their souls.
We shall now give our readers, as we promised, an account of those four notorious smugglers, tried also at the assizes at Rochester, for the county of Kent, for divers robberies, and who were executed on Pickenden Heath, near Maidstone; whose method of robbing was going in the evening, disguised, and getting into houses, then binding all the family and robbing the same.
Stephen Diprose and James Bartlett were indicted, together with John Crumpton, not yet taken, for forcibly entering the dwelling-house of John Rich, of Linton, in the county of Kent, on the 31st of October last, putting him in fear of his life, and feloniously taking away £170l. in money, one small box and three gold rings.
The prosecutor deposed that about six o’clock in the evening on the 31st of October, somebody knocked at the door, and on his servant going to see who it was, four men rushed in, all disguised, with pistols and cutlasses in their hands. When they came in they demanded money, and asked him where his money was, upon which he desired they would be easy, and he would give them what he had. But they put one over him, and two of them went and rifled the house; and when they were gone he missed the money, &c., mentioned in the indictment.