were so clearly proved that conviction was imperative. For some time he was buoyed up with the hope of reprieve, but this failed him at the last, and he went to Tyburn solemnly declaring that Ransom hit him first; that he had no malice against the deceased, and he hardly remembered leaving the ranks to strike him.
Two cases may well be inserted here, although belonging to a somewhat later date. Both were murders committed under the influence of strong excitement: one was the fierce outburst of passionate despair at unrequited love; the other the rash action of a quick-tempered man who was vested for the moment with absolute power. The first was the murder of Miss Reay by the Rev. James Hackman, the second the flogging to death of the Sergeant Armstrong by order of Colonel Wall, Lieutenant-Governor of Goree.
Mr. Hackman had held a commission in the 68th Foot, and while employed on the recruiting service at Huntingdon, had been hospitably received at Hinchingbroke, the seat of Lord Sandwich. At that time a Miss Reay resided there under the protection of his lordship, by whom she had had nine children. Hackman fell desperately in love with Miss Reay, and the lady did not altogether reject his attentions. A correspondence between them, which bears every appearance of authenticity, was published after the murder under the title of "Love and Madness," and the letters on
both sides are full of ardent protestations. Hackman continued to serve for some time, but the exile from the sight of his beloved became so intolerable that he sold out, took orders, and entered the Church, obtaining eventually the living of Wiverton in Norfolk.
He had determined to marry Miss Reay if she would accept him, and one of the last letters of the correspondence above quoted proves that the marriage arrangements were all but completed. On the 1st March, 1779, he writes: "In a month or six weeks at farthest from this time I might certainly call you mine. Only remember that my character now I have taken orders renders exhibition necessary. By to-night's post I shall write into Norfolk about the alterations at our parsonage." But within a few weeks a cloud overshadowed his life. It is only vaguely indicated in a letter to a friend, dated the 20th March, in which he hints at a rupture between Miss Reay and himself. "What I shall do I know not—without her I do not think I can exist." A few days later he wrote to the same friend: "Despair goads me on—death only can relieve me. . . . What then have I to do, who only lived when she loved me, but cease to live now she ceases to love?"
At this period it is evident that the idea of suicide only occupied his overwrought brain. He wrote on the 7th April: "When this reaches you I shall be no more. . . . You know where my affections
were placed; my having by some means or other lost hers (an idea which I could not support) has driven me to madness." So far he does not appear to have contemplated any violence against Miss Reay, for in his letter he commends her to the kind offices of his friend. He spent that day in self-communing and in reading a volume of Doctor Blair's sermons. In the evening he went from his lodgings in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane, towards the Admiralty, and saw Miss Reay drive by to the Covent Garden Theatre. He followed her into the theatre and gazed at her for the last time. Then, unable to restrain the violence of his passion, he returned to his lodgings, and having loaded two pistols, returned to Covent Garden, where he waited in the piazza till the play was over. When Miss Reay came out he stepped up with a pistol in each hand. One he fired at her, and killed her on the spot; the other he discharged at himself, but without fatal effect. He was at once arrested, and when his wound had been dressed, was committed by Sir John Fielding to Tothill Fields, and afterwards to Newgate. He wrote from prison to the same friend as follows:
"I am alive——and she is dead. I shot her, shot her, and not myself. Some of her blood and brains is still upon my clothes. I don't ask you to speak to me, I don't ask you to look at me, only come hither and bring me a little poison, such as is strong enough. Upon my knees I beg, if your
friendship for me ever was sincere, do, do bring me some poison."
Next day he was more composed, and declared that nothing should tempt him to escape justice by suicide. "My death," he writes, "is all the recompense I can make to the laws of my country." He was tried before Mr. Justice Blackstone of the Commentaries, and convicted on the clearest evidence. A plea of insanity was set up in his defence, but could not be maintained. His dignified address to the jury had nothing of madness in it, and it is probable that he had no real desire to escape the just punishment for his crime. This is shown by his answer to Lord Sandwich, who wrote: