The abominable assassins were very soon apprehended, and found guilty under the Coventry Act, and hanged at Tyburn, July 31, 1765, amid the execrations of an enraged multitude.
The “Coventry Act” is a statute of the 22d and 23d Charles II.; its provision in respect of this crime is to the following effect:—“If any person, on purpose, and by malice aforethought, and by laying in wait, shall unlawfully cut or disable the tongue, put out an eye, slit the nose, cut off a nose or lip, or cut off or disable any limb or member of any subject, with intention, in so doing, to maim or disfigure him, the person so offending, his counsellors, aiders, abettors (knowing of, and privy to, the offence), shall be guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy.” It is called the Coventry Act because it was passed on Sir John Coventry being assaulted, and having his nose slit in the street; and the following anecdote is related of the circumstances under which this outrage was committed.
In the committee of ways and means, in the House of Commons, it had been resolved that, towards the supply, every one that resorts to any of the playhouses, who sits in the boxes, shall pay one shilling; every one who sits in the pit shall pay sixpence; and every other person threepence. This resolution (to which the House disagreed upon the report) was opposed in the committee by the courtiers, who gave for a reason “That the players were the king’s servants, and a part of his pleasure.” To this Sir John Coventry, one of the members, by way of reply, asked “Whether the king’s pleasure lay among the men or among the women players?” This being reported at court, it was highly resented; and a resolution was privately taken to set a mark on Sir John, to prevent others from taking the like liberties.
December the 20th was the night that the House of Commons adjourned for the Christmas holidays. On the 25th, one of the Duke of Monmouth’s troop of life-guards and some few foot, lay in wait from ten at night till two in the morning, by Suffolk Street; and as Sir John returned from the tavern, where he supped, to his own house, they threw him down, and, with a knife, cut the end of his nose almost off; but company coming made them fearful to finish it.
The debates which this affair occasioned in the House of Commons ran very high, and one of the members emphatically called the attack on Coventry “A horrid un-English act.”
The result was that the statute in question was passed.
PETER M‘KINLIE, GEORGE GIDLEY, ANDREW ZEKERMAN, AND RICHARD ST. QUINTIN.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THIS case exhibits a remarkable series of adventures which occurred to the unfortunate man, who, after having survived many engagements and imprisonments, was doomed to become one of the victims of a horrid and piratical scheme.
The unfortunate Captain Glass was the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland, who obtained some notice from his writings, in which he opposed the practice of religion according to particular forms, and was founder of a sect called Glassites. At an early period of his life, young Glass exhibited talents of no ordinary character; and having taken a degree of Master of Arts at one of the Scotch universities, he applied himself to the study of medicine. He made rapid progress in this new line of learning; and after he had taken the necessary degrees, was employed as a surgeon on board a trading vessel bound for the coast of Guinea, and in that capacity he afterwards made several voyages to America. His superior qualifications gained him a distinguished place in the esteem of several merchants, who entrusted to him the command of a vessel in the Guinea trade; and his conduct proved highly to the advantage of his owners, and equally honourable to himself.