Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Wainewright were subsequently put to the bar together and arraigned upon an indictment, in which they were charged jointly with removing a stamp from one deed and affixing it to another, but the evidence being inconclusive, they were declared to be Not guilty.
The court during the whole day was crowded to excess, and the greatest interest appeared to be excited amongst the inhabitants of Leeds, where the prisoners had lived, many of whom were present. Mr. Blackburn was dressed in a suit of mourning, with his hair powdered. He conducted himself with great propriety during the trial, but upon the verdict of Guilty being returned he appeared to be completely unmanned. He paid no attention whatever to the proceedings in the second trial, nor was he observed to take any notice of his fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wainewright, upon his being placed by his side.
Upon the Wednesday after the trial, sentence of death was passed upon the unhappy man, and on Friday the 24th March Mr. Justice Le Blanc quitted York, leaving him for execution on Saturday the 8th April. The interval was brief, and his friends determined to lose no time in applying to the Prince Regent for a mitigation of his sentence. A petition was accordingly prepared, praying for the exercise of the royal clemency towards him, and in the course of two or three days, this application for mercy was signed by upwards of three thousand persons, chiefly the fellow-townsmen of the unfortunate prisoner. On Sunday, the 26th March, Mr. Elliot Carrett, of Dewsbury, one of the attorneys employed in conducting the defence of the prisoner, went to London, for the purpose of presenting the petition to the Prince Regent, and of taking such other steps as should appear likely to contribute to the attainment of this object of the petition. Mrs. Blackburn, the wife of this unfortunate gentleman, also repaired to London, with the view if possible of throwing herself at the feet of his Royal Highness to supplicate for the life of her unhappy husband. Every means which zeal and friendship could suggest was used to give effect to this petition: applications were made to persons of influence and consideration in the state, to secure their co-operation, but, unhappily, without success; and every hope of procuring either a mitigation or suspension of the dreadful sentence of the law was extinguished by the following letter from Viscount Sidmouth, his Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Whitehall, 1st April, 1816.
“Sir,—I have laid before his Royal Highness the petition which I received on behalf of Joseph Blackburn, a prisoner under sentence of death in the Castle of York, for forgery; and I am under the painful necessity of acquainting you, that it did not appear to me consistent with my public duty, to advise his Royal Highness to remit or suspend the execution of the sentence passed upon this unfortunate person.
“I have the honour to be,
“Sir, your most obedient servant,
(Signed) “Sidmouth.”
Before the result of this application to the Prince Regent was known to either the prisoner or to his friends at Leeds, it was deemed advisable to submit to Mr. Justice Le Blanc, who was then at Lancaster, certain affidavits.
The object of these affidavits was to show that the deed was executed on the day it purported to bear date, which was on the 30th September 1812, and that as the dies spoken to by Mr. Topham were not delivered at the office of Mr. Blackburn until the following month, it was quite impossible that any forgery of the stamp on the deed in question, could have been made by him at the time it was executed.
This application like that to the Crown was unsuccessful, and the unhappy prisoner having received an intimation that no hope remained that his life would be spared, he proceeded anxiously and ardently to apply himself to his religious offices. He was attended up to the time of his execution by the Rev. John Hamilton, the minister of a dissenting congregation at Leeds, to whose religious exhortations he paid the utmost attention. He continued for some days to labour under a despondency approaching to despair, arising as he himself stated, not from the dread of temporal death, but from a deep consciousness of the aggravated guilt of his past life, his total neglect of religious observances, and his gross indulgence in forbidden sensual pleasures. He stated “that the irregularities of his past life had been so great as to have deserved that death which had been awarded against him for an offence of a different nature.” He added, “that these crimes had been committed against light and knowledge, and that he had only repented of them, and thought upon religion, when every pleasure had been cut off, and every earthly hope had become extinct.” We rejoice however in being able to add, that in a few days some faint rays of hope penetrated the gloom which oppressed his mind; and as the merciful provisions of the gospel were unfolded to him, and its encouraging promises pressed upon his consideration, these hopes became brighter, and cast, if not a brilliant, yet a cheering ray of light on the gloomy path he had yet to tread.
On Thursday, the 6th of April, he attended the chapel, and heard with profound attention, a sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Richardson, who had some religious conversation with him after the other prisoners had retired. On Friday afternoon the prisoner had a last interview with his brother; his unhappy wife had come to York on the same painful errand, but on Mr. Hamilton representing to her that an interview might disturb the tranquillity of her husband’s last hours, she abstained from pressing the request which she had made. She had seen him only once since his conviction, and the meeting was of the most distressing nature.