The execution of Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, Davidson, and Tidd, took place on the following Monday, at Newgate. Davidson was the only prisoner who did not reject religious consolation; and Thistlewood, when on the scaffold, turned away from the ordinary, with an expression of indifference and contempt.
Thistlewood having been first called upon to ascend the gallows, he did so with much alacrity, and he was immediately followed by Tidd, who shook hands with all his companions, except Davidson, who was standing apart from the rest. At the moment he was going out Ings seized him by the hand, exclaiming with a shout of laughter, “Come, give us your hand; good bye,” but the remark was coldly received by the unfortunate convict, who dropped a tear, at the same time making some observation with regard to his “wife and daughter.” Ings, however, with the most astonishing degree of levity, cried out “Come, my old cock-o’-wax, keep up your spirits, it will be all over soon,” and Tidd appeared to squeeze his hand, and then attempted to run up the steps to the scaffold. In his haste and agitation he stumbled, but he quickly recovered himself, and, with a species of hysterical action, jumped upon the stage, and there stamped his feet as if anxious for the executioner to perform his dreadful office. He was received by the gazing multitude with loud cheers, which he acknowledged by repeated bows. While the executioner was fixing the fatal noose he appeared to recognise a friend at an opposite window, and he nodded to him with much ease and familiarity of manner. He repeatedly turned round and surveyed the assembled mob; and catching sight of the coffins, which were ranged behind the gallows, he smiled upon them with affected indifference and contempt. While waiting for the completion of the preparations for the execution of those whom he had left behind him in the press-room, he, as well as Thistlewood, was observed repeatedly to refresh himself by sucking an orange; but upon Mr. Cotton’s approaching him, like that prisoner, he rejected his proffered services.
Ings was the next who was summoned, and while on the scaffold he exhibited the same indecent levity of manner which he had shown in the press-room. He laughed while he sucked an orange, and on his being called, he screamed with a sort of mad effort,
“Oh! give me Death or Liberty!”
to which Brunt, who stood near him, rejoined, “Ay, to be sure: it is better to die free than to live like slaves.”
On being earnestly and charitably desired to turn their attention to more serious subjects, and to recollect the existence of a God, into whose presence they would soon be ushered, Brunt said, “I know there is a God;” and Ings, agreeing to this, added “that he hoped he would be more merciful to them than they were then.”
Just as the hatch was opening to admit him to the steps of the scaffold, he turned round to Brunt, and smiling, shook him by the hand, and then with a loud voice, cried out, “Remember me to King George the Fourth; God bless him, and may he have a long reign!” Then recollecting that he had left off the suit of clothes in which he had been tried, but which after his conviction he had exchanged for his old slaughtering jacket, because, as he said, he was resolved that Jack Ketch should have no coat of his, he desired his wife might have what clothes he had thrown off. He then said to Mr. Davies, one of the turnkeys, “Well, Mr. Davies, I am going to find out this great secret.”
He was again proceeding to sing
“Oh! Give me Death or Liberty!”
when he was called to the platform, upon which he leaped and bounded in the most frantic manner. Then turning himself round towards Smithfield, and facing the very coffin that was soon to receive his mutilated body he raised his pinioned hands, as well as he could, and leaning forward with savage energy, roared out three distinct cheers to the people, in a voice of the most frightful and discordant hoarseness. But it was pleasing to remark, that these unnatural yells of desperation, which were evidently nothing more than the ravings of a disordered mind, or the ebullitions of an assumed courage, were not returned by the motley mass of people who heard them.