The wretched criminal still appeared deeply sensible of his crime, and remained in prayer during the greater part of the day. At about eight o’clock in the evening he retired to rest, but awoke again at twelve, and then he gave directions that he should be called at four o’clock. At that hour he arose and dressed himself, and was occupied until the arrival of Mr. Carver in writing letters in the French language to some of his relatives. The reverend gentleman immediately entered upon prayer with the prisoner, affording him all the spiritual consolation which the situation in which he stood would admit. A few minutes after the arrival of Mr. Carver, M. Baup was introduced to the cell by Mr. Sheriff Wheelton, and this reverend gentleman also joined in prayer with the criminal.
At half-past six o’clock Mr. Newman, the principal turnkey of Newgate, was ordered to take the sacramental bread and wine into the prisoner’s cell; and, in a few minutes afterwards, the holy sacrament was administered to him. The prisoner received it with great fervency of manner. After the conclusion of this religious rite, Calcraft, the executioner, entered the cell, with a black bag containing a rope, with which his arms were to be pinioned. The prisoner clasped his hands together to undergo the operation, and in this position the rope was put round his arms and wrists. The reverend ordinary continued to pray with him for some time, and put several questions to him as to whether he was fully penitent for the crime he had committed, and whether he believed in the atonement of the Saviour; to which he replied in the affirmative, in barely audible whispers, accompanied by an expression of countenance which but too plainly showed the deep anguish of his soul. As he spoke he wrung his hands, and as far as the ropes with which he was bound would allow, raised them upwards. His form was much attenuated, and his eye expressive of the deepest mental suffering.
The scene without the jail afforded a strong contrast to that which was passing in the condemned cell.
The scaffold was raised at a very early hour in the morning; and, by six o’clock, the crowd collected in front, and filling all the adjacent places from which any view of the apparatus of death could be obtained, was immense. The people were pressed together in the compactest mass; and we believe it to be a moderate calculation when we state, that twenty thousand persons at least must have witnessed this memorable execution. So great indeed was the anxiety felt to procure a favourable station, that some hundreds of individuals had taken up their position in front of the Debtors’-door of the Old Bailey as soon as ten o’clock on Sunday night, cheerfully exposing themselves to the inconvenience of standing in the open air during the whole of the night, in order that their curiosity might be fully gratified in the morning. The windows of the neighbouring houses were all occupied by spectators, who in most instances paid a high fee for their places; whilst others, who had less money to spare, but more nerve, ascended to the roofs, and perched themselves in the most precarious situations. Among the crowd there was a considerable sprinkling of females and boys, and the number of men-servants present was remarkable, as evincing the fearful interest taken in the culprit’s fate by the class to which he had belonged. In the long interval between the assembling of the multitude and the hour of execution, a few incidents, such as the futile attempts of some daring individuals to attain an enviable eminence without the ceremony of paying, or the tossing about of a stray hat or bonnet, occasionally excited bursts of merriment; but in general the demeanour of the mob was decent and proper for the solemn occasion which had drawn them together. A numerous body of city police was on the spot in front of the scaffold and dispersed through the crowd, and their conduct and arrangements for the preservation of order were in every respect commendable. At five minutes to eight o’clock the dismal sound of the prison-bell struck upon the ear, and immediately the vast multitude uncovered. This was a moment of intense excitement; it was impossible to behold the mob, with their heads all bared, and their eyes all eagerly directed towards the gallows, without the deepest feeling of awe; and the spectacle thus exhibited was enough in itself to have struck terror to the heart of the miserable felon, whose ignominious fate rendered him the sole gaze of such an immense mass of human beings.
The solemn and dreadful ceremonies in the prison in the mean time had been completed, and the usual procession was formed shortly before eight o’clock. The wretched culprit at this period displayed extraordinary nerve. His step was firm and unwavering; and, while his countenance was pale, and exhibited great dejection, it was calm and unmoved. At two minutes past eight o’clock he ascended the steps of the scaffold, and advanced, without looking round him, to the centre of the platform, followed by the executioner and the Rev. Mr. Carver. On his appearance a few yells of execration escaped from a portion of the crowd; but the general body of the people, great as must have been their abhorrence of his atrocious crime, remained silent spectators of the scene which was passing before their eyes. While the executioner was placing him on the drop, he slightly moved his hands (which were tied in front of him, and strongly clasped one within the other) up and down two or three times; and this was the only visible symptom of any emotion or mental anguish which the wretched man endured. His face was then covered with the cap, and the noose adjusted. During this operation he lifted up his head and raised his hands to his breast, as if in the action of fervent prayer. In a moment the fatal bolt was withdrawn, the drop fell, and in this attitude the murderer perished. He died without any violent struggle. In two minutes after he had fallen, his legs were twice slightly convulsed, but no further motion was observable, excepting that his raised arms, gradually losing their vitality, sank down from their own lifeless weight.
After hanging one hour, the body was cut down and removed to the prison, and it was buried within the precincts of the jail on the same evening at eight o’clock.
He admitted, a short time before his execution, that he had contemplated self-destruction; but the vigilant superintendence under which he was kept ever since he was placed within the walls of Newgate, rendered it impracticable for him to carry his meditated scheme into execution. It is related, that he proposed to take away his life by bleeding himself to death, and the following statement was published with regard to the discovery of his object:—
At half-past ten on Sunday night, Mr. Cope went to Courvoisier’s room, and told him that he must go to bed. Upon receiving this intimation he seemed dissatisfied, and expressed unwillingness to strip. Mr. Cope, however, insisted that he should pull off his clothes, and the turnkeys received directions to take away even his shirt. Mr. Cope then narrowly searched the clothes, and in the coat-pocket he found a strip of cloth folded up carefully. When Courvoisier saw the cloth in the governor’s hand, he acknowledged that he intended to use it as a means of destruction. “In what way?” asked Mr. Cope. “I intended,” said he, “to tie it tight round my arm, and to bleed myself to death in the night.” “But how,” said Mr. Cope, “could you have bled yourself?” “I had made preparation,” said he. “I had been looking about for a pin, but not being able to find one, I sharpened a bit of wood which you light your fires with, and I intended to bleed myself with that.” “Where is that wood?” said Mr. Cope. “That, too,” replied Courvoisier, “you have deprived me of by changing my bed, in which I had deposited it.” He then described to the governor the manner in which he intended to get rid of life; and he declared he could easily have accomplished the object, if he had not been prevented by the caution of the governor. He stated then that he had, while in the water-closet, torn the extra cloth along the seams in the inside of his trousers and fastened it together, for the purpose of using it as a ligature. Mr. Cope examined the mattress, which he had caused to be removed on Sunday night, but no piece of wood was found in it; and it is believed that, in the confusion of removing it, the instrument dropped unperceived and was lost.
The wretched malefactor, at the time of his death, was twenty-three years of age, and was born of decent parents in Switzerland. Having received a moderately good education, he is reported to have come to England to his uncle, who has been before alluded to, through whose instrumentality he obtained several most respectable situations. In his career in the metropolis he does not appear to have been guilty of any conduct likely to draw upon him general attention, and the dreadful crime of which he was guilty seems to have been rather the result of a sudden impulse than of pre-determined malice. The motive which prompted the deed, it is clear from his confession, was that of avarice; and while the human mind cannot sufficiently abhor an act of so atrocious a character, levelled against an aged and infirm man, unable to make any resistance, by his servant, whose duty it was to protect and assist him rather than assail him, one is at a loss to understand how a man of virtuous and sound mind could quit the path of rectitude, and, with such an object, commit so foul a murder.
It is not a little remarkable, that two members of the Bedford family met with sudden deaths before the noble lord whose destruction we have just related, though in neither instance by the hands of an assassin. A former Duke of Bedford, and the Marquis of Tavistock, the father of the deceased nobleman, were both of them killed while hunting.