On Monday, July 9th, the poor man again wrote in a fit of abject terror to the archbishop: ‘The Dead Warrant is come down for Execution Friday next.’ Then he, as it were, screamed for mercy. Except, being at Preston, he was entirely innocent of all ‘ill steps,’ and knew of no designs against King George, beyond that town. ‘The things that are laid to my charge, namely, the preaching up rebellion, advising my parishioners to take up arms, and that I preached several seditious sermons, all these are false, upon the word of a clergyman, as I have a certificate to prove, for six years, the time of my being at Orton, handed by most of the parish.’ He begs that he may be ‘saved from that ignominious death of the halter;’ and he promises a rich return in prayers for the benefit of all who had done their best to bring him ‘out of these great troubles.’
Between the day on which the last letter was written and the eve of the day of execution, no better messenger of joy visited poor Paul than the reverend rascal Patten. This worthy was sent, apparently, to ‘pump’ him, but he brought no promise of mercy for any communications Paul might make; and accordingly the doomed man, as he wrote to Lord Townshend, on that terrible eve, simply called Heaven to witness that, to quote his own words, ‘I carried no letter off from Preston, though I told Mr. Patten so, which was only a feint, that I might go off; and if Mr. Patten will do me justice, he can tell you, my Lord, how uneasy I was when I discovered my rashness.’ His last words were, ‘I once more crave your Lordship’s kind assistance to procure me my life.’
PAUL, A JACOBITE AGAIN.
This prayer was not heeded. On the following day, crowds witnessed the journey of both Paul and Hall to Tyburn. Other crowds were to be seen outside the newspaper office window at Amen Corner, eagerly reading the original letters of Paul to the Archbishop and Viscount Townshend, by whom they had been sent into the city, to gratify public curiosity.
Mr. Paul at Tyburn recovered his spirits, and turned Jacobite, again. He asked pardon of God for having taken oaths of allegiance to an usurping power.—‘You see by my habit,’ he said to the crowd, ‘that I die a son, though a very unworthy one, of the Church of England, but I would not have you think that I am a member of the schismatical church, whose bishops set themselves up in opposition to those Orthodox Fathers who were unlawfully and invalidly deprived by the Prince of Orange. I declare that I renounce that communion, and that I die a dutiful and faithful member of the Nonjuring church, which has kept itself free from rebellion and schism; and I desire the Clergy and all members of the Revolution church to consider what bottom they stand upon, when their succession is grounded upon an unlawful and invalid deprivation of Catholic bishops, the only foundation of which deprivation is a pretended Act of Parliament. The Revolution instead of keeping out Popery, has let in Atheism.’ As Justice Hall was standing meekly at Paul’s side, a cowardly Whig ruffian, in the crowd, flung at the doomed man a stone which reached its aim. The poor gentleman bowed his head in acknowledgment of the civility, turned to the hangman, and died without fuss or protest. The Whig press spared him. They did not attack him as they did Paul.
In July, the king, longing to revisit Hanover, and satisfied that his throne was now unassailable, took his departure. A few hours previously, Lady Cowper saw the sovereign, at a drawing-room, ‘in mighty good humour.’ She wished him a good journey and a quick return; and, ‘he looked,’ she says, ‘as if the last part of my Speech was needless, and that he did not think of it.’
THE KING IN FLEET STREET.
A curious encounter took place in Fleet Street, as George I., in a semi-state coach, with a kingly escort, was on his way to the Tower, where he was to take water for the continent. The king was met with a procession of six coaches coming from Newgate. They contained eleven prisoners with attendants, the former on their way to Westminster, to receive formal sentence of death. The royal carriage and one in which was Mr. Radcliffe, with a fellow prisoner, and a ‘servant of Newgate,’ were the first to meet. The latter drew on one side; those which followed did the same. The king looked hard at the Jacobites and passed on, without remark. When the king had gone by, Charles Radcliffe, seeing that the carriage in which he was seated was drawn up in front of a tavern, called for a pint of liquor, and he and his fellow in misfortune drank to the health of King James. If the ‘servant of Newgate’ got a good pull at the tankard he said nothing about it at Westminster to aggravate their position or to make unpleasant his own.
A READING AT COURT.
At the council, held by ministers in the evening, it was found that the king had some cause to dread the perils of his way. ‘At night,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘Lord Lovat brings a man, called Barnes, to the Council, who deposed upon oath that two Sulivants, cousins to Sulivant whose Head is upon Temple Bar, told him that Sulivant’s brother, who is a Partizan, was to kill the king in a wood between Utrecht and Loo, and that he was to command a “Party Blue,” which is a cant phrase for fifty Men.’ ‘The Men were seized,’ says Lady Cowper, and the then Hanoverian Fraser of Lovat was probably rewarded for his services.