In the morning of the day of execution he was very much disturbed at being refused the Sacrament, which as the minister told him, could not be given him by the canon without his confession. Yet this did not prevail; he said he would die without receiving it, as he had before answered a French minister, who said, Lewis Houssart, since you are condemned on full evidence, and I see no reason but to believe you guilty, I must, as a just pastor, inform you that if you persist in this denial, and die without confession, you can look for nothing but to be d——; to which Houssart replied, You must look for damnation to yourself for judging me guilty, when you know nothing of the matter.
This confused frame of mind he continued in until he entered the cart for his execution, persisting in a like declaration of innocence all the way he went, though sometimes intermixed with short prayers to God to forgive his manifold sins and offences.
At the place of execution he turned very pale and grew very sick. The ministers told him they would not pray by him unless he would confess the murder for which he died. He said he was very sorry for that, but if they would not pray by him he could not help it, he would not confess what he was totally ignorant of. Even at the moment of being tied up he persisted and when such exhortations were again repeated, he said: Pray do not torment me, pray cease troubling me. I tell you I will not make myself worse than I am. And so saying, he gave up the ghost without any private prayer when left alone or calling upon God or Christ to receive his spirit. He delivered to the minister of Newgate, however, a paper, the copy which follows, from whence my readers will receive a more exact idea of the man from this, his draught of himself, than from any picture I can draw.
The Paper delivered by Lewis Houssart at his death.
I, Lewis Houssart, am forty years old, and was born in Sedan, a town in Champaigne, near Boullonois. I have left France above fourteen years. I was apprentice to a surgeon at Amsterdam, and after examination was allowed by the college to be qualified for that business, so that I intended to go on board a ship as surgeon, but I could never have my health at sea. I dwelt sometime at Mæstricht, in the Dutch Brabant, where my aged father and brother now dwell. I travelled through Holland and was in almost every town. My two sisters are in France and also many of my relations, for the earth has scarce any family more numerous than ours. Seven or eight years have I been in London, and here I met with Anne Rondeau, who was born at the same village with me, and therefore I loved her. After I had left her, she wrote to me, and said she would reveal a secret. I promised her to be secret, and she told me she had not been chaste, and the consequence of it was upon her, upon which I gave her my best help and assistance. Since she is dead I hope her soul is happy.
Lewis Houssart
The Life of CHARLES TOWERS, a Minter in Wapping
Notwithstanding it must be apparent, even to a very ordinary understanding, that the Law must be executed both in civil and criminal cases, and that without such execution those who live under its protection would be very unsafe, yet it happens so that those who feel the smart of its judgment (though drawn upon them by their own misdeeds, follies or misfortunes which the Law of man cannot remedy or prevent) are always clamouring against its supposed severity, and making dreadful complaints of the hardships they from thence sustain. This disposition hath engaged numbers under these unhappy circumstances to attempt screening themselves from the rigour of the laws by sheltering in certain places, where by virtue of their own authority, or rather necessities, they set up a right of exemption and endeavour to establish a power of preserving those who live within certain limits from being prosecuted according to the usual course of the Law.