When he was brought up to the bar to receive sentence, he appeared to be very much dejected, and when the usual question was proposed to him: What have you to say why judgment of death should not pass upon you? he spoke with a very feeble voice in the following terms.
My Lord, I hope even in the sad condition in which I stand, I may pretend to some little merit in respect to the service I have done my country, in delivering it from some of the greatest pests with which it was ever troubled. My Lord, I have brought many bold and daring malefactors to just punishment, even at the hazard of my own life, my body being covered with scars I received in these undertakings. I presume, my Lord, to say I have done merit, because at the time the things were done, they were esteemed meritorious by the government; and therefore I hope, my Lord, some compassion may be shown on the score of those services. I submit myself wholly to his Majesty's mercy, and humbly beg a favourable report of my case.
When Sir William Thomson[[65]] (now one of the barons of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer), as Recorder of London, pronounced sentence of death, he spoke particularly to Wild, put him in mind of those cautions he had had against going on in those practices rendered capital by Law, made on purpose for preventing that infamous trade of becoming broker for felony, and standing in the middle between the felon and the person injured, in order to receive a premium for redress. And when he had properly stated the nature and aggravations of his crime, he exhorted him to make a better use of that small portion of time, which the tenderness of the law of England allowed sinners for repentance, and desired he would remember this admonition though he had slighted others. As to the report he told him, he might depend on Justice, and ought not to hope for any more.
Under conviction, no man who appeared upon other occasions to have so much courage, ever showed so little. He had constantly declined ever coming to chapel, under pretence of lameness and indisposition; when clergymen took the pains to visit him and instruct him in those duties which it became a dying man to practice, though he heard them without interruption, yet he heard them coldly. Instead of desiring to be instructed on that head, he was continually suggesting scruples and doubts about a future state, asking impertinent questions as to the state of souls departed, and putting frequent cases of the reasonableness and lawfulness of suicide, where an ignominious death was inevitable, and the thing was perpetrated only to avoid shame. He was more especially swayed to such notions he pretended, from the examples of the famous heroes of antiquity, who to avoid dishonourable treatment, had given themselves a speedy death. As such discourses were what took up most of the time between his sentence and death, so that occasioned some very useful lectures upon this head from the charitable divines who visited him; but though they would have been of great use in all such cases for the future, yet being pronounced by word of mouth only, they are now totally lost. One letter indeed was written to him by a learned person on this head, of which a copy has been preserved, and it is with great pleasure that I give it to my readers, it runs thus:
A letter from the Reverend Dr. —— to Mr. Wild in Newgate.
I am very sorry that after a life so spent as yours is notoriously known to have been, you should yet, instead of repenting of your former offences, continue to swell their number even with greater. I pray God that it be not the greatest of all sins, affecting doubts as to a future state, and whether you shall ever be brought to answer for your actions in this life, before a tribunal in that which is to come.
The heathens, it must be owned, could have no certainty as to the immortality of the soul, because they had no immediate revelation; for though the reasons which incline us to the belief of those two points of future existence and future tribulation be as strong as any of the motives are to other points in natural religion, yet as none return from that land of darkness, or escape from the shadow of death to bring news of what passeth in those regions whither all men go, so without a direct revelation from the Almighty no positive knowledge could be had of life in the world to come, which is therefore properly said to be derived to us through Christ Jesus, who in plain terms, and with that authority which confounded his enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees, taught the doctrine of a final judgment, and by affording us the means of grace, raised in us at the same time the hopes of glory.
The arguments, therefore, which might appear sufficient unto the heathens, to justify killing themselves to avoid what they thought greater evils, if they had any force then must have totally lost it now. Indeed, the far greater number of instances which history has transmitted us, show that self-murder, even then, proceeded from the same causes as at present, viz., rage, despair, and disappointment. Wise men in all ages despised it as a mean and despicable flight from evils the soul wanted courage and strength to bear. This has not only been said by philosophers, but even by poets, too; which shows that it appeared a notion, not only rational, but heroic. There are none so timorous, says Martial, but extremity of want may force upon a voluntary death; those few alone are to be accounted brave who can support a life of evil and the pressing load of misery, without having recount to a dagger.
But if there were no more in it than the dispute of which was the most gallant act of the two, to suffer, or die, it would not deserve so much consideration. The matter with you is of far greater importance, it is not how, or in what manner you ought to die in this world, but how you are to expect mercy and happiness in that which is to come. This is your last stake, and all that now can deserve your regard. Even hope is lost as to present life, and if you make use of your reason, it must direct you to turn all your wishes and endeavours towards attaining happiness in a future state. What, then, remains to be examined in respect of this question is whether persons who slay themselves can hope for pardon or happiness in the sentence of that Judge from whom there is no appeal, and whose sentence, as it surpasses all understanding, so is it executed immediately.
If we judge only from reason, it seems that we have no right over a life which we receive not from ourselves, or from our parents, but from the immediate gift of Him who is the Lord thereof, and the Fountain of Being.