His Lordship then pronounced sentence of death in the usual form, and the sentence having been recorded and signed by the judges, it was read aloud as follows:—
The Lord Justice-Clerk and Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, having considered the verdict of assize, dated and returned this twenty-eighth day of August, against the said William Brodie and George Smith, Pannels, whereby the assize all in one voice find them guilty of the crime libelled; the said Lords in respect of the said verdict decern and adjudge the said William Brodie and George Smith to be carried from the bar back to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, therein to be detained till Wednesday, the first day of October next, and upon that day to be taken furth of the said Tolbooth to the place fixed upon by the magistrates of Edinburgh as a common place of execution, and then and there, betwixt the hours of two and four o’clock afternoon to be hanged by the necks, by the hands of the Common Executioner, upon a Gibbet, until they be dead; and ordain all their moveable goods and gear to be escheat and inbrought to His Majesty’s use: which is pronounced for doom.
Robt. M‘Queen.
Dav. Dalrymple.
Dav. Rae.
Jo. Campbell.
John Swinton.
The sentence having been read, Mr. Brodie discovered some inclination to address himself to the Court, but was restrained by his counsel. He thereupon respectfully bowed to the bench, and the pannels were removed to prison.[28]
APPENDIX I.
Notes on the Trial of Deacon Brodie in the Contemporary Reports by Morrison and Creech.
Note 1, [page 83.]
This unhappy man was tried for sheep stealing in the year 1782, and condemned to be hanged. He afterwards received His Majesty’s pardon conditionally that he should be transported for life. Government having adopted no plan for the transporting of felons from Scotland since the loss of America, he has, owing to that circumstance, been detained so long in prison; and I am sorry to add that he is not the only sufferer from the same cause.—Morrison.