SAMUEL BURT. CONVICTED OF FORGERY.

MR. BURT, previously to the occurrence for which he was tried and executed, bore a most exemplary character. The particulars of the forgery of which he was guilty do not appear to have come out on the trial, when the prisoner pleaded guilty; but his object in its commission, as well as in refusing to deny his guilt, may be collected from the manner in which he addressed the Court on his being called up for judgment.

He said, “My lord,—I am too sensible of the crime I have committed, and for which I justly deserve to suffer, not to know that I have forfeited my life, and I wish to resign it into the hands of Him who gave it. To give my reasons for this would only satisfy an idle curiosity: no one can feel a more sensible, heartfelt satisfaction in the hopes of shortly passing into eternity, wherein, I trust, I shall meet with great felicity. I have no desire to live; and as the jury and court in my trial thought proper to recommend me to mercy, if his majesty should in consequence thereof grant me a reprieve, I here vow in the face of Heaven, that I will put an end to my own existence as soon as I can. It is death that I wish for, because nothing but death can extricate me from the troubles in which my follies have involved me.”

Sentence was then passed in due form, but we do not find any entry of its having been carried out; and it is therefore very likely that the recommendation of the jury, alluded to by the prisoner, was attended to. The last notice which is taken of the case in the books is in the following terms:—“Samuel Burt, the unhappy youth who, under a depression of mind, abhorring the guilt of suicide, committed a forgery in order to suffer death by the law, was respited;” dated December, 1787.

From the observations made by the prisoner, it is pretty evident that he was labouring under a species of insanity, by which he was persuaded that he must suffer death. The following instances of a similar description are of a character far more melancholy, inasmuch as that in each the murder of a fellow-creature was the means adopted by the unhappy maniac, for the offenders can be considered in no other light, to secure his own death.

On the 4th of September, 1760, when North America was a British province, Mr. Robert Scull and several gentlemen were playing at billiards in Philadelphia, when Captain Bruluman, late of the Royal American regiment, came into the room, and, without the smallest provocation, levelled a loaded gun, which he had brought with him, and shot Mr. Scull through the body just after he had struck his ball.

It afterwards appeared that this desperate man had been brought up a silversmith; and that having entered the army, he became an officer in the Royal American regiment, but was broke on his being detected in counterfeiting or uttering base money. He then returned to Philadelphia, and growing insupportable to himself, and yet unwilling to put an end to his own life, he determined upon the commission of some crime, for which he would certainly be hanged by the law.

Having formed this design, he loaded his gun with a brace of balls, and asked his landlord to go shooting with him, intending to murder him before his return; but the landlord, fortunately for himself, being particularly engaged at home, escaped the danger. He then went out alone, and on the way met a man whom he was about to kill; but recollecting that there were no witnesses to prove him guilty, he suffered the man to pass.

He next proceeded to the tavern, where he drank some liquor; and hearing people playing at billiards in a room above that in which he sat, he went up stairs, and entered into conversation with the players in apparent good humour. In a little time he called the landlord, and desired him to hang up the gun. Mr. Scull having struck his antagonist’s ball in one of the pockets, Bruluman said to him, “Sir, you are a good marksman; now I’ll show you a fine stroke.” He immediately took down his gun, levelled it, deliberately took aim at Mr. Scull (who imagined him in jest), and shot both the balls through his body. He then went up to the dying man, who was still sensible, and said to him, “Sir, I have no malice or ill will against you; I never saw you before; but I was determined to kill somebody that I might be hanged, and you happen to be the man; and I am very sorry for your misfortune.” Mr. Scull had just time left in this world to send for his friends, and make his will. He forgave his murderer, and if it could be done, desired he might be pardoned; but Bruluman died on the gallows, exulting in his fate.

The same volume from which we make the above extract contains another case of the like nature, and, if possible, more extraordinary. It appears, however, that in this instance the judges of the unfortunate offender treated him as was most proper—as a maniac. The scene of this second murder is not mentioned.

It is stated that a youth of the name of David Williams, when about fifteen years of age, was one day against his wish detained from school by his stepfather, who greatly wanted his assistance on the farm. While thus employed, a log rolled on one of his legs, which injured it to such a degree that it became nearly useless; and by another accident he soon after hurt the other limb, so that he was rendered a cripple before he had attained the years of manhood.

At these misfortunes he continually repined; blamed his stepfather for keeping him that day from school, whereby he received his first injury; and, mortified at his appearance among his comrades, some of whom, he said, ridiculed him, he became weary of the world, and determined to terminate his misfortunes with his life.

For this end suicide and murder presented themselves. The first he thought the most eligible; but then it brought to his mind the horrors of appearing by his own violence before God, for which he feared he should not be pardoned; and therefore he was induced to abandon that for the latter, which he conceived would afford him a better excuse to the Almighty. He familiarised himself with this act of desperation by continually thinking of it; so that in time it became a pleasing subject of contemplation.

The idea of the grief which it must occasion his mother at times almost unbent his resolution; but then the idea of its proving a sweet revenge on his stepfather bore down every other consideration. Thus determined, the next step of this unhappy youth was to select a proper subject on whom the deed should be committed. A grown person or a child was the question. The former, he concluded, must be under sin and guilt; therefore by sudden death and thus unprepared, his damnation might be chargeable to him, and he be doubly guilty: the latter being innocent, he might avoid that charge, and he therefore resolved upon murdering some child.

Now the particular object for this horrid purpose was the next consideration; but he confessed that, though he thought of it more than six months, yet none occurred until within five minutes of his committing his long-determined and bloody deed.

All the morning of the fatal day he said that he felt an unaccountable and far stronger desire to commit murder than before;—to use his own words, “something like hankering after fruit.”

At this unfortunate moment he chanced to spy a little boy, named Ira, the son of Mr. Lane, a neighbour, gathering plums; and finding the parents absent, he determined on seizing the opportunity and subject. He instantly took a gun, fired at, and slightly wounded the child in the side of the abdomen. Finding his victim yet alive, he limped to him, led him to the house, placed him upon a bed, and took a station at the door. The poor devoted little Ira had yet strength left to get from the bed, in order to see “whether his father was coming to cure him;” and Williams answered that his father would come by-and-by, and bade him go to bed again and lie still. Again the murderer listened for the dying groan of the boy; but finding his work incomplete, (horrid to relate!) he took an axe, went to the bed, looked upon the innocent child, and while it held up its little hands for help, the monster struck it on the head, and, by repeated blows, chopped it in pieces.

The wretched murderer was a youth of extraordinary mental talents for his years until the fatal gloom overspread him. After the horrid deed was done, he spoke of it with calmness, observing that, though he had often considered the grief he should bring on his own mother, it never occurred to him the distraction it must cause her who bore the murdered child.

His whole intent was to get himself hanged; and he supposed that the palliating circumstances under which the murder was committed would induce the Almighty to forgive him.

Upon his trial he was deemed to be insane, and was treated as such.