WILLIAM BUTTERWORTH AND FRANCIS JENNISON. EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

THE case of these wretched culprits is so disgusting in its details, that we feel justified in giving it only in as short a form as possible.

At the Hants assizes, in the beginning of August 1794, William Butterworth and Francis Jennison, two convicts at Cumberland Fort, were tried before Mr. Justice Grose and Mr. Baron Thompson, for the murder of Mr. John Groundwater, one of the persons deputed to look after them. The circumstances of this murder were of the most brutal and atrocious nature. These hardened wretches, on being reprimanded by Mr. Groundwater, who threatened to report them for ill-behaviour, swore that they would rip his bowels out; and were heard by another of the convicts debating about the manner of perpetrating the murder. In accordance with a resolution which they arrived at, about six in the evening of the same day, they fell upon him with two iron shovels, with which they had been at work in spreading gravel, and with which they gave him three such wounds on the skull, that his brains fell out in the quantity of a double handful. They then struck down one of the shovels upon his neck, with intent to sever the head from the body, but, striking against the bone, it had not the intended effect. The rest of the convicts ran to the spot, and one of them caught hold of Butterworth, to prevent his mangling the body any more; but, after a struggle, he disengaged himself, ran back to the unfortunate sufferer, and, catching up the spade again, gave him several cuts, saying, “There, damn him, I have done him out and out.” On being remonstrated with for his inhuman conduct, he replied that he was transported for life, and he would rather be hanged than suffer that sentence. It is a most extraordinary circumstance, established on the evidence of Mr. Hill, surgeon, who attended him, that Mr. Groundwater lived eighteen hours after he had received these grievous wounds, notwithstanding the brains had fallen out, and a prodigious effusion of blood had taken place. He never spoke after the second blow was given him, but the action of the pulse was strong, and respiration continued during the whole of the eighteen hours above mentioned.

Butterworth, though thus steeled in cruelty, was only nineteen years old; his wretched companion was twenty-five. The publicity of the deed, and the consequent clear evidence of their guilt, would not admit of their setting up any defence. The jury pronounced them guilty; and they were sentenced to be executed in three days after in Lanston Harbour, and their bodies were ordered to be hung in chains in Cumberland Fort.

They were taken from jail at about four o’clock on Monday morning, and reached Portsea about eleven. The number of spectators who crowded to see the execution was immense. Both the prisoners acknowledged that they alone were the persons who committed the murder, exculpating all the other convicts from a participation in this horrid offence. Their behaviour was very penitent, and they seemed to feel sensibly the enormity of their crime. The execution took place about twelve o’clock, and their bodies were afterwards hung in chains, pursuant to sentence, near the spot where the murder was committed.

Both prisoners, it appears, had been convicted of burglary, for which they were sentenced to death, but had been reprieved on condition of their being transported for life. They had been at the hulks only about seven days, when they committed the murder for which they were executed.