THE Life, Travels, Exploits, Frauds and Robberies, OF Charles Speckman, alias Brown, Who was Executed at Tyburn, on Wednesday the 23d of November, 1763. (continued 2)

Mr. Akerman, the keeper, to his eternal honour be it said, all this time was busily employed in procuring food, at his own expence, for the poor naked and starving prisoners, who many of them were at the point of death with the goal distemper; but the Christian reader will not be frightened at this, when he is told this distemper was only hunger. On parting with Mr. Speckman, he solemnly declared, as he trusted in God’s mercies, that every part of his copy was strictly true; and now being satisfied of its publication, he should die without fear, and with perfect resignation. The Editor, on recollecting his person, and having seen him under sentence of death in the beginning of the year 1751, made enquiry of the authenticity of many robberies, &c. here related, and has found them all true in every respect.

The prisoner requested some person might come to him from me in the morning. I requested a worthy friend to do so; who went into the Press-Yard, and the prisoner speedily came down; who, on putting his leg up to have his setters taken off, lifted up his hands and eyes towards heaven, and said in a kind of extasy, This is the finest Morn, that ever I have seen. As soon as this was performed, he was taken on one side to be haltered and pinioned, which he suffered to be done with patience and resignation; praying with uncommon fervency all the time. And then going with this friend to the upper end of the Press-Yard, they read and prayed together for some time, and was then asked if he had any thing farther to say concerning his life; replied, It is all truth, but if Mr. S. finds any thing therein, which may be thought not for the public good, that may be left out if he pleases. At the conclusion of this he addressed himself to the people, requesting their prayers, for his happy entrance into eternity; declaring that he deserved to die, but had great consolation in his last moments; that he never had beat, ill treated, or murdered any one, save in one instance of the post-boy.

The friend was then desired to take some money out of his left breeches pocket, which proved to be eight-pennyworth of half-pence, and to give them to one of the servants who attended on him, desiring his acceptance of that and his wig, which he had ordered to be sent to him: Then wishing farewell to his friend, Mr. Melville a prisoner, and the persons about him; was led by the officer to the cart: which for the first time was hung in mourning, this added much to the solemnity of the occasion. On the way to, and at the place of execution, he was perfectly resigned to his irrevocable doom; and to the last carried himself with the greatest decency and devotion, in full expectation and hope of enjoying the life to come, in the blessed regions of eternal day.

His body was taken care of by his friends, put into a coach and carried to an Undertaker’s in Moorfields, where on searching his pockets, there was found a prayer copied by him from a printed one, two farthings, half a walnut-shell, into which was thrust a long narrow slip of paper, on which he had wrote, “I beg of you to let your trust be in God, for there is your trust, and in no man living;” intending it for the young woman before mentioned. His body was decently interred on Sunday evening the 27th of November, in Tindall’s Burying-ground, Bunhill-fields; aged 29 years: and the service of the church of England, at his own request when living, was there performed.

Since writing the above, I have seen the Ordinary’s Account of Speckman and the other criminals, and that he hath given what he calls the Life of Speckman; which if the reader will give himself the trouble of perusing, he will find nothing but absurdity and contradiction; and that the unhappy man, at the instant of his being turned off, told him was nothing but deceit, asked Master Ordinary forgiveness, whose truly Christian disposition was on this imminent occasion pleased to comply, and pray for the sufferer. This undoubtedly is a laudable act, though the Ordinary did no more than his duty, which I hope he’ll not think too much for him, to make his only rule and guide for the time to come: as a pastor of such a flock he hath much to do, and his constant presence and residence as near the scene of action as the keeper; the necessity and obligation of taking care of the souls of the prisoners, should go hand in hand with that of the care of their bodies.

Such a wretched paper as the public is drenched with every execution, it is hoped they will be no more bothered with, but if that should be the case, it is confounded hard to pay six-pence for two sheets of whited brown paper rubbed over in a very slovenly manner, but the writing itself is truly inimitable, none but himself can be his parallel; finally, should it ever fall in Mr. Ordinary’s way, to find any of his brother pastors neglecting their duty, he will recommend to them the following spirited admonition of a most famous poet on occasion of the corrupted state of our national clergy, and under the similitude of a shepherd; which cannot fail of bringing them back to their original purity and usefulness.

“Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learn’d aught else the least That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs! What recks it them? what need they? they are sped; And when they lift their lean and flashy songs, Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, but are not fed, But swol’n with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly and foul contagion spread; But that two handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”

FINIS.