Let that love of your
country, which now animates your breasts, and induces you to risk your
lives and your all, now plead for me. Already has British humanity saved
thousands of my countrymen from the rage of the Spaniards; let that same
humanity be extended now, and induce my judges to add one more to the
list of those who, although our nations are at war, if they are endowed
with feeling, can have but one sentiment towards their generous enemy--a
sentiment overpowering all other, that of a deep-felt gratitude."[1]
Whatever may have been the effect of the address upon the court
individually, it appeared at the time to have none upon them as a body.
Both the men were condemned to death, and the day after the morrow was
fixed for their execution. I watched the two prisoners as they went down
the side, to be conducted on board of their own ship. The Englishman
threw himself down in the stern sheets of the boat, every minor
consideration apparently swallowed up in the thought of his approaching
end; but the Frenchman, before he sat down, observing that the seat was
a little dirty, took out his silk handkerchief, and spread it on the
seat, that he might not soil his nankeen trowsers.
I was ordered to attend the punishment on the day appointed. The sun
shone so brightly, and the sky was so clear, the wind so gentle and
mild, that it appeared hardly possible that it was to be a day of such
awe and misery to the two poor men, or of such melancholy to the fleet
in general.
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