The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-20 00:00:00

EXECUTION OF AN INNOCENT 11r4.N.

Our latest accounts received from the Cape of
Good Hope state that very great excitement had
prevailed in that colony on account of the execution
of a man believed to have been entirely innocent
of the crime imputed to him. Charles Leo Cox
was his name. He was found guilty of having
put his wife and two children to death, and many
complaints were made of the injustice of the trial.
For five months he was kept waiting for the
gallows, and at last delivered up to it. The
circumstances attending his death were so
extraordinary that they ought to be known in
England. The chaplain, who was with him five
months in prison, says :
Finding it utterly unavailing to attempt to induce confession,
I was necessitated to forego that point for a time, and owing
to his dreadful position as a man conderrined to die, to urge
him to make earnest app:oach to God, through Christ, for
mercy, and a fitness for the eternal world, on the ground of
general corruption and general practical offence ; at the same
time solemnly warning him to expect no mercy from God if
guilty of the murders, unless he made open confession of those
particular crimes. He was fully and deeply impressed that he
would be eternally lost, unless he did so, if guilty. This
found a response within him, and he issue was, I firmly hope,
a preparation to meet death in the dread form in which it stood
arrayed before him. This, of course, ❑ecessarily involved 'the
assumptio❑ that he was innocent of murder. By degrees, and
slow ones only, my mind came round to doubt his guilt ; at
length, however, such accumulated evidences appeared in my
intercourse with him, that I could not rationally but think him
innocent.

The following are the words of Cox delivered to
the chaplain before as.oandiog the scaffold

I feel the love that Jesus Christ had for his creatures in this
world has been bestowed on me. During this fearful trial
that is now awaiting me, God Almighty, knowing so well that
I am innocent of the crime for which I suffer, has in, return
for what I have suffered given me that hope and consolotion,
which, perhaps, under other circumstances, I should not feel
as Ido now. That having that faith in Christ Jesus, I can-
not otherwise but believe in my heart that this shocking
calamity which has befallen mo in this world, can be for no
other object than for that bcnefit which I am now hourly
expecting to reap the advantages of. It has very probably been
the means of stopping me in a career of thoughtless sin, and
He has at last determined to make me feel, and that feeling is
now in me, that we must not live for ourselves, but only for
God. And Jesus Christ, from my constant and anxious
prayers, has interceded for me with his Father, therefore the
regret of leaving this world is but momentary, and I perceive
that this fearful calamity, through Christ's assistance, has been
the means of bringing me to eternal glory and happiness.
This is, and will be, my conviction to the last hour of my life.
I confirm now all that I have said as to my innocence, and the
statement written in pencil is simply the truth. I die with
the conviction that my wife's death was caused by poison
administered by herself, as well as my eldest child Susan ;
regarding the baby, I do not know what caused its death,
whether by accident or not.

Cox also penned a letter to a relative before he
ascended the scaffold. In this letter he says:—
My dear Mrs. Bouwers,—l cannot leave this world without
again addressing you, my dear worthy woman. Often have I
prayed for you when Krause told me that you were wasting
away and gradually becoming broken hearted : no wonder—
less than half of this fearful tragedy is enough to break the
heart of most of God's creatures. Oh! Gad knows, willingly
and readily would have I eased your mind—l saw with grief
its sufferings—had I but the power to do so, but what can 1
say ? Noting that I can write, nothing that I may assert,
will be believed by you or your husband. Oh I pray, I entreat
of you, do think and have some consideration for the words
of a man in a few hours about to meet his God. You ask so
anxiously about my dear Hetty—my dear late mother—God
knows I cannot answer you satisfactorily. Ido not know the
cause of her death, but to-morrow,—Oh glorious ! the❑ oh
then will this mystery be revealed to me.

Cox also addressed the multitude on the scaffold,
He said :

Englishmen—Follow countrymen !—lt is seldom indeed
that so shocking a case as this occurs in a community,
especiahy where so few Europeans exist in comparison to
the natives of the country • but even in those few there are
many familiar faces, which I now recognise, who have known
the unfortunate man who now addresses you for the last time
under very different circumstances.

Englishmen —I have but very few words to say. You,
all of you, I know, have taken a deep interest in my
distressing case, and you have sympathised when you'
discovered that the grossest injustice, and perhaps the
most systematic persccu'ion on record, had been the
daily avocations, for the last six months, of a fey/ of the
unprincipled men holding the reins of government in this
wretched country. Your sympathy has, in various ways,
reached me in my solitary cell, for which I beg to thank you ;
and I may safely add of you, my countrymen, that had you
believed me guilty of the horrible crime for which I have been
doomed to die, you would at once have shrunk from me as
you would from the bite of an adder. I cannot now enter into
my dreadful cast-, I can only state that my life has been per-
jured away, and that the men who are now responsible for this
murder, for it is nothing else, are the witness Kraus and the
President Boshof. God knows these two men are responsible to
Him for this day's tragedy, and for the shedding of innocent
blood ; the one for bearing false witness, which when I am dead
and gone will bo made known to the world, and the other for
abetting and sanctioning these nefarious proceedings. I
can only say, may God forgive them as I heartily do. I feel
sure there will be a day of retribution for the guilty, and it
is the duty of you, my countrymen, to sift this shocking matter.
It will, I am sure, be pleasing in God's eyes, and will have his
blessing; then, do not forget that the innocent suffered for
the guilty. I die with the greatest faith ; and as our Redeemer
suffered and shed his blood for our sins, so to that Redeemer
Jesus Christ do I at once look for eternal happiness, which
I feel sure is now awaiting me. I trust faithfully
in God's mercy, which has been denied me in this
world ; and when my soul departs, which it will do
in a very few minutes, may God's angels be in waiting
to guard it, and bring it safely to its glorious des-
tination, and where my prayer will be again to be in
the midst of that little family I loved so well on earth, and
whom I never injured. I ask now forgiveness from all whom

I may in any way have harmed in this world ; and most
sincerely and religiously do I forgive those who have, either
by thought, word or deed, injured me, and brought me to this
untimely end.
Englishmen and fellow countrymen ! I . bid you my last
farewell !
The eloquent culprit then placed himself in the
hands of the executioner, the drop fell, and the
multitude looked on solemnly and astounded.