The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-10 00:00:00

ACCOUNT OF THE EXECUTION OF LORDS

KILMARNOCK AND BALMERINO.

Just before the two Lords came out of the Tower,
Lord Balmerino drank a bumper to King James's
health. As the clock struck ten, they came forth on
foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpow-
dered in a bag, supported by Forster, the great Pres-
byterian, and by Mr. Hume, a young clergyman, his
friend. Lord ißalmerino followed alone, in a blue
coat turned up with red, his rebellious regimentals, a
flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath ; their
hearses following. They were conducted to a house
near the scaffold ; the room forward had benches for
spectators ; in the second Lord Kilmarnock was put,
and in the third backwards Lord Balmerino ; all three
chambers hung with black. Here they parted ! Bal-
merino embraced the other, and said, My Lord,
I wish I could suffer for both !' He had scarce left
him, and then asked him, M‘y Lord Kilmarnock, do you
know anything of the resolution taken in our army, the
day before the battle of Culloden, to put the English
prisoners to death ? He replied, My Lord, I was
not present ; but since I came hither, I have had all
the reason in the world to believe that there was such
order taken ; and I hear the Duke has the pocket-
book with the order.' Balmerino answered, It was a
lie raised to excuse their barbarity to us.' Take no-
tice, that the Duke's charging this on Kilmarnock
(certainly on misinformation) decided this unhappy
man's fate I The most now pretended is, that it would
have come to Lord Kilmarnock's turn to have given
the word for the slaughter, as Lieutenant-General,
with the patent for which he was immediately drawn
into the rebellion, after having been staggered by his
wife, her mother, his own poverty, and the defeat of
Cope. He remained an hour and a half in the
house, and shed tears. At last he came to the scaf-
fold, evidently much terrified, but with a resolu-
tion that prevented his behaving in the least meanly
or unlike a gentleman. He took no notice of
the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be
lifted up from the rails, that the mob might see the
spectacle. He stood and prayed some time with For-
ster, who wept over him, exhorted, and encouraged
him. He delivered a long speech to the Sheriff, and,
with a noble manliness, stuck to the recantation he
had made at his trial, declaring he wished that all who
embarked in the same cause might meet the same fate.
He then took off his bag, coat, and waistcoat, with
great composure, and, after some trouble, put on a
napkin-cap, and then several times tried the block ;
the executioner who was in white, with a white apron,
out of tenderness concealed the axe behind himself.
At last the Earl knelt down, with a visible un-
willingness to depart, and, after five minutes,
dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his
head cut off at once, only hanging by a bit of skin,
and was received in a scarlet cloth by four of the un-
dertaker's men, kneeling, who wrapped it up, and put
it into the coffin with the body ; orders having been
given not to expose the beads, as used to be the cus-
tom. The scaffold was immediately new strewed with
saw-dust, the block new covered, the executioner new
dressed, and a new axe brought. Then came old Bal-
merino, treading with the air of a general. As soon
as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription on
the coffin, as he did again afterwards ; he then sur-
veyed the spectators, who were in amazing numbers,
even upon masts of ships in the river ; and, pulling
out his spectacles, and a treasonable speech, which
he delivered to the Sheriff, he said the young
Pretender was so sweet a prince that flesh and
blood could not resist following him ; and lying
down to try the block, he said, If I had a thousand'
lives, I would lay them all down here in the same
cause.' He said if he had not taken the Sacrament
the day before, he would have knocked down Wil-
liamson, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill usage
of him. He took the axe, and felt it, and asked the
headsman how many blows he had given Kilmarnock,
and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen who
attended him coining up, he said, No, gentlemen, I
believe you have done me all the service yr,u can.'
Ttistv_he went to the corner of the scaffold, and

called very loud— or e - •
perriwig, which he took oft', and put on a nightcap
of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waist-
coat, and lay down, but being told he was on the wrong
side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign by
tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for
battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly
took away all sensation. He was not a quarter of an
hour on the scaffold ; Lord Kilmarnock above half a
one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepidity of a
hero, but with the insensibility of one too. As he walked
from his prison to execution, seeing every wincow and
tops of houses filled with spectators, he cried out,
Look, look, how they are piled up like rotten
oranges I' My Lady Townsend, who fell in love with
Lord Kilmarnock on his trial, will go no-where to din-
ner, for fear of meeting with a rebel-pie ; she says
everybody is so bloody-minded that they eat rebels ! The
Prince of Wales, whose intercession saved Lord
Cromartie, says he did it in return for Sir W. Gordon,
Lady Cromartie's father, coming down out of his
death-bed, to vote against my father in the Chippen-
ham election. If his Royal Highnees had not coun-
tenanced inveteracy like that of Sir W. Gordon, he
would have no occasion to exert his gratitude now in
favour of rebels. His brother has plucked a very use-
ful feather out of the cap of the Ministry, by forbid-
ding any application for posts in the army to be made
to any body but himself; a resolution, I dare say, he
will keep as strictly and minutely as he does the dis-
cipline and dress of the army. Adieu."—From the
letters of Sir Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann.

MR. BULWER'S NEW WORK.
On the 15th inst., in 3 vols. post Bvo.,

POMPEII.

THE LAST DAYS OF
By the Author of " Pelham,"
" Eugene Aram," " England and the English," &c.
Richard Bentley, 8, New Burlington-street.
Agents for Scotland, Messrs. Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh ;
for Ireland, Mr. John Cumming, Dublin.

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