Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-02-28
From Macaulay's History of England.
THE LAST DAYS OF JEFFERYS

-A->s.e H. '>rc-y oHondn~e .rhnrn .,rcneg
were mentioned in the course of these inqui-
ries, wasone who stoodalone and unapproach-
ed in guilt and infamy, and whom wings and
tories were equally willing to leave to the
extreme rigor of the law. On that terrible
day which was succeeded by the Irish night,
the roar of great city disappointed of its
revenge had followed Jefferys to the draw
bridge of the Tower. His imprisonment was
not strictly legal; but he at first accepted
with thanks and blessings the protection
which those dark walls, made famous by so
many crimes and sorrows, afforded him against
the fury of the multitude. Soon, however,
he became sensible that his life was still in
imminent peril.
For time he fattered himself with the
hope that writ of habeas corpus would lib
crate him from his confinement, and that he
should be able to steal away to some foreign
country, and to hide himself with part of his
ill-gotten wealth from the detestation of man
kind; but till the government was settled,
there was no court competent to grant writ
of habeas corpus; andas soon as the govern
ment had been settled, the habeas corpus act
Ras suspended. Whether the legal guilt Of
murder could be brought home to Jeferys
may be doubted. But he was morally gull
ty of SO many murders, that if there had
been no other way Of reaching his life, a
retrospective Act of Attainder would have
been clamorously demanded by the whole ma
ton. A disposition to triumph over the fal-
len has never been one of the besetting sins
of Englishmen but the hatred Of which
Jeferys was the object was without paral-
lei in our history, and partook but toolargely
of the savageness Of his own nature.
The people, where he was concerned, were
as cruel as himself, and exultedin his misery
as he had been accustomed to exult in the
misery of convicts listening to the sentence
of death, and of families clad in mourning
The rabble congregated before his deserted
mansion in Duke-st, and read on the door
with shouts of laughter the bills which an
nounced the sale of his property. Even the
delicate women, who had fears for highway
men and housebreakers, breathed nothing
but vengeance against him. The lampoons
on him which were hawked about the town
were distinguished by an atrocity rare even
in those days Hanging would be too mild
death for him :; grave under the gibbet
too respectable resting place he ought to
be whipped to death at the carts tail; ne
ought to be tortured like an Indian; he ought
to be devoured alive.
The street poets portioned out all his joints
with cannibal ferocity, and computed how
many pounds of steak might be cut from his
we'll fattened carcase. Nay, the rage of his
enemies was such that in language seldom
heard in England they proclaimed their wish
that he might go to the place of wailing and
gnashing of teeth, to the worm that never
dies, to the fire that is never quenched. They
exhorted him to hang himself in his garters,
and to cut his throat with razor. They put
up horrible prayers that he might not be able
to repent, that he might die the same hard
hearted, wicked Jeferys, that he had lived.
His spirit, as mean in adversely as insolent
and inhuman in prosperity, sank down un-
der the load of public adherence. His con-
stitution, originally bad, and much impaired
by intemperance, was completely broken by
distress and anxiety. - -.