Under sentence of death this unhappy man behaved himself very devoutly, and with many signs of true penitence.  He was, from the first, very desirous to acquaint himself with the true nature of that crime which he had committed, and finding it at once repugnant to religion, and contrary to even the dictates of human nature, he began to loath himself and his own cruelty, crying out frequently when alone. Oh!  Murder!  Murder! it is the guilt of that great sin which distracts my soul. When at chapel he attended with great devotion to the duties of prayer and service there; but whenever the Commandments came to be repeated, at the words, Thou shalt do no murder, he would tremble, turn pale, shed tears, and with a violent agitation of spirit pray to God to pardon him that great offence.

To say truth never any man seemed to have a truer sense or a more quick feeling of his crimes, than this unhappy man testified during his confinement.  His heart was so far from being hardened, as is too commonly the case with those wretches who fall into the same condition, that he, on the contrary, afflicted himself continually and without ceasing, as fearing that all his penitence would be but too little in the sight of God, for destroying His creature and taking away a life which he could not restore.  Amidst these apprehensions, covered with terrors and sinking under the weight of his afflictions, he received spiritual assistance of the Ordinary and other ministers, with much meekness, and it is to be hoped with great benefit; since they encouraged him to rely on the Mercy of God, and not by an unseasonable diffidence to add the throwing away his own soul by despair, to the taking away the life of another in his wrath.

What added to the heavy load of his sorrows, was the unkindness of his wife, who neither visited him in his misfortunes, and administered but indifferently to his wants.  It seems the quarrels they had, had so embittered them towards one another that very little of that friendship was to be seen in either, which makes the marriage bond easy and the yoke of matrimony light.  His complaints with respect to her occasioned some enquiries as to whether he were not jealous of her person; such suspicions being generally the cause of married people’s greatest dislikes.  What he spoke on this head was exceedingly modest, far from that rancour which might have been expected from a man whom the world insinuated had brought himself to death by a too violent resentment of what related to her conduit; though no such thing appeared from what he declared to those who attended him.  He said he was indeed uneasy at the too large credit she gave to the deceased, but that it was her purse only that he entertained suspicions of, and that as he was a dying man, he had no ill thought of her in any other way.  But with regard to his daughter, he expressed a very great dislike to her behaviour, and said her conduct had been such as forced her husband