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three years with her in the capacity of a bed-maker in the said college; that, about three o'clock in the morning of the 6th instant, she heard her nice groan very much, and, getting up to inquire into the cause, found her complaining of a violent colic; that she heated some pep permint-water, &c. and gave it her, with some hot flannels, which seemed to give her ease; that, about six in the morning, the said Esther Hall went to College, leaving her niece in bed, where she found her on her returu about ten o'clock.

William Hall, husband to the said witness, hearing a child had been found, suspected the said Elizabeth Butchill, and sent for a surgeon to examine her. In her voluntary confession, taken before the mayor and Dr. Ewin, and read to the jury, she confessed that she was delivered of a female child on Thursday morning, about half past six o'clock, by herself; that the child cried some little time after its birth; and that, in about twenty minutes after, she herself threw the said infant down one of the holes of the necessary into the river, and buried the placenta, &c. in the dunghill near the house. Upon this evidence the jury brought in their verdict Wilful Murder, but did not charge the said Elizabeth Butchill as the mother: she was therefore committed to the Castle, on her own confession, as soon as she could be removed with safety.

On Wednesday morning she was tried before Judge Buller, when her voluntary confession being produced, and many corroborating circumstances appearing in evidence, the jury found her guilty, and the judge passed sentence on her in a very pathetic and affecting manner. When the unhappy culprit, in extreme agony, solicited mercy, his

lordship told her that, as she had been deaf to the cries of the innocent, and, stifling the strong ties of maternal affection, had been the murderer of her child, it was impossible for mercy to be extended to her in this world; he therefore exhorted her to seek for a sincere repentance, and sentenced her to be executed the succeeding Friday, and her body to be anatomized.

From the time of her commitment she was in a bad state of health; but her behaviour was modest, patient, and penitent. A worthy clergyman visited her daily, and administered the sacrament to her, when she was perfectly resigned to her fate, and acknowledged the justice of her sentence. In the evening before her death she took an affectionate leave of her friends, and passed the night tolerably composed, except at intervals, when she seemed to be deprived of her senses. In the morning of the fatal day the before-mentioned clergyman attended her to the place of execution, where her behaviour was firm, resigned, and exemplary. She joined with the minister in prayer, and sung the lamentation of a sinner with marks of a sincere penitent, declaring she had made her peace with God, and was reconciled to her fate. Desiring her example might be a warning to all thoughtless young women, and calling on Jesus Christ for mercy, she was launched into eternity amidst thousands of commiserating spectators, who, though they abhorred the crime, shed tears of pity for the unhappy criminal.

She was a decent plain young woman, about twenty-two years of age; and, before this unfortunate affair, bore a good character for her modest behaviour.

She was executed at Cambridge March 17, 1780.

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In this most infatuated unfortunate man the world may be said to have sustained a loss; for he was an engraver of the first abilities, in consideration of which he received a pension from both the king and queen, who held him in high esti

mation as an artist.

Fortune had smiled upon Mr. Ryland, even from his birth, until his evil genius prompted him, for gold, to turn his talents as an engraver to the sad purpose of committing forgery.

He was a native of Wales: his father had been patronised by the late Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, who jocosely said that, if ever Mr. Ryland should marry, he would be the godfather of his first son. This soon after happened; and the unfortunate subject of this melancholy

VOL. III.

history, being the first-born of such marriage, was named William Wynne by desire of the worthy

baronet.

Ryland gave early proof of his genius; for, while in the former part of his apprenticeship, he engraved a head of his godfather, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, which was esteemed a production of singular merit for so young an artist.

Having faithfully served his time, he visited the French and Italian schools, and obtained the honorary medal in Paris.

On his return to England he introduced the admired art of engraving copper-plates to yield an impression resembling drawings in chalk; and, soon after his majesty ascended the throne, he appointed Mr. Ryland his engraver, with a

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salary of two hundred pounds a year; and the queen added one hundred pounds a year more out of her privy purse, as a testimony of her approbation of his extraordinary talents.

A few years previous to the fatal act for which he suffered Mr. Ryland entered into partnership with a Mr. Bryer, and they jointly opened a shop in Cornhill, where they carried on a very extensive trade in prints, the former still continuing to exercise his abilities in the art of engraving.

Though their business was productive of great profit, several heavy losses, occurring almost at the same time, so deranged their pecuniary affairs, that a bankruptcy ensued.

Some years after this failure, Mr. Ryland, on his own separate account, opened a print-shop in the Strand, where he had every prospect of success; but, being fond of a private life, where he might have

leisure to

'Pursue coy Science in her last retreat,' he declined public business, and retired to Pimlico, and thence to Knightsbridge, where, by one fatal act, he entirely ruined his reputation as a man; but his name, as an artist, will ever stand in the highest esti mation.

At this time Mr. Ryland had recovered his losses in trade, and was bequeathed shares in the Liverpool Water Works, which were then deemed to be worth ten thousand pounds: his business was worth two thousand pounds a year, and his stock was valued at ten thousand pounds more. Such was his own statement of his property, in his defence on his trial; and it was supposed that, in order to engross the remaining shares in his Liverpool concern, he committed the forgery for which he suffered.

He had already obtained severa sums on forgeries, Mr. Nightingale, the banker, having advanced him, on the 19th of September, 1782, three thousand pounds; and such as his opinion of Mr. Ryland, that he declared he would have lent him that sum without any deposit whatever.

The forged instruments so ex. actly resembled the real bills that it was scarcely possible to know one from the other; yet a series of impositions at length will lead to detection.

It was discovered that two bills of the same tenour and date were out, and consequently one of them must prove a forgery.

Suspicion now fell so strong ou Ryland that he was induced to secrete himself, and a reward was offered for his apprehension. He went in disguise to Stepney, and there took an obscure lodging at the hovel of one Richard Freeman, a cobbler, accompanied by Mrs. Ryland, the wretched partner of his misfortune, passing as Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.

There he some time evaded the search after him, till one fatal step of the unfortunate woman who was watching over his safety caused his apprehension. She took, unconscious of danger, one of her husband's shoes to the cobbler, to be mended, with the name of Ryland' on the inside of it. This was fatal: the cobbler, in order to obtain the reward, delivered up his lodger.

When the officers of justice went to apprehend Ryland they found him in a corner of the room on his knees, and heard a noise like a guggling in his throat, which was occasioned by his having cut it. He had a razor in his hand, and a bason stood before him; but the wound did not prove mortal.

On the 26th of July, 1783 be

was arraigned at the bar of the Old Bailey, on an indictment charging him with forging, and uttering, knowing it to be forged, a certain bill of exchange, for two hundred and ten pounds sterling, purporting to be a bill drawn by the gentlemen of the factory at Fort George, in Madras, on the Honorable East India Company, with intent to defraud the said company, and divers other persons, to whom he had passed the said bill.'

The solicitor to the East India Company, who prosecuted the prisoner, endeavored, by several proofs, to bring home the charge to the accused; but, though forgery was manifest, yet it was so nice a point to distinguish the true bill from the false one, that it was, during the trial, supposed that they could not convict him, until Mr. Whatman, paper-manufacturer at Maidstone, appeared as a witness. On sight of him, Ryland's heart, which till now entertained hopes, sunk within him. A bad deed is generally done in a manner that leads to detection; and, in this case, the unfortunate man who had so well counterfeited never once thought that the maker of the paper on which he committed the crime might detect him.

Mr. Whatman deposed that the paper of the forged bill was of his manufacture. He then explained to the Court his reasons for thinking so: the moulds, he said, in which the paper of the bill was made, were received by liim in February, 1780, but were not used before the December following: they were then worked with; and the first paper sent to London, made by them, was on the 27th of April, 1781: but he was convinced that the paper on which the bill was wrote was not sent before the 3d of May, 1782; and the way by which he knew it was, that there were defects in it which ex

actly agreed with those in the sheets of paper he then held in his hand, and which were manufactured by him at that period. That the blemishes in the paper he attributed to the injuries the mould had received from the great quantity of papers worked off by them. He said he never saw two sheets of paper, worked off by different moulds, so like each other; but that he could distinguish a difference.

It was on this evidence that Judge Buller, who tried this indictment, commented in his charge to the jury:-The testimony of Mr. Whatman,' says the judge, ⚫ in the strongest manner proved that one of the bills is forged; for he swears that the paper on which one of them was wrote was not sent to London before May, 1782, and had been just manufactured ;-then, how was it possible that such a bill could be a true one, which is dated a year previous to that period?'

His

Ryland, who was recovered from the wound he had inflicted on himself, and of which he sincerely repented, behaved, on this trying occasion, with much composure; and, recovering the surprise of Whatman's evidence, he heard the fatal verdict given with firmness. defence was ingenious, though entirely unavailing; he denied the charge, and urged the improbability that he, whose fortune, to use his own words, was a princely one,' could commit so base a crime. Great interest was made to save him; but, his crime admitting not of mercy in this world, he suffered at the hands of the executioner on the 29th of August, 1783.

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Thus terminated the existence of a man whose talents commanded general admiration, and whose fate was deeply regretted.-He was the last criminal who underwent the awful sentence of the law at Tyburn.

JOHN DONELLAN, ESQ.

Mr. Powell, apothecary, of Rugby, deposed that he had attended Sir Theodosius Boughton for two months before his death, on account of a slight venereal complaint.

He

On the Wednesday morning he was sent for to Lawford Hall. arrived there a little before nine. Captain Donellan accompanied him iuto Sir Theodosius's room. He had been dead near an hour. The witness saw no distortion, nor any thing particular. He continued some minutes in the room. Captain Donellan said that Sir Theodosius died in convulsions.' Being questioned what further conversation he had then with Mr. Donellan, he said that he could not recollect his particular words, but his general intent was to make him believe that Sir Theodosius had taken cold.'

EXECUTED FOR POISONING SIR THEODOSIUS BOUGHTON, BART. MR. DONELLAN had been a cap- 30, 1781, he was tried at the assizes tain in the army, and was the son at Warwick for the wilful murder of Colonel Donellan. At the age of Sir Theodosius Edward Allesley of twelve years he entered into the Boughton, Bart. his brother-in-law. Royal Regiment of Artillery, with part of which he went to the East Indies in 1754. On his arrival there he changed his service into the 39th foot; but, on that regiment being ordered home, he, with many other of its officers, had his majesty's leave to remain in the service of the East India Company, without prejudice to their rank in the army. He then obtained a company, and certainly distinguished himself as a good soldier, not only having been much wounded in the service, but, if his own account may be eredited, singularly instrumental to the taking of Mazulapatam. However, being appointed one of the four agents for prizemoney, he condescended to receive presents from some black merchants, to whom part of their effects had been ordered to be restored, for which he was tried by a court-martial, and cashiered. In the sequel he purchased a share in the Pantheon, where he figured some time as master of the ceremonies. After a variety of applications he at length obtained a certificate from the Waroffice that he had behaved in the East Indies like a gallant officer;' in consequence of which he was put upon half-pay in the 39th regiment. But, notwithstanding the most strenuous memorials and petitions, representing his great services, and insisting that the offence for which he was broke was of a civil nature only, not cognizable by a courtmartial, he never could obtain a Testoration into the company's service. In June, 1777, he married Miss Boughton. On Friday, March

Lady Boughton, mother of Sir Theodosius, deposed that he was twenty years old on the 3d of August last, and, on his coming of age, would have been entitled to above two thousand pounds a year. On the event of his dying a minor the greater part of his fortune was to descend to her daughter, Mrs. Donellan, the wife of Mr. Donellan. It was known in the family that Sir Theodosius was to take his physic the next morning. He used to put his physic in his dressingroom. He happened once to forget to take it; upon which Mr. Donellan said Why don't you set it in your outer room? then you would not so soon forget it.' After this he had the medicines several times upon a shelf over the chimneypiece in his outer room. On the

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