After this he betook himself to some private devotions, and then suffered with great constancy and resignation of mind.  He was executed on the 31st of March, 1729, being then about thirty-eight years of age.  Gahogan died on the 24th of the same month, being then thirty years of age.

The Life of PETER KELLEY, alias OWEN, alias NISBET, a Murderer

Whether there be really any gradation in crimes, or whether we do not mistake in supposing the transgression of one Law of God more heinous than that of another, would be a point too difficult and too abstract for us to enter into, but as human nature is more shocked at the shedding of blood than at any other offence, we may be allowed to treat those who are guilty of it as bloody and unnatural men, who besides their losing all respect towards the laws of God, show also a want of that compassion and tenderness which seems incident to the human species.

The unhappy person of whom we are now to speak, was by birth an Irishman, and his true name Mackhuen, but upon his coming over into England he thought fit to change it for Owen, thereby inclining to avoid being taken for any other person than an Englishman.  His parents were, it seems, persons so low in the world that they could not afford him any education, so that he was unable either to write or read at the time of his death.  However, they put him out apprentice to a weaver, with whom having served his time, he came over to England, and worked for a little time at his trade.  But growing idle, and being always inclined to sotting, he chose rather to go errands, or to do anything rather than work any longer.

It seems he played with great dexterity upon two jews’ harps at a time, and this serving to entertain people of as loose and idle a disposition as himself, he thereby got a good deal of money, or least drink (which was to him all one, for without it he could not live), and his delight in an alehouse was so great that he seldom cared to be out of it.  People in such houses finding they got money by his playing upon the jews’ harp, and thereby keeping people longer at the pot than otherwise they were inclined to stay, used to encourage Peter by helping him to errands; but amongst all the persons who were so kind as to supply his necessities, there was one Nisbet, an old joiner in the neighbourhood, who was never weary of doing him kindnesses.  Having repeated these often and for a long time together, Kelley at last began to call the old man father, and there seemed to be an inviolable friendship between them, Peter always preserving some respect towards him, though he seemed to have lost it towards everybody else.