Jonathan at last pretended to be overcome with the reasons which had been offered to him on the subject of self-murder.  But it plainly appeared that in this he was a hypocrite; for the day before his execution, notwithstanding the keepers had the strictest eye on him imaginable, somebody conveyed to him a bottle of liquid laudanum, of which having taken a very large quantity, he hoped it would forestall his dying at the gallows.  But as he had not been sparing in the dose, so the largeness of it made a speedy effect, which was perceived by his fellow-prisoners seeing he could not open his eyes at the time that prayers were said to them as usual in the condemned hold.  Whereupon they walked him about, which first made him sweat exceedingly, and he was then very sick.  At last he vomited, and they continuing still to lead him, he threw the greatest part of the laudanum off from his stomach.  Notwithstanding that, he continued very drowsy, stupid and unable to do anything but gasp out his breath until it was stopped by the halter.

He went to execution in a cart, and instead of expressing any kind of pity or compassion for him, the people continued to throw stones and dirt all the way along, reviling and cursing him to die last, and plainly showed by their behaviour how much the blackness and notoriety of his crimes had made him abhorred, and how little tenderness the enemies of mankind meet with, when overtaken by the hand of Justice.

When he arrived at Tyburn, having by that gathered a little strength (nature recovering from the convulsions in which the laudanum had thrown him), the executioner told him he might take what time he pleased to prepare his death.  He therefore sat down in the cart for some small time, during which the people were so uneasy that they called out incessantly to the executioner to dispatch him, and at last threatened to tear him to pieces if he did not tie him up immediately.  Such a furious spirit was hardly ever discovered in the populace upon such an occasion.  They generally look on blood with tenderness, and behold even the stroke of Justice with tears; but so far were they from it in this case that had a reprieve really come, ’tis highly questionable whether the prisoner could ever have been brought back with safety, it being far more likely that as they wounded him dangerously in the head in his passage to Tyburn, they would have knocked him on the head outright, if any had attempted to have brought mm back.

Before I part with Mr. Wild, ’tis requisite that I inform you in regard to his wives, or those who were called his wives, concerning whom so much noise has been made.  His first was a poor honest woman who contented herself to live at Wolverhampton, with the son she had by him, without ever putting him to any trouble, or endeavouring to come up to Town to take upon her the style and title of Madam Wild, which the last wife he lived with did with the greatest affection.  The next whom he thought