Upon the whole, the piece was not very full of events.  The doctor, to all appearances, was rendered perfectly stupid from despair.  His hat was flapped all round, and pulled over his eyes, which were never directed to any object around, nor even raised, except now and then lifted up in the course of his prayers.  He came in a coach, and a very heavy shower of rain fell just upon his entering the executioner’s cart, and another just at his putting on his nightcap.  During the shower an umbrella was held over his head, which Gilly Williams, who was present, observed was quite unnecessary, as the doctor was going to a place where he might be dried.

He was a considerable time in praying, which some people standing about seemed rather tired with; they rather wished for a more interesting part of the tragedy.  The wind, which was high, blew off his hat, which rather embarrassed him, and discovered to us his countenance, which we could scarcely see before.  His hat, however, was soon restored to him, and he went on with his prayers.  There were two clergymen attending on him, one of whom seemed very much affected.  The other, I suppose, was the Ordinary of Newgate, as he was perfectly indifferent and unfeeling in everything he did and said.

The executioner took both the hat and wig off at the same time.  Why he put on his wig again I do not know, but he did; and the doctor took off his wig a second time, and then tied on the nightcap which did not fit him; but whether he stretched that or took another, I did not perceive.  He then put on his nightcap himself, and upon his taking it he certainly had a smile on his countenance, and very soon afterwards there was an end of all his hopes and fears on this side of the grave.  He never moved from the place he first took in the cart; seemed absorbed in despair and utterly dejected; without any other sign of animation but in praying.  I stayed until he was cut down and put in the hearse.

But the hangman’s work was not always done when he had turned off his man.  The full sentence for high treason, for example, provided him with much more occupation.  In the first place, the criminal was drawn to the gallows and not carried or allowed to walk.  Common humanity had mitigated this sentence to being drawn upon a hurdle or sledge, which preserved him from the horrors of being dragged over the stones.  Having been hanged, the traitor was then cut down alive, and Jack Ketch set about disembowelling him and burning his entrails before he died.  The head was then completely severed, the body quartered and the dismembered pieces taken away for exhibition at Temple Bar and other prominent places.

Here is the account of one such execution.  “After the traitor had hung six minutes he was cut down, and having life in him, as he lay upon the block to be quartered, the executioner gave him several blows on his breast, which not having the effect designed, he immediately cut his throat; after which he took his head off; then ripped him open and took out his bowels and heart, and then threw them into a fire which consumed them.  Then he slashed his four quarters and put them with the head into a coffin....  His head was put on Temple Bar and his body and limbs suffered to be buried.”