ends. Not long after which, he had as bad an
accident of the same kind under Newgate, which he said, made such an
impression on him, that he did not go abroad for many mornings
afterwards, without recommending himself in the most serious manner to
the Divine protection.
Another story he also told, with many marks of real thankfulness for the
narrow escape he then made from death, which happened thus. At a
cider-cellar in Covent Garden he fell out with one Captain Chickley, and
challenging him to fight in a dark room, they were then shut up together
for some space. But a constable being sent for by the people of the
house, and breaking the door open, delivered him from being sent
altogether unprepared out of the world, Chickley being much too hard for
him, and having given him a wound quite through the body, himself
escaping with only a slight cut or two.
As the day of execution drew near, Mr. Stanley appeared more serious
and much more attentive to his devotions than hitherto he had been. Yet
could he not wholly contain himself even then, for the Sunday before he
died, after sermon, at which he had behaved himself decently and
modestly, he broke out into this wild expression, that he was only sorry
he had not fired the whole house where he killed Mrs. Maycock. When he
was reproved for these things he would look ashamed, and say, 'twas
true, they were very unbecoming, but they were what he could not help,
arising from certain starts in his imagination that hurried him into a
short madness, for which he was very sorry as soon as he came to
himself.
At the place of execution, to which he was conveyed in a mourning coach,
he turned pale, seemed uneasy, and complained that he was very sick,
entreating a gentleman by him to support him with his hand. He desired
to be unbound that he might be at liberty to pray kneeling, which with
some difficulty was granted. He then applied himself to his devotions
with much fervency, and then submitted to his fate, but when the cap was
drawn over his eyes he seemed to shed tears abundantly. Immediately
before he was turned off he said his friends had provided a hearse to
carry away his body and he hoped nobody would be so cruel as to deny his
relations his dead limbs to be interred, adding, that unless he were
assured of this, he could not die in peace.
Such was the end of a young man in person and capacity every way fitted
to have made a reputable figure in the world, if either his
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