the party stabbing, so that he dies thereof within six months
after, the offender shall not have the benefit of clergy, though
he did it not of malice aforethought." Blackstone.

The Life of MARY HANSON, a Murderer

Amongst the many frailties to which our nature is subject, there is not
perhaps a more dangerous one than the indulging ourselves in ridiculous
and provoking discourses, merely to try the tempers of other people. I
speak not this with regard to the criminal of whom we are next to treat,
but of the person who in the midst of his sins drew upon himself a
sudden and violent death by using such silly kind of speeches towards a
woman weak in her nature, and deprived of what little reason she had by
drink.

This poor creature, flying into an excess of passion with Francis
Peters, who was some distant relation to her by marriage, she wounded
him suddenly under the right pap with a knife, before she could be
prevented by any of the company; of which wound he died. The warm
expressions she had been guilty of before the blow, prevailed with the
jury to think she had a premeditated malice, and thereupon they found
her guilty.

Fear of death, want of necessaries, and a natural tenderness of body,
brought on her soon after conviction so great a sickness that she could
not attend the duties of public devotion, and reduced her to the
necessity of catching the little intervals of ease which her distemper
allowed her, to beg pardon of God for that terrible crime for which she
had been guilty.

There was at the same time, one Mary Stevens in the condemned hold
(though she afterwards received a reprieve) who was very instrumental in
bringing this poor creature to a true sense of herself and of her sins;
she then confessed the murder with all its circumstances, reproached
herself with having been guilty of such a crime as to murder the person
who had so carefully took her under his roof, allowed her a subsistence
and been so peculiarly civil to her, for which he expected no return but
what was easily in her power to make. This Mary Stevens was a
weak-brained woman, full of scruples and difficulties, and almost
distracted at the thoughts of having committed several robberies. After
receiving the Sacrament, she not only persuaded this Mary Hanson to
behave herself as became a woman under her unhappy condition, but also
persuaded two or three other female criminals in that place to make the
best use