loud of witnesses, many of whom (the thing appearing so
plain) were sent away unexamined. She herself confessed at the bar her
previous knowledge of their intent several days before the fact was
committed; yet foolishly insisted on her innocence, because the fact was
not committed by her own hands. The jury, without staying long to
consider of it, found her guilty, and she was taken from the bar in a
very weak and faint condition. On her return to Newgate, she was visited
by several persons of her acquaintance, who yet were so far from doing
her any good that they rather interrupted her in those preparations
which it became a woman in her sad condition to make.

When they were brought up to receive sentence, Wood and Billings renewed
their former requests to the Court, that they might not be hung in
chains. Mrs. Hayes also made use of her former assertion, that she was
not guilty of actually committing the fact, and therefore begged of the
Court that she might at least have so much mercy shown her as not to be
burnt alive. The judges then proceeded in the manner prescribed by Law,
that is, they sentenced the two men, with the other malefactors, to be
hanged, and Mrs. Hayes, as in all cases of petty treason, to die by fire
at a stake; at which she screamed, and being carried back to Newgate,
fell into violent agonies. When the other criminals were brought thither
after sentence passed, the men were confined in the same place with the
rest in their condition, but Mrs. Hayes was put into a place by herself,
which was at that time the apartment allotted to women under
condemnation.

Perhaps nobody ever kept their thoughts so long and so closely united to
the world, as appeared by the frequent messages she sent to Wood and
Billings in the place where they were confined, and that tenderness
which she expressed for both of them seemed preferable to any concern
she showed for her own misfortunes, lamenting in the softest terms of
having involved those two poor men in the commission of a fact for which
they were now to lose their lives. In which, indeed, they deserved pity,
since, as I shall show hereafter, they were persons of unblemished
characters, and of virtuous inclinations, until misled by her.

As to the sense she had of her own circumstances, there has been scarce
any in her state known to behave with so much indifference. She said
often that death was neither grievous nor terrible to her in itself, but
was in some de