neath his talents; and pleasure, in every alluring form, invited him to her courts :-the fyren fong prevailed, and ruin preffed on with hafty fteps. His father's ftock was fold, and young Davis commenced a gentleman: he was suited to the character in every respect but the poffeffion of wealth. Thus qualified, he procured admiffion to the beft of company. As he kept pace with these in manners, he was neceffarily obliged to keep pace with them in expence. Like them he gamed, and like them he became the prey of fharpers; his ignorance was their gain; his honefty their fecurity, and his generofity their abuse. A difpofition, tender and gentle as his was naturally, was fufceptible of the charms of beauty. The harlot whom man had betrayed from happiness and peace, fought an object of revenge, and found a fit one in young Davis.

Thus attacked by impofition on one fide, and by deceit on the other, his fortune declined apace. He faw impending danger, and endeavoured to avoid it, but in vain. Prudence had quitted the helm; the bark was left to the guidance of pleasure ; and though a wreck was not immediate, it was inevitable. To avoid further injury by play, Davis deferted the gaming-table; to protect himself from the fnares of proftituted beauty, he married: the measure was wife, but it was ill-timed. The fatal die was already caft. He chose a partner to please his fancy. Generofity forbade every idea of intereft: a fentiment so noble at an earlier period, would have insured his happiness; but he had roved at large too long; variety had been courted, and foon regained the heart of her old admirer. Davis frayed from the path of connubial duty: he was convinced of the injuftice of his conduct, and he could not bear to receive the careffes of a woman he was daily loading with injuries. Though no upbraidings fell from her tongue, millions were fuggefted by his own confcience. To avoid a leffer, he rushed into a greater levil: he abandoned his wife, and fought a wretched afylum in the arms of those who hardly could receive an additional wrong. The fmall remains of his fortune they quickly diffipated. What was now to be done? that, at which his gentle heart revolted: he was to turn villain. He had been half ruined by the foul play of others, and now he must refort to foul play himfelf, in order to procure a miferable fubfiftence. Being poffeffed of a genteel figure and addrefs, he was readily admitted into the fraternity of profeffional gamefters. He had fatally learnt the principles of play, and was only to be inftructed in its vile arts; of these he foon became an approved mafter. His own loffes gave a fpecious air of juftice to the recovery of them by the fame means as had occafioned their priVOL. I. 4.

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vation. For fome time fuccefs attended this dishonest plan; but pigeons at length did not fly every day, and appearances must be fuftained. A gamefter is a gentleman, and the vices of a gentleman must be dignified with the appellation of honourable; what means, then, that are honourable, must a distressed gamefter refort to ?-The road points out itfelf directly: a highwayman is an honourable character. This character poor Davis with horror affumed; his whole frame trembled, when preparing the dreadful instruments of terror and of death; but he flattered himfelf that they need only to be prepared. Alas! once plunged in guilt, we know not whither it will lead us : corruption of morals induces us to commit inferior crimes, and felf-prefervation prompts us to perpetrate greater for their concealment.

Thus it was with young Davis. When he went out, he fhuddered at the very thoughts of murder: before he returned, again, he was involved in the guilt of it. A difregard to the property of his neighbour, was quickly followed by the facrifice. of his life. The gentleman he robbed, refifted his attack. To. effectuate his purpose, and obtain a temporary fafety, he therefore shot him, rifled his pockets, and escaped: he fled for fecrecy and fecurity to the apartments of his Delilah. Here, while property remained, he was concealed; when it was expended, his faithlefs harlot gave information of him, for the fake of a fhare in the reward, given as the price of his blood. He was apprehended, tried, convicted, and, as a murderer, ordered for. fpeedy execution. Senfible of the magnitude of his guilt, he murmured not at the dreadful fentence. Death came as a kind. relief, though in a difgraceful form. The fun upbraided him with having deprived another of its charming influence. The bleffing of life appeared to him as a curfe, inafmuch as he had bafely torn it from a fellow-creature.

With these aweful reflections, he entered his dreary cell. He had not been there long, when the maffy door opened, and pre-. fented to his affrighted view his injured and deferted wife; not come to cenfure and condemn, but to pity and to footh his forrows. For a while her tender purpofe was refifted; her prefence planted new thorns in the bofom of her guilty and afflicted hufband; but her forgivenefs plucked them out again, and healed his wounds. The dreadful moment of their earthly feparation for ever arrived-the laft mutual embrace was given :. the big tear burft down the manly cheek, while female fortitude fruggled to conceal the fympathetic pearl, that would have rent the foul of him for whom it rofe. The jailor, whose rude feelings were foftened by the fcene, led the beauteous mourner from

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the prison, and warned the captive of the approaching hour of death. He afcended the cart with refolution; tempered by decency. In his way to the fatal tree, his crimes were forgotten, his penitence admired, and his fufferings pitied. When arrived at the tragic fpot, he thus addreffed the furrounding spectators :

"My Friends and Fellow-Mortals,

"YOU here behold one, moulded like yourselves, about to faffer an ignominious, although juft death: one, who, a few years back, as little thought of fuch an end as any who now look on him. He gloried in imprudence, but fufpected not how foon it would force him into vice. He was a votary of pleasure, not thinking it would lead to pain. By nature he was formed honeft and humane; but by necefity, produced from folly, rendered cruel and unjust. From fuch a character, placed in a fituation where he can have no interest at heart but your own, take some advice. Let diligence and economy be your riches. Let virtue be your pleasure. Supprefs not your paffions, they were given for your use; but fubject them to the controul of reafon, and direct them to the purposes of honour and juftice. If beauty claims your attention, marry early the virtuous object of your affections; believe that none but a virtuous woman can make you permanently happy. Fear not the expences honourably incurred by an extenfive family.-Providence bids you encounter fuch difficulties: be lefs afraid of poverty than vice. Refift the first attacks of diffipation. Let not ambition to appear above your sphere in life, diftrefs you in your circumftances, left it prompt you to bafe means for their replenishment. Revere your God; be just and kind to men; avoid my crimes, and thereby fhun my fate; live honeftly; die with credit; and thus infure temporal happiness, and eternal blifs."

The cart drew away, and poor Davis fled to the mercy of his father.May his misfortunes preferve the virtuous in the wisdom of their ways, and draw the vicious from the paths of deftruction!

The TRIAL of DANIEL MACGENNIS, M. D. at the OLD BAILEY, for the Murder of JOHN HARDY, Hatter and Hofer, in Newgate-ftreet, on Friday, January 17, 1783.

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R. Fielding, as counsel for the profecution, opened the cafe in a very impartial and candid manner. In his animadverfions

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ging him to the ftairs, to fling him down the flight; and that, in fuch a fituation, he had done what felf-prefervation had fuggefted to him, for his deliverance. [Here it may not be improper to obferve, that the deceased was a very strong, able, mufcular young man, under thirty years of age; the doctor is a little man, very feeble, and turned of threefcore.] Upon this, the constable examined his breaft, but found no marks of blows; and having remarked this to the doctor, he replied, that his flesh was of fuch a nature, that if it was beaten ever so much, it never appeared difcoloured. Both hands of the prisoner were bloody when he was apprehended. On the day after he was lodged in Newgate, the witnefs went to the house of the deceafed he examined the ftairs, and traced blood up to the landing-place of the doctor's apartment, on which place he faw fome drops; and particularly, the knob of the bannister of the landing-place was covered all over with blood: he also found the candle on the landing-place, and faw that it had been trodden under foot.Here the evidence for the crown was closed. Mr. Macgennis tendered to the court a defence in writing, which he requested to be read.-The judges Willes, Ashhurst, and the recorder, concurred in opinion, that before this paper was read, it should undergo the revifion of his counsel, as, in his awful and difturbed fituation, the prifoner might ignorantly ftate facts, which, in point of law, were fufficient to condemn him. Meffrs. Erskine and Sylvefter perufed the defence, which met with their approbation, and it was audibly read by Mr. Reynolds, clerk of the arraigns.

The doctor in his defence ftated, that the fervant girl having neglected to empty the chamber-pot, he had been obliged to do it himself into the yard; and fome of the water having fallen upon the sky-light, Mr. Hardy went up to him in a great paffion, and used very illiberal language to him, to which he (the prifoner) had not, of course, made a mild reply; that the deceased, upon hearing this reply, on his way down ftairs, returned in hafte, and forced open his chamber door, which the prisoner had endeavoured to keep fhut; that he then ftruck him, brought him to the ground, dragged him by the hair, and faid he would throw him over the bannifters. In this fituation, engaged in a conteft, which, from the ftrength and youth of the deceased, muft appear to have been very unequal indeed, he had, from an apprehenfion of danger, faved his life for that time, by taking away that of Mr. Hardy: he had acted from the impulfe of nature, and that principle of the human heart, which makes a man prefer his own life to the prefervation of that of any other perfon; not that he had any idea, that by extricating himself,

he

he fhould have killed Mr. Hardy, à man against whom he had never entertained a particle of malice or ill-will: if he had done right, he expected that he would be cleared of the odious charge of murder; if he had done wrong, he was in the hands of his country, and at the difpofal of the laws; to whofe judgement, be it what it might, he would fubmit without a murmur. His council then called Mr. Curtis, of Ivy-Lane, behind Newgate ftreet. On the day Mr. Hardy died, he was alarmed with a cry of murder, and running to his window, which looked into the doctor's apartment, (the walls of the two houses not being ten yards afunder) he faw the prifoner at the window, and heard him cry out murder, and fay that he was in danger of being murdered. The prifoner, feeing him, cried out, For God's fake come to my affistance."

Another witness proved, that having called out to the prisoner to know why he did not furrender himself, he received for an fwer, "They have got fire-arms, and I am afraid that if I open the door they will shoot me; but if you will fetch a peaceofficer, I will furrender to him inftantly."

Mr. Daniel Shield (a Weft-India merchant) was the first witness called to his character. He faid he had known the doctor for twelve years, the greatest part of the time at Jamaica; and that he had always found him moft fingularly humane, tender and kind to thofe who ftood in need of his fervices; and that he never knew a man of greater gentleness of manners, or beneficence of difpofition.

Lord Viscount Barrington was the second witness to his charafter. He faid he had known Mr. Macgennis for many years, and, during the whole time, he had found him a meek, harmlefs, innocent, inoffenfive man. He had fometimes heard him complain that he was neglected by men in power; but he had always mixed fo much mildness, temper, and moderation with his complaints, that he clearly fhewed he felt not an atom of animofity against thofe who were the objects. He had ever found him an advocate for humanity, and a man without gall or refentment. His lordfhip heard firft of him from the earl of Hillsborough, who had given him just fuch a character of the doctor as he himself had then given to the court; and he was convinced that if his lordfhip was in England he would readily appear in behalf of his friend, and bear teftimony upon oath to the amiableness of his character.

The earl of Effingham was the third witness to his character. He faid he had known the doctor as a man of letters and an author; that he had fhewn him fome tracts written by himself, (the prisoner) in order that he might have his opinion of them

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