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“COPY of a LETTER written by a young Man under sentence of Death, for Forgery,” The Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine (September 1791), p. 168.
Anonymous
A version of this letter was published in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction: containing Original Essays; Historical Narratives; Biographical Memoirs; Sketches of Society; Topographical Descriptions; Novels and Tales; Anecdotes; Select Extracts from New and Expensive Works (London, 1828), pp. 306–7. There, the letter is said to be “Written in the Condemned Cells, Newgate, by Captain [J.] Lee, the night previous to his execution, being convicted of forging a bill of exchange for 15l. on the Ordnance Office.” John Lee’s story is also written up in The Newgate Calendar: Being Interesting Memoirs of Notorious Characters, 5 vols (London, n.d.), vol. 3, pp. 462–4. This piece is interesting in the context of a number of selections from “Part IV: Early American Responses to Hume’s Character and Death.”
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Copy of a LETTER written by a young Man under sentence of Death, for Forgery
Newgate, March 3d, 1784:
BEFORE this reaches you, the head that dictates, and the hand that traces these lines, shall be no more — Earthly cares shall be swallowed up, and the death of an unthinking man shall have atoned for the trespasses he has committed against the laws of his country. But, ere the curtain be for ever dropped, or remembrance leave this tortured breast, let me take this last and solemn leave of one, with whom I have passed so many social and instructive hours, whose conversation I fondly cultivated, and whose friendship for me, I hope, will remain, even after the cold hand of death has closed my eyes in everlasting darkness.
I cannot think you will view this letter with stoick coolness, or with listless indifference — Absorbed as the generality of men are, in the pursuits of pleasure, or the avocations of business, there are times when the mind looks inward upon itself — when a review of past follies induces us to future amendment — and when a consciousness of having acted wrong, leads us to resolutions of doing right — In one of those fortunate moments, I hope you may receive these last admonitions. Shun but the rock on which I have struck, and you will be sure to avoid the shipwreck I have suffered.
Initiated in the army at an early period of life, I soon participated, not only of the follies, but the vices of my companions — Before, however, I could share, with undisturbed repose, in the wickedness of others, it was necessary to remove from myself what the infidel terms, the prejudice of a christian education; in this I unfortunately succeeded, and, conceiving from my tenderest years a taste for reading, my sentiments were confirmed, not by the flimsy effusions of empty libertines, but by the specious sophistry of modern philosophers.
It must be owned, that, at first, I was rather pleased with the elegance of their language, than the force of their reasoning. However, as we are apt to believe what we eagerly wish to be true, in a short time I became a professed deist.
My favourite author was the celebrated David Hume. I constantly urged his exemplary behaviour in private life, as a strong argument in favour of his doctrines, forgetting that his literary life was uniformly employed in diffusing his pernicious tenets, and that his utmost endeavours were constantly exerted in extending the baneful influence of his philosophical principles — Happy for me had I always been actuated by the considerations which fill my bosom at this moment, and which, I hope, will animate me in that awful part to-morrow’s sun shall see me perform.
But the die is cast, and I leave to the world this mournful memento — that however much a man may be favoured by personal qualifications, or distinguished by mental endowments, genius will be useless, and abilities avail but little, unless accompanied by a sense of religion, and attended by the practice of virtue — destitute of these, he will only be mounted on the wings of folly, that he may fall with the greater force into the dark abyss of endless despair.
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