enquired whether he had seen anybody pass by his waggon
who looked suspicious, or was likely to have committed the fact. This
enquiry put him into so much confusion that he was scarce able to make
an answer, which occasioned their looking at him more narrowly and
thereby discovering the sleeve of his shirt to be all bloody. At first
he affirmed with great confidence that a soldier meeting him upon the
road had insulted him, and that in fighting with him he had made the
soldier's mouth bleed, which had so stained his shirt. But in a little
time perceiving this excuse would not prevail, but that they were
resolved to carry him back, he fell into a violent agony and confessed
the fact.

At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was convicted, and after
receiving sentence of death, endeavoured all he could to comfort and
compose himself during the time he lay under condemnation. His father,
who was a very honest industrious man came to see him, and after he was
gone Matthew spoke with great concern of an expression which his father
had made use of, viz., That if he had been to die for any other offence,
he would have made all the interest and friends he could to have served
for his life, but that the murder he had committed was so cruel, that he
thought that nothing could atone for it but his blood. The inhumanity
and cruel circumstances of it did indeed in some degree affect this
malefactor himself, but he seemed much more disturbed with the
apprehension of being hanged in chains, a thing which from the weakness
of vulgar minds terrifies more than death itself, and the use of which I
confess I do not see, since it serves only to render the poor wretches
uneasy in their last moments, and instead of making suitable impressions
on the minds of the spectators, affords a pretence for servants and
other young persons to idle away their time in going to see the body so
exposed on a gibbet.

At the place of execution, Clark was extremely careful to inform the
people that he was so far from having any malice against the woman whom
he murdered that he really had a love for her. A report, too, of his
having designed to sell the young girl he had brought out of the country
into Virginia had weight enough with him to occasion his solemn denying
of it at the tree, though he acknowledged at the same time that he had
resolved to leave her. He declared also, to prevent any aspersions on
some young men who had been his companions, that no