d another
man's name, with intent to receive his wages. _Ann. Reg_. xxvii, 193,
and _Gent. Mag_. liv. 379, 474. The _Gent. Mag_. recording the
sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and
the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all
to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the
_Bloody Country_.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten
towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at
Winchester. _Ib_. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey
Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man
on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave
strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.' _Ib_.
pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the
number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to
Madan's _Thoughts on Executive Justice_; 'a small tract, in which, by a
mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is
more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he
absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every
instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783,
the year before the book was published, there were executed in London
only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published,
there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the
book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course
of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.' _Life
of Romilly_, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5.
Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn, _ante_, ii. 93.

[1016] See _ante_, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l.

[1017] A friend of mine happened to be passing by a _field congregation_
in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage
with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the
condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of
death. He records:--'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and
most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them
died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly
approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I
rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.'
Wesley's _Journal_, ed.