l its servants,
that Feversham, immediately after the victory, hanged above twenty
prisoners; and was proceeding in his executions, when the bishop of Bath
and Wells warned him, that these unhappy men were now by law entitled
to a trial, and that their execution would be deemed a real murder. This
remonstrance, however, did not stop the savage nature of Colonel
Kirke, a soldier of fortune, who had long served at Tangiers, and had
contracted, from his intercourse with the Moors, an inhumanity less
known in European and in free countries. At his first entry into Bridge
water, he hanged nineteen prisoners without the least inquiry into the
merits of their cause. As if to make sport with death, he ordered a
certain number to be executed, while he and his company should drink
the king's health, or the queen's, or that of Chief Justice Jefferies.
Observing their feet to quiver in the agonies of death, he cried that he
would give them music to their dancing; and he immediately commanded
the drums to beat and the trumpets to sound. By way of experiment,
he ordered one man to be hung up three times, questioning him at each
interval, whether he repented of his crime: but the man obstinately
asserting, that notwithstanding the past, he still would willingly
engage in the same cause, Kirke ordered him to be hung in chains. One
story, commonly told of him, is memorable for the treachery, as well as
barbarity, which attended it. A young maid pleaded for the life of her
brother, and flung herself at Kirke's feet, armed with all the charms
which beauty and innocence, bathed in tears, could bestow upon her. The
tyrant was inflamed with desire, not softened into love or clemency. He
promised to grant her request, provided that she, in her turn, would be
equally compliant to him. The maid yielded to the conditions: but after
she had passed the night with him, the wanton savage next morning showed
her from the window her brother, the darling object for whom she had
sacrificed her virtue, hanging on a gibbet, which he had secretly
ordered to be there erected for the execution. Rage, and despair, and
indignation took possession of her mind, and deprived her forever of her
senses. All the inhabitants of that country, innocent as well as guilty,
were exposed to the ravages of this barbarian. The soldiery were let
loose to live at free quarters; and his own regiment, instructed by his
example, and encouraged by his exhortations, distinguished the