Verses, Written after visiting the Prisoners, now under sentence of Death in Boston, and expressive of their good wishes and prayer of their Fellow-Mortals.

£850 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

UNRECORDED. We have been unable to locate any other examples of this handbill or the text of the verse being used elsewhere. A pious lament for prisoners under sentence of death in Boston. A cheap printing of a long poem on the lives of prisoners facing death, with vivid descriptions of the “gloomy” prisons and the anticipation of “death’s sharp convulsive thoe.” There are also reminders to live a good and moral life in order to avoid this fate (“Children, your parents love, obey.”) The verses do not seem to refer to any one particular execution in Boston but were presumably produced to capitalise on public sentiment and sensation surrounding any execution. The trial and execution of Samuel Tully and John Dalton for piracy and murder in Boston in 1812 was greeted by enormous crowds and resulted in many similar publications as the present.

• Binding: Hardcover

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