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16 SUSSEX SMUGGLERS.
life permitted thee to be sensible of it! And after all, to be buried while life was yet in thee, and to struggle with death even in thy wretched grave, what imagination can form to itself a scene of greater horror, or more detestable villainy ? Sure thy murderers must be devils incarnate! for none but the fiends of Hell could take pleasure in the torments of two unhappy men, who had given them no offence, unless their endeavouring to serve their king and country may be deemed such. This indeed was the plea of these vile miscreants ; but a very bad plea it was to support as bad a cause. But such is the depravity of human nature, that when a man once abandons himself to all manner of wickedness, he sets no bounds to his passions, his conscience is seared, every tender sentiment is lost, reason is no more, and he has nothing left him of the man but the form.
We forgot to mention in its proper place that in order to make their whipping the more severely felt, they pulled off Galley's great coat, which was found in the road next morning all bloody.
They, supposing Galley was dead, laid him across a horse, two of the smugglers, one on each side, holding him to prevent his falling, while the third led the horse, and as they were going up a dirty lane, Jackson said, " Stop at the swing gate beyond the water till we return, and we will go and seek for a place to carry them both to; when he and Carter went to the house of one Pescocl, who had been a reputed smuggler, and knocked at the door. The daughter came down, when they said they had got two men whom they wanted to bring to the house. The girl told them her father was ill, and had been so for some time, and that there was no conveniency for them, nor any body to look after |
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