Before I tell you what that sentence is, I must inform you that his life is safe, notwithstanding it is at present at the mercy of the king, to which he is in the strongest terms recommended by the Court.

That any unnecessary fears may not be productive of misery to the family, I must add, that the king's attorney-general (who with Judge Ashurst attended the trial) desired me to make myself perfectly easy, for that my friend was as safe as if he had not been condemned.

I would have avoided making use of this dreadful word, but it must have come to your knowledge, and perhaps unaccompanied by many others of a pleasing kind.

To prevent its being improperly communicated to Mrs.or the Misses Heywood, whose distresses first engaged me in the business, and could not fail to call forth my best exertions upon the occasion, I send you this by express.

The mode of communication I must leave to your discretion; and shall only add that, although from a combination of circumstances, ill-nature, and mistaken friendship, the sentence is in itself terrible, yet it is incumbent on me to assure you that, from the same combination of circumstances, everybody who attended the trial is perfectly satisfied in his own mind that he was _hardly guilty in appearance, in intention he was perfectly innocent_.