Argument failing, the munificent
Clerk offered fifty pounds for the life of his friend. But to no
purpose: the valiant wrestler was carried to the cart in a chair, and so
lifted to the gallows, which cured him of his gaping wounds.
When the Commonwealth administered justice with pedantic severity,
Briscoe's influence still further declined. There was no longer scope
in the State for men of spirit; even the gaols were handed over to the
stern mercy of crop-eared Puritans; Moll herself had fallen upon evil
times; and Ralph Briscoe determined to make a last effort for wealth
and retirement. At the very moment when his expulsion seemed certain,
an heiress was thrown into Newgate upon a charge of murdering a too
importunate suitor. The chain of evidence was complete: the dagger
plunged in his heart was recognised for her own; she was seen to decoy
him to the secret corner of a wood, where his raucous love-making was
silenced for ever. Taken off her guard, she had even hinted confession
of her crime, and nothing but intrigue could have saved her gentle
neck from the gallows. Briscoe, hungry for her money-bags, promised
assistance. He bribed, he threatened, he cajoled, he twisted the law
as only he could twist it, he suppressed honest testimony, he procured
false; in fine, he weakened the case against her with so resistless an
effrontery, that not the Hanging Judge himself could convict the poor
innocent.
At the outset he had agreed to accept a handsome bribe, but as the trial
approached, his avarice increased, and he would be content with nothing
less than the lady's hand and fortune.
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