of his sentence. The execution was accordingly carried out on 20th April, 1785, but not, it would appear, upon the moveable platform or drop. On 7th September of that year, five months after Stewart’s death, the Council for the first time authorised Deacon Hill “to make a moveable platform for the execution of criminals in terms of his estimate”; and among certain accounts ordered to be paid by the City Chamberlain on 13th September, 1786, we find one due “To Thomas Hill for erecting a second platform, west end of the Tolbooth, twenty-one pounds, seven shillings and elevenpence halfpenny”—his account for the former work being also mentioned.
This was, without doubt, the drop upon which, two years later, Deacon Brodie was to suffer the penalty of the law. It is possible, and indeed, from the contemporary evidence already quoted, probable that he himself designed the model, adopting the improvement recently introduced in England. He may even have sent in an estimate for the work, but, as he was not that year a member of Council, Deacon Hill had the better chance of securing the contract, and certainly obtained it.
It was, therefore, on the platform above referred to that the execution of William Brodie and George Smith took place, at half-past two o’clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, 1st October, 1788, in presence of an immense crowd of spectators, great numbers having come from all parts of the country to witness the event. The Caledonian Mercury observes—“The crowd on this occasion was the greatest ever known; the whole space from the prison to the Castle Hill being filled with spectators, pressed together in one compact and immoveable column.” The proceedings were conducted with more than usual solemnity; the magistrates attended in their robes of office, “with white gloves and white staves”; ministers of divers denominations were present in their gowns and bands; and the City Guard formed a cordon round the place of execution. We read that “the great bell tolled during the ceremony, which had an awful and solemn effect.” This is said to have been the first occasion of the kind on which the bell of St. Giles’ Church was tolled. It is characteristic of the man that, on his last public appearance, we are informed, “Mr. Brodie appeared in a handsome suit of black clothes, and had his hair powdered and dressed with taste.” Twice, owing to some defect in the adjustment of the ropes, did the Deacon descend from the platform and enter into conversation with his friends; but, notwithstanding this dreadful delay, his fortitude remained unshaken, and he met his fate with a courage and equanimity worthy of a better cause:
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.
With his hand thrust carelessly into the open front of his vest, as we see him in his portrait, the Deacon calmly took that step out of the world which his own ingenuity is said to have shortened.
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of 2nd October, 1788, voices the popular sentiment of the time as follows:—“Thus ended the life of William Brodie, whose conduct, when we consider his situation in life, is equally singular and contradictory. By the low and vicious connections he formed he had everything to lose—he could gain little even if successful; for, from the moment he embarked in the enterprises of his desperate associates, his property, his life, was at their mercy. Indeed, his crimes appear to be rather the result of infatuation than depravity; and he seemed to be more attracted by the dexterity of thieving than the profit arising from it. To excel in the performance of some paltry legerdemain or slight-of-hand tricks, to be able to converse in the cant or flash language of thieves, or to chant with spirit a song from the ‘Beggar’s Opera,’ was to him the highest ambition. Those who knew him best agree that his
disposition was friendly and generous, and that he had infinitely more of the dupe than the knave in his composition; and was, indeed, admirably fitted for designing and wicked men to work upon.” The Deacon, even in his own day, did not lack apologists. And though there may be some diversity of opinion regarding the precise shade which that unhappy gentleman had stained a character in other respects not without redeeming traits, there can be none as to the monstrous injustice of the penalty exacted by the law for his offence. In these more merciful times, when conscientious juries hesitate to convict the guilty upon a capital charge, and rather than deliver a fellow-being to an irrevocable doom will sometimes evade responsibility by the via media of “not proven,” it is difficult to realise the callous indifference to human life for which our criminal code was formerly notorious. At that period a man might, literally, as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb; and that the Deacon should suffer a punishment so disproportionate to his deserts would, however repugnant to modern feeling, seem natural enough to his stoical contemporaries.
In explanation of the singular degree of coolness exhibited to the last by Deacon Brodie, a curious story became current. Much anxiety had undoubtedly been shown both by himself and others that his body might not be detained in prison, but should be delivered to his friends so soon as the execution had taken place. With this view the Deacon, on the forenoon of the fatal day, addressed to the Lord Provost the following remarkable letter:—
“Edinburgh Tolbooth,
“Oct. 1, 1788, Eleven o’clock.
“My Lord,
“As none of my relations can stand being present at my dissolution, I humbly request that your Lordship will permit —— to attend, it will be some consolation in my last hour; and that your Lordship will please give orders that my body after be delivered to and by no means to remain in gaol; that he and my friends may have it decently dressed and interred. This is the last request of
“Your most obedient
but most unfortunate,
Will. Brodie.”
“Both of which requests,” we are told, “his Lordship most readily granted.” It is said, by the author of the letterpress in “Kay’s Portraits” (1877, vol. 1., pp. 262-3), on the authority of an eye-witness of the execution, that Brodie had been visited in prison by a French quack, Dr. Peter Degravers, who undertook to restore him to life after he had hung the usual time; that, on the day preceding the execution, this individual had marked the Deacon’s temples and arms with a pencil, in order to know the more readily where to apply his lancet; and that with this view the hangman had been bargained with for a short fall. “The excess of caution, however, exercised by the executioner in the first instance in shortening the rope proved fatal by his inadvertency in making it latterly too long. After he was cut down his body was immediately given to two of his own workmen, who, by order of the guard, placed it in a cart and drove at a furious rate round the back of the Castle. The object of this order was probably an idea that the jolting motion of the cart might be the means of resuscitation, as had once actually happened in the case of the celebrated ‘half-hangit Maggie Dickson.’ The body was afterwards conveyed to one of Brodie’s own workshops in the Lawnmarket, where Degravers was in attendance. He attempted bleeding, &c., but all would not do. Brodie was fairly gone.”
The irregular practitioner above mentioned was certainly in Edinburgh about that time, for we read in the newspapers of the day advertisements, which he issued from his rooms in Charles Street, offering his professional services to the public at the moderate fee of half-a-crown “in all cases.” Judging by the testimonials from grateful patients which he also published, the doctor must have given wonderful value for the money; but in the somewhat exceptional circumstances of the Deacon’s case he would, if successful, have surely been entitled to a larger fee.
A more picturesque, if less probable version of the same story is given by the author of “Reminiscences of Glasgow,” on the authority of Æneas Morrison. It is there stated that any attempt to effect the Deacon’s rescue by overpowering the City Guard or breaking into the Tolbooth having, after due consideration,
