The Virginia Gazette

To the memory of ALEXANDER WEDDERBURNE,
esquire.
He was born in the city of Edinburgh,
in North Britain,
In order fully to gratify his lust for
wealth, power, and popularity,
he pushed his fortune in the
metropolis of the British empire.
His abilities and eloquence soon procured him
a seat in the house of commons,
where he embraced the principles
and followed the practices of a company
of state prostitutes.
Finding the pleasures and emoluments
of this house unequal to the
sacrifice he had made of his virtue,
he renounced their society, and
(how condescending is real goodness!)
he was received into the society of
the friends of liberty and his country.
But alas! the acclamations of millions,
proclaiming his reformation,
and the pleasures of accepted contrition,
were not able to protect him from a
second seduction.
He was led on from one degree of venality to another,
until he was at last prevailed upon
to commit murder upon the character
of an illustrious American patriot and philosopher,
and high treason against
Britain and her colonies.
Traveller,
while you tread heavily upon his dust,
remember, that the pangs of a
first fall from virtue,
are not to be compared with the anguish
of a heart, awakened to the guilt of a
second defection.
Also, that great abilities and eloquence, are
not the marks of a favourite of Heaven, or
they would not have been conferred upon
this unhappy culprit.
He was executed May the 3d, 1774,
in the city of Philadelphia, in the presence of
many thousand spectators.
He had no friends to lament his fate.
for "treachery would not trust him."
He had no enemies to forgive,
for he was below contempt.
Even the eye of pity (which sometimes
drops at the expiation of murder)
refused him this
tribute of humanity.