The Virginia Gazette

The following particulars of the behaviour of Mrs. Brownrigg, on the morning of her execution, may be relied on as authentick. The ordinary of Newgate attended her a little after five, when she was brought into the Press Yard, seemed resigned, and joined in prayer. Afterwards she, together with her husband and son, received the Holy Sacrament in the Chapel, after which she prayed with great fervency, crying, "Lord deliver me from bloodguiltiness. I have nothing to plead or recommend me to thee but my misery; but thy beloved Son died for sinners, therefore on his merits I rely, and depend for pardon." She was now quite resigned, and prayed with her husband and son upwards of two hours, when she took leave of them, which exhibited a scene too affecting to be described, and which drew tears from all present. On her husband's assuring her he would take care to maintain their two younger children when he should be released from confinement, she begged him to seek a release from the prison of sin; and as for her children, God was all sufficient, and hoped he would not suffer them to be used as she had treated the unhappy girls put under her care. Her son fell on his knees, and begged his mother's blessing; on which she fell on his face and kissed him, while her husband fell on his knees, on the other side, praying to God to have mercy on her soul: Which occasioned her to say, "Dear James, I beg that God, for Christ's sake, will be reconciled, and that he will not leave nor forsake me in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment." She took her last farewell of them, and was soon after carried to the place of execution. The exclamations of the people, in her way thither, were shocking and unchristian: One said he hoped the ordinary would pray for her damnation, not her salvation; others that they hoped she would go to hell, and were sure the Devil would fetch her Soul. At Tyburn she composedly assisted in prayer, and desired the ordinary to acquaint the spectators that she acknowledged her guilt and the justice of her sentence; and her last words were, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" She repeatedly before her death declared her husband innocent of ill treating the girls, and that the son never did so but by her order.