Trewman's Exeter Flying Post - March 27th

"And on Monday last, Smith, Richards, and two Salters (father and son), and Gosling, were, pursuant to their sentence, executed at Heavitree gallows... In this account they continued till their arrival at the fatal tree, where the behaviour of Smith and the smugglers, was penitent and becoming their unhappy situation, but that of Richards bordered more on insanity than otherwise, he insisted on dying without a cap on his face, which he would not permit to be put on, and it being observed that he was not pinioned sufficiently to prevent raising his hands, he told the executioner, he not fear that, for he should put them in his breeches pockets, from whence he would never again take them, and which he instantly did; then desiring Smith might be again asked whether he was innocent, it was done, and Smith having declared it, they all were launched into eternity. Their bodies were the same night forwarded, in a cart, to be hung on a gibbett, according to the sentence, near the spot where murder was committed; and the bodies of the smugglers sent to the Hospital for dissection."