different realities and reactions received. He later accepted the pardon, however.593 If it was some strange joke, a sign of insanity or expressing a wish is hard to know, but Gibson according to a witness, who saw it as a sign of insanity, in gaol used to sing: ”I shall be hanged, I shall be hanged.”594 The same year Rachel Beacham was tried for murder in London. She had cut the throat of the six years old daughter of a lodger of her and her husband. She could not provide any motive other than it was the result of fever, delirium, and melancholy.595 Then in 1789 first seven women and then twelve men refused to accept their sentences being commuted from death to transportation. None of them, however, seem to have originally sought to be executed, even though several stated that they accepted hanging instead of a pardon they did not want. Transportation to the new and unknown Australian territories was frightening; according to Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker ”it must have seemed that they were executed in a new and novel way.” To this fear both protests against how their cases were handled by the courts and claims of innocence were added. At least one of the women argued that she would rather die if not the penalty of another woman, which she claimed was innocent, and also refused to accept her pardon, was reduced. Eventually all nineteen were forced to accept their pardons.596 At least nine more condemned, however, made similar attempts to refuse their pardons between 1790 and 1794. The possibility of refusal was ended by a judgement in 1797.597 Sometime in the winter of 1795–96, a poor woman called Anne Hood was threatened with deportation to Botany Bay by a neighbour from whose place she had taken some wood to be able to bake bread. Anne was twenty-four years old, married, and had a small child she loved dearly. The thought of being separated from her child led her to the idea of 593 Devereaux 2007 p 105 sq. The London magazine, or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer 1751 p 427 and 475, The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle 1751 p 425, 474. 594 Rabin 2003 p 85 (quotation), 88. 595 Ward 2014 p 172. 596 Hitchcock and Shoemaker 2015 p 390 sqq, Hitchcock and Shoemaker 2010 p 339 sqq (quotation p 342), MacKay 2003 p 22, 34, Devereaux 2007. 597 MacKay 2003 p 23, 37 sq, Devereaux 2007 p 131 sqq. 170
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