A scarce late-eighteenth-century execution and conversion narrative, published in 1790, recounting the final days and religious transformation of W. Mooney Fitzgerald and John Clark, two Irish criminals executed for burglary at St John’s, New Brunswick (then Nova Scotia) on 18 December 1789.
Presented in the form of a letter from the Rev. Mr Milton to Selina, Countess Dowager of Huntingdon, this pamphlet documents Milton’s close pastoral engagement with the condemned men, their repentance, spiritual awakening, and his role in escorting them to the gallows. Milton was a missionary sent from England under the patronage of the Countess of Huntingdon, a central figure in eighteenth-century evangelical revival.
Such narratives were a recognised religious genre of the period, intended both as moral instruction and as testimony to divine grace, using the dramatic setting of criminal execution to demonstrate the power of repentance and redemption. The text provides valuable insight into evangelical missionary activity, colonial criminal justice, and religious culture in British North America at the close of the eighteenth century.
Disbound pamphlet. Some marks, blemishes, and light wear consistent with age and format. Overall a sound example of a fragile and rarely preserved publication.
Scarce. Only one other copy currently located on the market, making this an uncommon survival of a short, intensely topical religious publication.
Collectors of execution narratives, evangelical and Methodist history, colonial Canadian material, or eighteenth-century religious pamphlets.