Transcribed from the early 1800’s edition by DavidPrice, . Many thanks to Norfolk andNorwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the imagesfrom which this transcription was made.
THE CONVICT’S
Farewell:
WITH ADVICE
to
CRIMINALS,
BEFORE
and
AFTER TRIAL.
inverse.
BY J. PARKERSON, JUN.
PRICE THREE-PENCE.
NORWICH:
printed by r. walker, near the duke’s palace.
p.3THE CONVICT’S FAREWELL, &c.
Farewell ye partner of my woes, farewell!
The finest language could but faintly tell,
What I now feel in writing this adieu,
What you must suffer when I’m far from you.
There was a time when happiness my lot,
I liv’d serenely in my little cot;
No wicked thoughts did there disturb my rest,
My children round me, by a father prest;
No father now, methinks I hear them say,
He’s gone from us, he’s hurried far away.
Nightly I’ve view’d them in my flurri’ddreams,
Seen their wet eyes and heard their dreadful screams;
Methought my wife came to my lonely cell,
To say adieu, to bid a long farewell;
Soon I awoke and to increase my pains,
I felt my legs encompass’d round with chains;
Then, then I cried, oh drunkenness thou cause,
Of this distress, and made me break those laws
That wise men made for every man to keep,
By them deluded, plung’d in crimes so deep.
First step to ruin was a love of dice,
With cards the great promoter of our vice;
I wish those men who do with such things play,
Would ever cast them from their hands away;
I wish all Magistrates would search around,
And punish Publicans where they are found:
They caused me first my Master to neglect;
And after lost me honest men’s respect;
They also led me from a virtuous wife,
And mostly caused my lad disgrace and strife.
p.4View Public Houses, every wealthy Squire,
And force by ten, the spendthrift to retire;
By such a plan, the labouring poor would rise,
Soon as the Sun adorns the heavenly skies:
I’ve stated what have brought me to this end,
And what has