The Convict's Farewell: with Advice to Criminals, before and after Trial — Story, Setting & Ideas

(2 User reviews) 435

In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Parkerson, James Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2010 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: English poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 4,890

Reading time 22 min

Text sections 1

For The Convict's Farewell: with Advice to Criminals, before and after Trial — Story, Setting & Ideas, the stored edition analysis reports 4,890 words, 22 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 31.4 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “English poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #33533

An early 19th-century verse pamphlet by J. Parkerson, Jun., presenting a convict's first-person account of his crime, trial, and transportation. The poem blends moral warning with specific autobiographical details, including references to dice, cards, public houses, and a figure named Millwood. The catalog subject 'English poetry' accurately describes the form, but the work's didactic and criminal-justice focus extends beyond general literature.

Editorial Edition Score 4.3/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg33533

Read the Text

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’d dreams, 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. View 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 lost me every earthly friend; Except a wife—oh God protect and bless, Her and our offspring now in great distress. Young men be cautious how ye spend your time, A bad acquaintance hurries on a crime; Sometimes an artful female tries her power, To trap the giddy in a thoughtless hour; When she has work’d the captive to her will, She gladly sees your taking sorrow’s pill; Cause you to leave a virtuous homely wife, And lead a sad disgraceful wicked life; Allur’d by art she’ll bring you to distress, And like a Millwood to you falsely press: Then be the first your actions to betray, A fiend like such, caus’d me to go astray From them I love, from those my heart hold dear, And shall till death their memories revere; When I am clos’d in transport on the sea, Doubtless my love you’ll sometimes sigh for me. Bring up my little ones in such a way, As they will holy keep the sabbath-day; Early in life do in their minds reveal, The dreadful crimes to swear, to lie, or steal. Hannah my eldest daughter place her where, She’s constant under virtue’s eye and care; Let her not learn the weaving trade, you’ll find, That such a course may injure much her mind; Females are ready to acquire that art, Soon as they wish fair virtue to depart, Unwilling oft in service for to be, Where they can’t dress and have their liberty; But if with parents they can work at home, Nightly they hope with idle folks to roam: At my late sentence I can not complain, Altho’ the law my body do detain; Justice tho’ slow, has overtaken me, Abroad for life, I shall be kept from thee; On a just God for ever I will trust, I know his will is always right and just. Tis now too late again to speak to you, Which is the cause of writing this adieu. No partner now to sooth my aching heart, Reflection galls me, at myself I start, With aching heart and in my lonely cell, I bid my babes and you,—a long farewell. Methinks I see the transport full in view, And I with horror meet the harden’d crew; Full well I know I ne’er shall see you more, Nor plant a foot-step on my native shore; On foreign land I’m doom’d my days to toil, And with vile wretches cultivate the soil. Stripes I must bare perhaps when quite unwell, And hear the convicts’ melancholy yell; A pang I feel when e’er I close the night, And wish a virtuous wife was in my sight: England adieu, may you in trade increase, And free from inward tumults rest in peace. Our Chaplain well I know, will soon impart, His friendly aid to cheer the drooping heart; I hope my children he will learn to read, And teach them early to peruse the creed: The bell is rung, the waggon is in view, Wife and dear children now, adieu! adieu! At thoughts of leaving this my native shore, Unmans me quite and I can say no more; I will thro’ life, a better course pursue, Tho’ far away shall leave my heart with you.

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James Parkerson’s The Convict’s Farewell: with Advice to Criminals, before and after Trial (printed by R. Walker, Norwich, early 1800s) is a verse pamphlet that adopts the voice of a condemned man addressing his wife and children. The poem’s title and subtitle promise moral instruction, and the text delivers a first-person narrative of ruin: the speaker traces his downfall from a contented domestic life—‘I liv’d serenely in my little cot’—to imprisonment in chains. The catalog assigns this work to ‘English poetry’ and ‘general literature,’ but the excerpt reveals a tightly focused didactic purpose, blending personal lament with direct admonition to young men.

A Confessional Structure in Verse

The poem opens with a farewell to the speaker’s ‘partner of my woes’ and immediately establishes a confessional tone. Parkerson uses a regular rhyming couplet form, but the voice is distinctly personal: the convict describes waking from a dream of his family to find ‘my legs encompass’d round with chains.’ This physical detail grounds the abstract moral warning in a specific, embodied experience. The speaker does not name his crime, but the sequence of events—neglect of his master, loss of honest reputation, estrangement from a virtuous wife—suggests a pattern of petty theft or fraud. The verse form, while simple, allows for direct address and emotional appeal, making the pamphlet suitable for oral performance or cheap print distribution.

Cataloguing the Causes of Ruin

Parkerson’s convict enumerates the steps that led to his downfall with a methodical clarity. He identifies ‘a love of dice’ and ‘cards the great promoter of our vice’ as the ‘first step to ruin.’ The poem then broadens into a social critique, calling on magistrates to ‘punish Publicans’ and force spendthrifts to retire. This catalogue of causes—gambling, public houses, bad company, and ‘an artful female’—serves both as personal confession and as a warning to readers. The reference to ‘Millwood’ (likely a stock figure from George Lillo’s 1731 play The London Merchant) links the poem to a known literary type of the seductive temptress, though Parkerson does not develop the character beyond a single name. The speaker’s advice to ‘young men’ is explicit: avoid these traps or suffer the same fate.

The Limits of the Excerpt: What Remains Unseen

The Project Gutenberg transcription includes only the opening portion of the poem; the full text, as indicated by the word count of 4,890 words, likely continues the convict’s advice and possibly describes the trial or transportation. The excerpt breaks off after the speaker urges his wife to ‘bring up my little ones in such a way / As they will holy keep the sabbath-day.’ The catalog subject ‘English poetry’ is accurate, but the work’s practical, moralizing purpose aligns it more closely with cheap print genres such as gallows literature or criminal biography. Readers should note that the surviving text may have been issued as a single sheet or small pamphlet, priced at three-pence, and intended for a popular audience rather than a literary one.

The poem’s value lies in its directness: it offers a rare first-person criminal narrative from the early nineteenth century, filtered through a moralizing lens. Readers interested in the social history of crime, popular print, or didactic verse will find it a compact example of how reformers and publishers used the convict’s voice to warn against vice. The brevity of the work (estimated 22 minutes’ reading) makes it accessible, but the incomplete excerpt leaves the full arc of the convict’s story—including his trial and fate—untold.

Reading about J. Parkerson’s convict, with his dice and Millwood, I kept thinking of quieter verses. That poem’s stern rhythm felt almost like a memory of a different collection—my old copy of Rhymes Old and New : collected by M.E.S. Wright — Text and Context has a similar plainness, a hand reaching across years, not judging, just telling.