ROBERT LADBROKE TROYT
A Boy of Seventeen, executed before Newgate, 28th of November, 1798, for Forgery, his First Offence
ALTHOUGH only seventeen years old, Robert Ladbroke Troyt was found guilty, at the Old Bailey, of having feloniously forged, and published as true, knowing it to be forged, a certain draft, dated the 20th of August, for the sum of seventy-five pounds, payable to Sir William Blackstone, purporting to be the draft of Messrs Devaynes, Dawes, Noble & Co.
On his trial this miserable boy was gaily dressed, and appeared to have no sense of the awful situation in which he stood, behaving with much unconcern; but at the place of execution he was a lamentable spectacle. He screamed in horror at the first sight of the apparatus of death, and during the short time allowed upon the scaffold for devotion he was in the greatest agony of mind.
He suffered for his first offence. He had been for a short time clerk to a gentleman of eminence in the profession of the law, courted the company of his elders, and tasted the dissipation (which they call the pleasures) of London. To support such an evil course he committed the fatal deed which so soon put a stop to his career.