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Nicholas Bayard, who had become more than ever bitter because he had been kept for thirteen months in prison, was anxious for revenge. The council urged the Governor to carry out the sentence, and he finally signed the death-warrant. Two days later Leisler and Milborne were led to execution. The scaffold had been erected in Leisler's own garden, close by where the post-office is now.
"Father and Jacob Milborne may be declared usurpers." "But it was on the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England that your father became governor." "True. It was not until Andros had been seized in Boston, imprisoned and sent to England, that my father suggested the seizure of Fort James. He was made commander and afterward governor, and so holds his office to this day.
He was a man not wholly without ambition, yet he was honest and did what he thought right. He had much of the stubbornness as well as honesty of the Netherlands in his composition, and believing himself in the right, determined to persist in it. Jacob Milborne, his English son-in-law, was the more ambitious of the two, and had guided and directed the affair.
The character of the assembly was thoroughly royalist. It passed several resolutions against Leisler, especially declaring his conduct at the fort an act of rebellion, and on the 15th of May, the second day of their session and the next after the arrival of Adelpha, Sloughter, in a moment of excitement, assented to the vote of the council, that Leisler and Milborne should be executed.
The Shaftesbury road passes through pleasant country, with no particular features but with occasional good views, to Milborne Port, not quite three miles to the east. A few new buildings on the outskirts of the little town have failed to rob it of its medieval air. It can actually boast of a Norman guildhall, or at least the building has a doorway of that period, which is near enough.
Milborne was full of hate for those who caused his death. Close by the scaffold stood Robert Livingston, a citizen who had always been strongly opposed to Leisler. To this man Milborne pointed, and fiercely cried: "You have caused my death. For this I will impeach you before the Bar of God." And so he died. The bodies of both men were interred close by the scaffold.
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