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Swedish law, which only in certain cases admitted of
what was called ua severer imprisonment,” but so clever
were the interpreters of that law that Blackwell’s future
cruel torture was understood to fall under this category.
The letter of Titley, the anonymous letter, and the
touching upon the succession question were the three
points upon which the final charge was founded. The
place chosen for Blackwell’s imprisonment was the “
Tjuf-källare”—thieves’-hole—an underground, dark room under
a house on the Stor Market, where now the Exchange
stands. The beadle received orders to let the prisoner
remain there as long as he could stand it, and frequently
to look in upon him, an order which sufficiently showed
that the Committee were well aware that no one could
endure the confinement for weeks or months, but only for
hours. Blackwell was of small stature, weakly, and had
M soft limbs,” according to the beadle—no wonder that he
could hold out no longer than three-quarters of a day.
On the first of April, the day of his incarceration, towards
eleven o’clock at night, he suffered terrible agonies,
calling aloud for his warder, since he was prepared to
confess. But first he begged to be placed before the
Council, not before the Court, for he wanted to crave for
mercy, “ wishing to die a hundred times rather than to
suffer the like again.” Then he was going to tell
something about Sweden’s political relation to Russia. This
was considered irrelevant, and the unfortunate man had to
return to his subterranean hole, where the beadle found
him on the next morning, half dead. For a week more
there followed daily examinations. On the third of
April the prisoner, threatened with torture if he did not
confess about the succession question and the jT 100,000,
assured the Court again with many tears that he had
nothing to confess, and that he would much rather
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