I have been cursing and swearing tonight owing to having to have 3 executions, Hobson, Mason and Radford, who were out of their places when Hobson F. came in to take Prep. I tried to get them off by thinking out every way of letting them off, but they only had such utterly feeble excuses as, they didn’t know the quarter had gone, somebody had said it was only 10 past etc, which were really too thin. I felt I should not be justified in letting them off and it might set a most undesirable precedent so determined to convict on the same grounds as the Judge and the Sheep stealer: ‘I condemn you to death not for stealing sheep but that sheep may not be stolen’.
I executed Hobson and Mason but not very hard, Hobson however rather smote Radford.