Historical Miscellany #39 – Damn’d Eyes [1766]

From Adams Weekly Courant, 25 March 1766, taken from The Gloucester Journal

“We have an account of a very extraordinary instance of Divine vengeance that happened about a week ago at Chalford in this county. One Richard Parsons, a young man of that place, was playing at cards, and he most prophanely wished his flesh might rot and his eyes never shut, if he did not win the next game. When he was going to bed, he observed a black spot upon his leg, from which a mortification began, and immediately spread all over his body, so that he died in a day or two, his flesh being quite rotten; nor could his eyes be shut, notwithstanding all the efforts of his friends to close them. The truth of this fact is attested by many of the neighbours who were with him.”

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