The events surrounding the death of nineteen-year-old Richard Parsons in March 1766 alarmed his friends and the doctor who attended him to such an extent that they were recorded in the Scots Magazine the next month: “On the 20th of February last, Richard Parsons and three more met at a private house in Chalford in order to play at cards about six o’ clock in the evening. They played at Loo till about eleven or twelve that night when they changed their game for Whist. After a few deals, a dispute arose about the slate of the game. Parsons asserted with oaths that they were six, which the others denied, upon which he wished that he might never enter into the kingdom of heaven and that his flesh might rot upon his bones if they were not six in the game. These wishes were several times repeated both then and afterwards. Upon this, the candle was put out by one James Young, a stander by who says he was shocked with the oaths and expressions he heard and that he put out the candle with a design to put an end to the game. Presently, upon this, they adjourned to another house and there began a fresh game, when Parsons and his partner had great success. Then they played at Loo again till four in the morning. During this second playing, Parsons complained to one Rolles, his partner, of a bad pain in his leg, which from that time increased. There was an appearance of a swelling, and afterwards the colour changed to that of a mortified state. On the following Sunday, he rode to Minchin Hampton to get the advice of Mr Pegler, the surgeon in that town, who attended him from the Thursday after February 27. Notwithstanding all the applications that were made, the mortification increased and shewed itself in different parts of his body. On Monday, March 3, at the request of some of his female relations, the clergyman of Bisley attended him and administered the sacrament without any knowledge of what had happened before and which he continued a stranger to till he saw the account in the Gloucester journal. Parsons appeared to be extremely ignorant of religion, having been accustomed to swear, to drink (though he was not in liquor when he uttered the above execrable wish), to game, and to profane the Sabbath, though he was only in his nineteenth year. Yet after he had received the sacrament, he appeared to have some sense of the ordinance, for he said, ‘Now I must never sin again’; he hoped that God would forgive him having been wicked not above six years, and that whatever should happen, he would not play at cards again. After this, he was in great agony, chiefly delirious, spoke of his companions by name and seemed as if his imagination was engaged at cards. He started, had distracted looks and gestures, and, in a dreadful fit of shaking and trembling, died on Tuesday morning, the 4th of March last, and was buried the next day at the parish church of Bisley. . . .” Mr. Pegler, the surgeon who attended to him, concluded his portion of the narrative, thus: “I shall not presume to say there was anything supernatural in the case; but, however, it must be confessed that such cases are rather uncommon in subjects so young and of so good an habit as he had always been previous this illness.” (Source: The Scots Magazine. Vol. 28. April 1766. 203-204.)