bold that not contented with the deer in chases and such places, they
broke into the paddock of Anthony Duncombe, Esq., and there killed
certain fallow deer. One Charles George who was the keeper, and some of
his assistants hearing the noise they made, issued out, and a sharp
fight beginning, the deer-stealers at last began to fly. But a
blunderbuss being fired after them, two of the balls ripped the belly of
Biddisford, who died on the spot; and soon after the keepers coming up,
John Guy was taken. And being tried for this offence at the ensuing
sessions of the Old Bailey, he was convicted and received sentence of
death, though it was some days after before he could be persuaded that
he should really suffer.

When he found himself included in the death warrant, he applied himself
heartily to prayer and other religious duties, seeming to be thoroughly
penitent for the crimes he had committed, and with great earnestness
endeavoured to make amends for his follies, by sending the most tender
letters to his companions who had been guilty of the same faults, to
induce them to forsake such undertakings, which would surely bring them
to the same fate which he suffered, for so inconsiderable a thing
perhaps as a haunch of venison. Whether these epistles had the effect
for which they were designed, I am not able to say, but the papers I
have by me inform me that the prisoner Guy died with very cheerful
resolution, not above twenty-five years of age, the same day with the
malefactors before mentioned.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] See page 164.




The Life of VINCENT DAVIS, a Murderer


It is an observation made by some foreigners (and I am sorry to say
there's too much truth in it) that though the English are perhaps less
jealous than any nation under the heavens, yet more men murder their
wives amongst us than in any other nation in Europe.

Vincent Davis was a man of no substance and who for several years
together had lived in a very ill correspondence with his wife, often
beating and abusing her, until the neighbours cried out shame. But
instead of amending he addicted himself still more and more to such
villainous acts, conversing also with other women. And at last buying a
knife, he had the impudence to say that that knife should end her, in
which he was as good as his word; for on a sudden quarrel he slabbed her
to the heart. For this murder he was indicted, and also on the Statute
of Stabbing,[53] of both of which on the fullest proof he was found
guilty.

When Davis was first committed, he thought fit to appear very melancholy
and dejected. But when he found there was no hopes of life, he threw off
all decency in his behaviour and, to pass for a man of courage, showed
as much vehemence of temper as a madman would have done, rattling and
raving to everyone that came in, saying it was no crime to kill a wife;
and in all other expressions he made use of, behaved himself more like a
fool or a man who had lost his wits than a man who had lived so long and
creditably in a neighbourhood as he had done, excepting in relation to
his wife. But he was induced, with the hopes of passing for a bold and
daring fellow, to carry on this scene as long as he could, but when the
death warrant arrived, all this intrepidity left him, he trembled and
shook, and never afterwards recovered his spirits to the time of his
death.

The account he gave of the reason of his killing his wife in so
barbarous a manner was this; that a tailor's servant having kept him out
pretty late one night, and he coming home elevated with liquor abused
her, upon which she got a warrant for him and sent him to New Prison.
After this, the prisoner said, he could never endure her; she was poison
to his sight, and the abhorrence he had for her was so great and so
strong that he could not treat her with the civility which is due to
every indifferent person, much less with that regard which Christianity
requires of us towards all who are of the same religion. So that upon
every occasion he was ready to fly out into the greatest passions, which
he vented by throwing everything at her that came in his way, by which
means the knife was darted into her bosom with which she was slain.

Notwithstanding the barbarity which seemed natural to this unhappy man,
the cruelty with which he treated his wife in her last moments, the
spleen and malice with which he always spoke of her, and the little
regret he showed for having imbrued his hands in her blood, he yet had
an unaccountable tenderness for his own person, and employed the last
days of his confinement in writing many letters to his friends,
entreating them to be present at his execution in order to preserve his
body from the hands of the surgeons, which of all things he dreaded. And
in order to avoid being anatomised, he affronted the court at the Old
Bailey, at the time he received sentence of death, intending as he said
to provoke them to hang him in chains, by which means he should escape
the mangling of the surgeon's knives, which to him seemed ten thousand
times worse than death itself. Thus confused he passed the last moments
of his life, and with much ado recollected himself so as to suffer with
some kind of decency, which he did on the 30th of April, at the same
time with the last-mentioned malefactor.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] 1 Jac. I, cap. 8, "When one thrusts or stabs another, not
then having a weapon drawn, or who hath not then first stricken
the party stabbing, so that he dies thereof within six months
after, the offender shall not have the benefit of clergy, though
he did it not of malice aforethought." Blackstone.




The Life of MARY HANSON, a Murderer


Amongst the many frailties to which our nature is subject, there is not
perhaps a more dangerous one than the indulging ourselves in ridiculous
and provoking discourses, merely to try the tempers of other people. I
speak not this with regard to the criminal of whom we are next to treat,
but of the person who in the midst of his sins drew upon himself a
sudden and violent death by using such silly kind of speeches towards a
woman weak in her nature, and deprived of what little reason she had by
drink.

This poor creature, flying into an excess of passion with Francis
Peters, who was some distant relation to her by marriage, she wounded
him suddenly under the right pap with a knife, before she could be
prevented by any of the company; of which wound he died. The warm
expressions she had been guilty of before the blow, prevailed with the
jury to think she had a premeditated malice, and thereupon they found
her guilty.

Fear of death, want of necessaries, and a natural tenderness of body,
brought on her soon after conviction so great a sickness that she could
not attend the duties of public devotion, and reduced her to the
necessity of catching the little intervals of ease which her distemper
allowed her, to beg pardon of God for that terrible crime for which she
had been guilty.

There was at the same time, one Mary Stevens in the condemned hold
(though she afterwards received a reprieve) who was very instrumental in
bringing this poor creature to a true sense of herself and of her sins;
she then confessed the murder with all its circumstances, reproached
herself with having been guilty of such a crime as to murder the person
who had so carefully took her under his roof, allowed her a subsistence
and been so peculiarly civil to her, for which he expected no return but
what was easily in her power to make. This Mary Stevens was a
weak-brained woman, full of scruples and difficulties, and almost
distracted at the thoughts of having committed several robberies. After
receiving the Sacrament, she not only persuaded this Mary Hanson to
behave herself as became a woman under her unhappy condition, but also
persuaded two or three other female criminals in that place to make the
best use of that mercy which the leniency of the Government has extended
them.

There was a man suffered to go twice a day to read to them, and probably
it was he who drew up the paper for Mary Hanson which she left behind
her, for though it be very agreeable to the nature of her case, yet it
is penned in the manner not likely to come from the hands of a poor
ignorant woman. Certain it is, however, that she behaved herself with
great calmness and resolution at the time of her death, and did not
appear at all disturbed at that hurry which, as I shall mention in the
next life, happened at the place of execution. The paper she left ran in
these words, viz.:

Though the poverty of my parents hindered me from having any great
education, yet I resolve to do as I know others in my unhappy
circumstances have done, and by informing the world of the causes
which led me to that crime for which I so justly suffer, that by
shunning it they may avoid such a shameful end; and I particularly
desire all women to take heed how they give way to drunkenness,
which is a vice but too common in this age. It was that disorder in
which my spirits were, occasioned by the liquor I had drunk, which
hurried me to the committing a crime, at the thoughts of which on
any other time my blood would have curdled. I hope you will afford
me your prayers for my departing soul, as I offer up mine to God
that none of you may follow me to this fatal place.

Having delivered this paper, she suffered at about thirty years old.




The Life of BRYAN SMITH, a Threatening Letter Writer


I have already observed how the Black Act was extended for punishing
Charles Towers,[54] concerned in setting up the New Mint, who as he
affirmed died only for having his face accidentally dirty at the time he
assaulted the bailiff's house. I must now put you in mind of another
clause in the same act, viz., that for punishing with death those who
sent any threatening letters in order to affright persons into a
compliance with their demands, for fear of being murdered themselves, or
having their houses fired about their ears. This clause of the Act is
general, and therefore did not extend only to offences of this kind when
committed by deer-stealers and those gangs against whom it was
particularly levelled at that time, but included also whoever should be
guilty of writing such letters to any person or persons whatsoever;
which was a just and necessary construction of the Act, and not only
made use of in the case of this criminal, but of many more since,
becoming particularly useful of late years, when this practice became
frequent.

Bryan Smith, who occasions this observation, was an Irishman, of parts
so very mean as perhaps were never met with in one who passed for a
rational creature; yet this fellow, forsooth, took it into his head that
he might be able to frighten Baron Swaffo, a very rich Jew in the City,
out of a considerable sum of money, by terrifying him with a letter. For
this purpose he wrote one indeed in a style I daresay was never seen
before, or since. Its spelling was _à la mode de brogue_, and the whole
substance of the thing was filled with oaths, curses, execrations and
threatenings of murder and burning if such a sum of money was not sent
as he, in his great wisdom, thought it fit to demand.

The man's management in sending this and directing how he would have an
answer was of a piece with his style, and altogether made the discovery
no difficult matter. So that Bryan being apprehended, was at the next
sessions at the Old Bailey tried and convicted on the evidence of some
of his countrymen, and when, after receiving sentence, there remained no
hopes for him of favour, to make up a consistent character he declared
himself a Papist, and as is usual with persons of that profession, was
forbidden by his priest to go any more to the public chapel.

However, to do him justice as far as outward circumstances will give us
leave to judge, he appeared very sorry for the crime he had committed,
and having had the priest with him a considerable time the day before
his death, he would needs go to the place of execution in a shroud.

As he went along he repeated the Hail Mary and Paternoster.

But there being many persons to suffer, and the executioner thereby
being put into a confusion, Smith observing the hurry slipped the rope
over his head, and jumped at once over the corpses in the cart amongst
the mob. Had he been wise enough to have come in his clothes, and not in
a shroud, it is highly probable he had made his escape; but his white
dress rendering him conspicuous even at a distance, the sheriffs
officers were not long before they retook him and placed him in his
former situation again.

Hope and fear, desire of life, and dread of immediate execution, had
occasioned so great an emotion of his spirits that he appeared in his
last moments in a confusion not to be described, and departed the world
in such an agony that he was a long time before he died, which was at
the same time with the malefactor before-mentioned, viz., on the 30th of
April, 1725.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] See page 198.




The Life of JOSEPH WARD, a Footpad


There are some persons who are unhappy, even from their cradles, and
though every man is said to be born to a mixture of good and evil
fortune, yet these seem to reap nothing from their birth but an entry
into woe, and a passage to misery.

This unhappy man we are now speaking of, Joseph Ward, is a strong
instance of this, for being the son of travelling people, he scarce knew
either the persons to whom he owed his birth, or the place where he was
born. However, they found a way to instruct him well enough to read, and
that so well that it was afterwards of great use to him, in the most
miserable state of his life.

He rambled about with his father and mother until the age of fourteen,
when they dying, he was left to the wide world, with nothing to provide
for himself but his wits; so that he was almost under necessity of going
into a gang of gipsies that passed by that part of the country where he
was. These gipsies taught him all their arts of living, and it happened
that the crew he got into were not of the worst sort either, for they
maintained themselves rather by the credulity of the country folks, than
by the ordinary practices of those sort of people, stealing of poultry
and robbing hedges of what linen people are careless enough to leave
there. I shall have another and more proper occasion to give my readers
the history of this sort of people, who were anciently formidable enough
to deserve an especial Act of Parliament[55] altered and amended in
several reigns for banishing them from the Kingdom.

But to go on with the story of Ward; disliking this employment, he took
occasion, when they came into Buckinghamshire, to leave them at a common
by Gerrard's Cross, and come up to London. When he came here, he was
still in the same state, not knowing what to do to get bread. At last he
bethought himself of the sea, and prevailed on a captain to take with
him a pretty long voyage. He behaved himself so well in his passage,
that his master took him with him again, and used him very kindly; but
he dying, Ward was again put to his shifts, though on his arrival in
England he brought with him near 30 guineas to London.

He look up lodgings near the Iron Gate at St. Catherine's, and taking a
walk one evening on Tower Wharf, he there met with a young woman, who
after much shyness suffered him to talk to her. They met there a second
and a third time. She said she was niece to a pewterer of considerable
circumstances, not far from Tower Hill, who had promised, and was able
to give her five hundred pounds; but the fear of disobliging him by
marriage, hindered her from thinking of becoming a wife without his
approbation of her spouse.

These difficulties made poor Ward imagine that if he could once persuade
the woman to marriage, he should soon mollify the heart of her relation,
and so become happy at once. With a great deal to do, Madam was
prevailed upon to consent, and going to the Fleet they were there
married, and soon returned to St. Catherine's, to new lodgings which
Ward had taken, where he had proposed to continue a day or two and then
wait upon the uncle.

Never man was in his own opinion more happy than Joseph Ward in his new
wife, but alas! all human happiness is fleeting and uncertain,
especially when it depends in any degree upon a woman. The very next
morning after their wedding, Madam prevailed on him to slip on an old
coat and take a walk by the house which she had shown him for her
uncle's. He was no sooner out of doors, but she gave the sign to some of
her accomplices, who in a quarter of an hour's time helped her to strip
the lodging not only of all which belonged to Ward, but of some things
of value that belonged to the people of the house. They were scarce out
of doors before Ward returned, who finding his wife gone and the room
stripped, set up such an outcry as alarmed all the people in the house.

Instead of being concerned at Joseph's loss they clamoured at their own,
and told him in so many words that if he did not find the woman, or make
them reparation for their goods, they would send him to Newgate. But
alas! it was neither in Ward's power to do one, nor the other. Upon
which the people were as good as their word, for they sent for a
constable and had him before a Justice. There the whole act appearing,
the justice discharged him and told them they must take their remedy
against him at the Common Law. Upon this Ward took the advantage and
made off, but taking to drinking to drive away the sorrows that
encompassed him, he at last fell into ill-company, and by them was
prevailed on to join in doing evil actions to get money. He had been but
a short time at this trade, before he committed the fact for which he
died.

Islington was the road where he generally took a purse, and therefore
endeavoured to make himself perfectly acquainted with many ways that
lead to that little town, which he effected so well, that he escaped
several times from the strictest pursuits. At last it came into his head
that the safest way would be to rob women, which accordingly he put into
practice, and committed abundance of thefts that way for the space of
six weeks, particularly on one Mrs. Jane Vickary, of a gold ring value
twenty shillings, and soon after of Mrs. Elizabeth Barker, of a gold
ring set with garnets. Being apprehended for these two facts, he was
committed to New Prison, where either refusing or not being able to make
discoveries, he remained in custody till the sessions at the Old Bailey.
There the persons swearing positively to his face, he was after a
trivial defence convicted, and received sentence of death accordingly.

As he had no relations that he knew of, nor so much as one friend in the
world, the thoughts of a pardon never distracted his mind a moment. He
applied himself from the day of his sentence to a new preparation for
death, and having in the midst of all his troubles accustomed himself to
reading, he was of great use to his unhappy companions in reading the
Scripture, and assisting them in their private devotions. He made a just
use of that space which the mercy of the English Law allows to persons
who are to suffer death for their crimes to make their peace with their
Creator.

[Illustration: TRIAL OF A HIGHWAYMAN AT THE OLD BAILEY

The manacled rogue is seen in the foreground, his head bowed in despair,
as the witness by his side unfolds his damning evidence. Through one
window is shown the robbery for which he is being tried; the other
affords a prophetical glimpse of the villain's end at Tyburn Tree.

(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]

There was but one person who visited this offender while under the
sentence of the Law, and he, thinking that the only method by which he
could do him service was to save his life, proposed to him a very
probable method of escaping, which for reasons not hard to be guessed
at, I shall forbear describing. He pressed him so often and made the
practicability of the thing so plain that the criminal at last
condescended to make the experiment, and his friend promised the next
day to bring him the materials for his escape.

That night Ward, who began then to be weak in his limbs with the
sickness which had lain upon him ever since he had been in the prison,
fell into a deep sleep, a comfort he had not felt since the coming on of
his misfortunes. In this space he dreamed that he was in a very barren,
sandy place, which was bounded before him by a large deep river, which
in the middle of the plain parted itself into two streams that, after
having run a considerable space, united again, having formed an island
within the branches. On the other side of the main river, there appeared
one of the most beautiful countries that could be thought of, covered
with trees, full of ripe fruit, and adorned with flowers. On the other
side, in the island which was enclosed, having a large arm of water
running behind it and another smaller before, the soil appeared sandy
and barren, like that whereon he stood.

While he was musing at this sight, he beheld a person of a grave and
venerable aspect, in garb and appearance like a shepherd, who asked him
twice or thrice, if he knew the meaning of what he there saw, to which
he answered, _No. Well, then_, says the stranger, _I will inform you.
This sight which you see is just your present case. You have nothing to
resolve with yourself but whether you will prepare by swimming across
this river immediately, forever to possess that beautiful country that
lies before you; or by attempting the passage over the narrow board
which crosses the first arm of the river and leads into the island,
where you will be again amidst briars and thorns, and must at last pass
that deep water, before you can enter the pleasant country you behold on
the other side._

This vision made so strong an impression on the poor man's spirits that
when his friend came he refused absolutely to make his escape, but
suffered with great marks of calmness and true repentance, at Tyburn, in
the twenty-seventh year of his age.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] This was the statute of 1530 (22 Hen. VIII, c, 10)
directed against "outlandish people calling themselves
Egyptians." It was amended 1 & 2 Ph. & Mary, c. 4 and 5 Eliz.,
c. 10 and sundry other legislation was of a similar tenour.




The Life of JAMES WHITE, a Thief


Stupidity, however it may arise, whether from a natural imperfection of
the rational faculties, or from want of education, or from drowning it
wholly in bestial and sensual pleasures, is doubtless one of the highest
misfortunes which can befall any man whatsoever; for it not only leaves
him little better than the beasts which perish, exposed to a thousand
inconveniences against which there is no guard but that of a clear and
unbiased reason, but it renders him also base and abject when under
misfortunes, the sport and contempt of that wicked and debauched part of
the human species who are apt to scoff at despairing misery, and to add
by their insults to the miseries of those who sink under their load
already.

James White, who is to be the subject of the following narration, was
the son of very honest and reputable parents, though their circumstances
were so mean as not to afford wherewith to put their son to school, and
they themselves were so careless as not to procure his admission into
the Charity School. By all which it happened that the poor fellow knew
hardly anything better than the beasts of the field, and addicted
himself like them, to filling his belly and satisfying his lust.
Whenever, therefore, either of those brutish appetites called, he never
scrupled plundering to obtain what might supply the first, or using
force that might oblige women to submit against their wills unto the
other.

While he was a mere boy, and worked about as he could with anybody who
would employ him, he found a way to steal and carry off thirty pounds
weight of tobacco, the property of Mr. Perry, an eminent Virginian
merchant; for which he was at the ensuing assizes at the Old Bailey,
tried and convicted, and thereupon ordered for transportation, and in
pursuance of that sentence sent on board the transport vessel
accordingly. Their allowance there was very poor, such as the miserable
wretches could hardly subsist on, viz., a pint and a half of fresh
water, and a very small piece of salt meat _per diem_ each; but that
wherein their greatest misery consisted was the hole in which they were
locked underneath the deck, where they were tied two and two, in order
to prevent those dangers which the ship's crew often runs by the
attempts made by felons to escape. In this disconsolate condition he
passed his time until the arrival of the ship in America, where he met
with a piece of good luck (if attaining liberty may be called good luck)
without acquiring at the same time a means to preserve life in any
comfort. It happened thus.

The super-cargo falling sick, under the usual distemper which visits
strangers at first coming if they keep not to the exact rules of
temperance and forbearance of strong liquors, ran quickly so much in
debt with his physician that he was obliged immediately to go off, by
doing which six felons became their own masters, of whom James White was
one. He retired into the woods and lived there in a very wretched manner
for some time, till he met with some Indian families in that retreat,
who according to the natural uncultivated humanity of that people
cherished and relieved him to the utmost of their power.

Soon after this, he went to work amongst some English servants, in order
to ease them, telling them how things stood with him, viz., that he had
been transported, and that for fear of being seized he fled into the
woods, where he had endured the greatest hardships. The servants pitying
his desperate condition relieved him often, without the knowledge of
their mistress until they got him into a planter's service, where though
he worked hard he was sure to fare tolerably well. But at length being
ordered to carry water in large vessels over the rocks to the ship that
rode in the bay underneath it, his feet were thereby so intolerably cut
that he was soon rendered lame and incapable of doing it any longer. The
family thereupon grew weary of keeping him in that decrepit state he was
in, and so for what servile scullion-like labour he was able to do, a
master of a ship took him on board and carried him to England.

On his return hither, he went directly to his friends in Cripplegate
parish and told them what had befallen him, and how he was driven home
again almost as much by force as he was hurried abroad. They were too
poor to be able to conceal him, and he was therefore obliged to go and
cry fruit about the streets publicly, that he might not want bread. He
went on in this mean but honest way, without committing any new acts
that I am able to learn, for the space of some months. Then being seen
and known by some who were at that employed (or at least employed
themselves) in detecting and taking up all such persons as returned from
transportation, White amongst the rest was seized, and the ensuing
sessions at the Old Bailey convicted on the Statute. He pleaded that he
was only a very young man, and if the Court would have so much pity on
him as to send him over again, he would be satisfied to stay all his
life-time in America; but the resolution which had been taken to spare
none who returned back into England, because such persons were more
bloody and dangerous rogues than any other, and when prompted by
despair, apt to resist the officers of justice, took place, and he was
put into the death warrant.

Both before and after receiving sentence, he not only abandoned himself
to stupid, heedless indolence, but behaved in so rude and troublesome a
manner as occasioned his being complained of by those miserable wretches
who were under the same condemnation, as a greater grievance to them
than all their other misfortunes put together. He would sometimes
threaten women who came into the hold to visit modestly, tease them with
obscene discourse, and after his being prisoner there committed acts of
lewdness to the amazement and horror of the most wicked and abandoned
wretches in that dreadful place. Being however severely reprimanded for
continuing so beastly a course of life, when life itself was so near
being extinguished, he laid the crime to his own ignorance, and said
that if he were better instructed he would behave better, but he could
not bear being abused, threatened and even maltreated by those who were
in the same state with himself. From this time he addicted himself to
attend more carefully to religious discourses than most of the rest, and
as far as the amazing dullness of his intellects would give him leave,
applied to the duties of his sad state.

Before his death he gave many testimonies of a sincere and unaffected
sorrow for his crimes, but as he had not the least notion of the nature,
efficacy or preparation necessary for the Sacrament, it was not given
him as is usually done to malefactors the day of their death. At the
place of execution he seemed surprised and astonished, looked wildly
round upon the people, and then asking the minister who attended him
what he must do now, the person spoke to instructed him; so shutting his
hands close, he cried out with great vehemence, _Lord receive my soul._

His age was about twenty-five at the time he suffered, which was on the
6th day of November, 1723.




The Life of JOSEPH MIDDLETON, Housebreaker and Thief


Amongst the numbers of unhappy wretches who perish at the gallows, most
pity seems due to those who, pressed by want and necessity, commit in
the bitter exigence of starving, some illegal act purely to support
life. But this is a very scarce case, and such a one as I cannot in
strictness presume to say that I have hitherto met with in all the loads
of papers I have turned over to this purpose, though as the best motive
to excite compassion, and consequently to obtain mercy, it is made very
often a pretence.

Joseph Middleton was the son of a very poor, though honest, labouring
man in the county of Kent, near Deptford, who did all that was in his
power to bring up his children. This unfortunate son was taken off his
hand by an uncle, a gardener, who brought up the boy to his own
business, and consequently to labour hard enough, which would, to an
understanding person, appear no such very great hardship where a man had
continually been inured to it even from his cradle, and had neither
capacity nor the least probability of attaining anything better. Yet
such an intolerable thing did it seem to Middleton that he resolved at
any cost to be rid of it, and to purchase an easier way of spending his
days.

In order to this, he very wisely chose to go aboard a man-of-war then
bound for the Baltic. He was in himself a stupid, clumsy fellow, and the
officers and seamen in the ship treated him so harshly, the fatigue he
went through was so great, and the coldness of the climate so pinching
to him, that he who so impatiently wished to be rid of the country work,
now wished as earnestly to return thereto. Therefore, when on the return
of Sir John Norris, the ship he was in was paid off and discharged, he
was in an ecstacy of joy thereat, and immediately went down again to
settle hard to labour as he had done before, experience having convinced
him that there were many more hardships sustained in one short ramble
than in a staid though laborious life.

In order, as is the common phrase, to settle in the world, he married a
poor woman, by whom he had two children, and thereby made her as unhappy
as himself; what he was able to earn by his hands falling much short of
what was necessary to keep house in the way he lived, this reduced him
to such narrowness of circumstances that he was obliged (as he would
have it believed) to take illegal methods for support.

His own blockish and dastardly temper, as it had prevented his ever
doing good in any honest way, so it as effectually put it out of his
power to acquire anything considerable by the rapine he committed; for
as he wanted spirit to go into a place where there was immediate danger,
so his companions, who did the act while he scouted about to see if
anybody was coming, and to give them notice, when they divided the booty
gave him just what they thought fit, and keep the rest to themselves. He
had gone on in this miserable way for a considerable space, and yet was
able to acquire very little, his wants being very near as great while he
robbed every night, as they were when he laboured every day, so that in
the exchange he got nothing but danger into the bargain.

At last, he was apprehended for breaking into the house of John de Pais
and Joseph Gomeroon, and taking there jewels and other things to a
great value, though his innocence in not entering the place would
sufficiently excuse him, for he pleaded at his trial that he was so far
from breaking the house that he was not so much as on the ground of the
prosecutor when it was broke, but on the contrary, as appeared by their
own evidence, on the other side of the way. But it being very fully
proved by the evidence that Joseph Middleton belonged to the gang, that
he waited there only to give them an intelligence, and shared in the
money they took, the jury found him guilty.

While he lay under conviction, he did his utmost to understand what was
necessary for him to do in order to salvation. He applied himself with
the utmost diligence to praying God to instruct him and enlighten his
understanding, that he might be able to improve by his sufferings and
reap a benefit from the chastisements of his Maker. In this frame of
mind he continued with great steadiness and calmness till the time of
his execution, at which he showed some fear and confusion, as the sight
of such a death is apt to create even in the stoutest and best prepared
breast. This Joseph Middleton, at the time of his exit, was in about the
fortieth year of his age.




The Life of JOHN PRICE,[56] a Housebreaker


A profligate life naturally terminates in misery, and according unto the
vices which it has most pursued, so are its punishments suited unto it.
Drunkenness besots the understanding, ruins the constitution, and leaves
those addicted to it in the last stages of life, in want and misery,
equally destitute of all necessaries, and incapable to procure them.
Lewdness and lust after loose women enervate both the vigour of the
brain and strength of the body, induce weaknesses that anticipate old
age, and afflict the declining sinner with so many evils, as makes him a
burden to himself and a spectacle to others. But if, for the support of
all these, men fall into rapacious and wicked courses, plundering others
who have frugally provided for the supply of life, in order to indulge
their own wicked inclinations, then indeed the Law of society interposes
generally before the Law of Nature, and cuts off with a sudden and
ignominious death those who would otherwise probably have fallen by the
fruits of their own sins.

This malefactor, John Price, was one of these wretched people who act as
if they thought life was given them only to commit wickedness and
satiate their several appetites with gross impurities, without
considering how far they offend either against the institutions of God
or the laws of the land. It does not appear that this fellow ever
followed any employment that looked like honesty, except when he was at
sea. The terrors of a sick-bed alarmed even a conscience so hardened as
Price's, and the effects of an ill-spent life appeared so plainly in the
weak condition he found himself in, that he made, as he afterwards
owned, the most solemn vows of amendment, if through the favour of
Providence he recovered his former health. To this he was by the
goodness of God restored, but the resolutions he made on that condition
were totally forgotten. As soon as he returned home, he sought afresh
the company of those loose women and those abandoned wretches who by the
inconveniences into which they had formerly led him, had obliged him to
seek for shelter by a long voyage at sea.

What little money he had received when the ship was paid off, was
quickly lavished away, so that on the 11th of August, 1725, he with two
others named Cliffe and Sparks, undertook, after having well weighed the
attempt, to enter the house of the Duke of Leeds by moving the sash, and
so plunder it of what was to be got. By their assistance Cliffe got in
at the window, and afterwards handed out a cloak, hat, and other things
to his companions Sparks and Price, but they were all immediately
apprehended. Cliffe made an information by which he discovered the whole
fact, and it was fully proved by Mr. Bealin that Price, when first
apprehended, owned that he had been with Cliffe and Sparks. Upon the
whole the jury found him guilty, upon which he freely acknowledged the
justice of their verdict at the bar.

All the time he lay under conviction he behaved himself as a person
convinced of his own unworthiness of life, and therefore repined not at
the justice of that sentence which condemned him to death, though in his
behaviour before his trial there had appeared much of that rough and
boisterous disposition usual in fellows of no education, who have long
practised such ways of living. Yet long before his death he laid aside
all that ferocity of mind, appearing calm and easy under the weight of
his sufferings, and so much dissatisfied with the trouble he had met
with in the world that he appeared scarce desirous of remaining in it.
He was not able himself to give any account of his age, but as far as
could be guessed from his looks, he might be about thirty when executed,
which was at the same time with the malefactor last mentioned; Cliffe,
whose information had hanged him, being reprieved.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] A fuller account of this rogue will be found on page 276.




LIVES OF THE CRIMINALS

VOLUME TWO




THE PREFACE