resignation though he did not frequent the public chapel for two
reasons, the first because the number of strangers who were admitted
thither to stare at such unhappy persons as are to die are always
numerous and sometimes very indiscreet; the second was, that he had many
enemies who took a pleasure in coming to insult him, and as he was sure
either of these would totally interrupt his devotions, he thought it
excusable to receive the assistance of the minister in his own chamber.
As to the general offences of his life, he was very open in his
confession, but as to the particular fact for which he suffered, he
endeavoured to excuse it by saying he never intended to murder the boy,
but only to correct him as he deserved, he being exceedingly wicked and
unruly; he charged him with thieving in their voyage out, being yet
worse as they came home, and that particularly one evening when he was
asleep in the cabin, the lad broke open his lockers, and took out a
bottle of rum, of which he drank near a pint, making himself therefor so
drunk that his excrements fell involuntarily from him, which stunk so
abominably that it awakened him (the Captain), whereupon he called in
several of his men, who found the boy in a sad condition, and were
obliged to sit down and smoke tobacco in order to overcome the stench he
had raised. This produced the terrible punishment of tying him to the
mast for several days and the offering him his excrements which he
rejected.

Notwithstanding the captain owned all this, yet he could not forbear
reflections on those who gave testimony against him at his trial,
charging them with perjury and conspiracy to ruin him, though nothing
like it appeared from the manner in which they delivered their
testimony. As the time of his death approached nearer, the fear thereof,
and remorse of conscience, brought the captain into so weak and low a
state that he could scarce speak or attend to any discourses of others,
but lay in a languishing condition, often fainting, and in fine
appearing not unlike a person who had taken something to produce a
sudden death, in order to prevent an ignominious one. Yet when such
suspicions were mentioned to him, he declared that they were without
ground, that he had never suffered such a thought once to enter into his
head. His wife, who attended him constantly while in prison, said she
loved him too well to become his executioner, and that she was positive
since his commitment, he had had nothing unwholesome administered to
him.

[Illustration: CATHERINE HAYES BURNT FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND

(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]

As he was carried to execution, he was so very much spent, that it was
thought he would hardly have lived to have reached it. There he had the
assistance of a minister of distinction, who prayed with him till the
instant he was thrown off, which was on the 13th day of May, 1726, being
then about twenty-nine years of age. As soon as he was cut down, he was
put in chains, in order to be hung up.




The Life of WILLIAM BOURN, a Notorious Thief


As the want of education, from a multitude of instances, seems to be the
chief cause of many of those misfortunes which befall persons in the
ordinary course of life, so there are some born with such a natural
inaptitude thereto, that no care, no pains, is able to conquer the
stubborn stupidity of their nature, but like a knotty piece of wood,
they defy the ingenuity of others to frame anything useful out of such
cross-grained materials. This, as he acknowledged himself upon all
occasions, was the case of the malefactor we are now speaking of, who
was descended of honest and reputable parents, who were willing in his
younger years to have furnished him with a tolerable share of learning;
but he was utterly incorrigible, and though put to a good school, would
never be brought to read or write at all, which was no small
dissatisfaction to his parents, with whom in other respects he agreed
tolerably well.

When of age to be put out apprentice, he was placed with a hatter in the
city of Dublin, to whom he served his time honestly and faithfully; as
soon as he was out of his time, he came up to London in order to become
acquainted with his business. He had the good luck, though a stranger,
to get into good business here, but was so unfortunate as to fall into
the acquaintance of two lewd women, who fatally persuaded him that
thieving was an easier way of getting money to supply their extravagant
expenses than working. He being a raw young lad, unacquainted with the
world, was so mad as to follow their advice, and in consequence thereof
snatched a show-glass out of the shop of Mr. Lovell, a goldsmith in
Bishopsgate Street, in which there was four snuff-boxes, eight silver
medals, six pairs of gold buttons, five diamond rings, twenty pairs of
ear-rings, sixty-four gold rings, several gold chains, and other rich
goods, to the amount of near £300, with all of which he got safe off,
though discovered soon afterwards by his folly in endeavouring to
dispose of them.

He threw aside all hopes of life as soon as he was apprehended, as
having no friends to make intercession likely to procure a pardon. He
was, indeed, a poor young creature, rather stupid than wicked and his
vices more owing to his folly than to the malignity of his inclinations.
He seemed to have a just notion both of the heinousness of that crime
which he had committed and of the shame and ignominy he had brought upon
himself and his relations. He was particularly affected with the
miseries which were likely to fall upon his poor wife for his folly, and
when the day of his death came, he seemed very easy and contented under
it, declaring, however, at last that he died in the communion of the
Church of Rome. This was on the 27th of June, 1726, being then not much
above eighteen years old.




The Life of JOHN MURREL, a Horse-Stealer


This malefactor was descended of very honest and reputable parents in
the county of York, who took care not only that he should read and write
tolerably well, but also that he should be instructed in the principles
of religion. They brought him up in their own way of business, which was
grazing of cattle (both black cattle and horses), and afterwards selling
them at market. As he grew up a man, he settled in the same occupation,
farming what is called in Yorkshire a grazing room, for which he paid
near a hundred pounds a year rent, and dealt very considerably himself
in the same way which had been followed by his parents. He married also
a young woman with a tolerable fortune, who bore him several children,
five of which were alive at the time of his execution, and lived with
their mother upon some little estate she had of her own.

For some years after his marriage he lived with tolerable reputation in
the country, but being lavish in his expenses, he quickly consumed both
his own little fortune and what he had with his wife, and then failing
in his business, a whim took him in the head to come to London, whither
also he brought his son. Here he soon fell into bad company, and getting
acquaintance with a woman whom he thought was capable of maintaining
him, he married her, or at least lived with her as if they had been
married, for a considerable space; the news of which reaching his wife
in the country, affected her so much that she had very nigh fallen into
a fit of sickness. Thereupon her friends demonstrated to her, in vain,
how unreasonable a thing it was for her to give herself so much pain
about a man who treated her at once with unkindness and injustice; in
spite of their remonstrances she came up to London, in hopes that her
presence might reclaim him. But herein she was utterly mistaken, for he
absolutely denied her to be his wife, and even persuaded his son to deny
her also for his mother, which the boy with much fear and confusion did;
and the poor woman was forced to go down into the country again,
overwhelmed with sorrow at the ingratitude of the one and the
undutifulness of the other. However, Murrel still went on in the same
way with the woman he had chosen for his companion.

There is all the reason imaginable to suppose that he did not take the
most honest ways of supporting himself and his mistress. However, he
fell into no trouble nor is there any direct evidence of his having been
guilty of any dishonesty within the reach of the Law, until he ran away
with a mare from a man in town, as to which he excused himself by saying
that she had formerly been his own, and that there having nothing more
than a verbal contract between them, he thought fit to carry her off and
sell her again. Sometime afterwards, going down to Newcastle Fair (for
he still continued to carry on some dealing in horse-flesh) he fell
there into the company of some merchants in the same way, who found
means to get gains and sell very cheap, by paying nothing at the first
hand. Among these, there was a country man of his who went by the name
of Brown, with whom Murrel had formerly had an acquaintance. This fellow
knowing the company in general to be persons of the same profession,
began to talk very freely of his practices in that way (viz., of horse
stealing), and amongst other stories related this. He said he once rode
away with an officer's horse, who had just bought it with an intent to
ride him up to London; he carried the creature into the West, and having
made such alterations in his mane and tail as he thought proper, sold
him there to a parson for thirteen guineas, which was about seven less
than the horse was worth. But knowing the doctor had another church
about eight miles from the parish in which he lived, and that there was
a little stable at one angle of the churchyard, where the horse was put
up during service, he resolved to make bold with it again. Accordingly,
when the people were all at church, having provided himself with a red
coat and a horse-soldier's accoutrements, he picked the stable door,
clapped them on the priest's beast, and rode him without the least
suspicion as hard as conveniently he could to Worcester. There he laid
aside the habit of a cavalier, and transforming himself into the natural
appearance of a horse-courser, he sold the horse to a physician,
telling him at the time he bought it, that it would be greatly the
better for being suffered to run at grass a fortnight or so. _No doubt
on it_, said he; _but I had some design of so doing._

Yet they were much sooner executed than at first they were intended to
have been, by an accident which happened the very day after the beast
came into the hands of the physician; for one evening as Brown was
taking a walk in the skirts of the city, who should he perceive but his
old Cornish parson and his footman, jogging into town. Guilt struck him
immediately with apprehensions at their errand relating to him, so that
walking up and down, nor daring to go into the town for fear of being
taken up and at last supposing it the only way to rid him of danger, he
caught the horse once more in the doctor's close, and having stolen a
saddle and bridle out of the inn where he lodged, he rode on him as far
as Essex.

There he remained until Northampton Fair, where he sold the horse for
the third time, for twenty-seven guineas, to an officer in the same
regiment with him from whom it had been first stolen, on whose return
from Flanders it was owned and the captain who bought it (though he
refused to lose his money) yet gave as good description as he could of
the person who sold it. Upon this the other officer put out an
advertisement, describing both the man and the horse, and offering a
reward of five guineas for whoever should apprehend him. This
advertisement roused both the parson and the doctor, and the former took
so much pains to discover him that he was at length apprehended in
Cornwall, where at the assizes he was tried and convicted for the fact.
But the captain who was the original possessor of the horse was so much
pleased with his ingenuity that he procured a reprieve for him, and
carried him abroad with him where he continued until the peace of
Utrecht, when he returned home and fell to his old way of living, by
which he had submitted himself unto the time in which he fell into
company with Murrel, and had then bought five or six horses which had
been stolen from the South, to be disposed of at the fair.

Murrel liked the precedent, and put it in practice immediately by
stealing a brown mare which belonged to Jonathan Wood, for which he was
shortly after apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions
at the Old Bailey he was tried and convicted on very clear evidence, and
during the space in which he lay under condemnation, testified a true
sorrow for his sins, though not so just a sense of that for which he
died as he ought to have had, and which might have been reasonably
expected. For as horse-stealing did not appear any very great sin to
him at the time of his committing it, so now, when he was to die for it,
such an obstinate partiality towards ourselves is there naturally
grafted in human nature that he could not forbear complaining of the
severity of the Law, and find fault with its rigour which might have
been avoided. What seemed most of all to afflict him under his
misfortune was that be saw his son and nearest relations forsake him,
and as much as they could shun having anything to do with his affairs.
Of this he complained heavily to the minister of the place, during his
confinement in Newgate, who represented to him how justly this had
befallen him for first slighting his family, and leaving them without
the least tenderness of respect, either to the ties of a husband, or the
duty of a parent; so he began to read his sin in his punishment, and to
frame himself to a due submission to what he had so much merited by his
follies and his crimes.

When he was first brought up to receive sentence, he counterfeited being
dead so exactly that he was brought back again to Newgate, but this
cheat served only to gain a little time; for at the next sessions he was
condemned and ordered for execution, which he suffered on the 27th of
June, 1726, being then between forty and fifty years of age.




The Life of WILLIAM HOLLIS, a Thief and an Housebreaker


This unhappy lad was born in Portugal, while the English army served
there in the late war. His father was drum-major of a regiment, but had
not wherewith to give his child anything but food, for intending to
bring him up a soldier, he perhaps thought learning an unnecessary thing
to one of that profession. During the first years of his life the poor
boy was a constant campaigner, being transported wherever the regiment
removed, with the same care and conveniency as the kettle [drum] and
knapsack, the only thing besides himself which make up the drum-major's
equipage. When he grew big, he got, it seems, on board a man-of-war in
the squadron that sailed up the Mediterranean. This was a proper
university for one who had been bred in such a school; so that there is
no wonder he became so great a proficient in all sorts of wickedness,
gaming, drinking, and whoring, which appear not to such poor creatures
as sins, but as the pleasures of life, about which they ought to spend
their whole care; and, indeed, how should it be otherwise, where they
know nothing that better deserves it.

When he came home to England his father dying, he was totally
destitute, except what care his mother-in-law was pleased to take of
him, which was, indeed, a great deal, if he would have been in any
degree obedient to her instructions. But instead of that he looked upon
all restraints on his liberty as the greatest evil that could befall
him. Wherefore, leaving his mother's house, he abandoned himself to
procuring money at any rate to support those lewd pleasures to which he
had addicted himself.

It happened that he lodged near one John Mattison, a working
silversmith, into whose house he got, and stole from thence no less than
one hundred and forty silver buckles, the goods of one Samuel Ashmelly.
For this offence he was apprehended, and committed to Newgate; at the
next sessions he was tried, and on the evidence of the prosecutor, which
was very full and direct, he was convicted, and having no friends, he
laid aside all hopes of life, and endeavoured as far as poor capacity
would give him leave to improve himself in the knowledge of the
Christian Faith, and in preparing for that death to which his follies
and his crimes had brought him. The Ordinary, in the account he gives of
his death, says that he was extremely stupid, a thing no ways improbable
considering the wretched manner in which he had spent the years of his
childhood and his youth. However, at last either his insensibility or
having satisfied himself with the little evil there is in death compared
with living in misery and want, furnished him with so much calmness that
he suffered with greater appearance of courage than could have been
expected from him. Just before he died he stood up in the cart, and
turning himself to the spectators, said, _Good people, I am very young,
but have been very wicked. It is true I have had no education, but I
might have laboured hard and lived well for all that; but gaming and
ill-company were my ruin. The Law hath justly brought me where I am, and
I hope such young men as see my untimely fate will avoid the paths which
lead unto it. Good people, pray for our departing souls, as we do, that
God may give you all more grace than to follow us thither._ He suffered
with the malefactors before-mentioned, being at the time of his
execution between seventeen and eighteen years old.




The Life of THOMAS SMITH, a Highwayman


There is a certain commendable tenderness in human nature towards all
who are under misfortunes, and this tenderness is in proportion to the
magnitude of those evils which we suppose the pitied person to labour
under. If we extend our compassion to relieving their necessities, and
feeling a regret for those miseries which they undergo, we undoubtedly
discharge the duties of humanity according to the scheme both of natural
religion and the laws laid down in the Gospel. Perhaps no object ever
merited it from juster motives than this poor man, who is the subject of
the following pages. His parents were people in tolerable circumstances
in Southwark; his father was snatched from him by death, while he was
yet a child, but his mother, as far as she was able, was very careful
that he should not pass his younger days without instruction, and an
uncle he then had, being pleased with the docile temper of the youth,
was at some expense also about his education. By this means he came to
read and write tolerably well, and gained some little knowledge of the
Latin tongue; and having a peculiar sweetness in his behaviour, it won
very much upon his relations, and encouraged them to treat him with
great indulgence.

But unfortunately for him, by the time he grew big enough to go out
apprentice, or to enter upon any other method of living, his friends
suddenly dropped off, and, by their death becoming in great want of
money, he was forced to resign all the golden hopes he had formed and
for the sake of present subsistance submit to becoming footman to a
gentleman, who was, however, a very good and kind master to him, till in
about a year's time he died also, and poor Smith was again left at his
wits' end. However, out of this trouble he was relieved by an Irish
gentleman, who took him into his service, and carried him over with him
to Dublin. There he met with abundance of temptations to fall into that
loose and lascivious course of life which prevails more in that city,
perhaps, than in any other in Europe. But he had so much grace at that
time as to resist it, and after a stay there of twenty months, returned
into England again, where he came into the service of a third master, no
less indulgent to him than the two former had been. In this last service
an odd accident befell him, in which, though I neither believe myself,
nor incline to impose on my readers that there was anything supernatural
in the case of it, yet I fancy the oddness of the thing may, under the
story I am going to tell, prove not disagreeable.

In a journey which Thomas had made into Herefordshire, with his first
master, he had contracted there an acquaintance with a young woman,
daughter to a farmer, in tolerable circumstances. This girl without
saying anything to the man, fell it seems desperately in love with him,
and about three months after he left the country, died. One night after
his coming to live with this last master, he fancied he saw her in a
dream, that she stood for some time by his bedside, and at last said,
_Thomas, a month or two hence you will be in danger of a fever, and when
that is over of a greater misfortune. Have a care, you have hitherto
always behaved as an honest man; do not let either poverty or
misfortunes tempt you to become otherwise;_ and having so said, she
withdrew. In the morning the fellow was prodigiously confounded, yet
made no discovery of what had happened to any but the person who lay
with him, though the thing made a very strong impression on his spirits,
and might perhaps contribute not a little to his falling ill about the
time predicted by the phantom he had seen.

This fever soon brought him very low, and obliged him to make away with
most of his things in order to support himself. Upon recovery he found
himself in lamentable circumstances, being without friends, without
money, and out of business. Unfortunately for him, coming along the
Haymarket one evening, he happened to follow a gentleman somewhat in
liquor, who knowing him, desired that he would carry him home to his
house in St. Martin's Lane, to which Thomas readily agreed. But as they
were going along thither, a crowd gathered about the gentleman, who
became as quarrelsome as they, and took it into his head to box one of
the mob, in order to do which more conveniently, he gave Smith his hat
and cane, and his wig. Smith held them for some time, the mob forcing
them along like a torrent, till the gentleman, whose name was Brown,
made up a court near Northumberland House, and Smith thereupon marched
off with the things, the necessity he was under so far blinding him that
he made no scruple of attempting to sell them the next day; by which
means Mr. Brown hearing of them, he caused Smith to be apprehended as a
street-robber, and to be committed to Newgate, though he had the good
luck, notwithstanding, to get all his things again. It seems he visited
the poor man in prison, and if he did not prevaricate at his death, made
him some promises of softening at least, if not of dropping the
prosecution, which, as Smith asserted, prevented his making such a
preparation for his defence as otherwise he might have done; which
proved of very fatal consequence to him, since on the evidence of the
prosecutor he was convicted of the robbery and condemned.

Never poor creature suffered more or severer hardships in the road of
death than this poor man did, for by the time sentence was passed, all
that he had was gone, and he had scarce a blanket to cover him from
downright nakedness, during the space he lay in the hold under sentence.
As he was better principled in religion than any of the other
malefactors, he had retained his reading so well as to assist them in
their devotions, and to supply in some measure the want of somebody
constantly to attend them in their preparation for another world. So he
picked up thereby such little assistances from amongst them as prevented
his being starved before the time appointed for their execution came.

As this man did not want good sense, and was far from having lost what
learning he had acquired in his youth, so the terrors of an ignominious
death were quickly over with him, and instead of being affrighted with
his approaching fate, he considered it only as a relief from miseries
the most piercing that a man could feel, under which he had laboured so
long that life was become a burden, and the prospect of death the only
comfort that was left. He died with the greatest appearance of
resolution and tranquillity on the 3rd August, 1726, being then about
twenty-three years of age.




The Life of EDWARD REYNOLDS, a Thief, etc.


Notwithstanding the present age is so much celebrated for its excellency
in knowledge and politeness, yet I am persuaded both these qualities, if
they are really greater, are yet more restrained than they have been any
time herefore whatsoever. The common people are totally ignorant, almost
even of the first principles of religion. They give themselves up to
debauchery without restraint, and what is yet more extraordinary, they
fancy their vices are great qualifications, and look on all sorts of
wickedness as merit.

This poor wretch who is the subject of our present page was put to
school by his parents, who were in circumstances mean enough; but from a
natural aversion to all goodness he absolutely declined making any
proficiency therein. Whether he was educated to any business I cannot
take upon me to say, but he worked at mop-making and carried them about
to the country fairs for sale, by which he got a competency at least,
and therefore had not by any means that ordinary excuse to plead that
necessity had forced him upon thieving. On the contrary, he was drawn to
the greatest part of those evils which he committed, and which
consequently brought of those which he suffered, by frequenting the ring
at Moorfields--a place which since it occurs so often in these memoirs,
put me under a kind of necessity to describe it, and the customs of
those who frequent it.

It lies between Upper and Middle Moorfields, and as people of rank, when
they turn vicious, frequent some places where, under pretence of seeing
one diversion in which perhaps there is no moral evil, they either make
assignations for lewdness, or parties for gaming or drinking, and so by
degrees ruin their estates, and leave the character of debauchees behind
them, so those of meaner rank come thither to partake of the diversions
of cudgel-playing, wrestlings, quoits, and other robust exercises which
are now softened by a game of toss-up, hustle-cap, or nine-holes, which
quickly brings on want; and the desire continuing, naturally inclines
them to look for some means to recruit. And so, when the evening is
spent in gaming, the night induces them to thieve under its cover, that
they may have wherewith to supply the expenses of the ensuing day. Hence
it comes to pass that this place and these practices hath ruined more
young people, such as apprentices, journeymen, errand-boys, etc., than
any other seminary of vice in town. But it is time that we should now
return to the affairs of him who hath occasioned this digression.

In the neighbourhood of this place Reynolds found out a little alehouse
to which he every night resorted. There were abundance of wicked persons
who used to meet there, in order to go upon their several villainous
ways of getting money; Reynolds (whose head was always full of
discovering a method by which he might live more at ease than he did by
working) listened very attentively to what passed amongst them. One
Barnham, who had formerly been a waterman, was highly distinguished at
these meetings for his consummate knowledge in every branch of the art
and mystery of cheating. He had followed such practices for near twenty
years, and commonly when they came there at night they formed a ring
about the place where he sat and listened with the greatest delight to
those relations of evil deeds, which his memory recorded.

It happened one evening, when these worthy persons were assembled
together, that their orator took it in his head to harangue them on the
several alterations which the science of stealing had gone through from
the time of his becoming acquainted with its professors. In former days,
said he, knights of the road were a kind of military order into which
none but decayed gentlemen presumed to intrude themselves. If a younger
brother ran out of his allowance, or if a young heir spent his estate
before he had bought a tolerable understanding, if an under-courtier
lived above his income, or a subaltern officer laid out twice his pay in
rich suits and fine laces, this was the way they took to recruit; and if
they had but money enough left to procure a good horse and a case of
pistols, there was no fear of their keeping up their figure a year or
two, till their faces were known. And then, upon a discovery, they
generally had friends good enough to prevent their swinging, and who,
ten to one, provided handsomely for them afterwards, for fear of their
meeting with a second mischance, and thereby bringing a stain upon their
family. But nowadays a petty alehouse-keeper, if he gives too much
credit, a cheesemonger whose credit grows rotten, or a mechanic that is
weary of living by his fingers-ends, makes no more ado, when he finds
his circumstances uneasy, but whips into a saddle and thinks to get all
things retrieved by the magic of those two formidable words, _Stand and
Deliver._ Hence the profession is grown scandalous, since all the world
knows that the same methods now makes an highwayman, that some years ago
would have got a commission.

_But hark ye_, says one of the company, _in the days of those gentlemen
highwaymen, was there no way left for a poor man to get his living out
of the road of honesty? Puh! Ay_, replied Barnham, _a hundred men were
more ingenious then than they are now, and the fellows were so dexterous
that it was dangerous for a man to laugh who had a good set of teeth,
for fear of having them stole. They made nothing of whipping hats and
wigs off at noon-day; whipping swords from folks' sides when it grew
dusk; or making a midnight visit, in spite of locks, bolts, bars, and
such like other little impediments to old misers, who kept their gold
molding in chests till such honest fellows, at the hazard of their
lives, came to set at liberty. For my part_, continued he, _I believe
Queen Anne's war swept away the last remains of these brave spirits; for
since the Peace of Utrac (as I think they call it) we have had a
wondrous growth of blockheads, even in our business. And if it were not
for Shephard and Frazier, a hundred years hence, they would not think
that in our times there were fellows bold enough to get sixpence out of
a legal road, or dare to do anything without a quirk of the law to
screen them._

All his auditors were wonderfully pleased with such discourses as these,
and when the liquor had a little warmed them, would each in their turn
tell a multitude of stories they had heard of the boldness, cunning, and
dexterity of the thieves who lived before them. In all cases whatever,
evil is much sooner learnt than good, and a night debauch makes a ten
times greater impression on the spirits than the most eloquent sermon.
Between the liquor and the tales people begin to form new ideas to
themselves of things, and instead of looking on robbery as rapine and
stealing as a villainous method of defrauding another, they, on the
contrary, take the first for a gallant action, and the latter for a
dexterous piece of cunning; by either of which they acquire the means of
indulging themselves in what best suits their inclinations, without the
fatigue of business or the drudgery of hard labour.

Reynolds, though a very stupid fellow, soon became a convert to these
notions, and lost no time in putting them in execution, for the next
night he took from a person (who it seems knew him and his haunts well
enough) a coat and a shilling, which when he came to be indicted for the
fact, he pretended they were given him to prevent his charging the
prosecutor with an attempt to commit sodomy--an excuse which of late
years is grown as common with the men, as it has long been with the
women to pretend money was given them for flogging folks, when they have
been brought to the bar for picking it out of their pockets; hoping by
this reverberation of ignominy to blacken each other so that the jury
may believe neither. However, in this case, it must be acknowledged that
Reynolds went to death with the assertion that he received the coat and
the shilling on the before-mentioned account, and that he did not take
it by violence, which was the crime whereof he was convicted.

He had married a poor woman, who lived in very good reputation both
before and after; by her he had three children, and though he had long
associated himself with other women, and left her to provide for the
poor infants, yet he was extremely offended because she did not send him
as much money as he wanted under his confinement, and he could not
forbear treating her with very ill language when she came to see him
under his misfortunes. As he was a fellow of little parts and no
education, so his behaviour under condemnation was confused and unequal,
as it is reasonable to suppose it should be, since he had nothing to
support his hopes or to comfort him against those fears of death which
are inseparable from human nature. However, he sometimes showed an
inclination to learn somewhat of religion, would listen attentively
while Smith was reading, and as well as his gross capacity would give
him leave, would pray for mercy and forgiveness. At chapel he behaved
himself decently, if not devoutly, and being by his misfortunes removed
from the company of those who first seduced him into his vices, he began
to have some ideas of the use of life when he was going to leave it; and
his thoughts had received certain ideas (though very imperfect ones) of
death and a future state, when the punishment appointed by Law sent him
to experience them. He died on the 23rd of August, 1726, being then
upwards of twenty-six years of age.




The Life of JOHN CLAXTON, _alias_ JOHNSTON, a Thief, etc.


This unhappy malefactor was amongst the number of those who, through
want of education, was the more easily drawn into the prosecution of
such practices as became fatal to him. His father was a common sailor
belonging to the town of Sunderland, who had it not in his power to
breed him in a very extraordinary manner; and what little he was able to
do was frustrated by the evil inclinations of his son, who instead of
applying himself closely while he remained at school, loitered away his
time, and made little or no proficiency there. His head, as those of
most seamen's children do, ran continually on voyages and seeing foreign
countries, with which roving temper the father too readily complied, and
while yet a boy, unacquainted with any kind of learning and unsettled in
the principles of religion, he was sent forth into the world to pick up
either as he could.

The first voyage he made was up the Straits, where he touched at
Gibraltar, and went soon after to Leghorn, the port to which they were
bound. Being a young sprightly lad the mate carried him on shore with
him, and being a man of intrigue, made use of him to go between him and
an Irish woman, who was married to an Italian captain of a ship. The
lady's husband was in Sicily, and they therefore apprehended themselves
to be secure; she proposed to the mate the carrying off of jewels and
other things, to the amount of some thousand crowns, and then flying
with him from Italy. The project had certainly succeeded if it had not
been for their imprudence; for the mate, who passed for her cousin,
being continually in the house for three days before the ship went away,
a suspicion entered into some of the neighbours (as they often do
amongst Italians) that there was something more than ordinary concealed
under the frequency of his visits. They therefore dispatched a messenger
to Signor Stefano di Calvo, the captain's brother, with the account of
their surmises. He came immediately to Leghorn, and going directly to
his brother's house, found his sister had packed up all his valuable
effects, and having loaded the boy with as much as he could carry, was
on the point of setting out with him for the vessel. Stefano dragged her
back into an inner apartment, where he locked her in, and afterwards
fastened the doors of the outward apartment, through which they passed
thither. But Jack, seeing how things went, laid down his burden and fled
as hard as he could drive to the port, where he gave notice to the
master of their disappointment, and caused the vessel immediately to
weigh anchor and stand to sea, as fearing the consequences of the
affair, which he knew would make a great noise, and might possibly turn
to the detriment of his owners.

Claxton had hitherto done nothing that was criminal within the eye of
the Law, though while at sea he was continually employed in some
mischievous trick or other. When he came into England the ship happened
to go to Yarmouth, and as all places were alike to him, so short a stay
there engaged him to marry a young woman who had some little matter of
money, with which he proposed to do for himself some little matter at
sea, and taking the greatest part of it with him, came up to London in
order to see after a good voyage.

But this was the most fatal journey he ever made, for falling
unfortunately into the hands of bad women and their companions, they
quickly drew him to be as bad as themselves; so that forgetting the poor
woman he had married, and regardless of the business which brought him
up to town, he gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of such
villainies as they taught him, and in a short space became as expert a
proficient as any in the gang.

Some of them had consulted together to rob a woodmonger's house of a
considerable quantity of plate, but there was one difficulty to be
encountered, without overcoming which there was no hopes of success. The
woodmonger's maid carried up the keys every night to her master (the
outer court having a gate to it), and unless they could call upon some
stratagem either to prevent the gate being shut, or to gain the means of
unlocking it, their attempt was certainly in vain. In order to bring
this to pass, they put Jack, who was a neat little fellow, into a very
good habit, and found means to introduce him to the acquaintance of the
wench at a neighbouring chandler's shop, where he took lodgings. In a
fortnight's time he prevailed upon Mrs. Anne to come out at twelve of
the clock to meet him, which she could not do without leaving the great
gate ajar, having first carried up the key to her master, though for her
own conveniency she had thus left it upon a single lock. While she and
her sweetheart were drinking punch and making merry together, the rest
of the confederates got into the house and carried away silver plate to
the value of £80, leaving everything behind them in so good order that
the maid, who was a little tipsy into the bargain, discovered nothing
that night. Going to acquaint her lover with the accident as soon as it
was found out, to her great surprise she was informed that he was
removed, having carried away all the things before his landlord and
landlady were up. The girl carefully concealed the passage, knowing how
fatal it would be to her if it should reach her master's ears; but for
her spark, she heard no more of him until his commitment to Newgate for
another fact, for which he was ordered for transportation.

Being on board the vessel with the rest of the convicts, he soon
procured the favour of the master to be let to go out upon deck, and
being a strong able sailor, he ingratiated himself so far as to meet no
worse usage than any other sailor in the ship. On their arrival at the
Canaries, where by stress of weather they were obliged to put in, a
quarrel happened between the master of their vessel and the captain of a
Jamaicaman homeward bound. It ended in a duel with sword and pistol, and
the captain of the transport having carried John with him, he behaved so
well upon this occasion that he promised him his liberty as soon as they
arrived in America, which he honorably performed; and Jack was so
indefatigable in his endeavours to get home that he arrived at London
six weeks before the captain came back.

He herded again with his old crew, though before he was able to do much
mischief amongst them he was apprehended for returning from
transportation, and was at the next sessions tried and convicted. By
this time the captain who had carried him was arrived, and hearing of
John's misfortune, he made such interest as procured the sentence of
death to be changed into a second transportation.

Such narrow escapes, one would have imagined, might have taught him how
dangerous a thing it was to dally with the laws of the nation in any
respect whatsoever; and yet, when he was on shore in New England, where
the master took care to provide him with as easy a service as a man
could have wished, as soon as the captain's back was turned, he found
means to give the planter the slip, and in nine months' time revisited
London a second time. Whether he intended to have gone on in the old
trade or no is impossible for us to determine, but this we are certain,
that he had not been in England many weeks ere a person who made it his
business to detect such as returned from transportation clapped him up
in his old lodging at Newgate, brought him to his trial, and convicted
him the third time. As soon as he had received sentence, he relinquished
all hopes of life, and as in all this time he had never made any enquiry
after his wife at Yarmouth, so he would not now bring an odium upon her
and her family by sending to them, and making his misfortune public in
the place where they lived.

The man seemed to be of an easy, tractable disposition, readily yielding
to whatever those who conversed with them desired to bring him to,
whether it were good or evil. He attended with great seeming piety and
devotion to the books which Thomas Smith read to his fellow prisoners,
and gained thereby a tolerable notion of the duty of repentance, and
that faith which men ought to have in Jesus Christ. Thus by degrees he
brought himself to a perfect indifference as to life or death, and at
the place of execution showed neither by change of colour, or any other
symptom any extraordinary fear of his approaching dissolution; and
having conformed very devoutly to the prayers said by the Ordinary,
after a short private devotion, he submitted to his fate with the
afore-mentioned malefactors Smith and Reynolds, being then about
twenty-eight years old or thereabouts.




The Life of MARY STANDFORD, a Pickpocket and Thief


This unfortunate woman was born of very good parents, who sent her to
school, and caused her to be bred up in every other respect so as to be
capable of performing well in her station of the world, and doing her
duty towards God, from a just notion of religion. But it happening,
unluckily, that she set her mind on nothing so much as the company of
young men and running about with them to fairs and such other country
diversions, her friends were put under the necessity of sending her to
London, a thing which they saw could not be avoided.

When she came to town, she got in one or two good places, which she soon
lost from her forward behaviour; and having been seduced by a footman,
she soon became a common street walker, and practised all the vile arts
of those women who were a scandal to their sex. When she was young, she
was tolerably handsome, and associated herself with one Black Mary,
whose true name was Mary Rawlins, a woman of notorious ill-fame, and
who, from being kept by a man of substance in the City, by her own
ill-management was turned upon the town, and reduced to getting her