o
propose could not be effected without some risk, but that a man could
not expect to live without trouble or without hazard. Johnson said it
was true, and desired only to be informed wherein the hazard consisted,
as he would make no scruple of running it, for he lacked courage as
little as any man.

Upon this his companion opened to him his whole scheme, which consisted
in a method of counterfeiting the silver coin to a tolerable degree of
likeness. Johnson was easily drawn in, for he thought there could be no
speedier way of getting money than making it. His country friend helped
him to the necessary implements, and Johnson applied himself with such
earnestness to his new occupation that in a very short time he greatly
outdid his master, giving the false money he had made so perfect a
similitude to the specie for which he made it that it was impossible to
distinguish it by the eye. But thinking it much more hazardous to
attempt putting off in the country than it would be in London, and his
fellow labourer being of the same opinion, they first went to work and
coined a considerable sum according to their method, and they came up to
dispose of it, as Johnson had proposed.

By this time misfortune and remorse had taught the poor man whose life
we are writing to addict himself too much to drinking, especially to
strong liquors, so that the first experiment he made of the
practicability of getting rid of his false money was in putting off two
sixpences to a distiller for gin, in which he succeeded without being
suspected. But going to a shoemaker's and buying there a ready-made pair
of shoes, he was seized for attempting to pay the man with two bad
half-crowns, which though they looked pretty well to the eye, were
nevertheless much too light when they came to be weighed against the
metal that it was intended they should pass for.

When carried before a Justice his heart soon failed him and almost as
soon as he was asked he revealed the whole truth of the matter,
impeaching both the countryman who had taught him and a person with whom
they had trusted the secret here in town. However, his confession was of
little benefit to him, for at the next sessions he was capitally
convicted and from thenceforward cast off all hopes of life. As he was a
man who did not lack good natural parts, during the short time he had to
live he endeavoured to make his prayer to God for the forgiveness of the
many errors of his life, attending a