carried
on successfully for a good space; though now and then they miscarried in
their attempts, particularly at a goldsmith's shop in Russell Court,
where, having got into the shop and being about to remove a show-glass,
a man who lay in the shop suddenly started up and presenting a
blunderbuss with a great presence of mind told the thieves that he was
tender of shedding their blood and therefore advised them to get off as
soon as they could. They took his advice and withdrew accordingly, with
great confusion. But the same night they had, as Mr. Bellamy expresses
it, much better luck at a toy-shop not far from the same place, where,
entering the house, they found the maid sitting by the fire. She at
first screamed, but they soon made her silent, and then proceeded to
carry off the show-glass, with all the boxes that were contained in it.

Not long after this they broke off the padlock from a toy-shop in
Swithin's Alley, in Cornhill. Not being able afterwards to enter the
house they fell to work next upon the thick timber that supports the
shutters, and after labouring at it about an hour, forced it off,
whereupon all the shutters dropping down at once into the court, made so
great a clatter that they doubted not that all the neighbourhood was
alarmed, and thought it would be no ill night's work if, after such an
accident, they had the good luck to escape. Upon which they endeavoured
to shift, everyone for himself. However, seeing nobody alarmed at the
noise of the falling of the shutters and that during two hours' time the
watch had never passed that way, they took courage at last: and
returned, entered the house, and putting up the most valuable goods,
went off without any molestation.

A multitude of robberies of the same kind he confessed, but as they are
narrated in the account we have so often mentioned, it would be a kind
of imposition on our readers to transcribe those accounts there.
Wherefore, in the following articles concerning him, we shall make no
use at all of any that is to be found there.

During the space he led this life he cohabited with one Amy Fowles, who
passed for his wife and bore him several children. At last, though he
had so often escaped, he was apprehended for a burglary committed on the
house of Mr. Holliday, in Bishopsgate Street, and upon very full
evidence was convicted at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey. After
his commitment to Newgate he entered, it seems, into a treaty with