r to escape he forged a letter as from a certain man of
quality directing that he should be set at liberty in order to serve as
a good hand on board of one of his Majesty's ships. His old ill luck
pursuing him, the forgery was detected and he was thereupon ordered to
remain two years at hard labour in Bridewell; but when he was brought
thither, the keeper absolutely refused to have anything to do with him.
They knew him of old and said that he was a fellow only fit to make the
other criminals who were there unruly, by projecting and putting them
into way of making their escape. Upon this he was carried back to
Newgate and remained a prisoner for that space of time.

How he came by his liberty again I cannot take upon me to say; all that
appears from my papers is that he made a very ill use of it as soon as
he obtained it, returning immediately to the commission of those crimes
for which he had before forfeited it. At length turning housebreaker he
was committed for feloniously stealing five pounds out of the house of
John Spence, for which fact, at the sessions following, a bill of
indictment was found against him, and he was thereupon arraigned.

At first he insisted that overtures had been made in order to procure
discoveries from him, and therefore he desired that he might be admitted
an evidence. The Court informed him that they would enter into no
altercations with a prisoner at the bar; that he had heard the nature of
the charge preferred against him; and that now they could hear nothing
from him unless he pleaded guilty or not guilty. He persisted
obstinately in his first demand, and in consequence thereof obstinately
refused to plead. Whereupon he was told from the Bench that such
behaviour was not a proper method to excite the mercy of the Court, that
it was not in their power to comply in any degree with what he desired,
but that on the contrary they should proceed to pass sentence upon him
as a mute, by which be would be subjected to a much greater and more
grievous punishment than if he were found guilty of the crime of which
he was accused. All this made no impression upon the criminal; he said
he could but die, and the manner in which he died was indifferent to
him. And so sentence, as is usual in such cases, was pronounced upon
him, and he was ordered to be carried back and put into the press. But
when he had carried it so far, and found there was no avoiding that
cruel fortune which was appointed for suc